AH! SPRING!

Here we are again, a whole week into spring. It's still raining here in Northern California, today being no exception from the general rule of the last few weeks. I guess that one of these days we're going to wake up and find we're in the middle of summer, or, at least, warmer weather. We can only hope.

I slept late this morning since I wasn't feeling quite up to par. The extra rest seems to have cured me. Now I'm ready to go back out there with my camera when the weather clears.

Yesterday, when Dickie and I awoke, it looked like we were going to have a beautiful day, so I suggested we head for Bodega Bay and see if we could find some good photo opportunities. It turned out that the day wasn't all that great for picture-taking, being rather cloudy and overcast out at the beach, but I did get a shot or two that turned out fairly well despite the weather. As we were driving past a farm house near the coast, I spotted a young deer grazing in the front yard. This was the result:




As luck would have it, he wasn't alone. His mom and one of his siblings also turned up. Here he is with mom scampering away:



And here are all three about to disappear down the road and into the woods:


All I could find when we got to the Bay were the usual dozens of seagulls. Some were waiting for their dinner at the wharf and soaring back and forth overhead. Here's one that came fairly close:



And here's another that sat on a post not more than six or seven feet away from me, hoping for a handout:



On the way home, we noticed some egrets fishing in a flooded area just outside of Sebastopol. I stopped to take a picture and then discovered that, a little farther across the water, there was a great blue heron also fishing. I couldn't get close enough for a really good picture. This is a crop from a larger scene:




A few days ago on one of our morning walks, we came upon a pair of mallards swimming in a mud puddle at the edge of our local vineyard. This shy and beautiful lady posed for me:




The vineyard itself is a beautiful scene at the moment. The vines have not yet begun to leaf out, but the mustard plants between the rows are in full bloom. I managed to win a "Picture of the Day" at Azcolt (www.azcolt.com) the other week with a picture like this:




So much for now. See you soon.

MARCH RECORDS

As I said a few days back, our killdeers have returned to the local school grounds and, once again, are nesting on the rocks in front of the parking lot. As of today, there are three eggs in the nest. Since these birds usually have four eggs, I suspect we'll see another egg in a day or two. Here's what the nest looked like today:



Update:

I went back again today (March 9) and, sure enough, there were four eggs; so now the nest looks like this:

Notice that one of the earlier and larger eggs has been moved up (in the picture) and a smaller, not quite so speckled, egg is now nestled among the others.

It's really difficult to distinguish the killdeer eggs from the rocks around them. I've made it easier for you by cropping these shots and focussing on the eggs. As you walk by, you can look right at the nest and not see it, as I'm sure most passers by do. The nesting bird will get up and do its best to draw people away from the nest, often affecting a broken wing as it slowly moves away. Here's what that looks like in a shot I took last year:



OUR LOCAL HAWK

Every once in a while on our morning walks, we spot a hawk or two. This one flew past us a couple days ago. The image is a bit fuzzy since the hawk was moving fast and I'm not too steady with my telephoto lens, but this was one of the closest shots I've ever been able to get of him:



A FRIENDLY DUCK

I had no trouble getting close to this fellow at a local winery the other week. He was used to being fed by visitors and walked right up, as if to say, "Whatcha got for me?". Later, he stood in the water and waited for another handout as I snapped this picture:



THE INDIA TRIP

As I mentioned in my last blog, our daughter, Mary, and her husband, Christopher, just spent some time in India ( I guess they were checking things out for President Bush). Mary took my Olympus digital with her and snapped a few shots along the way. Here they are on the beach together at the Ideal Resort on the southeast coast of India:



I can't post all the pictures Mary took, but here's one of the much-revered elephant. This one was trained to bless visitors by tapping them with his trunk:



As you probably know, Ganesha is the elephant-deity of the Hindus. The son of Shiva and Parvati, he has an elephantine face with a curved trunk and large ears and a huge pot-bellied body of a human being. Ganesha is known as the Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. Here's a shot of him (center) that Mary got at a temple she visited:



So much for today. Have a good month, wherever you may be!