Happy Monday. I hope you had a great weekend. I believe all weekends are good. Some are just better than others. Yesterday I decided to take a drive out to the Dubuque Regional Airport to see if any of the war birds were in town. This is the time of year when they base in Dubuque to practice their formation flying in preparation for the big air show next week at Oshkosh.
So I got my camera and lens set up for what I anticipated would be proper configuration for the cloudy sky and then I decided to take my iPad along so I would have some entertainment while waiting for the planes. As I was walking out of the house into the garage, I turned to shut the door behind me, (something I have done almost every day for the last 21 years.)
Today however my foot slipped off the step and I fell backwards from the top step. I seem to happen in slow motion. I had the D4 with the 80 – 400 mm lens in my right hand and with my left hand I grasped at various things to stop my fall all to no avail. I crashed into my tool chest knocking it over and spilling everything and hit the concrete landing on my back. The only thing I thought about all the way down was protecting that camera. 🙂
I cut a small gash on my right wrist, nothing too serious and a bandage took care of that. My bottom was pretty sore and I was worried that I might have broken something but after a little walking around I determined I was okay. So I got in the car (after picking up all the tools) and drove out to the airport. Sad to say there were no war birds there. One small corporate jet took off and a couple of birds flying around was all the activity I could come up with for an afternoon shoot.
I do love the intensity of the Brewers Blackbird’s eyes. They look so serious and intense.
I finally decided to head for home (my bottom and my pride still a little sore.) When I got home Jeanne was back from sitting with the grand kids and she said oh my God what did you do? Come to find out the tool chest had not only cut my wrist it had also gouged my dearie. Tore a big gash out of my shorts and under garment and took a pretty healthy swipe at my bottom. With the blood and the tear, the shorts were history. A little Neosporen and a big bandage and I’m fine.
It just goes to show how in the blink of an eye things can change. I could have broken some bones, cracked my skull or worse smashed my beloved D4. Thank God none of that happened and other than a couple of scrapes and bruises I’m good to go.
The above image is a little Killdeer. They are pretty abundant around here. I love their little brown eyes.
That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful. You never know when you’re going to miss a step and hurt something.
Upde Designs 
I’m sorry to hear that your weekend got spoiled in an unexpected way but I’m glag to hear that you didn’t get hurt more seriously. It is nice to hear that you now can follow how the swans at the pond raise a couple cygnets. To my embarrassment I need to say that I haven’t been at the Mill Creek Ponds near Bellevue all summer long and I don’t know if the swans there had cygnets as well. I traveled almost every week, except the last one, and there seems to be not enough time to check out all the wildlife locations during just the weekends.
The bird you show here is a Common Grackle. The color can be similar but the larger beak and the longer tail help to identify it. There is a chance that we may find a Brewers Black Bird here at this time of the year but they are usually breeding a little further north and come through only during migration.
Kind regards,
Andreas
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