I was coming down a trail in the Sandia foothills last week when I thought I caught a peripheral flash of color. I looked through my camera and there it was: a little house finch, sitting atop a cholla1 branch.
I took the photo with my trusty Pentax camera. It has many drawbacks — particularly in its ease of use (or lack thereof) — but its reliability and resulting image quality are not among them.
All of which is to explain why I felt it necessary to purchase yet another new camera and yet another new lens. I took the combo out for a spin in Albuquerque’s bosque2 yesterday and thought, “Let there be wood ducks, let there be wood ducks.” And bam! Just like that, several appeared.
At this time of the year, when winter — with its associated browns — feels as if it’ll never end, I especially appreciate the bright, iridescent colors of male wood ducks. Plus, they have such perfectly coiffed hairdos. What’s not to love, at any time of the year?
I’m grateful as well that I live in Albuquerque. The differences between the ecosystems of the foothills and the bosque are quite dramatic, to say the least. Not only that, to move from one environment to the other requires nothing more than a 20-30 minute drive. I can’t imagine a more magical world.
Cholla is a type of cactus.
The bosque is the wooded area along both sides of the Rio Grande as it passes through Albuquerque.
beautiful beautiful beautiful