Nature Art by Gibson

@azgibsonz.bsky.social

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Hubby, dad & grandpa. Animal & Nature lover, avid hiker, snarky photography enthusiast...pics are all mine (unless repost) and are mostly captured in northern Arizona or southern Utah. Hope you enjoy the vibe! 🕉

A Mule Deer doe with a baby-bump looks into the setting sun from a trail near Moro Rock (not pictured) in monochrome. Once I ramp up and wrap my mind around the 6 million SKUs I'll be working with, I'll be dropping back in from time to time. Stay safe, my friends!
A Gambel's Quail male in profile.
Located at the northern end of the Great Western Divide, the Grand Sentinel's dramatic north face rises roughly 3,500 feet above the canyon floor.
A male Cooper's Hawk on the Pole of Fortune shows you his butt against overcast skies. Classy.
Like a shark's fins gliding thru the sea, my local Greater Roadrunner's head and tail-feathers stick up above the golden grasses as he stalks anything that moves.
In May, you get to catch some wildflowers and namesake yuccas in blossom with your vista from Yucca Point in Kings Canyon NP. Gorgeous view under clouds and blue sky, and you get a glimpse of the road descending down the canyon to the Kings River flowing beneath Spanish Peak. Super tough hike, btw. Now you know.
I see a lamprey eel...in the cotton candy clouds catching color over the Hualapai Valley.
A young-ish male Cooper's Hawk, judging by the color of the eye, looks overhead from the top of a power pole against blue sky.
I'm all ears...huge, furry ears...is what the monochrome Mule Deer fawn says when she comes face to face with you in the forest.
Spermophilus lateralis is a strikingly colored ground squirrel. This species has a golden-red mantle that extends from the head down over their shoulders. One white stripe, bordered by two black stripes, extends horizontally down the body, similar to chipmunks. Although chipmunks have a white stripe through their eyes, Spermophilus lateralis has a whitish fur eye ring and no facial striping. The back is gray, brownish or buff, and their undersides are whitish or yellowish-gray. The tail is brownish-black above, and reddish brown on the underside. Totally copied that...just for you self-appointed Alt-text police looking to quote-post my shit with your own verbosity.
I made enough noise so she turned her face to the camera, otherwise this Elk would've just kept munching the greenery all morning.
A male Anna's looks right at you while perched on the dohicky holding my feeder against blue sky. It's steamy hot, but we still have Anna's visiting the high desert.
The beautiful, but vicious, Dread Pirate Roadrunner in portrait...
Looking through a window in the Tokopah Valley forest to the Watchtower in monochrome.
That's normally my quail, dove, finch, or hummer sweet spot...but today was obviously Desert Spiny Lizard day. It's hot.
Looking up the trunk of a giant Sequoia. Wife for scale.
TFW you catch your first California Scrub-jay looking at you.
Major Tom, the Wild Turkey we met in Sequoia NP, enfloofenated while facing the camera...
You'll have to trust me, that's a Pileated Woodpecker, from the rear.
Range map showing the Pileated Woodpecker lives nowhere near my home in Arizona.
Cactus Wren #69, is making weird noises from his perch in morning light against blue sky.
After hiking for miles through Sequoias, my wife went "ooh, oOH, OOH!!!" and pointed vaguely through the woods...and thus my very first frame of a Pileated Woodpecker became this preening male clinging to the mossy side of a humongous tree at the back of the Crescent Meadow in SNP...
5 seconds with the lower section of Tokopah Falls
A river runs through it...the Tokopah river cascades down the valley beneath the Watchtower, affording several beautiful spots to stop and enjoy the water rushing through the forest...
Gambel's Quail #205, a hen, in close (for a quail) profile in morning light.
Gambel's Quail #202, a male, and today's birding, is facing the camera with his head turned to his left and his topknot appears to be sticking straight up as he spots me pointing a lens in his direction.
Little man is staying in the shade, but that's okay as he actually came forward to meet us along the Tokopah Falls trail. Curious, I guess. He's got his nubbins too...a young Mule Deer buck in the Tokopah Valley woods.
The Watchtower is a towering, near-vertical granite monolith that rises 2,000' above the floor of the glacial Tokopah Valley in Sequoia National Park. Off frame and around the corner to the left is the enormous Tokopah Falls, where I'm taking you next...
A male Gambel's Quail calls out "IT'S FUCKING HOT" from his perch against blue sky and a Mojave Desert butte in bokeh for background.
Naturally framed from a sweet spot on our Moro Rock climb that I had to fight through some German tourists to get to, the Castle Rocks formation rises to 9,088' under clouds and blue sky. Remote and difficult to even get to, it boggles my mind that people try to climb any of it, let alone that wicked spire I've centered in frame.
I jerked it. So my first ever frame of a Western Kingbird is a little blurred...
From atop the 6,750' Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park, a landscape view of the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Great Western Divide under clouds and blue sky.
Male? Female? Tough to tell with a Western Bluebird juvenile. But super pretty, and you know I always enjoy catching the 'looking at you' vibe! Zen birding.
I certainly didn't see a cuter critter the whole time we were in Sequoia NP...than this Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel, posing on a boulder for me with a piehole filled with nesting material. Adorable!
Deep in the forest on the northern face of Aspen Peak, my 'radar' goes off, and I spy an Elk in the shade of the ponderosa pines. Now, how to get closer for a better look...
We have a few Desert Spiny Lizards on the property (not pictured) and the Dread Pirate Roadrunner is fully aware of that fact. Pictured is a Greater Roadrunner stalking through the Silverleaf Nightshade while thinking of a fat lizard dinner this evening...I presume.
How do you capture an entire 215 acre secluded grove of giant sequoias? Climb a higher hill, hope for a sight line and take what you can get...
Trying to distill the essence of Sequoia National Park down to just a few posts from 900 images is tough, but I'm trying. Across an open meadow teeny tiny humans can be seen at the base of a giant sequoia growing against a huge boulder.
I'm calling him Major Tom...because this Wild Turkey stood right in the road to the Sequoia NP gate, stopping all traffic, while his rafter crossed...more on both later...maybe.
A shady jackrabbit gives me the stink-eye...that's good luck, right?
This is the first time I put a lens on a California Scrub-jay...a profile of a shady bird as he foraged thru the detritus under the oleander surrounding our rental cabin. Note the longer eyebrow than my usual Woodhouse's Scrub-jays, the only real difference I was able to discern between the species.
The red gems that are the eyes of a mature male Coopers Hawk stare back at you with a lovely background of canopy in bokeh.
15 seconds with Grizzly Falls in King's Canyon NP, with audio
After raiding the hummingbird feeder, Daddy Ladderbacked and his son...
Don't make me climb off this rock, pal...says Marvin the Marmot. My first! Usually the first time I meet a critter I flub something, making me wish for a second chance. Not with Marvin...
A pregnant Mule Deer with a little sunlight on her snout looks right at me, er...you. How do I know she was preggers? She had a nice baby bump, not pictured. And more than one doe was showing during our week hiking in the big trees.
A juvenile male Ladderbacked Woodpecker sitting where my hummers usually sit. Sweet!
He looks small, but this is the daddy Ladderbacked Woodpecker clinging to the pole my hummingbird feeder hangs from. His juvenile son is just off frame to the left, sitting on the feeder...which I will show you next.
My better half hugs an enormous Sequoia trunk to give you an idea of the circumference of this giant.
Morning light bathes a male Gambel's Quail in portrait with a background of Mojave Desert and blue sky above.
I'll probably wander the desert aimlessly for a while. A Mule Deer fawn wonders what the fuck I'm blathering on about, in black and white. See ya when I see ya! Peace.
A male Anna's Hummingbird is backlit and borbing hard in the low temps
If it works, this bird will be famous, eh? Lol...I digress. Pictured is one backlit male Gambel's Quail looking right at the camera, and thus pointing his topknot right at you as well. Magic!
That is Western Bluebird male #23, the one doing a breast floof while perched on a sloping wire like he's sliding down.
Four monochrome Mule Deer in frame, three together in the shade of a tree watching a fourth come down the mountain to join the party.
When I look through the pines at Aspen Peak in the Hualapai Mtns, I often see a human face in profile. I'm often high, as well, but correlation does not imply causation... ;~)
If I have to rest up and relax chasing birds instead of deer on Sunday, a backlit Gambel's Quail hen against a sea of bokeh balls (that's Mojave Desert for background) is the way to do it...
There she is, the backlit diva Mule Deer looking back at me after I stepped around that tree filling half the frame...peek-a-boo!
The moment the 'backlit diva' Mule Deer doe locks eyes and ears on me...a little moment of Zen.
Deep in the woods, I whisper "Shhh..." ...and a motion to the wife to freeze her, not pictured, because I've spotted a backlit doe through a narrow window between huge Ponderosa Pine trunks and she hasn't seen us yet...click*...that's a black and white portrait in the can. Did I put you in the moment enough? Wait 'til I ninja-step around that tree on the right for more...