Category: Nature

Albuquerque was the perfect location to view the annular eclipse on May 20, 2012.

The Wallow Fire in eastern Arizona has been burning for almost a week.  Each afternoon it blankets ABQ in smoke.   Often the sun is completely obscured, but today it powered through the haze with an eerie red glow.

Welcome back IE users.  There was a bug in the photoblog software, introduced in the last upgrade I did a few months ago.  It caused the images to be blank for IE users.  I didn’t notice it myself because … well … what’s IE? 🙂  Anyway, fixed now.

We spotted these two roadrunners (Geococcyx, according to Wikipedia) sparring in the library parking lot.  There was a third bird nearby just watching.  I’m not sure if this was two males fighting over a female, or a male courting a female while another bird watched.  Either way, they are very cool when they run.  The guys who animated the velociraptors in Jurassic Park must have studied roadrunners.

Time for another sunset.  This is from basically the same vantage as Sunset 1, but the light and clouds were very different that day.

Albuquerque saw two large snowstorms at the end of 2006.  The second set records (such as most snowfall in Albuquerque on a single day, ever).  When not shoveling or scraping, there are a lot of cool things to photograph.  After one of the snowfalls, this yucca plant looked like a pincushion.

Jamii took this picture of the irises in our neighbor’s courtyard.  I love the composition.  The contrast of the vibrant purple flowers to the bland brown/grey tones of the surroundings is somehow emblemmatic of Albuquerque: people living in the desert, huddled around the watering hole, hoping the water will last until the next rain.

During the monsoon season (July-September) in Albuquerque, we often have clear sunny days followed by thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening.  Many include  beautiful, and dangerous, electrical storms.  It’s hard to get a good picture of lightning though — it never seems to happen where you’re looking, while you’re waiting for it.  Over the course of 3 nights in August 2003 I shot about 1000 frames and got a couple of nice lightning photos, including this one.

I looked out the window one morning while getting dressed, and this fellow was looking back.  He (and his friends) are the reason our cats are indoor cats.

This blooming Lily reminds me of the creature in the movie Alien.