Crepuscular rays of light, “fingers of God,” and other names are beautiful atmospheric optics. August 2016 has been remarkable for their appearance over the Sandia Mountains. I’ve been able to photograph this phenomenon at sunrise twice in less than a week. Of note, many images on the internet were taken at sunset rather than sunrise, and the rays will appear pointing down. (The rays are actually parallel, but that is another discussion.)
This was the first. It was the most dramatic example I have personally ever seen.
Crespuscular Rays 6:20:25 am
This is the second. This sunrise was more typical. The rays and sky were “gentle.”
Crepuscular Rays 6:25:48 am
Phenomena like this do not last long. Within two minutes, the rays were almost gone.
Crepuscular Rays 6:27:34 am
Note that the days are getting shorter. Compare the time of the first image to the time of the second image, just a few days later.
Photographers in Albuquerque know the skies during monsoon season may present even more wonderful opportunities than usual. Many of us remember the summer of 2009 as being full of marvelous skies. This year, friends are capturing amazing images of the lightning storms we have had recently. Sunrises, which I have enjoyed for many years, are proving to be even more remarkable to me this monsoon season of 2016.
Edited to add: Added bonus: a rainbow to the west a little later in the morning!
Monsoon light makes for some remarkable skies here in the high desert. The rain is always welcome. That is especially true this year, which has been very dry to this point. Monsoon season seems to have finally arrived, with heavy rain in some parts of Albuquerque two nights ago and an inch of rain at my house last night. Photographer friends here in Albuquerque remember the monsoon skies of 2009. 2016 may be remembered for its rainbows. Albuquerque has a reputation of sorts for its rainbows, especially the double ones. This has been a great year for rainbows!
Two nights ago I photographed a striking, although single, rainbow. I knew it would develop because of the special monsoon light that appeared as the clouds cleared from the west, with heavy clouds to the east. Anyone who has been here for any length of time and has watched the skies at all knows what this looks like.
Goldfinch Lit Against a Dark Monsoon Sky
7:17pm, MDT. Sun breaking through storm clouds to the west lit this little goldfinch and the branches of a neighbor’s tree dead from the prolonged drought. Heavy, dark clouds covered the mountains to the east. This is the set-up for a rainbow here in Albuquerque. The little spots are not dust on the sensor, but light reflecting off very light drizzle falling at the time.
7:19pm, MDT. A very faint rainbow appeared.
By 7:25pm MDT a magnificent, full arc rainbow had completely developed, persisting for some time.
Rainbow and Sunflowers
I chose this particular evening to focus on the interplay of the monsoon light with things I enjoy in my yard. The large sunflowers are almost ripe with seeds for the birds. This image seems to speak to people with a variety of different beliefs about the cycle of life, with the fading sunflowers that will soon provide nourishment for the birds, and the rainbow, a symbol of hope for people of many different beliefs.
Monsoon light – just one more reason I love living in the high desert of New Mexico.
My Cooper’s Hawk Book Is Now Available at Albuquerque’s Wild Birds Unlimited
My Cooper’s hawk book, Cooper’s Hawk Courtship Display, is now available at the Albuquerque Wild Birds Unlimited at 7200 Montgomery Blvd NE, 87109. I am very pleased that the paperback book is now available locally, not only because the Cooper’s hawks are found in large numbers here, but because this remarkable display took place in my very own back yard. Serendipity on a Sunday afternoon…
Front Cover, “Cooper’s Hawk Courtship Display”
For interested friends and readers not in the Albuquerque area, Cooper’s Hawk Courtship Display is available in both Kindle and paperback formats at amazon.com:
I hope interested friends in the Albuquerque area will stop by Wild Birds Unlimited on Montgomery and support an Albuquerque business that is supporting local photographers and authors.
Individual prints from this Cooper’s hawk courtship display may be purchased at my portfolio site.
Day of the Dead Albuquerque Style. A Look Back at Some Previous Observances.
Traditional Ofrenda or “Offerings” for the Returning Spirits
Day of the Dead Albuquerque Style will not happen in 2016 until early November. The Marigold Parade is Albuquerque’s major public observance of this ritual, which had it origins in Mexico long before the arrival of the Spaniards. The Marigold Parade is always enjoyable, and can be educational as well. Given that this is a Presidential election year, with all the politics surrounding this particular election, the 2016 observance in Albuquerque could be one of the best yet.
Day of the Dead celebrations have become popular in the American Southwest in recent years. Many of these have commercial appeal, and may have very little to do with the origins of the celebration or its function in maintaining cultural identity. To date, Albuquerque’s public celebration has avoided commercial ties, and has remained an expression of Albuquerque’s Hispanic culture.
Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead is not “Mexican Halloween,” nor All Saints Day or All Souls Day. Elements of Catholicism were incorporated into original native rituals when the Spaniards arrived. The day celebrates the return of the spirits of the deceased. This is not scary or frightening. It is cause for celebration. Preparations include laying out favorite foods of the departed, so that the spirits may enjoy the aromas. Favorite items are placed as offerings. Marigold petals are strewn in a path to show the spirits the way home. “Honoring the dead, loving the living” is a frequently heard phrase.
Preparations for the following year’s events begin almost as soon as the Parade is over. Plans and activities can be followed at Muertos y Marigolds. The 2016 Parade theme is “Sheep don’t vote, feed the chupacabra. ¡Reclamando nuestra querencia!” which definitely points to an emphasis on getting out the vote for the Presidential election two days later.
Albuquerque’s Day of the Dead observance holds much appeal to me as a resident, as a social anthropologist, and as a photographer. I have completed two volumes of a three volume set interpreting Day of the Dead observances here, from the ubiquitous lowriders of Part 1; Beliefs, Culture, and Politics of Part 2; and Celebrating Life of Part 3.
The first two volumes are now available in Kindle format at Amazon.
Many thanks to Lewis Baker who captured the both the meaning and the fun-loving spirit of the Marigold Parade in a jaw-dropping review of “Lowriders:”
The role of the Marigold flowers attached to the dramatic pneumatic Low and Slow dancing cars from earlier decades help lead the way home; and one imagines these hearty souls who once graced these shimmering desert highways with their canvas water bags dangling from doors and hood ornaments in these oldest models of cars find in this bouncing rebirth a joyful nostalgia for their human years in this Southwestern Land of Enchantment.
“Celebrating Life” should be out later this month or early in August.
Cooper’s Hawk Courtship Display Now in Paperback as Well as Kindle at Amazon
Cooper’s Hawk Courtship Display is now available in paperback format as well as Kindle format at Amazon.com. This was a very unusual display, one I was able to catch in photographic images almost by serendipity.
Both formats contain 32 images of this young hawk’s display. A friend wrote last night
I just read it and loved it! The last few images looks like he was bowing at the end of his performance. Amazing! I’m so glad you caught this.
Another friend noted in a review
The most interaction I ever got from Cooper’s Hawks is when they would often bring their catches and sit on a branch that extended over our deck and eat dinner with us.
The Cooper’s Hawk courtship display Susan captured is what makes this book so special and fun. It’s a short visual chronicle of a display rarely given a private exhibition to anyone but a female hawk.
The paperback edition is $12.99. The Kindle edition is $4.99. The title is part of Amazon’s MatchBook program; anyone who purchases the paperback may purchase the Kindle for $1.99 instead of $4.99. Suitable for all ages.
Cooper’s Hawk Courtship Display Now Available as Kindle on Amazon
Cooper’s Hawk Courtship Display is now available at Amazon in a Kindle version. A paperback edition is also coming.
Can be read on most devices with the free Kindle app. (See end of post for link.)
The volume contains 32 images taken on August 3, 2014. At the time, I knew I had witnessed something remarkable. I knew it was a very intense encounter. Initially, I took it to be some type of territorial display.
This spring, after doing some reading and going back through the images, I came to realize it was something quite different. The behavior is described in the literature, but this on the ground (more precisely, in the trees) display is not well documented photographically.
The encounter with this beautiful young hawk was serendipitous. The display was something I knew nothing about until I saw it that day, and it was almost two years later before I grasped its meaning and the insights it gave into the life of a male Cooper’s hawk.
Young Male Cooper’s Hawk
In the past couple of years I have had the opportunity to see and to photograph some rather amazing events that I will remember for the rest of my life – the Blood Red Total Lunar Eclipse of September 2015; the Alignment of Jupiter and Venus in the early morning hours of 2015; and I would add this hawk encounter to that list of things that became important to me as observations of life.
Garden joys abound in the high desert, even with the typical spring winds, this time of year. For the past several months, I have been very busy with projects of my own choosing, driven to work by no one but myself. Snail mail for required proofs for one of the projects has given me a kind of enforced relaxation time. Last evening I set one goal for today, to enjoy my back yard.
For the past several days I have seen cedar waxwings, a very infrequent visitor to my yard, drinking at the bird bath. I have noticed them at around 7:00am, so last evening I set my camera with plans to try to photograph a cedar waxwing. When I first got up I watered all the container plants and then filled the bird feeders. By that time it was almost 7:00am, so I sat down on the patio with my camera and a cup of coffee. Immediately I saw the doves, finches, and sparrows that are frequent visitors here, and a little male black chinned hummingbird drank at one of the feeders, not really bothered by my presence. At 7:07am the magic I was hoping for happened. This cedar waxwing appeared in pyracantha, on a branch that allowed me to photograph it without distractions that would have been present at the bird bath.
Cedar Waxwing, an Uncommon Visitor to My Garden
It flew away at 7:08am. It had given me one minute to obtain the portrait I had hoped for.
After the cedar waxwing flew, I saw the first female black chinned hummingbird of the season. The females arrive about two weeks after the males, and the timing was perfect. She was thirsty! She drank, and drank, and drank. A male hummer watched her from his guard post, and did not interrupt her breakfast. When she finished, she flew into a large rose bush near where I keep the hummingbird feeders. Year after year I always thought it possible the hummers nested there, but I have never seen a nest. Maybe this year…Because at that point, the male who had been observing her began the flying loops of the hummingbird mating display. Those are always so much fun to watch.
Finally, sparkling green trees early in the morning. They only look like this for a few minutes, but they also are garden joys.
Sparkling Trees in Early Morning
Thank you for joining me during my forced relaxation time. 🙂
A dramatic sunset, that appears to be stormy. The afternoon and evening were actually quite calm. In this case, looks were a bit deceiving.
The sun has clearly moved farther north, as we approach the equinox.
More Sky Show with Venus and Jupiter and Now Including the Moon
More sky show with the planets Venus and Jupiter today included a crescent moon at 6:09am MST. Dawns began with crystal clear skies over the Sandia Mountains. The bright object closest to the mountains is the moon; then Venus; then in the upper right hand corner, Jupiter.
More Sky Show: Moon, Venus, Jupiter over Sandia Mountains at Dawn
Check out Sky and Telescope for celestial events you might want to look for this week. I missed some in the past few days, partly because of cloudy skies and partly because I slept through them. 🙂
As long as I have lived in New Mexico and as old as I have grown to be, I never cease to be amazed at the constantly changing and ever-beautiful skies of my adopted state.
A Better View May Be Behind You. Be Sure to Look in All Directions
“A better view may be behind you” is taught in photography classes almost as much as what “aperture” means. Over the years I have definitely learned to look around. I may not always find “a better view,” but sometimes I will, and will often find something worth photographing in addition to the “main attraction,” whatever that is.
The first freeze of the season is predicted for Albuquerque tonight (November 5). Yesterday morning as the first of the storm appeared, we were treated to a glowing sunrise, stormy, with fog and clouds drifting in and out of the valleys on the mountains, separating them into layers.
Sunrise as a Storm Approaches, Fog and Clouds in the Valleys of the Mountains
When I glanced around, almost by accident and not really expecting much in the western sky, there was a rainbow! I’m not really suggesting that the rainbow could outdo the sunrise, but, as common as rainbows are here looking east toward the mountains in late afternoons, they are relatively uncommon in the morning. The rainbow was an unexpected surprise, and a reminder to always look around to see what is there!
Rainbow to the West at Sunrise
New Mexico skies – always beautiful, never boring, and no better view anywhere. 🙂
