Foxtail Barley (Hordeum jubatum)

Something different today. It is still spring in Colorado - currently 17 deg F and snowing. The snow is predicted to continue until midnight. To compensate, I am posting photos taken when it was warm and the sun was shining.

It is still spring in Colorado.


Foxtail Barley (Hordeum jubatum). Photo taken at the Swan Lake Nature Study Area near Reno NV in July 2019. I was on my way to California to participate in a party celebrating a friend's retirement from the University of California-Davis.

The 4 photos were taken with an Olympus E-M1MarkII camera with a 300mm f/4 lens and 1.4x teleconverter attached. This was the camera and lens combination I had been using to photograph birds at the Study Area. On my way back to the parking lot, I captured these images of this grass that is common in some parts of the West. I read that the grass is unpopular with ranchers because the bristles pierce the mouths of the livestock that graze it. LINK


The wind was blowing and parts of this image are out of focus, but when viewed from a distance, this may be my favorite of the four.




David Sparks

I retired in 2005 after 40 years of research and teaching at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (24 years), the University of Pennsylvania (8 years) and the Baylor College of Medicine (8 years). Photography is my retirement hobby.

Nature photography, especially bird photography, combines a number of things that I really enjoy: bird-watching, being outdoors, photography, travel, messing about with computers, and learning new skills and concepts.  I now spend much of my time engaged in these activities.

David Sibley in the preface to The Sibley Guide to Birds wrote "Birds are beautiful, in spectacular as well as subtle ways; their colors, shapes, actions, and sounds are among the most aesthetically pleasing in nature."  My goal is to acquire images that capture the beauty and uniqueness of selected species as well as images that highlight the engaging behaviors the birds exhibit.