Tag: nature

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2016-02-28: What I’ve seen this week

This week has flown by, as most of them seem to do lately.  Rather than ramble on and on, I’ll get straight to the pictures.

I hope you enjoy, and wishing everyone a wonderful week 🙂

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A pileated woodpecker that I spotted at the top of my road Tuesday morning. 1/640sec, f4.0, ISO125
(Taken with my new Panasonic camera. I’m pretty impressed with it, and it certainly is nice and light to take on walks)
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I glanced out the window while in my office, and noticed the pileated woodpecker in the forest behind my house. This one was shot through the window with my Nikon / Tamron combo.
1/500sec, f6.3, ISO640 @ 600mm
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I ventured outside to get a few shots, keeping a safe distance so I wouldn’t startle the woodpecker.
1/640sec, f6.3, ISO 2200
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Not a classic bird photo, but I love the contrast of the blurry branches and the nicely lit eye.
1/640sec, f6.3, ISO 2500 @600mm
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I ventured out to West Lake yesterday, because as you can see, it was just too nice to be indoors. There was quite a brisk breeze, and the place was deserted save for one other car. Spencer had a great time sniffing along the edge of the frozen lake.
1/640sec, f8, ISO 125
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An eagle’s nest high in the treetops. I imagine once the tree is in full leaf, many people sitting at the benches below wouldn’t even realize that it is there.
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I noticed movement in the nest, but was having a hard time seeing what it was. On full zoom, I finally caught sight of an eagle 🙂 1/640sec, f4.0, ISO 160
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An explosion of movement that I wasn’t prepared for at all. I had no idea there were two eagles in the nest until they decided quite suddenly to vacate it and head for another nearby tree. Given the proximity to my house, I wonder if this is the pair I saw a few weeks ago at the deer kill site?
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Eagles always look quite fierce to me, so it’s hard to tell if this is a dirty look, or just a normal one.
1/1250sec, f4.0, ISO200
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A bit of preening in the sun.
1/1250sec, f4.0, ISO 160
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One final shot before it was time to head home.
1/1250sec, f3.8, ISO 125
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2016-02-21: What I’ve seen this week

The week ended on a very interesting note, and has left me with a fair number of photos to go through.  On the advice of one of the members of the photo group, I went east of town yesterday hoping to see the northern hawk owls that had been spotted earlier in the day; I managed to see one, perched so high up in a tree, the first time I drove straight past it.

Today, I decided to take a drive about an hour out of town to a park, to scope out potential photography areas for the spring.  It was just too lovely a day to be indoors.  I had Spencer with me and we had a nice walk along the frozen marsh, but on the way out, I started to pull over closer to the side of the road to let a truck past, and the combination of ice covered road and extremely soft snow on the side, I ended up with the passenger side wheels stuck.  A lady tried to give me a tow (who it turns out is also part of my photo group, but we hadn’t met yet), but that didn’t work so we set off to get into cell range so I could call for a tow truck.  While I waited for the tow, it gave me a bit of time to catch up on some podcasts I’d been wanting to listen to, and honestly, the people around here are lovely.  Every single person heading in or out of the park stopped to see if they could help in any way.  I’m very grateful to the kindness of strangers.

And if I hadn’t been delayed an hour, I likely wouldn’t have seen a bald eagle perched high in a tree on the side of the highway (thoughtfully, right near a truck pull out so I could safely pull over).  And since many wise photographers have always said “look behind you”, I turned to scan the opposite side of the highway, and saw two more perched in a tree and one soaring above, calling repeatedly.  So an owl Saturday, and four bald eagles (plus a slightly lighter wallet) on Sunday.  All in all, an excellent weekend.

And with that long and rambling weekend description behind us, on to the photos.

Enjoy, and have a lovely week.

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Couldn’t ask for a prettier late winter day – warm out and sunny blue skies.
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Moonrise, peachy coloured clouds… it was too pretty not to snap a quick photo on our late afternoon walk.
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A slightly odd shot that didn’t quite turn out as planned, but that never seems to stop me from including them anyways. A couple night ago while out with Spencer, I was intrigued by the fast moving clouds and the bright moon. I decided to play around with the new camera and it wasn’t quite doing what I anticipated, but I do like the rainbow effect around the moon.
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The brilliant blue sky, bright sun and fluffy clouds reminded me a little of some of the sky shots I took in Botswana…. until you look down and see the glare from the snow!
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I’ve had requests for Spencer to be included in my posts, so here he is – enjoying his day out.
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The eagle I spotted from the road while driving.
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The fourth eagle of the afternoon

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I waited around just long enough for the second eagle to get its face out from behind the branch.

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2016-02-20: World Pangolin Day

I’ve already done a post with the best pangolin photos I managed to take (if you missed it the first time around, you can find it here).  But as it’s world pangolin day, I thought I would see what I could do with a photo that didn’t make the original post, in a black and white edit.  I like the way the texture of the scales are emphasized in monochrome.

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2016-02-16: Artistic Impressions

A couple weeks back, I edited an owl photo with an artistic edge, turning it into something more like a painting than a photograph.  (You can see here if you missed it).   Now I know that’s not to everyone’s tastes, but I found it a really fun process, something that I would like to play around with once in a while.

I don’t know how often you’ll see the Artistic Impressions post title, but when you do, you know it will be something a bit out of the box.

I hope you enjoy my artistic impressions!

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These and others are available for purchase on my Smugmug site.

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