First gulls of 2010

RING-BILLED GULLS, LOVELACE PARK, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, MARCH 29, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-DA 55-300 at 300mm
1/750 sec. f11
ISO 400

This pair of ring-billed gulls, captured atop a street light standard, seems to rule the air above the lagoon at a small suburban park near my home. I decided to exercise my fondness for a species many people dislike and take their portrait against a deep blue sky.

Bellflower

BELLFLOWER (CAMPANULA MEDIUM), EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, MARCH 28, 2010

Pentax *ist DS
Tamron SP AF 90mm DI Macro
1/30 sec. f11, with mounted flash
ISO 400

My latest foray to the supermarket for flowers to photograph on the dining table brought home this familiar bellflower, whose Latin name means "little bell." Of the more than 300 species of campanula, this one is the most common in greenhouses and gardens in the United States.

Bully

COMMON GRACKLE, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, MARCH 27, 2010

Pentax K10D
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 ED (IF) with Kenko 1.5x teleconverter
1/125 sec. f4.5
ISO 560

Along with robins, grackles are the first migrants to check in at our backyard feeder in early spring. Wild-eyed and aggressive, this large cousin of the blackbird chases away sparrows and chickadees in order to hog the bird seed. In many parts of the country they're considered a nuisance.

Begone!

MALLARDS, LOVELACE PARK, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, MARCH 26, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-DA 55-300 at 120mm
Both photos 1/500 sec. f9.5
ISO 400

It's breeding season on the local ponds, and the male mallards are bursting with testosterone, or whatever it is that causes their heads to blush in vivid iridescence and impels them to harass fellow males when they're not trying to nail the girls. One suddenly seemed to have an Evinrude attached to his stern as he warned off another.

Goose No. 1 of 2010

CANADA GOOSE, LOVELACE PARK, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, MARCH 26, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-DA 55-300 at 170mm
1/500 sec. f9.5
ISO 400

The geese at the local suburban park are extraordinarily tame, allowing the photographer to get in close -- within six feet -- while his four-year-old grandson fed scraps of bread to the waterfowl. This portrait was one result.

Takeoff

HOUSE SPARROW, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY 10, 2010

Pentax *ist DS
Sigma APO 135-400 DG at 400mm
1/1000 sec. f8
ISO 400

It's blurred, it's slightly out of focus, it's heavily cropped -- but somehow I think this shot still works, giving the viewer a sense of the flit-quick character of the bird against a snowy background. It was taken a split second after the sparrow launched itself from the wire fence at left. The high shutter speed could not quite stop the image sharply.

Lily of the Incas

LILY OF THE INCAS (ALSTROEMERIA AUREA), EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, MARCH 16, 2010

Pentax K20D
Tamron SP AF 90mm f2.8 DI Macro
1/4 sec. f11
ISO 400

This showy bloom, also known as the Peruvian Lily, grows in the Andes Mountains of Chile and is often imported for sale in American supermarkets. In one of them I bought a bunch for our dinner table, later deciding decided it'd make a good subject for a macrophotography setup.

Crown of thorns

CROWN-OF-THORNS PLANT (EUPHORBIA MILII), CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, MARCH 16, 2010

Pentax *ist DS
Tamron SP AF 90mm f2.8 DI Macro
1/750 sec. f11
ISO 800

The Euphorbia milii, by legend the flower in Christ's crown of thorns, is a succulent climbing shrub from Madagascar that is thought to have migrated to the Middle East more than two millennia ago. It's widely grown as a house plant in northern states.

Prickly beauty

BALLOON CACTUS (NOTOCACTUS MAGNIFICUS), CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, MARCH 16, 2010

Pentax *ist DS
Tamron SP AF 90mm f2.8 DI Macro
1/750 sec. f11
ISO 800

One of the treasures I found last week in the Chicago Botanic Garden's desert greenhouse was this striking globular Notocactus magnificus, a native of southern Brazil and Uruguay. It's a common household plant in drier and warmer climes and often grows to the size of a soccer ball.

Red Bottlebrush

RED BOTTLEBRUSH (CALLISTEMON CITRINUS), CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, MARCH 16, 2010

Pentax *ist DS
Tamron SP AF 90mm f2.8 DI Macro
1/125 sec. f11
ISO 800

This spiky display belongs to the Red Bottlebrush, an evergreen shrub native to Australia that is a crowd-pleaser in the Chicago Botanic Garden desert greenhouse. Photographing it is easy, but subduing the vivid red -- a color digital cameras often have difficulty rendering accurately -- took considerable post-processing work in Lightroom.

Beautiful and lethal

DESERT ROSE (ADENIUM OBESUM), CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, MARCH 16, 2010

Pentax *ist DS
Tamron SP AF 90mm f2.8 DI Macro
1/750 sec. f11
ISO 800

A visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden's tropical plant greenhouse yielded this shot of a gorgeous Desert Rose, a popular but surprisingly toxic house plant. In the wild, its poisonous sap is used by Tanzanian tribesmen to coat hunting arrow tips.

Ms. Cardinal

FEMALE CARDINAL, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, MARCH 2, 2010

Pentax *ist DS
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 ED (IF) with Kenko 1.5x teleconverter
1/350 sec. f5.6
ISO 400

Maybe she isn't as flashy as the male, but the female cardinal still carries a regal bearing. This one stopped on our backyard deck railing just long enough for a formal portrait. The inexpensive ($99) teleconverter boosted the super-sharp 300mm telephoto lens to the equivalent of 450mm in focal length, yet yielded more than acceptable results.

Newspaper Rock

NEWSPAPER ROCK NEAR CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 5, 2010

Pentax K10D
Sigma 17-70 DC at 37mm
1/750 sec. f11
ISO 400

For 2,000 years Native Americans -- from Fremont and Anasazi to Ute and Navajo -- have been drawing mysterious petroglyphs in the desert varnish on a 200-square-foot sandstone rock on Utah Highway 211 south of Moab on the way to Canyonlands National Park. They're both hard to date and hard to decipher, and the reason for the concentration of so many figures in a small space is also a mystery. Deborah Abbott took the photo.

Wooden Shoe Arch

WOODEN SHOE ARCH, CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 5, 2010

Pentax K10D
Sigma 17-70 DC at 70mm
1/1000 sec. f11
ISO 400

There's no mystery in the name of this curious sandstone formation in Canyonlands National Park, on the road to the Needles District in the southeast corner of the park. Deborah Abbott captured the image.

Wilson Arch

WILSON ARCH NEAR MOAB, UTAH, MARCH 6, 2010

Pentax K10D
Sigma 17-70 DC at 40mm
1/500 sec. f11
ISO 400

Not all spectacular Utah stone arch formations in are located in a national park. Wilson Arch lies just off US 191 some 24 miles south of Moab and is easily accessible from the highway. Its opening is 46 feet high and 91 feet wide. Deborah Abbott took the photograph.

Green River

GREEN RIVER OVERLOOK, CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 6, 2010

Pentax K10D
Sigma 17-70 DC at 28mm
1/1000 sec. f11
ISO 400

This shot was taken by Deborah Abbott from the Island in the Sky mesa overlook in Canyonlands National Park. Our viewpoint stands more than 1,000 feet above a flat and broad sandstone plateau through which the Green River has cut a maze of meandering box canyons, themselves another 1,000 feet deep, over millions of years.

Courthouse Tower

COURTHOUSE TOWER, ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 4, 2010

Pentax K10D
Sigma 17-70 DC at 17mm
1/500 sec. f11
ISO 400

Deborah Abbott used a short zoom lens racked in to its widest angle to capture Courthouse Tower, the massive rock formation that anchors the stately Courthouse Wash bluffs near the area called Park Avenue in Arches National Park.

La Sal Mountains

LA SAL MOUNTAINS FROM ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 4, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-DA 55-300 at 55mm
1/500 sec. f8
ISO 200

We stopped on the road in the middle of Arches National Park to frame this view of the lordly mountain range some 40 miles to the southeast near the Utah-Colorado border. Everywhere we went in the park, there was something spectacular to photograph -- so long as the sun was out. Once the sky clouded over, photographic possibilities faded.

Park Avenue

PARK AVENUE, ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 4, 2010

Pentax K20D
Sigma 10-20 EX DC at 18mm
1/500 sec. f8
ISO 200

Just past the entrance to Arches National Park, the red sandstone fins and monoliths of the rock formations collectively called Park Avenue immediately stop the visitor in a cloud of deja vu. Where have we seen them before? In the 1991 film "Thelma and Louise." Click on the photo for a desktop-sized version.

Three Gossips

THREE GOSSIPS, ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 4, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-DA 55-300 at 120mm
1/500 sec. f8
ISO 200

One of the most popular photographic subjects in Arches National Park is this curious sandstone formation in the Courthouse Towers section aptly known as the Three Gossips. I arrived at the site a little too soon in the day, when the sun was nearly directly overhead, so had to open up the shadows in Lightroom.

View from Utah 128

LA SAL MOUNTAINS FROM UTAH 128 NEAR MOAB, UTAH, MARCH 4, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-DA 55-300 at 135mm
1/500 sec. f8
ISO 200

Highway 128, one of the most scenic roads in the West, parallels the Colorado River from Interstate 70 through the majestic Utah desert to Moab. I simply stepped out of the car to take this shot through the hazy cliffs of the Colorado Plateau sixty miles south to the lordly La Sal Mountains on the eastern border of the state. The highest peak, Mount Peale, reaches 12,721 feet above sea level.

Balanced Rock

BALANCED ROCK, ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 4, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-DA 55-300 at 55mm
1/500 sec. f8
ISO 200

Balanced Rock, the most photographed attraction of Arches National Park in southeastern Utah, is 128 feet tall, the balanced portion (the size of three school buses) measuring 55 feet high. It's best captured late in the day, but I arrived at about 3 in the afternoon, a bit early for the best light. All the same, I'm pleased with this photo.

North Window Arch

NORTH WINDOW ARCH, ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 4, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-DA 55-300 at 97.5mm
1/500 sec. f8
ISO 200

It's only a short walk for a lame senior citizen to a vantage point near the Windows Arches where he can train a long zoom at one of the breathtaking rock formations this national park is named for. Luckily, a couple of hikers appeared at North Window Arch at just the right moment, giving the photograph a sense of scale. (Click on the photo for a desktop-sized version.)

Truculence on the hoof

BLACK ANGUS STEER OUTSIDE CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 6, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-DA 55-300 at 170mm
1/750 sec. f9.5
ISO 800

The largest animal I saw in the Utah desert wilderness last week was this stubborn cow, which held its ground on the highway for long minutes after its companions had moved on to a new grazing spot in the fenceless open range of the West. I shot the photo through the windshield.

Sentinel

COMMON RAVEN, CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK, UTAH, MARCH 6, 2010

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-DA 55-300 at 300mm
1/750 sec. f8
ISO 200

Ravens are bold and brassy by nature, and this one held his pose on an old pinon snag as I slowly approached on foot. Not until I had crept within 20 feet did he soar away, and when I turned and returned to my car he followed and alighted just a few feet away, presumably hoping for a handout. He didn't get one.

Attractive nuisance

EUROPEAN STARLING, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, MARCH 1, 2010

Pentax *ist DS
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 ED (IF)
1/250 sec. f8
ISO 400

A noisy and alien species the much-despised European Starling may be, but this specimen -- probably a female -- made a nice break from the cloud of sparrows that hovers around the bird feeder in my back yard at this time of year. It still sports the "winter spangles" that will fade as spring rolls in.