Pic of the Day

House Finch; Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Texas

House Finch; Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Texas 

Horned Lizard; Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Texas

Thunder Storm over Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Texas

     For those who visit my blog on a regular basis please accept my apology for not posting since the first of June.  I have been traveling over the past few weeks and have had few opportunities to connect to the web.  Most of my days were either spent driving or shooting.

     One of my stops was Palo Duro Canyon State Park in the panhandle of Texas.  Palo Duro is one of the great surprises in the Texas panhandle.  As you drive across the flat Texas scrub south of Amarillo, the landscape opens to the second largest canyon in the United States. Palo Duro Canyon stretches 120 miles in length and about 6½ mile wide.

    The afternoon I arrived at Palo Duro the sky was clear and blue and the afternoon light was just perfect.  When I arrived at the photo blind I found a multitude of house finches and other passerines busily flying to and from bird feeders.  House finches were the most abundant birds at the feeders that afternoon, and made great subjects.  I also found a horned lizard that was busy gulping down ants from a nearby anthill.

     The horned lizard, (I had always known them as horned toads) was all puffed up.  I later learned, from a park ranger, that the horned lizard had most likely been attacked by a predator and was still puffed-up as a defense mechanism as I took photos.  The attached horned lizard photo shows the lizard puffed-up and its sharp horns thrusting outward from its body.  This was the first horned lizard I have seen in the wild.

Nikon D800, Nikkor 500mm f4