South Georgia and the Falklands

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The End.  

Nancy and Chuck hope you enjoyed the show!  We would recommend a Cheeseman trip to anyone.  They organized a truly superb trip.

Autumn in the Rockies

We especially enjoy getting out in the early fall and playing with our cameras, to document the colors and the wildlife.  This year, we had a wonderful day trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park to view the colors and witness the Elk spectacular.  Several days earlier we enjoyed hiking along Elkhorn Creek, a few miles west of our house.  And at home, we continued to enjoy the surprising visitors that appeared outside our dining room windows.

In the Park, we spent a couple of hours watching a bull Elk try to keep his 30-some cows from straying off where other eager males lurked.  Nancy documented the bull's menacing stance:

Chuck photographed the bull with some of his cows, and captured a silhouette of a lurking male:

We drove up Trail Ridge Road, where the Clark's Nutcrackers flock to every viewpoint to beg  peanuts and crackers from the visitors.

Once the road was up around 12,000 feet above sea level, we had beautiful views of the Park's highest mountain, Long's Peak

And down around Moraine Park, the colors were spectacular.

We found the colors along Elkhorn Creek even more vibrant.  Nancy took this close-up of some aspen leaves:

Every bend in the trail brought more gleaming aspen stands into view.

The colors were so vibrant, that in an earlier visit, Chuck took some surprisingly good pictures with his cell phone:

And the cell phone camera came in very handy, when Charley sat down among the golden aspen:

Back at home, we stayed alert to whatever might appear outside our dining room window, like this young female Sharp-shinned Hawk that Nancy was stealthy enough to photograph before it took after a small finch.

Autumn Comes to the Elkhorn

This morning, Charley and I took a walk along Elkhorn Creek.  He was delighted there was still some water in the creek despite the drought, and I was delighted by the fall colors.  The only camera I had with me was my HTC Android cell phone.  I took the following pictures with it:

FROM NATURE TO FINE ART

Nancy has been hard at work transforming some of her photos into fine art.  Here are some of her results. 

Tiger

Tiger on the Prowl

Sunrise in Bhutan

Blue Morning

Side Street in Catalonia

Trees in the Himalayas

Koi Pond in Chengdu

Koi Under a Waterfall

Romance

Blue Door in Spain

Golden Aspen

Poinsettias

Paper Whites

Cranes

We hope you have enjoyed these images.

Magnificent Hummingbird

July 9, 2012 - Nancy and I were enjoying our coffee out on our bedroom balcony early this morning when to our great astonishment, a huge hummingbird zoomed over our heads and checked out our hummingbird feeder.  It did not stay to feed, probably because we were too close, but flew to the top of a nearby aspen.  Fortunately, Nancy had her camera ready with its 400 mm lens and was able to get several photos of it.  This is truly a rare bird for Colorado and especially the northern part of the state.  We wonder if it has to do with the drought and recent fires along the Front Range and further south in New Mexico.  Here is Nancy's best photo of the bird, as it sat in the top of the aspen.