November 26 -- A Desert Bighorn Sheep Kinda Day...

Really, sometimes I think I shouldn't be having this much fun; there's a bit of George Costanza in me, thinking at times that it's all going to come crashing down.... ;o) I left Discovery and the RV park in Overton just before 7am, when the temperature was still a chilly 45 degrees, and headed south down the main road through the Moapa Valley that goes to Lake Mead and the Valley of Fire. There's a flat, mesa-like area where RV "boon dockers" park their rigs along the road, and just afer that the road takes a left turn around a rocky hillside. While driving, I looked up to my left, up the hillside, and --- SCREECH! --

I slammed on the brakes of my rental car, and hung on as I came to a fast stop on the dirt shoulder. With dust flying everywhere, I looked back up to the Desert Bighorn Sheep, thinking they'd probably scamper down the hillside, but no, they were still there, in early-morning sun, so I got out my Canon 7D with the 500 f/4 lens and snapped away. They even gave me the time to use different camera settings; for instance,that first photo was taken at ISO 400; this one has better resolution, as it's at ISO 100 -- 

But I prefer the first one for their leftward-looking pose. Wonderful. Only about 10 minutes into my day on the road, and I already got keepers. How could I top this? Well, read on... I took the road into Valley of Fire State Park, and being so early it was blissfully empty of people and cars. I went north up the White Domes Scenic Byway, parked at Parking Lot #2, packed up my fanny pack, checked my cameras -- and found that both batteries to the 7D were dead. (Actually, I discovered later that one of the batteries wasn't "communicating" correctly with the 7D, so it was reading discharged, but I could have used it.) Rats!  So I took the 7D off the 500 lens and put the 40D body on, meaning I had no landscape camera with me -- but that was fine, as I was able to focus on wildlife, and perhaps some telephoto landscape shots. I cut north across the rocks and sand and saw my first bird in the scrubby brush -- 

It had run along the ground with its tail cocked up in the air, and that's a good indication for Sage Sparrow, and this one's facial markings make it (perhaps) the subspecies "canescens", an intermediate between the two main subspecies. Great start to the hike!  I cut over to a wash that I'd hiked before, back in February, but I didn't have "The Big Boy" with me during that hike, just the landscape lens, so I looked at things differently, "pishing" occasionally ( and it seemed to have worked for the Sage Sparrow, as it popped-up out of the brush when I pished). The wash slightly climbs in a series of dry pools, then goes over striped redrock. And I was making my way over the rock, I saw some motion to the left out of the corner of my eye, and looked up -- 

Wow. There were actually a total of 4 Desert Bighorn Sheep,and they were slowly picking their way down the rock hillside. Sometimes the angle of the rock seemed more than 45 degrees, but they were sure-footed all the way --

And with the redrock background -- Amazing. Now THIS is why I lug the 500 f/4 around when I hike... 

The four "scampered" about 30 feet in front of me -- 

I was almost TOO close to them, at least when trying to get a photo of all 4. They slowly made their way to a grassier area and nibbled on the grasses; you can see the grass sticking out of their mouths --

They made their way about a bend, and as they went out of sight I thanked them for this intimate glimpse into the life of the Desert Bighorn Sheep...The faint path led into a narrow space between the redrock walls that had quite a lot of greenery for November -- did VOF get the heavy rain in September that caused all the flooding in the Moapa Valley, and washed-out part of Interstate 15? It's only about 15 miles to the southwest -- and after picking my way through the shrubbery I found myself in a wash, and realized it was Prospect Trail, which runs from the White Domes parking lot 5.5 miles south to the Valley of Fire Highway. I took a side canyon and recognized it as a place I'd been back in February, a sandy area with grasses and small trees. And perched at the top of one of those trees was -- a Loggerhead Shrike, in the shade at first but the sun finally "hit" the Shrike -- 

Though the Shrike looked in my direction, it didn't seem particularly perturbed by my presence, so I changed settings in the 40D to AI Focus, put the focus point just ahead of the Shrike, in the direction I thought it would fly, and waited for the takeoff -- 

The Shrike was like a missile, tightly packed together. I just bought a Canon 7D Mark II body and boy, will I have fun with it!  All that green brought out butterflies, so I used the 500 with the 1.4x tele converter on (making it a 700mm lens) and took a photo of a butterfly -- 

I'll have to ask my friend, birder and naturalist Ali Sheehey, which one this is...I got back to my rental car just after noon and headed back to the RV park and Discovery, where I was expecting the Amazon delivery of the Canon 7D MKII body and had to be there to sign for it. The UPS guy didn't arrive until about 4, but I have lots to do with looking for a replacement truck for the late, much-lamented Toyota Tundra, so I occupied myself with that in the meantime -- and now the MKII is on the 500 f/4, and I plan to spend Thanksgiving day at the Overton Wildlife Management Area, putting my new camera body through its paces..