A few wisps of blue sky showed themselves occasionally this weekend, and I spent some time scouting locations for raptors. Aside from getting to watch a great blue heron spearing voles with amazing accuracy one evening after the light had faded, nothing noteworthy really took place.
Utah's Wasatch Front experiences a widespread temperature inversion during the winter. This phenomenon causes an enormous pollution cloud, even larger than the one emitted by Al Gore's personal residence, to hover over the valley.
Spending any time outdoors under these conditions is akin to huffing oxides of nitrogen directly from the exhaust pipe of a 1970 AMC Gremlin.
Occasionally a storm of sufficient strength blows through and sweeps the toxic atmosphere up into the jet stream, where it is often mistaken for Icelandic volcano ash and grounds all flights in France.
We experienced one such storm system late last week and had glorious, clean air for the weekend. It was nice just to be outside. I didn't get any images that I'd consider "keepers" but a few birds were in the air and I dusted off the shutter to get in the groove.
I'm hoping the next month or so brings some additional opportunities.
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Great picks, Fly to water huh? that has a little different meaning when looking at birds..
ReplyDeleteThanks Bigerrfish! Very true about this being a different kind of "fly." I tend to chase waterfowl in the Fall, and raptors in Jan/Feb of each year with the camera lens. Flight shots are probably my overall favorite type of image due to the many challenges involved.
ReplyDeleteStunning shots my friend, great work as always!
ReplyDeleteMike - thanks for dropping in and for the kind words. That latest red drum piece you recently completed makes me want to hit the coast ricky tick.
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