{"id":3344,"date":"2015-08-27T09:51:49","date_gmt":"2015-08-27T14:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/?p=3344"},"modified":"2015-08-27T10:07:49","modified_gmt":"2015-08-27T15:07:49","slug":"july-in-the-davis-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/2015\/08\/27\/july-in-the-davis-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"July in the Davis Mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last three years,\u00a0my wife and I have\u00a0gone to the Davis Mountains of west Texas for a week-long summer retreat.\u00a0\u00a0While the temperatures hovered close to 100-degrees in\u00a0south Texas, the mountain air was refreshingly cool throughout the July trip.\u00a0 Of course, I had my camera gear along and used it\u00a0every day to capture hummingbirds, foxes, mountains scenes and wildlife.<\/p>\n

Here are\u00a0several images I hope you will enjoy.\u00a0\u00a0Don’t forget to click on an image to\u00a0make it enlarge and sharpen for better viewing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Aoudad<\/a>
Aoudad Sheep, ewe on hillside near Fort Davis, Texas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While eating breakfast one morning\u00a0and watching for wildlife on the hills out the back window, I spotted a herd of approximately 13 aoudad sheep ewes and lambs grazing on the mountainside.<\/p>\n

\"Aoudad<\/a>
Aoudad Sheep grazing near several sotol plants.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By adding a 1.4 X tele-extender behind my\u00a0500 mm\u00a0IS lens, the magnification was\u00a0improved significantly for the sheep photos.<\/p>\n

\"Black-chinned<\/a>
Black-chinned Hummingbird, male feeding at salvia flowers, Davis Mountains, Texas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Black-chinned<\/a>
Black-chinned Hummingbird male with purple gorget.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although there were only about 8 hummingbirds around the house, most were males and I had a lot of fun working them at the multi-flash setup.\u00a0 All the birds were black-chinned hummingbirds.<\/p>\n

\"Black-chinned<\/a>
Black-chinned Hummingbird male in flight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Full<\/a>
Full moon and agave<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Century plants (agaves)\u00a0were in full bloom\u00a0at mid-July.<\/p>\n

\"Agaves<\/a>
Agaves in bloom, Davis Mountains, Tx.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just after sunrise, I captured this scene with clouds and century plants (agaves) along the roadside near McDonald Observatory.<\/p>\n

\"Davis<\/a>
Davis Mountains and agave in bloom, Texas, July<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I used HDR toning while processing the photo above.<\/p>\n

\"Scott's<\/a>
Scott’s Oriole, male in agave flowers, Davis Mountains, Texas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This Scott’s Oriole fed among the agave blooms for several days at\u00a0our residence near Fort Davis.<\/p>\n

\"Scott's<\/a>
Scott’s Oriole, male on agave bloom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alerted by this bird’s distinctive call (the windows were always open so we could enjoy the cool breeze), I simply sneaked out of the house and photographed him from under the edge of the porch roof.<\/p>\n

\"Gray<\/a>
Gray Fox strolling across the hillside behind the house where we stayed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A long-time resident pair of gray foxes came by the house each afternoon at sunset, looking for a handout (usually weenies).<\/p>\n

\"Gray<\/a>
Gray Fox, Davis Mountains<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 70-200 Canon lens with 1.4 tele-extender on the Canon 1D Mark IV body, hand held.<\/p>\n

\"Gray<\/a>
Gray Fox in grassland, Davis Mts, Texas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Gray<\/a>
Gray Fox\u00a0appears from behind the sideoats grama, Davis Mountains, Texas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the chance to do this again next year.<\/p>\n

Larry<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the last three years,\u00a0my wife and I have\u00a0gone to the Davis Mountains of west Texas for a week-long summer retreat.\u00a0\u00a0While the temperatures hovered close to 100-degrees in\u00a0south Texas, the mountain air was refreshingly cool throughout the July trip.\u00a0 Of course, I had my camera gear along and used it\u00a0every day to capture hummingbirds, foxes, … Continue reading July in the Davis Mountains<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3344"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3365,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3344\/revisions\/3365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}