I headed into the mountains today to practice with my new camera and I would have to say I am less than satisfied with todays photos. Some aspects of the camera such as auto focus I need to learn when and when not to use. I came upon this deer today and it gave me ample opportunities for photos.

I was a little curious about this deer because he/she wasn’t getting real excited about me being there. I couldn’t tell if this was a doe or a buck because it appears to be a yearling born sometime last year. When I first saw the yearling I wondered about what I thought was it’s winter coat. But I believe it is instead shedding the spotted coat.

The next two photos I’m really disappointed with because of the auto focus thing but they do look kinda cool. The camera focused on the branch in front of the deer.

After following this deer up onto another nearby road, one question was answered but a few more unanswerable questions created. I knew why the yearling wasn’t in a hurry, there was a friend nearby.

The yearling’s friend/father is right now growing in four points so he will be at least a six point by the time his antlers finish growing. The questions created by this scene is, knowing the little deer is a yearling, where is its mother? Is the six point the yearling’s father? If so, I think it is very cool this young buck would look after the yearling. I’m pretty sure that is normally the job of the doe. For some reason I felt proud of that buck… you go boy, doin’ the right thing.

To me, although this is a peaceful scene with the deer grazing and such, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss and a little sad. I wished them the best and left them at their grazing.

I have a story to tell about this catfish.

Back in the winter my neighbor was cleaning up one of her recently vacated rental properties when she came across this catfish. The previous tenants had apparently decided the fish wasn’t worth taking so in an unheated rental unit, it was left to fend for itself in about 3 inches of ice cold water in the bottom of a plastic bowl.

Maybe it’s just me, but I just couldn’t leave it. I adopted the catfish and brought him and a tank that was sitting inside the unit home. The fish was very sluggish and no doubt in shock from the 3 to 4 days in unoxygenated and ice cold water.

It took a couple of days but he finally started eating and coming back around. Now he is as healthy as a horse and actually, for the most part, quite boring. I say for the most part because this story doesn’t end here.

A couple of months after bringing the catfish home another neighbor suggested I get him some company. When I said quite boring that is because he is usually camped right here in this little cave. I thought to myself maybe he would like to have some company. Let me tell you, he liked company alright.

The neighbor has a fishtank overrun with guppies. So to thin the population in her tank and to increase the population in mine, she gave me some of her fish. There were two male guppies, one female, and 4 or 5 baby guppies.

This catfish had a field day with those guppies, apparently at night. I watched them pretty close for the first day or so and then the morning of the second day - the catfish was the sole survivor. There was not a guppy to be found in the tank. None floating or in the filter, he had eaten every one of them.

Needless to say, I have since taken a new appreciation for this catfish. He is not as harmless as he appears. I have not fed him any companionship since.

Trillium grandiflorum, commonly known as white trillium, great white trillium, white wake-robin, or in French as trille blanc…

This is just an FYI post.

I have changed the name of this photo blog from Bolt Mountain, West Virginia to Bolt Mountain Photography. The reasoning behind this is that I felt the old name made the blog too territorial which restricted photos I could show here to pretty much just from the Bolt Mountain area. When in actuality I take photos all over Southern WV.

If I’m going to ever make this blog work, it has to be more flexible. It is the oldest blog I currently maintain and it has fewer posts than the newest. Hopefully I can now feel more comfortable about posting a wider range of photos to this blog covering a wider area.

If practice makes perfect - then I oughta be gettin pretty good at taking photos. Lord knows I’ve pushed the shutter button a time or two.

I’m still practicing with the Canon. I already know what my limitations are, I’m trying to figure out the cameras.

This plant is a Cattail. There are a ton of small wetland areas in West Virginia and within those, the cattails reign supreme.

Pictured is the flowering portion of the plant and what you see here is thousands of small seedlings. I imagine the conditions would have to be just right in the area these seeds finally come to rest. There were four flowering plants in this little area with thousands of seeds each and only about 100 plants total. Just some logical deduction tells me that 99.9% of these seeds land in areas unsuitable for the cattail to grow. Did you know Cattails are edible?

It’s that time of year. I can get out take some photos and start sharing them with you.

I have a new camera for this year. It is the Canon Rebel XS. The camera came with a 15-55mm lens and I purchased the 75-300mm lens.

The standard lens is great in eliminating camera shake with a digital stabilization feature. I was concerned with that and how it would work on the higher power lens. Basically I needed a good test subject using the camera with the larger lens without a tripod.

CATVGenerally a new blossom close up wouldn’t be hard to achieve. This photo was taken with the 75-300mm lens set on 300mm and at a distance of about 40ft. I had to turn auto focus off obviously because the camera was not going to focus on those little blossoms by itself. As an overall test of the stabilization feature - I would say it is just as effective with either lens. Thats a good thing to know. I have a tripod but I don’t like to use it.

The photo below is the entire picture reduced by 75%.

This post is just to show mountaintop removal coal mining in relation to Ivy Knob on Bolt Mountain. Ivy Knob is the highest point in the Guyandotte Mountain Range at just over 3,200 feet.

For a closer look at the surface mine you can check out this view and this one.

I never get tired of the view from the overlook near Ivy Knob.

Raleigh County, West Virginia

I think the phrase, it’s all in the details, would make a great state motto for West Virginia. I didn’t really want to use it as a title again but with this photo, I really couldn’t think of anything better.

I’ve just recently purchased a new digital camera and the photo in this post is from that camera.

I took this photo with plans to use it on the Backwoods blog. My intended photo was of a yellow jackets nest in the ground. I have seen about six in-ground bees nest so far this year. More than any year previously.

Apparently the smart photo feature on the new camera decided the bee itself was more important subject matter. This photo was completely unintentional but I think it looks pretty unique.