It was blind shooting again. After seeing the mother leave to gather food, I set the camera for full-auto, held it as high as I could and fired away. I think I got pretty lucky with this one.
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Monthly Archives: May 2009
I have a couple of road runners living in the yard and have for some time. They are usually skittish but have been hanging out on top of the chicken coup this spring. They built a nest under my carport in some vines growing there and I finally got a peak at the chicks. The mother goes out and brings back lizards and that’s when I snuck in. She caught me the second time and did a great injured bird impression.
The nest is kind of high so I just set the camera for “auto”, raised my arm up as high as I could reach, and just fired away. Most of them were no good but this one I liked well enough.
As a follow up. This was under the nest a little while later and I’m sure it was looking for a snack of baby bird. I hated to cheat it out of a meal but I took it a ways from the house and think it will do well on rodents.
It is a harmless bull snake so I wasn’t concerned for my safety. Even the chickens were relatively uninterested.
I am double posting this from my professional blog because I think it is really remarkable. A cave find from southeast New Mexico.
From time to time, we receive donations from private individuals. After a few phone calls back and forth, I arranged to meet with someone who wanted to show me a dart she had found in a cave when she was young. We have agreed to accept this remarkable find and intend to display it in the near future. The preservation is beautiful, although it has apparently been handled over many years. There was apparently a spear-thrower (atlatl) found with the dart but it was unfortunately lost in a house fire.
Click the image for a larger version
foreshaft separated
The foreshaft/point is hardwood and fits into a socket. the hind shaft is split in order to contract when seized with sinew (still attached. The barb is lashed on with more sinew. I will put more description and better photos when I get time.
I took this photo last week. I didn’t have a telephoto and I was just shooting some wider overviews. This was mid-afternoon with the sun at her back.
Not that dramatic with the world of exciting media but I was glad to get this. I had to walk up on her slowly and hoped to not spook her out. Not as sharp as I would wish but I had nothing to brace against an she was farther than it looks here. I was using a 18-55 mm zoom on a digital SLR.
