đź“·-01 / "The road and the guy's shadow with the camera in his hand"
It's February and the dry season is well advanced... However, a couple of surprising showers have fallen in recent days. This causes something unexpected to happen: Some trees are greening up and others are even flowering. So, there are many different shades in the nearby landscape...
đź“·-02 / "The valley from above"
đź“·-03 / "Herds in pastures"
It's a good day to get out of the house and head west, trying to climb the hills and look down on the town from above. It is also an excellent opportunity to take a wide variety of photos as everything seems to gain more drama and visual impact during the dry season. There is a lot to photograph here even if you run the risk of heat stroke due to the sharp rise in temperature as the midday hour approaches. So I did this walk from 9:00 AM and tried to get back before the peak of the heat to avoid a bad time due to sweltering.
đź“·-04 / "Northwest mountain range panorama"
The climb is quite steep, so I try to take it easy and get plenty of rest. Besides, I usually come here to take photos and exercise is secondary under these circumstances. The views are very good from here. The mountains have regained some of their blue-green thanks to the recent unseasonal rains. This makes for a lot of contrast in the vegetation visible on the same photographic plane.
đź“·-05 / "Royal Conoto perched"
đź“·-06 / "Royal Conoto saying: Get away from here!"
These birds called "Royal Conotos" are quite famous here due to their beauty, but they are also famous for their extremely aggressive and territorial character. So this one, in the previous photos, has noticed my presence and started to make a big fuss by puffing up its plumage and making threatening screeching noises... Fortunately it didn't dare to swoop down on my head and give me a hard time!... :))
đź“·-07 / "Low-flying falcon"
After my unfortunate encounter with the grumpy Royal Conoto, I had the pleasure of taking this photograph of this large hawk whose species I do not know and do not think I have seen before in this region... A beautiful bird indeed!
đź“·-08 / "Low forest landscape"
đź“·-09 / "Like a naked ghost!"
A small forest is growing between two hills. From the road I can see how many different visual elements this space has generated thanks to the weather these days... I even manage to spot one of those beautiful trees locally called "Bucare" in full blossom in bright red... This prompts me to go a little further up and try to photograph this tree close up...
đź“·-10 / "The town burning under the sun!"
It's starting to get very hot... I turn and look towards the valley... Below are the streets bathed in intense sunlight... I take this photo with a lot of zoom and the streets look as if they were made of "aluminum", as well as lonely... It's already around 10:30 AM...
đź“·-11 / "Getting closer to Bucare!"
đź“·-12 / "Bucare and blue sky!"
đź“·-13 / "Bucare and its nearby forest!"
Bucare trees are really beautiful and their main characteristic is that they cover themselves with red/orange flowers in the middle of the dry season. This and their height (they can be up to 35 metres tall) make them easy to notice from a distance and also make them an object of desire for any photographer... They seem to be a fairly resilient species to climate change and continue to proliferate both in the valley and on the hillsides of the mountains.
đź“·-14 / "Mountains in the North."
After photographing the Bucare in the small forest, I decide to turn around and start the descent. I'm only about 60 minutes walk from the town valley, so I'll have enough time to get back around noon... As I descend, I look at the mountains in the north (people call them "blue mountains") and I think that the climate there is cooler because of the air coming from the sea and cooling down when it reaches their peaks. This can be confirmed by looking at the dense clouds at the top...
📷-15 / "An abstract Caña Fistola tree!"
This year I missed the moment of the orange flowers of the "Caña Fistola" trees, but I found this one full of seed pods and with its bare branches... It has also been lovely to see it like this!... It's almost like a " Picasso"!!! :))
đź“·-16 / "A February collage!"
The mountain, the blue sky, a Bucare tree in the distance, some green foliage and a lot of bare branches... This is what February is like in the hills near the village!.... This photo has given me a comprehensive view of what it's like here during the dry days...
đź“·-17 / "Life and death!"
The last photo in this post was taken when I looked up at the end of the descent... It says it all! It talks about how this is in nature, its cycle in itself!... ;)
ADDITIONAL TECHNICAL NOTE: Photographs captured with my Nikon D7000 DSLR camera in RAW format, then processed in Adobe Camera RAW for adjustments regarding light, sharpening, contrast and depth... The pictures are then exported to JPG format on which minor modifications such as straightening and adding watermarks were carried out using PhotoScape 3.6.3.
Thank you very much for your visit and appreciation!
"We make photographs to understand what our lives mean to ourselves." - Ralph Hattersley.
Lens: Sigma 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 II DC OS HSM
