Leon Turnbull Photography

This is Bodie, the newest member of our family. Sometime after our cat Jordie died earlier this year, my wife Tara (of course) wanted to get another one. I did not want to get one right away. I wanted to wait until our other cat Allie passed away first (cuz I knew Alllie would vehemently object to a new cat – and of course, I was correct about that). I managed to convince Tara to wait awhile. However …. my daughter Nekoda (apparently, completely on her own accord) decided that she wanted a new kitten for Christmas, and she was going to ask Santa for it. She wanted a pink kitten or an orange kitten. Now the last time I checked, God does not make pink kittens. But he does make orange kittens, and in fact our last cat, Jordie, was orange and white as well. Now it is very hard (for me) to say “no” to Nekoda. She is just too darn cute. But this time, I did try really hard to convince her otherwise. I did, really. I’m sure you all think I’m just a big push-over. I could’ve put my foot down, but in the end I thought it would be really nice for the kids (and my wife) to have a new kitten for Christmas. And I was right about that. The kids just adore the new kitten and really love playing with him constantly. Hours of free entertainment. He likes climbing up the Christmas tree in our house as well. Nice.

I like the name they picked out for the cat too because (1) it is the name of a cool ghost town in California, and (2) it sounds similar to Jordie. Bodie looks almost identical to Jordie, and he has a very similar personality as well. It is kinda freaky. Tara found Bodie in a local shelter. I think it was love at first sight.

This is the main waterfall we found at Squaw Creek in northern California awhile back. I measured it to be a whopping 8 feet high. It is not going to make it onto my waterfalls website. This is North Fork Squaw Creek; the other shot I posted earlier was on Squaw Creek. The two creeks join together at this location. I posted the other photo first because at the time, I kinda liked the other one better. But the more I think about it, the more I like this photo better. It just seems like it is more interesting somehow. I think this would make a nice summer swimming hole, if it weren’t so darn far to drive to.

So I’ve been needing to get back into jogging for awhile. My weight is up quite a bit now. But I had a brilliant idea in my head that I could take my camera on the jog with me and jog to someplace (along the American River) where I could do some photography of birds or what not, then jog back afterwards. So this is what I did. I packed my bag as light as possible (basically only the camera and the 400mm lens in it). I was worried it would jiggle around too much which might be too hard on the lens, but I packed it well, and it seemed to be fine. I went to Lake Natoma and started jogging to this spot I thought might be good, and went down to the lake and sat down and waited. At first, it didn’t seem like a very good place. There were no birds around at all, and I was thinking I might have to go somewhere else. However, before too long, some Canadians splashed into the water from across on this little island and swam over to me. I don’t like taking photos of geese or ducks much (too common), but these guys came right up to me, within 5 feet. So I took a bunch of shots of them for awhile. I had to really pull back the zoom on the 400mm lens for some of them. I was amazed that they had no qualms about coming close to me. The ones at Salmon Falls are much more skitterish and don’t let you get very near them. But Lake Natoma is a much more popular place, and these guys are probably quite used to people (and getting handouts – I think that is why they came up to me in the first place). Still, I thought it very interesting that they are so different in comparison to the ones at Salmon Falls, which is only a few miles away. After the geese left, I noticed a kingfisher on the island across from me, fishing for dinner. He was a bit too far away, but I tried taking a few shots of him, and I watched him for quite awhile, as he would dive down into the water to catch a fish, then fly back up into the tree branches. He did that 4 or 5 times. Then, just as I was putting my camera away to leave, a hawk flew right over head. I could’ve had a great shot of him if I was ready. Then an egret flew over, and I missed him as well. So all in all, I had a pretty nice time there. I am definitely gonna do this again, jogging with my camera.

Here’s a couple more of the geese:

It’s coming. It’s coming. No, I’m not talking about Christmas and Santa Claus. Rain is in the forecast for northern California for all of next week. Sweet! And about darn time. Let’s just hope it’s going to be a big dump. It is already mid December and we haven’t had anything yet, so this is very welcome news. By the way if you visit any waterfalls in the near future, please be sure to send me updated information on my Current Conditions page:

http://www.waterfallswest.com/current.php

This is another shot of Middle McCloud Falls in northern California. It is a standard and very unoriginal view point for this waterfall. But I really like this view and the perspective looking down at the falls. And I especially like this shot because it is a stitch of three horizontal images. You can’t tell from this small web version, but the detail in the large view is incredible. I think it may be my best stitched image yet. I’ll have to make a really big print of this one, I think.

I went back to Folsom River (Lake?) again the other morning to do some more bird watching. I like this location for a couple reasons: (1) there’s usually no one else there so early in the morning. Sometimes I see fishermen here, but it seems to be even too cold for them at this time of year, and (2) I can usually spot quite a few birds along the river (lake?) here. This morning I saw a heron, plenty of geese (of course), a rock wren, other unidentifiable birds, a woodpecker, and plenty of these killdeer (shown above here). I am really starting to like the rock wrens because (a) they are cute, and (b) they don’t seem to care if I get very close to them. The heron took off before I got within a hundred miles of it (slight exaggeration). So I concentrated on stalking these killdeer, which I have not seen at this location before. They don’t like you getting very close to them either, and this was the only good shot I was able to get of these birds. As you can see there was frost on the ground, and thus it was rather cold. I didn’t spend much time here because I had to get to church for music practice, but on the way back to my car, I saw a woodpecker and I got a somewhat decent shot of it as well which I may post a bit later.

You may be thinking I’ve been more into bird watching lately than landscapes or waterfalls, and whazz up with that ? Well, I just think that bird watching can be a nice change of pace and can also be rather fun. Sometimes (such as this morning), I don’t have enough time to go find a nice location for sunrise. But frankly, I do prefer shooting the landscapes. Landscapes don’t move around constantly. They just sit there. The only thing that moves is the sun, and as long as you are in the right spot before the sun gets there, you are good to go. I can handle that. But nonetheless, I had a fun morning shooting the birdies down at the local river (lake?).