nice day for a ride…
An advantage to working longer days during the week on a 9/80 schedule is that I have every other Friday off, giving me a three-day weekend every other week. Today was one of my “off” Fridays. Since the weather was fairly nice (sunny, but a bit cool for most people) I decided to fit a bike ride into my day. According to the MapMyRide tracking software that I use, my ride today totaled 19.84 miles, took me an hour and 33 minutes to accomplish (for an average of 12.8 mph), had a vertical elevation change of 144.36 ft., and supposedly burned off 1817 calories. The app has a “pause” function that I used a few times today as well, for a bathroom break, and a few stops for photo opportunities. Fumbling around to get the phone out, open, and hitting the pause button may have eaten up a couple minutes of that 1:33, but who’s counting?
One of the reasons I enjoy riding along the American River Bike Trail is that it provides scenic views while I’m riding. Since one of my hobbies is photography, particularly things in nature, I usually see at least one or two things that make me want to stop and take a picture. I’ve been a bird watcher (birder?) since elementary school, so I frequently see some of my avian friends just begging for me to snap their picture. As an amateur photographer, I have a fairly nice camera and a good telephoto lens to bring subjects in a little closer. Unfortunately, riding 20 miles on the bike trail with over 2½ pounds of camera hanging around your neck can be a bit tedious, and it tends to slow you down a bit. That’s not to say that I haven’t done it before, but my primary goal for going out today was for the exercise. It seems like whenever I go out without the good camera, I always see many things that I would like to take pictures of. Today was no exception. It started with a Merlin perched in a tree, and continued on from there. I saw a couple of egrets, a few Great Blue Herons, a couple of Red-tailed Hawks, a multitude of squirrels (both gray and brown), several water fowl in the river, and a couple sets of deer.
During those photo-op stops that I mentioned previously, I decided to pull out my fancy new smart-phone and see how well it did with wildlife photography. Let’s just say that I wasn’t very impressed. I’ll post the photos that I took today at the bottom of this post. Most of them seem to be out of focus, but I swear that I tried several times to get a good picture and the camera just wouldn’t do it. It takes great pictures of things that are close-up, but is a major letdown for things in the distance. Maybe I just don’t know how to use it properly yet, I dunno. (Most of these pictures have been cropped in Photoshop, to make the subject of the photo seem a little larger within the frame)
Merlin perched in a tree
Red-tailed Hawk perched in a tree
Nimbus Dam, from the point on the trail where I turned around
three grazing deer
one deer foraging, the other ruminating while relaxing
looks like u had a beautiful ride! We had unseasonably warm weather today too, i took a vacation day to take advantage of it!
It was rather nice, if a bit chilly. Thanks for stopping by!
Gorgeous! I too am a fan of the birds. But it troubles me when the hawk hunts the sparrows in my feeders. I feel I’ve lured them to their deaths.
You’ve got me thinking about heading out to a trail this weekend, instead of my usual route down the street. Only I shall be on foot.
We can only try to be helpful, and I’m sure the sparrows appreciate your efforts. Maybe you could modify your feeders with some sort of mesh (say, 2″ steel mesh or so?) around them, so the sparrows can get in but the hawks can’t? I’ve seen similar arrangements around other feeders to keep larger birds out. It used to frustrate me to no end when the Ravens would come and chase the smaller birds away, then proceed to make a complete mess of my bird feeders!
Hope you had a nice hike on the trail!
PS — I really enjoyed the photos you linked to. The duck flapping its wings and the squirrel on the post stood out for me. The squirrel made me smile.
I’m glad that my attempts at amateur photography have provided a positive experience for you.