Communing with Nature

I'm still nursing a flare-up of an old knee injury and avoid driving as much as I can. On Saturday, my husband therefore took me out on a picnic to North Park so I could get out of the house for a while. I had barely set up our lunch in a picnic shelter when a male cardinal showed up on the next bench. My husband threw a small piece of cookie on the ground and the bird picked it up and flew away with it. I had never seen a cardinal that was so unafraid of people and begging for food. We also saw an adult flicker feeding an immature flicker on the grass surrounding the shelter. As usual in those cases when I'm not in the mood to carry heavy camera equipment around, I see great birds.
A while later, we set up chairs at a wetland area where we were greeted by a yellow warbler. It flitted around us, chattering all the while and landing just a few feet away from us. I will probably never see a warbler this close when I have a camera handy. We also saw several groups of ducks across the inlet. A group of children from a nearby party flushed out three tiny ducklings - cute as buttons - that paddled across the water to get away from them. About an hour later, an adult duck (probably a wood duck) called out frantically for her kids and the three ducklings swam across the water again. On the other bank (and out of my sight), however, they were greeted by shrieks of annoyance. They had approached the wrong mother! Then they paddled around in circles, not sure what to do next. After a short while, all turned quiet again and I sincerely hope that the little ones were united with their mother. They were much too young to make it on their own.
By mid-afternoon, everything went quiet around the wetland. Even the frog that had croaked from time to time went mute. We packed up and went home again, happy with the discoveries we made.

Happy Hummers

June is not turning out to be one of my best months this year. Besides having some unpleasant medical tests done, my right knee, which I injured years ago, is also hurting a lot for over a week now. So, instead of going to the air show with my hubby this past weekend, I could only watch the planes that flew by our backyard. Since we live in the airport area, I saw quite a few and heard even more.

To make my time at home more pleasant, I've been photographing the ruby-throated hummingbirds that visit our feeder. I could do this from the comfort of a garden chair. Life doesn't get much easier than this, but photographing hummingbirds is no easy task. First of all, they are fast--really fast. A more dedicated photographer would probably set up several flashes, but I only have one flash and so it took quite a few shots to get a decent photo. Yesterday, I finally took some shots of both a male and female hummingbird that I'm proud to show everybody (which I'm doing right here). The hummingbirds are hitting our feeders hard and are not happy when the syrup gets too old (too old meaning three days max.). So, they might as well pose for my camera to earn their keep. They are fun to watch, but they are quite territorial and don't like it at all when another bird shows up at the same time. Never mind that there's enough for everybody, and how do some people manage to photograph half a dozen hummingbirds at their feeder at the same time?

Other than that, I haven't seen any unusual birds lately, except for a possible oriole sighting, but it has been a strange year. The weather has been weird this summer and the birds and plants are surely affected by that. Oh well, that's what makes bird photography so interesting and sometimes frustrating.

Frogs and other creatures

On Wednesday, I went to the Audubon Nature Center to photograph birds. I ended up photographing a bullfrog, a green frog and tadpoles (or pollywogs) in all stages on development. The pond at Beechwood was teeming with life, if one looked closely. The bullfrog, for example, was so well camouflaged that it took me a while to discover its eyes sticking out of the scum. At first, it pointed its back at me, but later it was kind enough to show me its side view and a reflection in the pond. I took some pretty good images of it and a green frog. Most amazing, though, was when I noticed a northern cardinal near the pond. I fired away when it caught a dragonfly in its beak. I was also happy when one of the swallows that hovered over the pond to catch insects actually sat down on top of the solar panel to clean itself. All in all, I spent over two hours at the pond. Nature photographers spend a lot of time waiting, but I couldn't have picked a better day to do it. The lighting was mostly good and the temperature was cool enough to enjoy an outing. Now we're back to sticky, hot weather.

My photo exhibit at the Robinson library is already a success. I'm told that people are amazed at my bird photos. They will probably be up till the end of July.

Spring, Where Art Thou?

I have recovered from the Pennwriters Conference and am now trying to digest all the information I gathered there. The workshops were all wonderful and my only beef is that I could only attend one at a time. There were occasions when I could have joined all three that were going on at the same time. I recognized more faces than I had two years ago and enjoyed networking with everybody I had contact with. Now it is time to sit back at my desk and apply what I've learned.
The weather is clearly encouraging me to write since it is too hot to spend much time outdoors. We seem to have moved from winter to summer in about two days. Last week, I ventured out to Beechwood Farms despite the rather warm temperatures. While I did not take any great photos, I did see a Pileated Woodpecker, a Blue Heron, a Catbird, and many Canada Geese and their goslings. My goal was to photograph the Baltimore Orioles that frequent the feeder but I have not succeeded yet. There is always next time.
On Memorial Day, my husband and I ventured out to the wetland trail at Raccoon Creek Park. On several occasions, it deserved its name and we got muddy shoes. However, we did see many Catbirds, an Eastern Towhee, a Blue Heron, a Baltimore Oriole, and plenty of Red-winged Blackbirds. The sound of bullfrogs filled the air, but we never caught a glimpse of one. What we did catch were mosquito bites and I'm still suffering the consequences. Still, it was nice to get out before we had to disappear into the house like vampires. Aah, summer in Pennsylvania!