Just another average sunset in paradise!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Third day at wetlands

I checked my speedometer as I drove to the wetlands and found it is only 1.1 miles from my house.  I could actually walk there but the scenery on that walk is not nearly as nice as the scenery in the wetlands and I am only good for about 5 miles per day.  I may start walking though if the gas prices continue to climb: $4.09 per gallon is the cheapest near me.

My goal today was to experiment with wildlife pictures and make an effort to identify more species.


This little guy reminded me that you need to watch where you are putting your feet while hiking.  The picture may not be close enough to tell but this is a 3' rattlesnake.  Less than 30 yards up the trail was a group of 8 to 10 year old school kids listening to a docent talk about the wetlands.  Scary!


This juvenile Cottontail crossed the path less than 10 yards past the Rattler.  The little snake poses no problem for this guy as a small Rattler must be content with mice and lizards.  But watch out for mama snake!




Idyllic setting for this Great Blue Heron?  


Not so much!  The road in the background is Pacific Coast Highway, easily the busiest non-freeway road in California.  I think it is great that the birds, mammals and reptiles have adapted to living in such close proximity to us.


White Herons (also known as Great Egrets) seem to be more timid around humans so I settled for this long distance photo.  All of my pix are taken with a 6 year old Kodak point-and-shoot.  Boy do I need a new camera!



A few minutes after these Pelicans did a fly-by, they were fishing in the lagoon.  Unfortunately they were out of camera range.

Can anyone help me with a posting problem?  I want my blog photos to link to a larger photo.  My first few posts did this and I don't remember doing anything special.  I don't seem to be able to replicate this feature.  I use the standard blogger.com software to compose and post.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

EDIT
Never mind!  Somehow when I posted this the blog pix were all linked to larger photos.  I checked older posts and they are all providing links also (even though, I swear, they weren't working yesterday).  I spent 2 or 3 hours trying to fix a problem that seemingly has fixed itself.  I can't remember my last drink and I am not on any medications!  Maybe I should start drinking.





1 comment:

  1. Great pictures, even with an older point and shoot. We have been trying to get a shot of a bunny but they are just too fast! Haven't seen any snakes yet, thank God. It is still a little cold for them in the Owens Valley.

    Sometimes Blogger does weird stuff. However, if you resize your pictures to too small a size, they can't show up any bigger than your original. I try to go about 1200 X 1600 pixels on average. That way they are small enough to upload quickly but still can be enlarged for better viewing. (that may still be a bit large but it seems to work)

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