By Jeff Insel
Yesterday, September 12, was a fortunate day for seeing wildlife around our yard. As my wife went out the door with her laundry basket she stepped on what turned out to be a bullsnake that was moving across the threshold. She screamed and jumped (not losing the laundry basket). The snake moved quickly to a nearby corner, no doubt to calm down and assess the risk of moving any further.
Seeing that she was okay, I grabbed my everyday, walk around camera (SonyRX10m4) to take some photos. Snakes are a fave of mine as we don’t see them very frequently.
That evening as we went outside to check out another orange sun (due to the California fires), we noticed a young Great Horned Owl perched on a neighbor’s wall – it was observing the bunnies playing in our yard.
It noticed us watching, about 25 yards away but kept looking around at the bunnies scattered around and at times staring at us.
It pays to watch your step as you depart your house here and to always check your surroundings when living in a desert area. I like the ease of using my Sony RX10M4 as a grab and go camera, as it has a 24-600mm optical zoom. For these photos I used shutter priority, ISO 800, 1/320 to 1/500 shutter speed. Edits were made in Adobe Lightroom.
Jeff Insel is a Photo Guide for Arizona Highways PhotoScapes.
