STELLER's JAYS

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TID-BITS

03-06-06

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Wanting to get out of the extremely dry and polluted air of the Phoenix area
I headed north toward the Grand Canyon's South Rim and the COCONINO PLATEAU.

I don't know which is worse, the polluted Phoenix air; or all of the tourist at the South Rim of the Canyon :-)).

Therefore on this trip I decided to spend time driving the dirt roads in the forest just south of the
Canyon's South Rim and just South of Tusayan a few miles off State route 64 and then West on road 306.

I was told to check out the TANKS. HUMM, tanks,
I started looking for metal tanks with water in them. I didn't know if they
meant big tall round metal tanks or low open top tanks with water in them.

Much to my surprise neither of the above tanks were correct.
I soon found out that a tank up here is no more than a big scraped out hole in the ground
to hold run-off water from the rains and snow melt.
I guess a tank could be anything that held something, thus qualifying a large
depression in the ground no matter how it got there as a TANK.

Many of the tanks were dry, parched, cracked dirt, and no water.
This also meant no wild life would be coming to drink so I kept on driving.
Some of the tanks were numbered and some named as you will see.

After several hours of being driven around with by my friend Don we came across this tank
with a smidgen of damp mud in the bottom of the hole, well, maybe just a bit more than a smidgen.

Inasmuch as there was no water any where else we started to see birds immediately coming in to drink.
Get out those cameras and let's start taking photos I said as I jumped out of Don's vehicle almost before it had stopped.

Inasmuch as there no water any where else we started to see birds immediately coming in to drink.

And this is what it called

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The STELLER's JAYS
were always around but were very flighty and would fly off at the least bit of noise or what ever else.
Even in my blind if I moved they were gone.

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Before we get into the photos, let me say that I have always found the Steller's Jays a very difficult bird to photograph and get a good image. Their head is so black and their body such a bright blue it is hard to get a good color balance. Many times the head is good but the body is not and vise versa.

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Not good, but not bad either.

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This is about as good as I could get under the surcumstances

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Steller's Jay in front and a Pinyon Jay in the back.

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Yes, this is going to be a long show and if you want to continue
please click HERE.



I have listed the pages separately in case you don't want to have
to go through the whole article one page at a time just to see what's on the site.


Page. 1a. Elk - Page 1b Grand Canyon Deer - Page 1. Townsend's Solitaire - Page 2. Butterfly, Mountain Chickadee, Unknown Hawk -

Page 3. Plain Titmouse & Pygmy Nuthatch - Page 4. Tiger Salamander - Page 5. Grand Canyon Big Horns - Page 6. Red Crossbills -

Page 7. Red-shafted Northern Flickers - Page 8. Aberts Squirrels - Page 9. Pinyon Jays -

Page 11. Dark-eyed Juncos Oregon race. - Page 12 Hairy Woodpecker


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