Taken the day after Christmas near Lake Sonoma.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Saturday, January 05, 2008
JANUARY 2008
ANOTHER RED-SHOULDERED HAWK
This New Year is starting out the way the old one ended with Dickie and me visiting our favorite wetlands area in Petaluma. We managed to get down there on January 3rd before the weather took a turn for the worse and all this rain started.
Sometimes you get lucky. On a day when nothing special seems in store, just the right situation develops and you get a shot that you weren’t expecting. That’s how I got the picture below. As Dickie and I were walking around the perimeter of the artificial lake area, a young woman approached us. She noticed my camera and mentioned that a hawk was sitting on one of the swallow boxes that we were headed toward. Alerted to its presence, we walked up more carefully so as not to frighten him off. He waited while I took a dozen or more shots of him, then flew off to the next box, so we followed and I took more pictures of him. All in all, I probably took 40 or fifty different shots to come up with this one that eventually won me a “Picture of the Day” on Azcolt (http://www.azcolt.com/january032008.asp) .
We had the added benefit of bumping into Bob Dyer, a veteran docent at the park, who informed us that this was apparently a young juvenile red-shoulder who seemed to be trying to take a nap. I later found that in quite a few of the shots I took, this hawk’s eyes were closed. Fortunately, there were also many like this one where his keen eyes were definitely focused on me:
The hawk was only one of many interesting birds that we saw that day. There was the mandatory turkey buzzard:
There were a flock of green-winged teal on the small pond in the adjacent meadow:
There was a kestrel in the meadow, too. He was so far away that I had no idea it was a kestrel until I got home and put the enlarged picture up on my computer screen. I had taken for granted that he was the same red-shoulder that we had seen earlier. Kestrels are a prettier bird in my opinion. I love their markings:
Of course, there were coots. This particular wetlands area is almost always full of them. They’re fairly tame and don’t usually scatter like most other birds when you get close to them. Coots aren’t very pretty in my estimation, except that they have a rather neat red eye. These birds were feeding just next to where we parked our car:
At one point I heard a sweet sounding bird. Then I saw it. It was this song sparrow. He was relatively close to me and before he flew away I managed to get this shot of him which turned out well, I thought:
A few minutes later a flock of Canadian geese arrived. As they zoomed over me, I picked off these three:
There is a small canal bordering the wetlands area. The canal is a feeding place and a nesting area for many different birds. I didn’t know what this bird was until I asked some birders who were also interested in him and his mate. They informed me that it was a pied-bill grebe. My Audubon guide book appears to confirm that, so I’m taking their word for it:
Still walking along the canal, I spotted this bird soaring overhead. I think it’s a northern harrier. They’re famous for their owl-like face:
Back on the lake side, there were a couple of wild swans mingling with some coots. This swan gave me the best pose:
There were a number of other birds around. One of the flashiest was this stilt. I love their coloring:
AND NOW IT’S RAINING!
The winter rains have arrived with a vengeance here in Northern California. Heavy winds have made for considerable difficulty. In fact, the wind broke down a wooden fence on the west side of our house today. It’s still raining as I write this. This was the scene out the front door of our house this morning. You can see the water running down the street:
What you might not notice is that our Julia Child yellow rose is drowning in the water. Here’s what it looks like up closer:
This New Year is starting out the way the old one ended with Dickie and me visiting our favorite wetlands area in Petaluma. We managed to get down there on January 3rd before the weather took a turn for the worse and all this rain started.
Sometimes you get lucky. On a day when nothing special seems in store, just the right situation develops and you get a shot that you weren’t expecting. That’s how I got the picture below. As Dickie and I were walking around the perimeter of the artificial lake area, a young woman approached us. She noticed my camera and mentioned that a hawk was sitting on one of the swallow boxes that we were headed toward. Alerted to its presence, we walked up more carefully so as not to frighten him off. He waited while I took a dozen or more shots of him, then flew off to the next box, so we followed and I took more pictures of him. All in all, I probably took 40 or fifty different shots to come up with this one that eventually won me a “Picture of the Day” on Azcolt (http://www.azcolt.com/january032008.asp) .
We had the added benefit of bumping into Bob Dyer, a veteran docent at the park, who informed us that this was apparently a young juvenile red-shoulder who seemed to be trying to take a nap. I later found that in quite a few of the shots I took, this hawk’s eyes were closed. Fortunately, there were also many like this one where his keen eyes were definitely focused on me:
The hawk was only one of many interesting birds that we saw that day. There was the mandatory turkey buzzard:
There were a flock of green-winged teal on the small pond in the adjacent meadow:
There was a kestrel in the meadow, too. He was so far away that I had no idea it was a kestrel until I got home and put the enlarged picture up on my computer screen. I had taken for granted that he was the same red-shoulder that we had seen earlier. Kestrels are a prettier bird in my opinion. I love their markings:
Of course, there were coots. This particular wetlands area is almost always full of them. They’re fairly tame and don’t usually scatter like most other birds when you get close to them. Coots aren’t very pretty in my estimation, except that they have a rather neat red eye. These birds were feeding just next to where we parked our car:
At one point I heard a sweet sounding bird. Then I saw it. It was this song sparrow. He was relatively close to me and before he flew away I managed to get this shot of him which turned out well, I thought:
A few minutes later a flock of Canadian geese arrived. As they zoomed over me, I picked off these three:
There is a small canal bordering the wetlands area. The canal is a feeding place and a nesting area for many different birds. I didn’t know what this bird was until I asked some birders who were also interested in him and his mate. They informed me that it was a pied-bill grebe. My Audubon guide book appears to confirm that, so I’m taking their word for it:
Still walking along the canal, I spotted this bird soaring overhead. I think it’s a northern harrier. They’re famous for their owl-like face:
Back on the lake side, there were a couple of wild swans mingling with some coots. This swan gave me the best pose:
There were a number of other birds around. One of the flashiest was this stilt. I love their coloring:
AND NOW IT’S RAINING!
The winter rains have arrived with a vengeance here in Northern California. Heavy winds have made for considerable difficulty. In fact, the wind broke down a wooden fence on the west side of our house today. It’s still raining as I write this. This was the scene out the front door of our house this morning. You can see the water running down the street:
What you might not notice is that our Julia Child yellow rose is drowning in the water. Here’s what it looks like up closer:
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
DECEMBER 2007
MAGIC!
Computers can be so frustrating. Just now when I wanted to scan a picture, my computer told me that the scanner wasn’t connected, although it clearly was. It also told me that, if I was using a SCSI connection, I should restart my computer. That often solves problems and seemed to be a good idea, under the circumstances (even though I’m not using a SCSI connection), so I did a restart and, lo and behold, the scanner was connected again as far as my computer was concerned. I could just see that little old elf in my computer racing around at the speed of light, flipping switches here and there, working his magic until everything was in order again. So, do I know what the problem was? Not really! That little old elf never tells me.
The picture I was trying to scan was one a friend of mine, Carol Stohs, sent to Dickie and me a few weeks back. It was one she had done a little magic of her own on. I imagine you can tell what it was. Dickie had said something to the effect that she wished she were taller, so Carol (the one on the left) granted her wish.
I imagine you have some wishes you’d like to see come true this Christmas. May it be so!
STILL BIRD-WATCHING
The weather hasn’t been exactly right for indulging my hobby lately. Cloudy days are not great for my kind of photography, but I did manage to get another shot or two of an acorn woodpecker storing acorns away for harder times. Perhaps you’ve never seen their work. The acorn woodpecker is strictly a western and tropical phenomenon. What they do is clear from the picture below. What you don’t see in the picture is how they do this to the whole upper portion of the power pole. Notice that this guy is just beginning to hammer the acorn in tight, so tight that a squirrel will not be able to get it out. This is food only for another woodpecker.
CLOUDS OF STARLINGS
Migrating birds have been coming through our part of the world lately. Most recently it has been huge flocks of robins that seem to find something to eat in our empty vineyards. There are literally hundreds of them together. About a week ago Dickie and I noticed huge flocks of starlings that, seen from a distance, looked like black clouds expanding and contracting. This is a sight people all across the United States can see, if they watch for it at the right times, since starlings are now found across the length and breadth of our country and Canada. That’s interesting in the light of the fact that there were no starlings in North America until 1890 when about 60 of them were released in New York’s Central Park by a group of people who wanted to introduce all the birds mentioned by William Shakespeare in his plays. The picture below is of one of these clouds of migrating birds. The whole cloud was about five or six times this many.
MR. JACK RABBIT
Occasionally, when Dickie and I take our morning walk near a local vineyard we scare up a jack rabbit or two. This is one of four that we spotted the other day. I think he was sure that, if he didn’t move, we wouldn’t notice him.
BACK TO SHOLLENBERGER
We still make regular visits to Shollenberger Park in Petaluma. It’s a great place to find water fowl. One of the most beautiful birds is the egret. His grace in flight is almost unmatched, in my humble opinion. Here’s one that I captured on our last visit.
As I write this, we’re still a few days away from Christmas so let me take this opportunity to wish you a happy holiday season and a great New Year!
Computers can be so frustrating. Just now when I wanted to scan a picture, my computer told me that the scanner wasn’t connected, although it clearly was. It also told me that, if I was using a SCSI connection, I should restart my computer. That often solves problems and seemed to be a good idea, under the circumstances (even though I’m not using a SCSI connection), so I did a restart and, lo and behold, the scanner was connected again as far as my computer was concerned. I could just see that little old elf in my computer racing around at the speed of light, flipping switches here and there, working his magic until everything was in order again. So, do I know what the problem was? Not really! That little old elf never tells me.
The picture I was trying to scan was one a friend of mine, Carol Stohs, sent to Dickie and me a few weeks back. It was one she had done a little magic of her own on. I imagine you can tell what it was. Dickie had said something to the effect that she wished she were taller, so Carol (the one on the left) granted her wish.
I imagine you have some wishes you’d like to see come true this Christmas. May it be so!
STILL BIRD-WATCHING
The weather hasn’t been exactly right for indulging my hobby lately. Cloudy days are not great for my kind of photography, but I did manage to get another shot or two of an acorn woodpecker storing acorns away for harder times. Perhaps you’ve never seen their work. The acorn woodpecker is strictly a western and tropical phenomenon. What they do is clear from the picture below. What you don’t see in the picture is how they do this to the whole upper portion of the power pole. Notice that this guy is just beginning to hammer the acorn in tight, so tight that a squirrel will not be able to get it out. This is food only for another woodpecker.
CLOUDS OF STARLINGS
Migrating birds have been coming through our part of the world lately. Most recently it has been huge flocks of robins that seem to find something to eat in our empty vineyards. There are literally hundreds of them together. About a week ago Dickie and I noticed huge flocks of starlings that, seen from a distance, looked like black clouds expanding and contracting. This is a sight people all across the United States can see, if they watch for it at the right times, since starlings are now found across the length and breadth of our country and Canada. That’s interesting in the light of the fact that there were no starlings in North America until 1890 when about 60 of them were released in New York’s Central Park by a group of people who wanted to introduce all the birds mentioned by William Shakespeare in his plays. The picture below is of one of these clouds of migrating birds. The whole cloud was about five or six times this many.
MR. JACK RABBIT
Occasionally, when Dickie and I take our morning walk near a local vineyard we scare up a jack rabbit or two. This is one of four that we spotted the other day. I think he was sure that, if he didn’t move, we wouldn’t notice him.
BACK TO SHOLLENBERGER
We still make regular visits to Shollenberger Park in Petaluma. It’s a great place to find water fowl. One of the most beautiful birds is the egret. His grace in flight is almost unmatched, in my humble opinion. Here’s one that I captured on our last visit.
As I write this, we’re still a few days away from Christmas so let me take this opportunity to wish you a happy holiday season and a great New Year!
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Egret
Dickie and I stopped by Shollenberger Park in Petaluma yesterday. It was cloudy and not a great day for photography, but I liked this shot.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
OCTOBER
I have to tell you about our recent trip to the mid-West. Dickie and I spent two weeks visiting with our relatives and friends in Illinois and Missouri. We had never taken the California Zephyr (Amtrak train) prior to this trip. It was an interesting ride on the way out through the Sierras and the Rockies, some desert and lots of corn fields before we arrived in Chicago. We stopped in Ottumwa, Iowa, long enough for me to get these shots of the engine and Dickie in our sleeper car.
We saw all kinds of beautiful sights, rugged mountains and swiftly flowing rivers as we approached the Rockies, not to mention a beautiful sunset as we came down into Denver.
The trip by train took 55 hours from Oakland to Chicago, a little longer than the return trip on Southwest Airlines, even though the plane stopped in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Ontario Airport in the LA area before our woman pilot finally set it down in Oakland eight hours later.
Our visit in Chicago enabled us to attend the 70th birthday celebration for my brother, Joel. His wife, Mary, secretly went about planning a huge bash with 65 guests and an oompah band. Other than that the secrecy almost caused a divorce and the party noise resulted in a visit from the local gendarmes, it was a huge success. Here's the shocked and bewildered birthday boy (in the feathered hat) as he arrived home from a round of golf to find a cheering crowd of well-wishers:
Since Joel and Mary were headed for China and a visit with their son, Paul, and his wife, YingYing, shortly after the birthday bash, Dickie and I spent most of our time in the Chicago area with my brother, Ralph, and his wife, Ilse, who live in Arlington Heights. Here's Ralph, who picked us up from the train station, unloading our suitcases from his van:
After some debate, Dickie and I decided to take the bus from Chicago to St. Louis (not the best decision we ever made, but we did survive). Dickie's sister, Mary, and her husband, Richard, picked us up from the Greyhound bus station in St. Louis and we spent the next four days with them in Belleville. Richard was also celebrating a birthday, his 81st, so we got in on another family birthday-gathering at his son, Rick's. Here are Richard and Mary in their own backyard:
We spent the last day of our visit to the mid-West in St. Louis, enjoying the hospitality of our friends, Milton and Carol Stohs, who took us to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden. That's where I took these shots with my little Olympus C750:
We're back in Windsor now, enjoying our morning walks and watching the baseball playoffs. I'm still carrying a camera most of the time. Caught this flicker trying to hide from us the other morning:
Thanks for looking. See you next time.
We saw all kinds of beautiful sights, rugged mountains and swiftly flowing rivers as we approached the Rockies, not to mention a beautiful sunset as we came down into Denver.
The trip by train took 55 hours from Oakland to Chicago, a little longer than the return trip on Southwest Airlines, even though the plane stopped in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Ontario Airport in the LA area before our woman pilot finally set it down in Oakland eight hours later.
Our visit in Chicago enabled us to attend the 70th birthday celebration for my brother, Joel. His wife, Mary, secretly went about planning a huge bash with 65 guests and an oompah band. Other than that the secrecy almost caused a divorce and the party noise resulted in a visit from the local gendarmes, it was a huge success. Here's the shocked and bewildered birthday boy (in the feathered hat) as he arrived home from a round of golf to find a cheering crowd of well-wishers:
Since Joel and Mary were headed for China and a visit with their son, Paul, and his wife, YingYing, shortly after the birthday bash, Dickie and I spent most of our time in the Chicago area with my brother, Ralph, and his wife, Ilse, who live in Arlington Heights. Here's Ralph, who picked us up from the train station, unloading our suitcases from his van:
After some debate, Dickie and I decided to take the bus from Chicago to St. Louis (not the best decision we ever made, but we did survive). Dickie's sister, Mary, and her husband, Richard, picked us up from the Greyhound bus station in St. Louis and we spent the next four days with them in Belleville. Richard was also celebrating a birthday, his 81st, so we got in on another family birthday-gathering at his son, Rick's. Here are Richard and Mary in their own backyard:
We spent the last day of our visit to the mid-West in St. Louis, enjoying the hospitality of our friends, Milton and Carol Stohs, who took us to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden. That's where I took these shots with my little Olympus C750:
We're back in Windsor now, enjoying our morning walks and watching the baseball playoffs. I'm still carrying a camera most of the time. Caught this flicker trying to hide from us the other morning:
Thanks for looking. See you next time.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
SEPTEMBER ACTIVITY
Dickie and I made a trip to the ocean a week or so ago, hoping to get some bird pictures. It was a cloudy day, so the bird pictures didn't turn out all that well; but I did get a nice shot of a Yorkshire terrier that was taking his owner for a walk on the beach. He was such a cute little guy that I asked the lady who was walking with him if I could take his picture. She was delighted and the four month-old puppy was very cooperative. His name was "Boomer". Here was the result:
Dickie thought the picture was good enough to send to Bestfoto for the picture of the day, so I did send it and, lo and behold, it won. You can see it in a larger version at this address:
http://www.bestfoto.com/Archives/POTDdisplay.asp?PIC=091107A%2Ejpg
The cloudy day made it difficult for me to get any good bird shots with my largest lens. The pelicans were generally too high in the sky or too far away, but I did catch this hawk along the beach front road. I had to work on it a bit with photoshop to make it acceptable. Here is the result:
Dickie thought the picture was good enough to send to Bestfoto for the picture of the day, so I did send it and, lo and behold, it won. You can see it in a larger version at this address:
http://www.bestfoto.com/Archives/POTDdisplay.asp?PIC=091107A%2Ejpg
The cloudy day made it difficult for me to get any good bird shots with my largest lens. The pelicans were generally too high in the sky or too far away, but I did catch this hawk along the beach front road. I had to work on it a bit with photoshop to make it acceptable. Here is the result:
Monday, August 27, 2007
Geese
I actually took this photo last February when Dickie and I were visiting Shollenberger Park in Petaluma. I'm not sure which direction these geese were headed, but they made a fine group.zampi
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Off We Go!
We had an air show here in Windsor last weekend. There were all kinds of planes and demonstrations. This plane flew right over the road on which I was standing, so I got a good close-up. You had to be quick on the trigger.
Here's another plane that flew in the show. I think it was the U-2, but I never saw the program and I'm a dunce when it comes to identifying planes, so I'm ready to be corrected.
This guy was also at the show this year. Last year it was a wing walker. This year the hang glider was featured.
Here was another part of the show, a helicopter transporting firefighters to the scene of the fire. There are six of them hanging from the copter. They dropped them and picked them up again, - quickly, too.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Full Moon
OK! I've neglected this blog long enough. Don't know how much I'll be doing in the future, but Flickr has spurred me on. That's where the picture above comes from. If you want to see more of my photos in Flickr, all you have to do is click on "Full Moon" (just below the picture). You'll have to be a member of Flickr, but it's free, so help yourself.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
APRIL SHOWERS, DON'T WE WISH!
Whoa! How did all the time go by so fast! We’re already heading toward the end of April. I can hardly believe it. When you get to be my age, you don’t dare blink anymore or you’ll miss a week or two.
Of course, some weeks here lately would have been better off missed. The horrible shootings at Virginia Tech and the recent bombings in Baghdad being prime examples of things we could all wish had never happened. The world is an ugly place at times. Hopefully, one of the good things that can come of this sadness is that, at least, some us will redouble our efforts to do good and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
I’m sure you’ll be happy to learn that I finally finished Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton, LOL. As I said earlier, it’s a great book and I recommend it. Hamilton was certainly a genius. He had his own personal faults, but he was one of the great people who helped to set this country on a good foundation.
I’ve decided to go back a bit farther in time with my reading now. I’m working through some of Plato’s writings at the moment. I’ve read some of the ancients in earlier times, but it’s fun to get a fresh taste of them at this point in life. Who knows? They may still be able to teach me something before it’s too late.
What other diversions are sprinkled through my life, you ask? Well, my wife gave me an early birthday present – a subscription to Major League Baseball’s games on TV so I can watch my favorite team, the Cardinals, through the rest of the season. I expect to devote a good share of time to watching their ups and downs. Unfortunately, so far I’ve seen them lose more than they’ve won. Ah, but good baseball fans never give up. We didn’t last year and look what it got us – a World Series victory!
Something else that added some spice to my life recently was becoming the victim of a credit card scam. Some conscienceless person managed to charge a couple notebook computers to my card. Unfortunately, for him or her a detective was waiting when they delivered the packages to an Ohio address. I’m not sure that my quick alert to the credit card company and a call to the company that sold the computer was the sole reason for that happening, but I like to think it might be.
Another of Dickie and my evening entertainments is working through the old “Upstairs, Downstairs” series on Netflix dvd’s. We didn’t have TV back in the days when the series was first run, so we’re catching up, so to speak. The worst thing about it is that our hearing is deteriorating and we sometimes find it difficult to understand those English accents.
And, yes, I’m still taking pictures. Here’s a bee I found pollinating some lavender the other day. It’s good to see some bees around. From the reports of their mass elimination, I was afraid they might not show up around here this year:
We still take our daily walks, camera in tow. That’s how I captured this mourning dove on film the other day. He was high enough that he didn’t flinch when I pointed the lens at him:
Lately, when we walk by the horse corral a few blocks away, we’ve been seeing a small covey of quail that appear to be using a blackberry patch as a nesting place. Here are three of them that posed for me. If you don’t know, the males are the ones with the dark brown rings around their necks. Females are the plainer sort, like the one in the middle of the picture below. Both male and female Calfornia quails sport a plume on the top of their heads:
Enough for now!
Of course, some weeks here lately would have been better off missed. The horrible shootings at Virginia Tech and the recent bombings in Baghdad being prime examples of things we could all wish had never happened. The world is an ugly place at times. Hopefully, one of the good things that can come of this sadness is that, at least, some us will redouble our efforts to do good and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
I’m sure you’ll be happy to learn that I finally finished Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton, LOL. As I said earlier, it’s a great book and I recommend it. Hamilton was certainly a genius. He had his own personal faults, but he was one of the great people who helped to set this country on a good foundation.
I’ve decided to go back a bit farther in time with my reading now. I’m working through some of Plato’s writings at the moment. I’ve read some of the ancients in earlier times, but it’s fun to get a fresh taste of them at this point in life. Who knows? They may still be able to teach me something before it’s too late.
What other diversions are sprinkled through my life, you ask? Well, my wife gave me an early birthday present – a subscription to Major League Baseball’s games on TV so I can watch my favorite team, the Cardinals, through the rest of the season. I expect to devote a good share of time to watching their ups and downs. Unfortunately, so far I’ve seen them lose more than they’ve won. Ah, but good baseball fans never give up. We didn’t last year and look what it got us – a World Series victory!
Something else that added some spice to my life recently was becoming the victim of a credit card scam. Some conscienceless person managed to charge a couple notebook computers to my card. Unfortunately, for him or her a detective was waiting when they delivered the packages to an Ohio address. I’m not sure that my quick alert to the credit card company and a call to the company that sold the computer was the sole reason for that happening, but I like to think it might be.
Another of Dickie and my evening entertainments is working through the old “Upstairs, Downstairs” series on Netflix dvd’s. We didn’t have TV back in the days when the series was first run, so we’re catching up, so to speak. The worst thing about it is that our hearing is deteriorating and we sometimes find it difficult to understand those English accents.
And, yes, I’m still taking pictures. Here’s a bee I found pollinating some lavender the other day. It’s good to see some bees around. From the reports of their mass elimination, I was afraid they might not show up around here this year:
We still take our daily walks, camera in tow. That’s how I captured this mourning dove on film the other day. He was high enough that he didn’t flinch when I pointed the lens at him:
Lately, when we walk by the horse corral a few blocks away, we’ve been seeing a small covey of quail that appear to be using a blackberry patch as a nesting place. Here are three of them that posed for me. If you don’t know, the males are the ones with the dark brown rings around their necks. Females are the plainer sort, like the one in the middle of the picture below. Both male and female Calfornia quails sport a plume on the top of their heads:
Enough for now!
Thursday, March 15, 2007
THE IDES OF MARCH
A little over 2050 years ago today Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of Roman senators who regarded themselves, not as murderers, but as “liberators”. Since then, emphasized by William Shakespeare, this “Ides of March” day has always had something of an ominous feeling for many people. Fortunately, here in Sonoma County, California, today the sun is shining brightly and you wouldn’t know from looking around that there was anything wrong in the world. Would that it were so! I hope your own personal world has a good deal of joy and a minimum of foreboding.
Out to the Ocean
As you may know from earlier sessions with this blog, when Dickie and I want to refresh our spirits we make a trip to Bodega Bay or, lately down to Shollenberger Park in Petaluma to enjoy the scenery and the wildlife. We were out at Bodega Bay again last week when I caught this goshawk hunting for his lunch:
I was actually stalking a large egret at the time. I had spotted the egret doing some hunting of his own on the hillside east of the parking lot, so I walked up to get the shot below when the goshawk flew up and headed straight for me. He had almost passed by me before I managed to get some degree of focus on him. The egret, on the other hand, kept a wary eye on me but allowed me to get fairly close so that focusing wasn’t much of a problem:
Dickie and I always take a backroad out to the bay. It’s so much more fun than driving out the main highway. Occasionally, we are rewarded with the sight of some wild turkeys, a deer or two, or some bird of prey. This time it was a red-tailed hawk sitting on a power pole. I was close enough that, with my 400mm lens, I could come up with this result:
I don’t always find my birds in distant places. The other morning Dickie and I were walking along a road that runs along a vineyard on the edge of our subdivision. That’s where this robin posed for me with the mustard plants in the background. Although the plants are out of focus, they make a nice background for the robin, don’t you think?:
When I’m not out there taking pictures, I’m usually at the computer fooling with those same pictures. Oh, yes, sometimes I read, too. Right now I’m enjoying Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton. He’s one of the central figures of the Revolutionary War that I’d never studied too closely. Chernow’s book is exhilarating. It’s a 700 page tome that makes Hamilton come alive. I highly recommend it, and I’ve only read about a third of it.
When Dickie’s not out there with me doing her “sherpa duty”, as she’s wont to call it, she’s usually doing some kind of sewing. Here’s her latest quilt creation, not quite finished, but I think you can see it’s another great piece of work, What you might not notice is that she was standing in back of it holding it up when I took this picture:
Last month Dickie finished putting together the quilt below for our daughter, Gretchen. She decided not to do the quilting herself but took it in to a quilt shop to have it “machine” quilted. I think it turned out very well, don’t you?:
That’s it for now!
Out to the Ocean
As you may know from earlier sessions with this blog, when Dickie and I want to refresh our spirits we make a trip to Bodega Bay or, lately down to Shollenberger Park in Petaluma to enjoy the scenery and the wildlife. We were out at Bodega Bay again last week when I caught this goshawk hunting for his lunch:
I was actually stalking a large egret at the time. I had spotted the egret doing some hunting of his own on the hillside east of the parking lot, so I walked up to get the shot below when the goshawk flew up and headed straight for me. He had almost passed by me before I managed to get some degree of focus on him. The egret, on the other hand, kept a wary eye on me but allowed me to get fairly close so that focusing wasn’t much of a problem:
Dickie and I always take a backroad out to the bay. It’s so much more fun than driving out the main highway. Occasionally, we are rewarded with the sight of some wild turkeys, a deer or two, or some bird of prey. This time it was a red-tailed hawk sitting on a power pole. I was close enough that, with my 400mm lens, I could come up with this result:
I don’t always find my birds in distant places. The other morning Dickie and I were walking along a road that runs along a vineyard on the edge of our subdivision. That’s where this robin posed for me with the mustard plants in the background. Although the plants are out of focus, they make a nice background for the robin, don’t you think?:
When I’m not out there taking pictures, I’m usually at the computer fooling with those same pictures. Oh, yes, sometimes I read, too. Right now I’m enjoying Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton. He’s one of the central figures of the Revolutionary War that I’d never studied too closely. Chernow’s book is exhilarating. It’s a 700 page tome that makes Hamilton come alive. I highly recommend it, and I’ve only read about a third of it.
When Dickie’s not out there with me doing her “sherpa duty”, as she’s wont to call it, she’s usually doing some kind of sewing. Here’s her latest quilt creation, not quite finished, but I think you can see it’s another great piece of work, What you might not notice is that she was standing in back of it holding it up when I took this picture:
Last month Dickie finished putting together the quilt below for our daughter, Gretchen. She decided not to do the quilting herself but took it in to a quilt shop to have it “machine” quilted. I think it turned out very well, don’t you?:
That’s it for now!
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