Sunshine!
I almost tripped over your silly soccer ball when I came home today!
Ooooo! This looks promising!
It’s soft – I think I can make this work – if only I could get to…
…that soft stuff inside. Bingo!
Success! Perfect for feathering my nest!
I told you to put your toys away!
There have been some brawls at the buffet lately. I don’t ordinarily tolerate fighting in my establishment – but if pine siskins are doing the fighting, it’s about as dangerous as kittens boxing. I decided to let it play out – birds should be able to work out their differences in a civilized manner, but tempers can get the best of just about any bird when fillet is on the line…
Make way for the boss of the sock!
I’m coming for your perch!
Flying in under the radar…
Don’t even think about taking my perch!
I’ll never give up this perch!
I’m taking that perch!
The air war is ongoing at the buffet…
Fast food…
My best impression of a cartoon bird flying…
Look out below!!
This perch is mine!!
Back off – no seeds for you!
I’m coming for you…and you sunflower seeds!
Hopefully a quick trip to the store for more fillet will reestablish the peace at the Stone House – maybe not…
A couple of years ago I bought my first “bird” lens. There were a couple of options for my camera set up and budget played a big part in my decision. I read a lot of reviews and there were some who leaned towards the more expensive option as being a bit sharper, while others said that the small increase in sharpness was not worth twice the price. I went for the budget option and it served me well – until recently.
I began to have focus glitches – the lens didn’t seem to be communicating with the camera. So I sent the lens in to the manufacturer who cleaned it and told me it was fine and sent it back. Perhaps the glitch was always there and I just didn’t notice it – perhaps I just got a less than great version of the lens – these things happen. I have read of people returning a lens and buying the same model and seeing a major improvement. I decided it was time to make a change.
The higher end lens I opted not to buy has been discontinued – but they have come out with a quieter and thankfully much more economical version. I went through my bag and reviewed all of my lenses – anything I hadn’t used in a year was fair game. I put a list together and sold them to fund the purchase of that new bird lens.
My new lens arrived last weekend and I am seeing a significant change in sharpness – maybe I am the only one who sees it – but I like the look of what I’m seeing so far…
Bird on a wire
Goldfinch face off
Posing sparrow
Cow girl at the feeder
A cardinal ignoring me
Out on a limb
Woody in the myrtle
Bringing home the bacon
Bluejay in the walnut tree
Titmouse in the house!
Up on a roof
The biggest difference I see is that I am getting more sharp shots in the trees – shooting in the trees has not always gotten me good results because of the distance. I am fascinated by feathers so seeing this detail really encourages me. I started shooting birds to teach myself to make faster decisions and I it has grown into a genuine interest in birds and their habits – this new lens looks to let me look deeper into the world just off my porch.
I don’t typically post multiple times a day, but this is important. Today on the way home I saw it. It was there in the woods waiting for me…
The first of many…
Today the first dogwood made it’s appearance in the woods. Spring is officially here.
Carry on.
Last weekend I wrote a quick post about Cowbirds. At the time I thought I had a single pair of the odd creatures. Over the last couple of days it has become clear that I have a single female cowbird who is being courted by a group of males. Last night she was feeding in the lawn and they all followed right behind her. She couldn’t have cared less. She stayed at the front of the pack and her entourage followed. I noticed that they each took turns showing off for her, but she never gave any of them the time of day. It was at dusk so I didn’t get any good shots of this odd dance.
This morning as I got ready for work I saw the whole thing playing out in the walnut tree. It was a foggy morning at the Stone House, so I apologize for the photo quality in advance…
I spotted the makes on the swing – the third entered my frame as I snapped this shot.
Where is the Cow-Girl? She’s way up in the top of the walnut tree ignoring these guys. They spot her and the competition begins. Who will win her favor – I think it will be the one who wins the Dance-off…
First the cow-boy on the right sounds a call – it sounds like dripping water in a tunnel – then he struts his stuff.
Round 1 of the dance-off – while one cow-boy struts his stuff the others watch the cow-girl to see if she takes note…
The cow-boy on the left does the cowbird version of the Electric Slide. He’s looking a little tipsy.
Round 2 – the male on the left takes his shot, the male on deck checks out his groove while the other keeps his eyes on the prize…
The center cow-boy sings his heart out and puffs himself out like a down jacket. Note the dramatic posture and twisting of his wings.
Round 3 – the center male sings louder than the others. He has been leading the charge since last night, but is his footwork fancy enough to keep him in the competition?
The cow-boy on the right answers his competitors with his best impression of an eagle. They seem unfazed.
Round 4 – the male on the right flexes his muscles, the others don’t bother watching…
The cow-boy on the left may not get any style points for this performance, but he does commit 100%.
Round 5 – the male on the left gives it his all. There are times when practicing in a mirror could really help a guy out, this is one of those times…
Not to be outdone, the cow-boy in the center answers in kind. What form!
Round 6 – the male in the middle throws down – he lunges forward and twists his wings like canoe paddles. The bar has officially been raised…
The cow-boy on the right answers with an amazing extension of plumage.
Round 7 – the male on the right completely takes his rival to the left out of the competition. The male on the right is no longer watching the female, he is transfixed by the grace of his better…
Who won the dance-off? Well, I had to go to work, so I don’t know. They could still be up in the tree strutting their stuff.
I don’t have any cows, but I do have a pair of brown-headed cowbirds – here’s the story of how they met…
I’ve been looking to settle down, I just need to find that special guy…
There’s a perch up there that looks promising – lots of action at that bar…
I’ll just take a seat here at the bar – do these feathers make my butt look big?
What’s that racket up there?
Ooooo – he’s cute!
Hey there, handsome….
And we lived happily ever after…
I have been told that cowbirds sneak their eggs into the nests of unsuspecting birds and move on, leaving the rearing of their young to strangers. So the story goes something like this…
Two young cowbirds fall in love, abandon their children to the foster care system, and fly off into the sunset partying and following cows until it’s time to do the whole thing again next year.
I have been out taking a very close look and am happy to report that spring is springing. It’s not busting out all over yet, but if you look close, very close – it’s all there to see.
Yesterday after work I took a walk with my macro lens. It’s a Leica 45mm f2.8 so I can shoot in overcast conditions or in low light – that pretty much describes the conditions. I love the tonality of evening shots – past the golden hour, but early enough to keep the ISO and noise at low levels.
The remains of our glorious autumn are still around. I snapped this by accident, I was not even planning a shot – stupid trigger finger. Sometimes a great lens makes a decent shot out of a misfire.
I was beginning to despair. The heat last year did so much damage and until yesterday I saw no buds. They are higher up, I’m hoping they fill in. These are edible and quite tasty in a salad.
I don’t know what these are called by my “lawn” is full of them. This shot focuses on the center of the plant…
…while this shot focuses on the outer blossoms.
These flowers appear to float in the woods. They are about a half-inch across…
…and resemble very tiny roses. These are tough to shoot because the are on very thin branches that move with any breeze.
This inch-long bundle of feathers is suspended over a limb on the lilacs…
…another view of the debris from the impact – the breeze makes the lower portion blend together.
This is a hole in a large rock I have on the patio – it fills with rainwater and the birds drink from this crystalline cavity.
Springtime is about exploration and discovery for me. It’s the perfect time to take that macro lens out for a walk.
Early spring in the Ozarks is a mixed bag. Soon the hills will erupt in color, but not just yet. The trees are still bare but budding. Sometimes if you want to see what’s going on you have to get closer – much closer.
I have been getting up close and personal with nature – collecting shots with my Leica Macro lens. Sometimes when you get close you see beauty or complexity in the most mundane things. Color emerges, structure is revealed, discoveries are made.
The dandelion is far more complex that it appears from the seat of my mower deck. The center is almost crystalline.
These cover the fields all over this area – they look like a floating purple cloud from a distance. Up close they are more leaves than flowers, but those flowers are so delicate – less than an eighth of an inch across.
I love johnny-jump-ups, and these remind me of those but much, much smaller. This tiny violet is less than a half-inch across.
From eye level this looks like moss on a rock. When you get down to ground level it is much more complex than expected.
These hyacinths are at the end of their cycle. They mysteriously appeared a couple of years ago after my neighbor encouraged me to plant bulbs in the remains of an old cistern.
I don’t know what these are, but they look a lot like some I have seen in my neighbor’s flower beds. They are new this year. Thank you garden fairy!
Here’s a closer shot of that blue flower – there is so much structure to these flowers when you get close.
I think this is some form of bluets – it measures about a quarter-inch across.
I’m pretty sure this is southern bluets. Tiny and white.
Is this the skull of an owl? Nah, it’s just the shell of a black walnut – it was probably a winter meal for a squirrel.
The field around the Stone House is a mix of blue grass, clover, and low ground cover like this. An inch-long feather rests atop the ground cover.
I don’t know what this is, but it is very tiny – smaller than a head of a pencil. It is so small that its color is not even visible until you get very close to the ground.
I see these every year, they are low – under the grass. This one seems to have extra petals. I love its star-shaped foliage.
This is ice – water frozen in the bird bath.
Daffodil buds emerging.
Water condensing inside the stalk of a daffodil.
Getting these shots required me to get down in the dirt and undergrowth. Getting closer is not always easy, but is usually worth it.
Although these tiny birds flutter through the space between the black walnut tree and the feeders on my patio like butterflies on speed, siskins are not immune to the effects of the earth’s gravity.
Room for one more?
Of course! Always room for one more. Pull up a perch!
Are you sure – it looks pretty crowded…
Incoming!!
Crash! Spill! Flutter! Back to the tree until the paparazzi puts things back in order.
Last week’s just past full moon – I’m over the moon about the response to the eff stop.
I don’t typically write posts about my blog, I kinda prefer to write about photography or to at least put images into some type of context. I hope you’ll forgive me this one time, and I’ll do my best to make this post at least partly about images and context.
A rose by any other name…It’s been sweet getting to know so many of you through the blogosphere.
I wrote my first post on this blog on May 20th of last year. I had just come home from an epic vacation and had tons of photos. I thought it was the perfect time to start a blog, I only opened a WordPress account to follow my brother’s blog and he kept leaving me spam-like comments on my empty blog, so I thought if I wrote something I would at least have one reader. I thought it would be fun to share photos and a bit of humor with him in the format he was communicating in. The next day I wrote my second post with an eye towards complete silliness. I had read no tutorials and had not even read any blogs except for my brother’s – heck, I didn’t even know what the Reader was. I did everything wrong. I used too many tags, I didn’t check my spelling, I used over 50 photos – in retrospect that post was a mess. About an hour later I got a nice email from WordPress about my post being “pressed” or something, how nice of them to let me know my post was live. I had no idea what that email was, I tossed it. I went to work the next day and casually commented to a coworker at lunch that I was getting a lot of email from my blog – how cool, I had heard from my brother that the WordPress platform was easier to connect on – it must be working. I noticed a lot of the comments offered congrats, how friendly – something about Freshly Pressed or FP’d, so I sent my brother a text:
I clearly was clueless.
After texting Max, I googled Freshly Pressed and found this – there’s my photograph of a yonng elk in the top right corner:
Ahhhh – so that’s what all the fuss was about.
That day I had over 2000 hits – on a blog that was 2 days old. Of course I did nothing right at this point either. I was a bit shy about replying to comments. I accidentally replied to spam and not to real people – I was moderating a dozen comments at a time without even knowing what “moderating” was. I should have had the courtesy to reply to every comment, I was a bit reserved about entering into conversations – I didn’t really know what to say. I was afraid to empty my email in-box for fear of losing something I was supposed to keep up with. My post stayed on that front page for over a week. It was a wild ride.
I’ve been overwhelmed by my instant audience for my work – I appreciate you all.
Over the next few weeks I read a lot about how to manage a blog and have always wished I had done a better job of it from the start, by now I was embarrassed to reply (silly, I know) If I failed to respond to you, and you stuck around, I really appreciate it. I was a complete novice. I would be another month and another text conversation with my brother before I was keyed in to what the Reader was – it was only then that I really began to interact with other blogs. Another month passed before I wrote an “About” page.
This is my shy pup, Kirby. He’s timid about new things, a lot like me at the start of this process.
A little over 140 posts later and I am really enjoying the interaction. I studied photography in college and have gotten more serious in the last few years. I have been diligently shooting almost every day for about the last 5 years so I have lots of images to work with and it’s been great talking about my work with you.
It’s been a treat to introduce you to people like Mary Jane – a 99-year-old hiker through this blog.
This blog has helped me to organize my work, it’s given me focus. It’s allowed me to introduce you to my amazing 99-year-old neighbor, a herd of deer, a tougher-than-nails goldfinch, and a hummingbird who enjoys the rain.
Bee-lieve me, I have enjoyed sharing my work and getting to know you.
The interaction is something I never anticipated and it has been really rewarding – it has pushed me to try new things. Last fall I read a post about NaNoWriMo, it got me thinking and it challenged me. Back in May when I pushed “publish” the first time, who would have believed that I would take on a writing challenge and that I would have 50,000 words in me? I started a second blog, The King of Isabelle Avenue, to post excerpts from my memoir on. It’s been a rich experience with just a few followers, but it has been more rewarding than I could ever have imagined.
The King of Isabelle Avenue has let me introduce you to my family and their history – this picture of a hat with a wedding in the background is a more recent part of that history.
I have gotten into a rhythm – a couple of photo posts a week and a King of Isabelle post every 10 days or so. Initially I would look at my more recent photos and see if I could find a common theme and sometimes that worked out pretty well, gradually I moved more towards shooting something with a post in mind, occasionally I did a little of both.
Photography is about more than mechanics – it’s about a point of view. I hope to find unique points of view to share with you.
More recently I have worried about keeping things fresh. I challenged myself to shoot birds last year and I have posted dozens of times on the topic. I wondered if you would tire of my obsession with cardinals. Still, my favorite posts are those that feel like serendipity – when something just comes together.
Trying new things and sharing them with you has made me a better photographer.
That happened again a couple of weeks ago. I was supposed to have a working lunch but the other party cancelled. I grabbed my keys and headed to my car to run grab some fast food. I stood in the parking lot and it hit me, I didn’t want junk food – I turned around and decided to see if I could kick out a post in the 20 minutes I had left of my lunch hour. I started to write a post I was going to call “Deer on Pine Mountain”. As I started to tell my story the title sounded stupid and boring. I took the post in a different direction and wrote this story about my encounter with an old friend on the mountain. When I hit publish I knew I had shared an experience that was special to me, if no one else. Less than an hour later I got that email – this time I did have a clue about what it meant to be Freshly Pressed.
No need to text Max this time…
The last couple of weeks have been wonderful – I have enjoyed meeting new people and have done my best to interact with everyone who took the time to comment – even if it was in another language. I saw my friend on the mountain again last night – I hope to share more stories of my white nosed friend with you as the weather warms up.
To those of you who started the conversation with me – Honie, Paula, Michelle, Elyse, Jackie, and Diana – you got me going, you found me before I figured out how to find you, you showed me the ropes. Thanks so much! (Seriously – check out their blogs!)
The bottom line is this – I was incredibly lucky right out of the shoot. I am grateful to those who followed from that early post, and to those who have joined the party in the last few weeks – now that I have written that obligatory Freshly Pressed post, I will get back to taking photos and telling stories. I am checking out the blogs of everyone who commented or followed – it’s taking some time, but I am finding some amazing new blogs to follow.
I’ll sign off for now – there are photos out there to be taken – this shutterbug is ready for another adventure!
the eff stop 