Happy Sunday!
More importantly Happy Birthday to my beautiful daughter Angie, who has brought me nothing but happiness for 32 years.
I love you so much Angie.
Happy Friday!
I have five images for you today and a sad story. At least it’s a sad story from my viewpoint.
You have seen these images before if you have followed my blog for any time.
I have photographed this wonderful tree over a hundred times in the last seven years of this blog.
Most of the time, when I see an interesting sky, I will seek out the tree to make it the center point of the sky and make an image.
That is what I intended to do last night.
When I came upon the spot where the wonderful tree has been for who knows how long and this is what I found! 😦
I know it’s just a tree but I was not prepared for it not being there. A reminder that nothing lasts forever and enjoy what you can while you can.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Thursday!
Only one image for today. Busy work week and I haven’t had the opportunity to make any images. I photographed this barged “parked” waiting for the lock & dam to open. The barge captain will push their barge against selected areas of the shore above or below the dam depending on their direction travel to wait for the lock to clear and their turn.
They keep their engines running and pushing against the current to maintain their position. Fascinating process to watch.
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Tuesday!
I have three images for you today.
Over the last few days I have noticed increasing amounts of dead grass and twigs strewn about the patio. On Saturday I observed a Robin bringing some more “stuff” to the patio and realized that she was in the process of building a nest near my grill in the lattice-work of the trellis.
Knowing I didn’t want bird poop all over the patio and grill I brushed away the few strands of straw and grass to discourage her from continuing the process. I hadn’t seen anymore debris over the weekend. Then yesterday around 11:00 a.m. I happen to look out the patio door and saw an almost completely built nest. Well actually it was just a large clump of grass and twigs and wasn’t really organized into a proper nest yet. There was grass everywhere as a lot of the stuff she brought to the trellis blew onto the patio furniture.
So I opened the door just enough that I could get a lens through the opening and waited for her to come back. After waiting for 15 or more minutes she appeared with the large clump of material in her beak. I ripped off a dozen or more shots and that was enough to scare her away. 20 minutes later she came back and the same thing happened. Apparently twice was enough as she didn’t return the rest of the day. I cleaned up her mess in the evening and hopefully she will find a more suitable place to build her nest. 🙂
Remember you can click on the image to reveal a larger more detailed image.
While I was waiting for Ms. Robin I captured this image of a common house finch at the watering bath.
That’s it for today. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Monday!
I hope you had a wonderful Easter celebration. Today I have three images for you and they are all about family. We started off with early church and then went to Angie and Ben’s home for Easter Brunch. Lot’s of visiting and playing and then just before the brunch Angie invited us all to the back deck for an announcement.
She gave each of the children two balloons. Josh got two blue, Gabby two pink, and Austin two yellow (the yellow plays not part in the story.) 🙂
Josh and Gabby were told to release the balloon that did not bare the gender of the unborn baby that Angie is carrying.
Now I had a feeling for the longest time what the baby’s gender was going to be and so I really focused on Josh and sure enough he let go of his balloons right away. Gabby dutifully held on to her pink balloons, (YEA) and Austin wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do so he just smiled.
So now they will have two boys and two girls. I feel so blessed and I am so happy for them.
Mark and Julia were able to join us for the brunch and celebration. Then it was nap time for Grandpa. 🙂
Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Sunday and Happy Easter!
I have three images for you today of common critters we see on a regular basis. Then why show them? Cause I got nothing else. 🙂
I spent the better part of the day yesterday in the yard. Looks better but there was so much more I could have and should have done, but I was tired of it.
Enjoy this day of celebration, as for Christians, it is the promise of salvation and life everlasting.
Happy Saturday!
I have three images for you today that are leftovers from earlier shoots. The one above was taken April 3rd and I think it is a Gold Finch although it looks a little different than the finches that stop by our feeders. I’m not very good at identifying birds, I like to photograph them but not big on doing the research of what they are. 🙂
This Red-tailed Hawk was sitting on a pole when I drove past him. I stopped up the road and got the camera set up, did a U-turn and came back slowly. I was surprised and delighted that he posed for me (tolerated me) for several shots before becoming annoyed and flying off.
This is not a very good image. But it is the first image I have ever made of a young owlet. My friend Andreas has followed this mother owl for several years and has gotten many great shots of her and her offspring. It was a very windy day when Jeanne and I stopped by the park and I only had my 300 mm lens so this image is heavily cropped and pretty grainy. However you can tell it is a young owlet. 🙂
Yard work for me the rest of the day.
That’s it for today. Enjoy your day and I hope you have a happy Easter.
Happy Friday!
I have three images for you today that I captured last evening on the way home. On the way to work yesterday, as I came by the “Duck Pond” I saw a large clump of white birds sitting on one of the islands. At first I thought they were swans but as I got closer I could see that it was a large gathering of Pelicans. They covered most of the small island. For once I wasn’t late but if I had stopped and set up for the shot I would have been so I just kept going.
The thing that bothered me was that there had been three separate pairs of geese nesting on the island. I knew that their nests were probably destroyed and that their young were never hatch. The six geese were swimming around the island “honking” but there was little they could do against superior numbers and larger birds.
I had been in Des Moines for training on Tuesday and Wednesday so by the time I got caught up on my work it was much later and I couldn’t really tell what damage had been done to the nests. This lone pelican was all that was left of the group. There were no geese on the island.
I saw this wonderful sunset on the way home last night. It would have been nice to have a large body of water in the foreground or something spectacular. Unfortunately that was not to be so I just photographed the big red ball. 🙂
I couldn’t get the same angle on this goose to line up with the reflection of the setting sun like on the pelican. I just enjoy photographing geese no matter.
That’s it for today. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Happy Monday!
Wow, I have never gone this long without posting a blog since I started the blog in 2010. Thank you to my friends that sent messages of concern. The only thing I’ve suffered from is a creative block.
I have three images for you today. Jeanne and I drove up to Mud Lake Park yesterday as there is an owl’s nest and mother owl has given birth to a young one. My friend Andreas had been posting some images of Mother and baby on his blog so we went to Mud Lake in hopes of seeing them. I’ll post the results of our encounter tomorrow. 🙂
On the way out of Mud Lake Park I saw this huge pile of railroad spikes and couplers. I told Jeanne those are the kinds of objects that Bill Fortney likes to photograph. He taught class on looking for and photographing groups of similar objects. I’ll bet he didn’t think I was paying attention.
We started our journey at the river and was pleased to see a large barge in the lock through process. We watched for awhile but it was obviously going to take a lot longer than I wanted to stay for. 🙂
That’s it for today. I will have more tomorrow including some wildlife images.
Sorry for the long dry spell. Enjoy your day and be careful.