I awoke around my normal time and made instant coffee to go. J wanted to stay in the RV this morning, so I left by myself in the Jeep around 6:40.

I headed up Mt. Evans and had Clif Bars for breakfast. There was a nice near-full moon setting. Some snow had fallen above tree line yesterday afternoon/evening.

I stopped to photograph a curious Yellow-Bellied Marmot. It was perched nicely on a rock when I stopped, and after photographing it there for a while, it got down and walked right over to me. Because it came too close for me to focus with my 500 f4, I backed up and the marmot went down the hill. I left and continued heading up the mountain.

I stopped to photograph a male White-Tailed Ptarmigan by the side of the road. Ptarmigan are hard to find, so I was thrilled to see one today. My excitement was dampened as I started to photograph it because I could see that both of its legs were banded with a combination of red and green bands. I hate bands on birds when I'm photographing them in general, and it totally ruined the usually nice feathery feet of the ptarmigan. Not too soon after I started photographing it on the rocks by the road, it crossed the road and headed up the mountain among the alpine tundra. The bird was a great poser, and stopped several times on different lichen-covered rocks so that I could clearly see his banded legs instead of his feathery feet — arg! Fortunately, he also walked through some Mountain Aven which hid his bands (left).
After a while, I heard another ptarmigan calling, and it was a female a little further up the hill. Her legs weren't banded, but before I could get some nice portrait shots of her, the male caught up to her and started mating with her! It didn't last too long before another male flew over and the two males started fighting. The first male won (the bands were good for something) and went back to his girl (below left). After he was finished, he proudly strutted away (below right).


By this time, I had gone quite far up the mountain from the Jeep, and I didn't have any extra CF cards with me — a total no-no. Because the ptarmigan had given me such a good show, and there was plenty of Mountain Aven for them to walk through, I decided to stick with them and delete some images so I'd be able to photograph longer. The ptarmigan kept going up the mountain and I was able to get some nice shots, but they didn't mate again even though they stayed together. I headed back to the Jeep when I filled up the CF card and couldn't find any more images that I was comfortable deleting in the field. Then I headed back down the mountain.

I stopped a little way down from the upper trailhead for the Mt. Goliath trail to take advantage of a strong Verizon Wireless signal. (It was much better than what I had gotten at the Mt. Goliath Natural Area. I checked an eBay auction using Opera Mini on my Pam Treo 755p and saw that I had won the 58mm Lee Adaptor Ring for which I had set up a snipe on Saturday. Then I called 2filter.com to cancel that same adapter that was on backorder through them.

I returned to the RV around 10:30. I downloaded the images I took this morning then downselected them in iView. Then I rewired the external cell phone antenna so that the signal wire from the coax cable attached directly to the sewing needle. (You may read more about the cell phone antenna rewiring on the blog entry for yesterday.)

I had lunch around 11:50 while reading the rest of the July 2009 Outdoor Photographer. I started to work up a blog entry, and J took a nap around 12:30. I finished up the blog entry, but couldn't take it online because the Verizon Wireless National Access signal was too weak. I packed up my MacBook Pro and left in the Jeep around 1:30.

I went up Mt. Evans and stopped before getting to the upper trailhead for the Mt. Goliath trail to go online through the fast Verizon Wireless Broadband Access signal. I uploaded the blog entry, paid for the 58mm Lee Adaptor Ring I won on eBay, and ordered a TS-9 to FME pigtail so we can connect our USB727 sticks to the external cell phone antenna properly.

I returned to the RV around 2:40 and J had her USB stick in her USB hub and not in the Kyocera KR2 wireless router. I found out later that her USB stick was no longer working — it had somehow gotten fried. I downselected the images I took this morning in Capture One (C1) then processed images for a stock submission. That has been a slow process recently because I was working through a series of macro images of wildflowers, and either the front element of my macro lens or the UV filter had had lots of dust on it, so I had lots of dust spots to remove from the images.

I grilled some marinated chicken tenders that J had prepared yesterday. I didn't grill them yesterday because it rained. While there were lots of puffy clouds tonight, there wasn't any rain, so grilling was an option. The grill went out as I was heating it and then again after I turned the chicken, so we ate later than planned.

We had dinner around 5:45 of the grilled chicken tenders and some tasty rice and broccoli that J had prepared. J left around 5:55 in the Jeep to go up Mt. Evans by herself. I finished eating then did the dishes.

I cleaned the grill before putting it away. It was past due for it's yearly cleaning, and I hope it will stay lit better now. I processed images for a stock submission, and it started going much faster after I finished the spotty wildflower macros. I started to work up a blog entry, and J returned around 9:05. I worked on the blog entry some more then wen to bed.