This is a restaurant in my little town which sits in the old part of town, which has a bit of history in Colorado. The stone the building is made of is from local quarries and many of the buildings along the main street are made from it. It gives a nice feel of solidity and frontier charm in a modern age.

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I loved the backlighting on these horses, near sunset. Taken near my home next to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, CO.

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Geese In A Row

The next to last one seems to be commenting on the water temperature.

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I love this lens! 200mm f/2, and it's amazing DOF and beautiful bokeh and tack sharp focus...it's a joy to shoot with.

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Early Spring, Colorado

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Winter returned today... it was very foggy and cold, the weather was pretty bad. In short, a fun day to go shooting. This isn't far from my home, I sort of enjoyed the bleakness of this landscape, with the fog adding to the mood of it. I saw this as a black and white which of course I converted it to here.

In a few short weeks, this scene will be green and leaves will be sprouting, which will make it appear very different.

Not sure why, but everytime I try to take a picture of a hawk, they fly away. This one sat there and watched me put my big glass on the camera before he vacated his nice safe, high perch. I had a bald eagle pose for me non-stop yesterday. Hawks, not so much. I have quite a few pictures of this angle of hawks. This one is a redtail. ;-)

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I wish the light was a bit better to shoot this American Kestrel, but will try again later. With the warmer weather, we're starting to see a lot more wildlife.

An improvement over yesterday, much better light. Turns out he has a mate, but I couldn't see her clearly in the tree. I'll keep trying of course.

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Finch

House finch, though I've never really been much of a birder until recently I guess. Near Sedalia, CO

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Robin

The perennial sign of spring, that I've come to ignore in CO, because I've seen them here in February during blizzards. I think they get confused.

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I got extra close today, and also used my tele/TC with DX mode to really pull her in. If you look in her eyes, you'll see the blue Colorado sky reflected in them. They were just fine with me just off the road like they were, as there was some nice fresh green grass for them to eat. I actually sat and watched them for several minutes.

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While I'm not pleased with the photo quality (wasn't paying attention to shutter speed, its soft and blurry), I loved catching them in mid jump like this. Not a running start either, just up and over. This one is a young male just starting to sprout some antlers.

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I liked how the sun was hitting this hawk, leaving no doubt that he was indeed, a Redtail. He seemed pretty curious, was flying circles around me for some time.

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Just at sunset, as I started to come back home, I turned around and saw the full moon coming up. Love it when that happens.

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Sunset, western Douglas County, CO.

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Red Tail Hawk

Finally, I did some decent panning tonight, and got a nice shot of a red tail hawk in flight. Nice golden hour light to go with it.

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Red Tailed Hawk

Hawk coming in for a landing on a questionable perch.

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Red Tail Hawk

Red Tail hawk in flight.

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Kestrel in Flight

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. I finally, and quite by accident, got a decent shot of this Kestrel in flight. Some of this is a result of a settings change recommended by Moose Peterson, part of it is just because I'm stubborn and don't give up. The setting change helped a lot though. :-)

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Kestrel

I guess the kestrels are getting more comfortable with me. Well, that and my TC helped me get a little closer at least.

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Jump

A little experiment with layers. I learned a bit from this one, and a few others before it that didn't come out so well.

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Tonight was a dramatic sky night in Colorado, made a bit more so by black and white. I love this time of the year for this reason.

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A little black and white, taken after the snowstorm yesterday.

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Another nice pose from Mr. Red Tail.

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This Red Tail gave me a nice pose.

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Red Tail hawk

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Is this my good side?

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