I did manage to get in one walk last week despite some horrendous weather, but I was determined to finish my discussion of Hoffer’s The True Believers before I took time to post some pictures from the walk. It was Spring Break around here, so I should have expected rain, but I wasn’t expecting quite as bad of weather as we actually got.
Wednesday was the best day of the week, but I was stuck inside waiting for a package that I had to sign for. Of course, I’d chosen that day for delivery because forecasters said Thursday was supposed to be the best day. Didn’t turn out that way.
Despite the weather I was determined to get out Thursday, and I did. There was some gorgeous sunshine, but there was also rain squalls that included snow and hail. This image says it all about the weather:
But when the sun broke through the light was perfect for photos, as in this picture of a female Red-Wing Blackbird,
or even this shot of a Song Sparrow, with the gray sky merely serving as a neutral backdrop.
However, by the time I got to the turn-around on the Theler trail, the weather had turned ominous and it took all my Aperture and Photoshop tricks to pull out the colors, particularly the blacks in the male Merganser.
I really wanted some good shots of the Male Common Merganser, but this was one of the few I could salvage. I spent a good ten minutes waiting for the rain to diminish before I could walk the last mile and a half back to the car.
By the time I got back to the visitor’s center, though, the sun was glistening off these small purple beauties,
but even more spectacularly off the brilliant yellow Skunk Cabbage that was in full bloom.
Loren – as usual your photographs are exquisite. I smiled at your suggestion that you had bad weather on holiday breaks – we call it Bank Holiday weather here and it never fails to arrive.