Not Dark Yet...
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I've got that right, don't I?
A few have mentioned they never tire of fall foliage shots and I reckon we'll continue to test that theory for a while. The winds over the last few days have done their annual duty, yet the oaks endure as they tend to do, the last to give up the ghost...tho some only do so with the arrival of new buds in the spring, somehow hanging on throughout our trying winter.
Another very nice day for late October, so off we go to the canoe to enjoy a relatively rare windless day.
โRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
But I am sure that spring will come this year too.
At yet another birthday party with the kids this past weekend, at Quassy amusement park located on Lake Quassapaug. The kiddie park area, where I inevitably spend most of my time, is separated from the water by only a fence. So of course, with the sun setting, my attention is being torn by this lovely sunset glittering on the water...and like usual, I feel like I'm the only one noticing the beauty.
I took some shots, but this time for kicks, I tried a few shots in sunset mode, which is something I very rarely use because I don't like the result. It seems to take away the colors and adds an almost sepia tone...maybe because it's an older camera, I don't know. But I actually like the result here, giving everything an amber glow...reminding me of tiger-eye contrasting with the dark areas.
Have a wonderful day, my friends :-)
Looking a little bit tacky here but this Robin is over two years old now which is a good age for a Robin. Always hanging around in the same area in one of my nature reserves I often go to visit. Ever since I first spotted this as a juvenile there has always been a dark patch below the right eye that is still there to this day. My little friend here has become very tame and always so very photogenic and hopefully will be around a bit longer yet. In the 1400's when the Robin was named the colour orange had not been classified and this is why we say that the Robin has a red breast and not orange. America has an eagle so it's about time the UK had the Robin as its national bird !!!!!!
Nah, not yet.
It's the edge of a pocket on a pair of my old blue jeans. I wouldn't wear them in public, but they're comfy, and they're still fine for wearing around the house. That way, I don't wear out my good jeans any faster than I have to; blue jeans don't last as long as they used to. The stitching is usually fine, as you see here, but the fabric develops holes...
Macro Mondays: "Stitch" theme
HMM
Great Blue Heron
This vantage point situated the heron at the head of a lake giving it a clear view of any potential meals.
Yet another Circle B resident.
El tonto sentimental no ve,
Tratando de recrear duro,lo
que todavรญa no se habรญa creado
una vez en su vida
The sentimental fool don't see
Tryin' hard to recreate
What had yet to be created once in her life
Esto tiene mas aรฑos que la tana, finales
De los 70 , disco del aรฑoโฆ.pero
Vale la pena escuchar a los grandiosos
Doobie Brothers : What a Fool Believes
Yet another shot from my creek bank session. Here, I really like the light and the bokeh, where the grass produced a bokeh that seems to add some movement to the background. I hope you like it too!
The most photographed building in Australia. Unfortunately I wasnโt in the Hyatt enjoying this view but outside getting a little damp.
Steel-blue Sawfly (Perga dorsalis)
One that is definitely in range here in Melbourne, I have just never seen one before.
Sawflies are insects related to wasps, but they lack the typical narrow 'waist' of wasps.
=)
Okay, no snow here just yet, (not enough to mention, anyway)... this is a photo from a couple of years ago, but I am patiently waiting!!
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas. =)
โAnd once the storm is over, you wonโt remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You wonโt even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you wonโt be the same person who walked in. Thatโs what this stormโs all about.โ
โ Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
Taken @ Isle of Tharen - Grunge City 2006
"I'd rather be a lover than a fighter, 'cause all my life i've been fighting.
Never felt a feeling of comfort, all this time I've been hiding.
I'm in need of a savior, but i'm not asking for favors, my whole life i've felt like a burden... I think so much and i hate it..
I'm tired of caring..."
Taken in Green Story
It has been a long time to not see you. Around seven years and you came to my life again. Still want to carry me with you?
You took my life and happiness during the days it supposed to be happy. Now why you're back?
Thanks for rememberme the nightmare of being in the hole.
I can just give you three of my days but not all me...not yet.
View of Chalki village, taken from a ferry boat, more photos to come from this remote island, I've been super busy, please excuse the tardiness in uploading the new photos, it's almost winter and I haven't posted a photo with autumn colors from 2019 yet. they will be coming one day.
Close up of a Dragonfly sitting on a burnt treetop (possibly by lightning), on the background of the setting Sun - Goa, India.
Revisited.
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Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius)
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
More TICINO/TESSIN Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): it.lacerta-bilineata.com/ramarro-occidentale-lacerta-bili...
If you're interested, you'll find a more detailed closeup here (it's the 8th photo from the top): www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (it's very brief but pretty unusual: a tiny wall lizard attacks two young great tits): www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqkSsyrm7E
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO: MY LONG AND ARDUOUS JOURNEY TO BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY
If you've set yourself the challenge of exclusively shooting the wildlife in your own back yard, you might find - as I did - that bird photography is really, really hard.
It's not that reptiles are easy to photograph either, mind - but at least the ones in my garden stay (for the most part) on the ground, and one can learn how to carefully approach them with a camera. They're also clearly egoists, which from a photographer's point of view is is a great character trait: if a lizard detects a human in its vicinity, it's only interested in saving its own skin, and it won't alarm its buddies.
But birds... oh man. Over the years, my feathered friends and I have developed a lovely routine that now defines our peaceful co-existence. As soon as I as much as open a window (let alone the door), I'm instantly greeted by an eruption of panicky fluttering and hysterical shouts from my garden: "SAVE YOUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND FLY FOR YOUR LIVES: THE HAIRLESS, PINK MONSTER IS COMING!!! (Yes, I speak bird, and I know that this is exactly what they are shouting ๐).
Needless to say, with the exception of the redstart I already showed here, all my efforts to get the kind of detailed shots I usually strive for with my nature photography ended in complete failure and utter disillusionment. I was ready to give up on stalking the winged misanthropes in my garden altogether, but then winter came - and changed everything.
One day this past January I observed my neighbor Signora P - a kind, elderly Italian lady - putting something on the low garden wall in front of my house. At first I thought she was just putting some treat there for her cat Romeo; the young tom patrols that wall constantly (it's his favorite spot in the garden, and during the warmer months he usually lurks in the thick foliage next to it to prey on lizards).
But once I detected a lot of movement on that wall through my window, I understood she had put a little pile of bread crumbs there; she was feeding the birds who soon arrived in flocks. This was certainly well-intended on my neighbor's part, but her noble action came with a catch, and I'm afraid quite literally.
When I took a stroll through my garden the next day I discovered a suspicious amount of feathers on the ground next to the wall. Romeo had apparently switched from his low-calorie summer diet (lizard) to more energy-rich meals consisting of "fowl" (it was winter after all, so from a nutritionist's point of view this made sense).
I would find fresh traces of Romeo's victims (mostly feathers, but also the odd wing) in my garden over the following days; so my first intuition that my neighbor was feeding her cat hadn't been that far off after all, as Romeo was now clearly being "served" fresh birds on a daily basis. And although the hungry visitors seemed to be aware of the danger and became slightly more prudent, they just couldn't resist the tasty snacks Signora P put on that wall - and neither could Romeo.
It was obvious that I had to act, but talking to my neighbor - who is as stubborn as she is kind - would have been futile, I knew that much. I pondered the matter long and hard - until a light bulb went off in my head. The idea was genius. If successful, what I had in mind would not only increase the birds' chances of surviving Romeo's appetite, but also greatly benefit my own photographic endeavors.
I started to enact my master plan the very next day by buying a giant bag of bird feed (consisting mainly of sunflower seeds) from the store. Then I dragged a huge piece of a tree trunk (approx. 120 cm in height) that we normally chop firewood on in the shed out into the garden and emptied almost half of the bag's content on top of it. Signora P's buffet for birds (and cats) was about to get some serious competition ๐.
My reasoning was as follows: not only would the birds be lured away from the fatally low garden wall to a place where they were safe from the cat - there was nothing around that tree trunk that provided cover for a predator, and the birds had a nice 360ยฐ view around it at all times - but I was also able to photograph them while hiding in the shed.
However, in order for my plan to work there was one little extra measure I had to take, and it was one that risked lowering my own life expectancy considerably once the owner of the property - my mom - discovered it. You see, our shed is completely windowless, so if I wanted to use it as a blind, I had no choice but to cut a hole into one of its wooden walls... which I promptly did (I figured all's fair in love - and photography ๐).
Granted, I have absolutely zero carpentering skills, and it showed. That hole was an ugly mess: the shed's wall seemed to have had an encounter with Jack Nicholson's ax-wielding lunatic character from the film 'The Shining'. Needless to say, I was incredibly proud of my work (I mean, come on: there now was a hole where before there wasn't a hole, and it was big enough for the lens of my camera to peek through, so it was mission accomplished as far as I was concerned).
Now all I had to do was wait for the birds to discover the tree trunk. In the meantime I started to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable confrontation with my mom and go through possible explanations for that splintering hole in the wall (it was either gonna be a rabid woodpecker attack or an emergency rescue mission with a feeding tube for a little kid that had accidentally locked himself inside the shed - both seemed valid options, though I slightly preferred the locked-in kid due to the involved drama and heroism ๐).
A whole day went by, and not a single bird visited the sunflower seeds. I had expected that it might take a few hours until the first of the ever curious great tits or blue tits would show up, but given how tiny my garden is, an entire day seemed excessive. Then another day came and went: the birds kept flocking to the bread crumbs on the wall, and my tree trunk kept collecting dust. To add injury to insult, a few fresh feathers on the ground were proof that Romeo was still feasting.
It was incredibly frustrating: I provided my winged guests with a much better view - plus a higher chance of surviving the cuisine - than Signora P's place; I risked (almost) certain death at the hands of my own mother (OK, the act of vandalism on the shed I had committed for my own benefit, but still), yet the birds kept ignoring me.
Then, after three days, just before sunset, I spotted a single blue tit on the tree trunk picking away at the sunflower seeds.
When I got up the next morning I immediately realized that the loud noise that accompanies each and every tit activity had shifted from the wall to the shed. At last the dam had broken: there was a flurry of movement around the tree trunk, and I counted at least 5 different species of birds feasting on the sunflower seeds.
From day 4 onward my plan worked beautifully: the birds now indeed mostly ignored Romeo's "snack wall" and kept to the tree trunk. And yes, I was able to play peeping tom from behind the shed's wall and photograph them!! ๐
Thus, dear readers, I finally managed to produce some acceptable bird photos, and I had even saved my feathered friends from a deadly foe in the process. All through winter and spring I took advantage of my new bird hide, and in late May I started mixing some cherries with the sunflower seeds. The idea was to attract a Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius), and as you can see, it worked!
It took me almost three weeks and more than a few tricks to capture that clever fella, but given how long I've been rambling here already, that's a story for another day. As for my mom, she still doesn't know about the hole in the wall, so please don't snitch! ๐.
I hope you like the photo and wish you all a wonderful weekend! Many greetings from Switzerland, and as always: let me know what you think in the comments ๐ ๐ โค!
P.S. if anyone has their own funny tale about the obstacles we photographers are prepared to overcome for a desired photo, please write it in the comments: I love such stories ๐
"Today's teardrops are tomorrow's rainbows."
-Ricky Nelson
Crazy Tuesday: #Water
A funny note! After taking pictures of puddles near my apartment and getting wet (it's finally raining today); I didn't like the pictures I took. Then I thought about some water drops on some paper, mirror, plastic, etc inside my house. I tried several times and it seems my mind wasn't quite awake yet. I put some water drops with a spray bottle on some iridescent paper and click. But I didn't like them either. Nah! I wiped them off with my hand and these drops remained diagonally and well...cute... here they are. ๐
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I really appreciate it!
The hills are a bit dry. No significant rain in a year. It will snow soon, so the remaining flora will at least have moisture.
Visiting the ponds at the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center, on a hot & sunny day out east from Atlanta and nearer the coastal plain, was like moving ahead a month in time! Amberwings galore, Widow skimmers, Slaty skimmers and even a Prince baskettail were cruising by. We're closer to the mountains at home and our local wetlands are very slow bug-wise - but get more rare species. Summer species like pennants and forceptails had not started yet at Charlie Elliott.
This Widow skimmer just glistened in the sun. Surprisingly few butterflies.
This photo was taken on our last night in Maui. It is taken at a little park behind Front St. in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii. The image perfectly captures my mood... the reality of going home and yet caught up in the surreal beauty of this place. Aloha Maui... Maholo nui loa.
Met another Flickr photographer this evening.
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ยฉ Bob Cuthill Photography - All rights reserved
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