Showcasing the beauty of Mother Nature
I missed last week’s photo challenge, but when I saw it, I couldn’t resist posting a photo of one of my favourite birds, the lovely lilac breasted roller.
It was quite an exciting week for photos this week! Given the continued icy conditions on my road, I’ve been driving a short distance away to one of the main roads to walk Spencer. Tuesday morning, there were a huge group of ravens and magpies surrounding a ravine, so I stopped the car to see what had happened. During the night, the local coyote pack took down a deer, and the birds were tucking into the leftovers (evening at 9am, maybe only 1/4 of the deer remained.
We set off again at lunch for another walk, and this time the ravens and magpies were absent; while walking I figured out why – a beautiful bald eagle was watching over the area. I grabbed a few shots and he or she flew off through the field, and I carried on with my walk. On the drive home, I spotted the eagle again and grabbed a few more shots through the open window of the car, before realizing that there were two eagles in the area. I followed one to the end of the cul de sac, and was lucky enough to be able to get a few more shots in before it was time to get home and get back to work.
Fingers crossed this coming week brings more wonderful photo opportunities.
Have a great week!
I wanted to do something a bit different for this monochrome Monday, so I edited this photo in a very stylized manner, hoping to be reminiscent of a painting.
Let me know what you think.
Happy Monday!
Prince George, BC, January 2016
I’ve modified the title a bit this week, since I’ll be honest, I’ve really not been out with my camera very much, and the few photos I do have, I think would be better for tomorrow’s Monochrome Monday post.
So instead, I thought I would share a sample of a project I worked on in November and December for a Christmas gift – a custom colouring book. It was a really fun project to do, and was very popular with the recipient as well.
I’ve included a few pages as a PDF available to download, if you are interested in printing them out and having a relaxing time with some coloured pencils. It’s my first attempt at making a PDF available for download, so fingers crossed I’ve done it right (It should be an easy control click or right click and select download linked file).
That’s all for today, I hope you enjoy, and have a lovely evening.
Jen Sawicky Colouring Book Sample
Earlier this week, I was getting concerned that I would end up with another weekly post dedicated to deer and bird, birds and deer; so I headed out in the yard with my macro lens to play around a bit and see if I could come across anything interesting. Also, it was simply a gorgeous, brilliant blue sky day, and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend fifteen minutes while taking a lunch break from my work. I also got out that evening for a few night sky shots.
Don’t worry though, most of the photos are still deer and birds!
I hope you enjoy my selections for the week. Have a great day!
Last week it was all about the birds, this week, it was pretty much all about the deer. They stopped by singly, in pairs and in a group of four, and were around every other day, if not more. The one day I didn’t take my camera out on my afternoon walk, I spotted the great grey owl again. I got a snapshot with my phone, but as it was getting dark, I didn’t head back out with the camera and try to capture some better photos. I spoke with one of my friends in the neighbourhood, and she said that the owl has been spotted in her yard a couple times, and I am quite certain I caught a brief glimpse of him or her as she flew into the bush last week. Fingers crossed I’ll get to spend more time with the owl in the future.
I picked up some additional editing software during black Friday sales, and have finally had the opportunity to play around with some of it. Hence all the photos look completely different this week, as I wanted to see what different filters and treatments did.
I think that’s about all, so onto the picture.
Wishing everyone a wonderful week.
I felt like doing bit of editing this evening, and decided to work on some bird photos that wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to take flight.
Enjoy!
This week, all the photos were taken in my backyard, watching the birds. The pine grosbeaks have discovered the bird feeder, and a flock of them now frequent the area; today I got distracted by the group fluttering around and lost count after 12. I think here were around 16 or more individuals at one point. It’s wonderful to have them close and listen to them calling to one another.
We’ve had some significant snow yesterday and today, and I’m late getting on with editing and posting as I was busy using the snow blower on the driveway and shovelling out a new pathway to the feeders.
Some of the photos were taken out the window from the basement, giving a unique angle to the feeder… I’ve had to shovel out in front of the windows to be able to see the birds on the ground!
That’s enough chatter for this evening, I hope you enjoy seeing some of the lovely birds that have visited this week (the deer have been around too, but always after dark so no photos of them this week).
The pine grosbeaks have been around in force since they discovered the feeders:
The hairy woodpecker stopped by for some seed as investigating the trees.
The flickers have been visiting regularly, though are usually quite skittish and fly away if anyone is outside.
The grey jays have been around frequently as well. They are usually quite skittish but I was outside taking photos of the grosbeaks Saturday and one of the jays stopped in for a snack; previously they would fly away if they saw someone move too quickly at the window.
I’m not a fan of the squirrels on the bird feeders (and with the set up I have, that hasn’t been a problem) but I’m happy for them to stop by and act as the clean up crew.
