Last day in Tucson

‘A’ Mountain Tucson Panorama

Solar farm outside of Tucson, AZ

View of Tucson from ‘A’ Mountain 2

View of Tucson from ‘A’ Mountain 1

Blue Angel (F-18) on display at Pima Air & Space Museum

Planes at the nearby 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), also known as the “Boneyard.”

Sun setting through ocotillo

Sunset exposure 2

Tucson Sunset HDR Practice

Sun setting through a tree

View of Downtown Tucson from ‘A’ Mountain

Sun set lighting up tree

Sun set lighting up tree 2

Sunset exposure 3

Saguaro in foreground, Tucson in background

Sunset exposure 1

Sun setting through a tree 2

It may be snowy outside here in Philadelphia, PA, but back in early October in Tucson, AZ it was sunny and warm. On our last day in Tucson, we visited the Pima Air & Space Museum at which you definitely could spend an entire day and still not see quite everything that they have to offer. Adjacent to the museum is the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), also known as the “Boneyard” which is part of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base that we drove by. Also snapped a not so good drive by of one of Tucson’s solar farms.

Finally, we took a drive up ‘A’ Mountain or Sentinel Peak to catch the sun set over Tucson. I took a bunch of different exposures to try and capture the foreground and the colors of the sunset and in the hopes of practicing with High Dynamic Range (HDR) in Photoshop. I’ve included one of those attempts that turned out alright.

Landscapes and Plants of New Mexico Day 2 (and Arizona)

Might be a nymph stage of a green stink/shield bug

While this is amusing graffiti it’s still a shame to deface nature

Cactus growing out of a petrified log

Might be a eremopedes katydid (Eremopedes sp?) 2

Agave on Boothill Cemetary in Tombstone, AZ

Sunset at Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area 1

For some reason these signs amused me, granted there’s nothing amusing about a dust storm

Cross-section of a petrified tree

Drive by landscape 2

Saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) at Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area

Beautiful view from a rest stop 1

Close up of ocotillo (Fouquieria sp?)

Might be an immature white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys)

Drive by landscape 1

Unknown thorny shrub close-up

Sunset at Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area 2

Close up of ocotillo (Fouquieria sp?) 2

Might be a eremopedes katydid (Eremopedes sp?) 1

Beautiful view from a rest stop 2

View of Sheep’s Head Mountain outside of Tombstone, AZ

Might be a northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)

Hope everyone had happy holidays (for those in the US), I’m working on getting caught up with my posts and finishing out my Arizona and New Mexico set. For this post we left New Mexico and returned to Arizona so there are many drive by landscape shots. Before leaving Las Curces, NM we stopped in at the Zuhl Collection which is part of New Mexico State University. It’s a free and only a couple of rooms, but beautifully laid out with a large collection of petrified wood cross-sections, fossils, and minerals. On our way back we detoured down to Tombstone, AZ which is better known for its history, but there were some nice southwestern views and plants at the Boothill Graveyard, including one for which I just had to throw in the towel when trying to identify it. Finally when returning to Tucson we went up to Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area to try to catch a Southwestern sunset.

Landscapes and Plants of New Mexico Day 1

View of White Sands NM from the New Mexico Museum of Space History

Agave, possibly “century plant” (Agave americana)

Sunset in Las Cruces

I think this is a horticultural variety of lupine (Lupinus sp?)

I think this is a variety of globemallow (Sphaeralcea sp?) but could be wrong

Mountain in Alamogordo, NM

What I think is red mountain ice plant (Delosperma dyeri ‘Psdold’) 1

Cactus close up 2

Hard to say for sure but maybe a Chihuahuan Spotted Whiptail (Aspidoscelis exsanguis) with less of a tail and eating an insect

Pretty sure this is a grapefruit tree (Citrus X paradisi)

Bird in silhouette

Horticultural variety of lupine (Lupinus sp?) photobombed by a what I thinks is a fly (Order diptera)

Ant carrying another insect

Trans Mountain Expressway outside El Paso, TX

What I think is red mountain ice plant (Delosperma dyeri ‘Psdold’) 2

New Mexico Landscape

Might be globemallow (Sphaeralcea sp?) with a visiting bee

Cactus close up 1

Might be a variety of Leucophyllum (Leucophyllum sp?)

Having reached Las Cruces the day before we spent the day seeing some sights of New Mexico. Unfortunately the shutdown of the government prevented us from visiting White Sands National Monument/Missle Range as well as many other places in southwestern New Mexico. So we decided to head up to Alamogordo just outside of the White Sands and visit the New Mexico Museum of Space History, after visiting the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces. Suffice to say, this a nature photography blog not a travel blog 🙂 but both museums are worth a visit, especially the Farm and Ranch Museum which has some very kind and knowledgeable volunteers.

At the Farm and Ranch Museum there were  a lot of horticultural and agricultural varieties of plants. Century plants abound in the southwest with their towering flower stalks, and of course many cacti of which I took several close-ups. A fly (rather than a bee, click here for a nice page telling you how to tell) decided to visit what I believe was a horticultural variety of lupine. Also some form of mallow and leucophyllum (Don’t think it’s the “Texas Ranger” variety (Leucophyllum frutescens) but the link gives you an idea). Of the agricultural variety we have grapefruit trees which I didn’t realize are a hybrid, indicated by the ‘x’ between genus a species, Citrus X paradisi.

After the museum we headed to Alamogordo, famous for the first atomic bomb tests held nearby at White Sands and the nearby Holloman Air Force Base. There is a lot of history of both the atomic age and space flight due to tests and research conducted nearby. The Space History Museum also happened to have some nice grounds and offered a nice view of the White Sands National Monument’s famous white sands. The white sands are due to a high gypsum content and while driving by on the way to Alamogordo you can see some of the dunes next to the highway (which are very long and straight). On the grounds there were some beautiful ice plants, though they seem to be invasive, especially in California (link to pdf). Some insects were out and about including an ant hauling off another insect and bees visiting flowers. In a quick point and shoot, I caught a lizard which I think may be a Chihuahuan spotted whiptail having caught a meal and lost the tip of its tail at some point.

On the road to Las Cruces, NM

Sunset looking at Summerford Mountain West (I think), NM

Road to the mountains 2

I think this is golden crownbeard (Verbesina encelioides) whole plant

Road to the mountains 1

Desert hills

Desert landscape drive by

Desert hills 2

I think this is golden crownbeard (Verbesina encelioides)

Desert landscape 2 RAW image edit

Desert landscapes 1

Desert landscape 3 RAW image edit

Desert landscape 2 JPEG image unedited

Today’s post is a set of mostly landscape photos as we drove from Tucson, AZ to Las Cruces, NM. While there is not nearly as much green as there is on the East Coast, there is still plenty of life to see in the desert. In Tucson and going west you’re in the Sonoran Desert however, heading east to NM we were in the northern parts of the Chihuahuan Desert. Also a couple pictures of what I think is golden crownbeard as opposed to brittlebush flowers due to bloom times. Which means I may have to go back and edit some of my past picture labels 🙂

I am working on practicing with RAW images on occasion and editing them so the 2 more saturated images are the results. RAW image files are large (depending on the megapixels of your camera) and record all the light data hitting your camera’s image sensor as opposed to the compression of jpegs.