The white-crowned sparrow is another in a long-running series of sparrows! The white-crowned sparrow winters in a large portion of the U.S., and except for parts of western U.S. it summers mostly in Canada.
About 6 weeks ago I moved the bird feeder closer to the ground and bushes around the house, and this seems to be drawing a slightly different clientele including the white-crowned sparrow. This sparrow has come to feed six days in a row. I threw a little seed on the ground further away from the feeder, both to attract this bird and for better camera sightlines.
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Began ebirding on 2/12/2016 during the Great Backyard Bird Count weekend, and the solitary sandpiper is my 100th species observed and reported since then. This is another bird on it's way to Canada for the summer season.
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Question: Where does one find a swamp sparrow?
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doing volunteer work at the church, we stopped at a grocery store for a few things including lunch. I suggested to the Mrs. that we eat lunch at Oakhurst Forest Preserve. I received an eyes rolling response for that suggestion as she knew I would want to spend "a few minutes" taking photos, but she agreed.
About 40 meters behind where I parked the car there was a great commotion in a tree, and it sounded like every bird I ever heard was calling. There were four brown thrashers, and they are so active, loud, and melodious that I declare them my new favorite bird. My bird book says they rarely imitate other birds, but I heard rough imitations of many birds including a robin and a gull. The Cornell Institute of Ornithology indicates that brown thrashers have more than 1100 songs. These birds make me laugh!
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A lesser yellowlegs is pictured using it's wings and tailfeathers as a braking mechanism preparatory to landing. Observed 10 of these birds at a small muddy wetland this afternoon.
The lesser yellowlegs winters in the far southern U.S., Central America, and South America. It still has a long journey ahead, as it summers in far northern Canada and Alaska.
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This morning I went on a bird photography hike at Heron Rookery Nature Preserve at Lake Renwick in Plainfield, Illinois. Lake Renwick is the site of a gravel mine which operated for about 90 years before the Will County Forest Preserve District began acquiring the property. Great blue herons have nested in the area for 70 years, and the Forest Preserve built wooden structures on islands in the lake to provide expanded nesting.
Great egrets (white birds), double-crested cormorants (black), and great blue herons (blue gray birds mostly at the top of the structures) nest on the islands. There are at least two black-crowned night herons in the photo; from the front they look like penguins. One is 1/3 from the bottom and 40% from the left standing on a cut off branch. The other is almost directly below it 1/8 from the bottom.
Extra: night heron is more visible in bottom left corner of this crop. Also there is a pic of an American white pelican, part of a group stopping through on their northward migration.
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The squirrel persists in posing on the deck rail with a walnut. Who am I to refuse the photo opp?
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Filled the bird feeder, flushed and filled the bird bath, then waited for the action. Robins were eager for a bath.
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Yet another kind of sparrow is posted today, the savannah sparrow. Sadly for these birds, the "savannah" in which these sparrows are feeding was staked out for residential development last week. The land was cleared and utilities installed 8-10 years ago, then the recession hit and construction was halted. Home construction has picked up in the last couple years and it looks like this piece of property will no longer be left in a raw state.
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A red-bellied woodpecker and his mate worked their way up a dead tree inspecting holes for nesting potential. This hole did not pass muster. they didn't seem to like any of the holes in this tree.
Extras: An industrious downy woodpecker as it drills out it's new home.
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The field sparrow is the tenth type of sparrow I've identified, and there are additional local sparrow species I've not yet seen. Am still trying hard not to confuse one type of sparrow for another. A local ebirder recently posted a photo of a field sparrow, and I burned the pic into my brain. For this bird was looking for a rufous top, white eye ring, plain front, pink legs, and pink bill.
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Daughter Laura sold her Naperville condo, purchasing and moving into a Chicago condo this week. Her new home is an upgrade in almost every way, and she's enjoying it from the start. The condo building is on N. California Avenue between North Avenue and Division Street, giving good access to public transportation as well as Kennedy Expressway access two miles north.
The condo building is across the street from 219 acre Humboldt Park. This is a view looking from the other side of the Humboldt Park lagoon. Her building is the four story light brick building at the right.
When I walked around the lagoon to get this photo, I met a birder (you can always tell by the binoculars!). Although I was not birding, I saw two birds I did not expect at the park, brown creepers and kinglets.
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A tiny wisp of a bird, the winter wren feeds on insects on or near the ground. It likes dead wood both for a feeding location and for nesting, and is often found near water. This wren was photographed in a woods having many fallen dead trees by a creek, perfect by winter wren standards.
Extra is a northern flicker for my self-proclaimed Flicker Friday started two weeks ago.
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Stopped by Saw Wee Kee Park in Oswego, Illinois where I spent many winter mornings taking photos. It's much nicer when it's 67F/19.4C and greening up! A couple of white-throated sparrows remain and have not migrated north yet.
Today I was outdoors/not in the car. I stood partially hidden by a tree in order to get close enough for this photo.
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Walked around in high grass and wet conditions with not much to show for it. Decided to return to my mobile photo studio (my car) and see if I could locate a willing bird photo subject. This killdeer was hunting/digging for food on wet ground, and I shot a whole series of photos from the car window as it came quite close to the car.
I picked this photo because it was not a close up, and has more of the greens and blues in the bird's environment. See the extra for what the bird was hunting and eating.
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Spent a couple hours walking around Oakhurst Forest Preserve in Aurora, Illinois this afternoon. It was a beautiful sunny day.
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This small unassuming gray thrush created quite a stir in the Chicago western suburbs birding community. This Townsend's Solitaire is well outside it's high mountains habitat in western North America. Over the weekend flocks of birders traveled to Silver Springs State Park west of Yorkville, Illinois to see the solitaire.
I met five birders on the park trail on a Monday afternoon. Lucky for me one of them showed me the solitaire.
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A little before 8 am and just in time to create a blip, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard Duck showed up to scoop seed from under our bird feeder. There was a break in the rain and clouds, and I was able to shoot a few head shots of the drake before heading off for church at 8.
Photos were taken through a rain spattered family room window, and the window and house are reflected in the duck's eye. The lawn and the mulch the birds have scattered in the lawn make a nice portrait backdrop.
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Went to Blackwell Forest Preserve to get photos of common loons observed at the park. As I was driving in this loon was in the lake just off the roadway, so rolled down the passenger window and took a photo. Turns out this was the closest I would get to the loon and the best photo. On a Saturday morning there were a number of shore and boat fisherman, and the loon kept it's distance.
Later I watched a Caspian tern fishing. It was successful in catching a fish on three of six dives, which is a good percentage (extra photo of tern with fish).
The Chicago area lies in the migratory path for each of these birds, and I expect they are only temporary visitors and will continue north for the summer.
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For the second Friday in a row am posting a northern flicker photo. Once you recognize and identify a bird you start seeing more of them, and I am now seeing flickers every day. Yesterday observed four flickers, and this morning saw five of them.
Extra: The northern flicker extra shows where you really need to look for flickers, which is on the ground digging in the dirt for insects. From a distance you may think a flicker is an American robin, but a closer look is warranted.
Despite the rain/snow mix today was able to take a number of good photos. The second extra is a savannah sparrow. I've been having a difficult time correctly identifying sparrows, but this sparrow has a yellow spot above the eye which is ever so helpful.
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Jenni said to blip the muskrat photo, so for those of you who don't like rodents I'm blaming her! I like the water puddling on the muskrat's back.
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This photo is dark and moody to match this rainy day.
Photo was taken at 11:15 am, with flowers overlit by LED ring flash in order to later reduce exposure/enhance dark background in Lightroom.
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This union is hereby sealed with a stick, and witnessed by Double-Crested Cormorant.
Counted 24 great blue heron nests. Three nests were still under construction (the top nest in the photo is one of the three), and females were sitting on the remainder of the nests. A female is on the nest at the right. The husbands of the nesting females were presumably out at the fish market.
Five cormorants were lounging around, and they might also nest on this island.
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Summer weather yesterday, and today just above the freezing point with snow flurries. What's the deal? At least birding in my development went pretty well this afternoon.
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Gulls continued to cry raucously sounding the alarm well after a bald eagle flew over.
Bluegrass Prairie Park West, Oswego, Illinois
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Keeping one's nose clean is an American idiom dating to 1887, and at the time it meant to stay on your best behavior and be presentable. These days we use it to mean stay out of trouble.
Was out taking photos of waterfowl (nice one of a pied-billed grebe as an extra) when this robin cocked it's head and stood 2 meters away looking at me. Took advantage of the pose despite and maybe because of the dirty nose.
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Ther northern flicker is a large North American woodpecker, but most of the time you won't see it drumming on trees. It's favorite food is ants, and it drums into the earth to dig up ants, beetles, and other insects. It's got a long tongue to lick up them up.
This is the eastern or "yellow-shafted" form of flicker, so named for the yellow shafts on some of it's feathers. The western form is red-shafted.
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There was a wonderful sunny break between the clouds and storms. After banking, stopped at a park near the bank to take advantage of the sunlight. Two pair of blue-winged teal and a northern shoveler were feeding at a small wetland in the park, and it was such a good place to eat the ducks would not leave despite my presence and others walking by with their dogs. The ducks were eating aquatic vegetation but also saw a male catch and eat what looked like a large grub.
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Am resting today and not planning on chasing birds (At least I don't think so. If the sun comes out might change my mind). Retired from job safety/health career three years ago today on my birthday, allowing plenty of time to photograph the outdoors.
Placed camera protected by an old tee shirt on the ground underneath the bird feeder, hoping to get a close up of a junco or cardinal using remote release. A couple of mallard ducks came instead. Discovered that a duck's head moves quickly when feeding, and this is the only photo of it's head which is close to being in focus. But using f4 aperture at 0.3 meters away complete focus would be tough.
Extra: Aging must be on my mind: has the duck's leg been losing collagen?
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Went to the park with the plan to take a landscape picture of woods and sky reflected in the water. Got the landscape shots, and on the walk back two golden-crowned kinglets seemed to be following me at low elevation. Took advantage of the kinglet's generosity and took photos of them, too.
I can retake and blip the landscape photos another day. As usual, I am going with the birdie!
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Rue's first year or two of life was in a puppy mill, and we adopted him through Midwest Shiba Inu Rescue in March 2005. Our best guess is that he is 12-13 years old. He does not like his picture to be taken, but does beautifully when someone distracts him.
When you don't get out before the clouds and rain arrive, everything is gray. Have been eyeing this tree as a focal point for a photo, and I will return to this spot to get a blazing color sunset when conditions look good.
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Great blue herons have started nesting season in the Chicago area. It's fascinating to watch, and may be worth another blip or two in the coming days.
This is the best picture I was able to get of a golden-crowned kinglet this morning. Small (a little larger than a hummingbird), always moving, and often high in trees, this bird is more difficult to photograph than a nuthatch.
I am astonished at the number of species of ducks in the world. During a break in the rain went to a neighborhood pond and discovered two blue-winged teal visiting our development.
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I don't speak killdeer well enough to understand these birds, and all I heard was kill-deer kill-deer kill-deer all over the field. There were more killdeer at this convention than are depicted in the photo.
Spring has arrived, and green weeds are starting to poke through the scrub grass on this undeveloped section of land. Utility work is ongoing at the north end of the property, and within a year or two houses will stand here.
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Upon arrival at Spring Lake Park, Aurora, Illinois, I saw a gull wading the shallows. It immediately plucked something from the water's edge and flew to the top of a grassy knoll. A second gull squawked and joined the first gull, and I thought there would be a squabble. Not at all. The gulls amicably shared the lobster, er I mean crayfish.
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Went to one of the neighborhood ponds to try for better tree swallow-in- flight photos, but the swallows were gone. Yesterday's swallow flock must be migrating further north.
Instead, stealthily approached the pond bank to take pictures of this male bufflehead, a small diving duck. No crawling on the pond bank, mind you, too much goose poop on the ground for that. Did not get as close as I would have liked to the bufflehead, but that's what cropping is for!
Yesterday there were two bufflehead, and today there were six. I don't see bufflehead on these ponds in the winter or summer, so these ducks are just passing through on their way north to their summer home.
Local birders have been reporting the return of tree swallows to this area, and today is the first day I've seen them flying around the neighborhood pond they favor.
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In northern Illinois for the summer season, turkey vultures feed on fresh carrion. They are different than most birds in having a keen sense of smell which helps them find a meal by odor. You can see them circling high over open farm country and woods with the white and black underwing color helping to identify them
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Spotting male and female eastern bluebirds while out birding was a great way to start the day!
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Spent a few hours in Wheaton, Illinois, where we lived for 21 years and where our kids grew up. Lunched at Luong-Loi, a Vietnamese restaurant on Main Street which was a favorite when we lived in the city. Then we visited the Billy Graham Center Museum on the Wheaton College campus.
Pictured is Blanchard Hall, which is across the street from Billy Graham Center. Blanchard Hall is built from limestone quarried in nearby Batavia, and it's architecture is modeled after buildings at Oxford University in England.
The school's motto is on the sign: For Christ and His Kingdom. Most of the schools in the U.S. 150 years or older were started by clergymen, but many of these schools have long since drifted from their church roots. Wheaton College has not!
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Prior to leaving the house last week advised spouse that I was putting the camera in the car just in case. Her response, "Just in case what? Is it in case an alien lands you will be able to get a picture?"
Went birding this morning hoping to identify a species new to me. I should watch for what I wish, as after returning home it took some time and effort to identify this as an eastern phoebe. These birds are one of the first to return to the Chicago area from wintering in the southern U.S.. They mainly eat flying insects, and I encountered a few flying insects today although there weren't many.
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A red-tailed hawk flew very close, and I was ready for it. +0.67EV against the sky, shutter 1/5000th of a second.
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There's been a light steady rain all day, and taking a short break from worm hunting is an American Robin shaking off raindrops. The robin has a surprising head/neck swivel range.
I did not walk around in the rain. On this day took all my photos from the car.
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This was about 7 am, for locals who might have missed this!
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Since putting out bird feeders we've seen more hawks in the area. One day we came home and a Cooper's Hawk was standing in our front yard. Came back from birding this morning and heard a crow call. Looked across the street in the large tree behind the neighbor's house and this is what I saw.
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Swan Lake...or maybe it's Swan Pond? A solitary mute swan was feeding on vegetation in one of our development's ponds this morning.
Trying to be stealthy so the swan would not fly away, I hid behind a three-trunked birch tree. The tree did not provide complete cover, but I thought the swan didn't see me because it kept swimming in my direction. Wrong on not seeing me! The swan seemed to be looking at me in every photo I examined.
Conditions: mostly cloudy, filtered sun, 57 F, strong breeze
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Springbrook Prairie Forest Preserve, Naperville, Illinois
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Went outdoors earlier to catch filtered sunlight before overcast skies and rain came. This is an eastern meadowlark, and these birds live in farm fields and grasslands. It's hard to miss meadowlarks as they have a beautiful and loud song, and their song is how I've been locating them.
]]>A wedding shower was held for Jenni and Tim after church service today. The clock is counting down with only 8 weeks until the wedding!
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It's a super day to be outdoors. It's not t-shirt weather, but for wintertime it's nice. Got too warm walking around in a parka, so stripped the coat off leaving a hoodie.
This picture is what I consider the classic red-winged blackbird pose, in a wetland perched on a cattail loudly singing. I'll probably blip a similar photo again in warmer weather.
Lake Bartlett Prairie Wetland in Oswego, Illinois.
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Late yesterday afternoon I found a spot frequented by horned lark, and took photos in cloudy but not snowy conditions (see extra for best photo from yesterday.. Last night we received about 1 inch/2.5 cm snow, so returned this morning to see if I could better yesterday's photo effort. Although it's the same scrubby short grass environment preferred by horned larks, the look and feel of the photos are completely different.
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A change of pace from bird and squirrel blips...
Clear, cold 16 F/-9 C morning.
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Snow clouds are in the background. Conditions=snowy, 24 F/-4 C, and 24 mph/39 kph winds.
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After eating all the seed scattered on the deck, the squirrel is looking hopefully at the squirrel-proof bird feeder. The squirrels have tried and tried, but have not outwitted the feeder.
Although the sun is behind the squirrel, there is a catchlight in it's eye coming from the sun's reflection off a window.
I seem to be on a squirrel jag. Bird pictures were not as good today.
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This is an outstanding sunny in the 40s F day for being outside and birding. Selected this photo to blip because the chickadees were looking at each other and apparently communicating, plus there's an oil painting of blurred river and brush going on in the background.
Today was a photo feast not famine. Attached six good quality photos to my ebird report at Saw Wee Kee Park. I could have stayed and taken pictures for hours.
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Skinny little squirrel and squirrel friend have gained weight since we put a bird feeder out back. Six weeks ago they looked underweight, but now they appear normal.. They are daily visitors, and do not mind people or dogs looking at them through the glass door
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I've not posted a picture of a common grackle before. It's a large blackbird with iridescent plumage which will eat almost anything. Five grackles were flocking with a mixed group of 61 starlings and red-winged blackbirds. Yes, I was ebirding this morning and counted all these birds.
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...caulking, cleaning, baking. That's an odd lot of chores, but that's it. We've had wind and snow flurries much of the day, but the snow has been melting on contact.
Instead of using a covered dutch oven (a cast iron pot with a lid), have recently been baking bread in a deep dish pizza pan with another pan inverted over it. This has the same steam oven effect as the dutch oven, but the flat pan allows the dough to spread out so there is more crustiness.
Cheated on the 1st and 2nd rising times (again), but it's still good. With peanut butter this is often a meal.
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One week ago our church grounds started teeming with robins, and I believe they are birds migrating north. Around Valentine's Day.(when the temperature is about 37 degrees F) we start seeing an influx of robins, many more than overwintered.
Robins eat fruit until the ground thaws and they can find earthworms and insects. The robins continue to hang around the church yard this week because of the fruit available. This morning there were 9 robins plucking fruit from a crabapple tree.
Migrating males arrive first. You can tell a male by his dark head feathers, streaked throat, yellow bill, and deep orange breast feathers.
Extra: male American robin portrait in crabapple tree
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Mr. and Mrs. House Finch enjoy dinner. They are everyday customers of this restaurant. They always order the same meal of black oil sunflower seeds.
Attached a wooden dowel to extend the left feeder perch in the hope that cardinals might like the larger perching area. Cardinals have not used it, but the occasional starling does.
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Color flares added for interest via colored radial filters in Lightroom.
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While not the greatest photo, this picture has a small amount of personal significance. Although the hooded merganser is a year round resident of northern Illinois, had never seen or identified this bird before. I started ebirding last weekend, and this is one of two species which will be added to my personal list from today's birding. Eastern meadowlark is the other..
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Degree of difficulty of this photo is not high, but I like this picture better than a couple flower photos I took in the basement. I will go for just about any picture with rich deep blue in it. Plus whether birds or people, I like to take headshots.
We had 62 F/16.7 C temps around 2 pm. Almost all of the snow and ice melted overnight and today. Winds were a sustained 30 mph, and birds seemed to be hunkered down with relatively few birds along the river or at my feeder today.
Notable sightings included a single northern pintail (duck) swimming with mallards. In addition, at Lake Bartlett two mute swans were sleeping out on the ice.
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The fox sparrow is a winter visitor to the Chicago area, migrating north for the summer breeding season sometime in the mid-February to late April time frame. Tried to get a photo showing the two-footed scuffing action the fox sparrow uses to find seeds and insects, but was not successful in this endeavor today. Blipped this bird 1.5 months ago on Dec. 29th, and am doing so again because (1) this is not a bird I see every day, and (2) it may be leaving soon and I don't expect to see it too much longer this winter.
Photo was shot through an opening under a park bench. Dense underbrush was only a few feet on the other side of the bird, giving it protection.
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Decided that today I would just just play around and look for something interesting. rather than working so hard to get a great looking photo.
Stopped at Willowbrook Wildlife Center in Glen Ellyn, Illinois after running an errand in Lombard. WWC rehabilitates/cares for wild animals injured in DuPage County, and in the "back 40" acreage east of the facility a pair of sandhill cranes reside inside a fenced enclosure. When I was two meters from the fence both cranes raised their bills in the air and let out a loud rattle call, which startled me.
The photo is the male crane, and was taken through the wire fence with the lens aperture wide open (f5.6 in this case) to minimize seeing the fence. The illusion? The hexagonal fence wire appears to be on the far side of the crane, but in reality is between the camera and the bird's head. Look on the bird's neck just above the bottom of the photo frame, and a dark band from the wire is noticeable. The band is not a shadow, as this fence was on the west side of the enclosure and it was not even noon yet.
Extra photo: one of three red-tailed hawks in the back 40. Shutter speed of 1/2500 was adequate this time, and low ISO 320 to boot!
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It's been a totally gray day, so went to the park looking for a red bird. Needed some bright color! I've been told you can't go wrong blipping a cardinal.
Posted seven ebird reports with a total of 31 bird species over the four day Great Backyard Bird Count February 12-15, 2016.
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This is an example of the mob scene at the backyard bird feeder this afternoon. About 35 sparrows and finches vied for six bird feeder perches. Most of the sparrows congregated underneath waiting for seed spray. The group was quite active and they've gone through about 50% of the feeder contents today. The birds appear to eat more when the weather is cold and snowy. The feeder is being filled with seed on a daily basis.
Goldfinches are the smallest of the lot, and they stayed away unless most of the other birds were gone. Juncos stayed on the deck. A lone chickadee flew to the feeder when there was a lull in the action.
We've received about 2 inches/5 cm of snow so far. The roads are amazingly sloppy for so little snow.
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Went to the Yorkville dam with high hopes for good eagle photos. After getting out of the car, popped a few quick shots of this gull to check settings.
An adult bald eagle landed in a tree across the river immediately after the gull photos were taken. I waited for eagle for action shots such as flying or catching a fish. Stood on the pedestrian bridge over the kayak run for half an hour in 18 F/-8 C in a light wind waiting..waiting..waiting.. The eagle did not move. Took photos of common mergansers, deer, and a red-tailed hawk. Stood yet another half hour, and the eagle stayed put
An hour was enough. Hands and feet were cold, and light was slowly starting to dim. Maybe next time. In the meantime, the herring gull is my eagle of the day. The hook on the front end of the gull's bill is very eagle-like, don't you think?
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About 45 minutes before this photo there was little visibility across the river due to heavy snow flurries. The flurries let up, and was able to snap this bald eagle as it flew over the river. The eagle flew low over geese and ducks at the point of an island, but continued downstream.
February 12-15 is the worldwide Great Backyard Bird Count, http://gbbc.birdcount.org/ which is open to everyone. You can spend as little as 15 minutes this weekend to give it a try. I did my first two bird counts this morning.
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Took a roundabout way to lunch, driving north on Illinois Rt. 25 by the Fox River looking for bald eagles. Spouse commented that she thought we were having lunch today not tomorrow, but honestly this side trip only took an extra 40 minutes.
A pair of mute swans were swimming and feeding above the Yorkville, Illinois dam on the Fox River. Much of the river is shallow, making it a great place for aquatic fowl to feed. Ice chunks floating down the river are stacking up on the upriver side of the dam, and the only open channel for the swans to feed was on the opposite side of the river.
Straight out of camera the photo was not quite what I wanted. Made it more dreamy through negative clarity in Lightroom.
The photo objective of today's outing was not achieved. Travelled to a Yorkville pond where trumpeter swans and one tundra swan have been reported. Trumpeters are a much rarer species, once nearly hunted to extinction but now increasing in numbers. The last North American survey in 2005 was 35,000 trumpeter swans. This is still not a lot.
The trumpeter swans were not present at the pond, which has iced over. Swans like open water for feeding, and am not sure they will return.
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The usual group of birds were present at Saw Wee Kee Park, including 10 cardinals. With slight snow flurries and a dusting of snow on the ground, it was a good day to get photos of male cardinals (also there were 8 male cardinals in the area).
A little before 4 pm all birds disappeared and did not return. When that happens there is a predator nearby. A red-tailed hawk flew over the trees a few minutes later, and then a few minutes after that an eagle did a flyover. Time to go home, most of the birds will be in hiding for the remainder of daylight hours.
While editing in Lightroom I discovered the reason I am not fond of male cardinal photos: the color temperature. The pictures I take of male cardinals usually seem too orange. My solution is to bring the color temp down 400-500 degrees. This gives a nice blue red, not orange red.
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Daughter Laura has taken over scheduling photo club activities for her employer, the Chicago office of The Nerdery software design and development company. The company is going to update staff photos, and Laura asked if I would come speak to the club about taking portrait photos. There was a range of expertise in the group, from beginner to wedding photographer.
Unfortunately I forgot to take my blip until after had packed up light modifiers and photo gear. Took out a slave flash and put it on a table, bouncing the flash off a wall.
It's great when the photo subjects bring their own white balance disk into a photo!
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Placed suet cakes on the deck rail four days ago. After two days the house sparrows decided the metal contraption was not a trap and started eating suet, and after three days the starlings followed suit. Did not know if the suet would attract any woodpeckers, as there are no large trees in the immediate vicinity. However, today's first time visitor is a downy woodpecker, which stopped by for a few minutes at 7:45 am. Lacking a tree trunk, he is using his tail to steady himself on the rail.
I still have to get a proper suet cage instead of an upside down basket tied down with twine.
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Lady cardinal at Saw Wee Kee Park. Waited out an hour of cloudiness for the sun to break through, and this and a few similar photos were the reward. Male cardinals are flashier and their photos against snow are great, but the rest of the time I prefer photos of female cardinals. Their colors more closely mesh with and complement the surroundings.
Finished preparing a large crock of chili for tomorrow's Super Bowl game. I like to clean dishes and pots as I work, but it didn't happen this time. The kitchen was a mess, but no longer. Also need to go to the church and set up the audio/video equipment to be certain everything is working for the game.
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The red-bellied woodpeckers at Saw Wee Kee Park like to eat suet, but shelled peanuts and raisins were the preference today. This male came within 3-4 meters to grab nuts off the ground, and there is a fair amount of detail in the bird's photo due to close proximity:
- red blush on breast and belly
- red cap and nape of neck, as well as red around eye
- red eye
- black and white feathers on back
- top of legs covered with black and white feathers
- green legs and feet
- base of tongue is pink, transitioning to black and changing to light gray on the pointed end
- dark hairs under the bird's chinny chin chin!
This morning it was cloudy and dark, and I mounted a TTL flashgun on the camera as a light supplement. Am not a fan of direct flash, but in this case it helped knock the ISO down to 320 and put a gleam in the woodpecker's eye. There is a small amount of shine from the flash on the bill, tongue, and peanut, but other than that the flash is not evident.
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Chillin' on a sunny day, or is that sunning on a chilly day?
Daughter Laura is going to sell her Naperville condo and move to Chicago, and visited her today to take condo photos for her real estate sales listing. Walked over to the West Branch Dupage River Trail for concluding photos, as being close to the path is a nice perk and worthy of inclusion.
The river trail ends miles north at Blackwell Forest Preserve in Warrenville. The southern portion connects to the Naperville Riverwalk in downtown Naperville two miles away, making it an easy bicycle ride to Naperville where she used to work. Saw a couple red-tailed hawks over the river, and on the way back spotted three herons sunning on the east bank of the river.
Went back to the car to trade the wide angle lens for a long zoom for heron pics. Eyes shut, looks like this heron is wearing a long coat to keep warm during a winter nap.
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This is another in a series of bird portraits. There are more than 200 million starlings in North America, all of which are descended from 100 birds released in New York City's Central Park in 1890-91. 50 of the 200 million arrived in my backyard this morning and a couple of them climbed the bird feeder. They were not interested in sunflower seeds however, and the group scavenged through the lawn and mulch instead.
Winter nonbreeding plumage shows white tips on the feathers. A starling's iridescent purple and green feathers are attractive, and show much better when lit by sunshine.
Set out a couple suet cakes temporarily tied under a metal basket until I buy a suet cage. I know the starlings will like suet, and I'm hoping for an expanded variety of birds. As the basket is on the deck rail it could be subject to squirrels, raccoons, and other critters.
Natural light, cloudy day, relatively high ISO 2000.
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Rain or shine, sparrows, finches, and juncos keep coming back for a free lunch at the feeder. It sleeted and then rained for most of the daylight hours. The top of the bird's heads were soaked, but the rest of their feathers were not.
Have been experimenting with flashgun lighting at our bird feeder on dark days such as this. The most effective indoor solution so far is to mount the flash on a lightstand and elevate it so that it's leaning out and pointing down from a transom window above the back door. Nasty shadows from direct flash can be mostly avoided by selecting only certain positions for photos such as the deck rail and left/right (not center) perches on the feeder.
Shooting with a flash darkens the background, adds a catchlight to the bird's eyes, adds sparkle to rain on the bird, and makes for a well-exposed photo. Setting the shutter for flash sync speed gives motion to rain in the immediate background.
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I've concluded that one can never have enough magnification for outdoor photos. A nice long zoom and 1.5x crop camera body should be enough to eliminate generous photo cropping, right? Nope, it helps but always want more zoom.
A group of adult female common mergansers were floating down the river at the far bank across from Saw Wee Kee Park. Brown head, tufts, white chin, long red bill, slate gray body. The river is wide at that spot, but what the heck let's give a shot at zoom and crop.
Black/white/gray reflections at the top are from the every present Canada geese which are everywhere in this county. Golden water reflections are from dried grasses at the river's edge.
No eagles were seen at the park today. River ice has melted, and with miles of open water the eagles appear to have spread out up and down the river. This past weekend Bald Eagle Watch Weekend was held at Starved Rock State Park where the lack of eagles story was the same. Talked to two people who attended, and they said only one eagle showed up. Guess the eagles didn't receive their invitations!
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d with an LED ring flash attached to a macro lens this afternoon, taking pics of a flower moved to the kitchen. As the ring flash is not powerful and there was no sunlight today, supplemented the flash with a fluorescent light.
The difference in this photo is bright filaments and anthers, and the shadows cast by the stamens are very soft. The ring flash will play a part in bug and flower photos this year (but it's not for birds!)
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In my opinion the red-tailed hawk is the king of the skies over open fields, at least in this area of the U.S.. The largest red-tail weighs only 3 pounds/1.4 kilograms, but is among the largest raptors hunting over open ground.
Hawk populations in northern Illinois swell in winter, as there are year-round resident hawks as well as hawks which have migrated to this area from the far north. This morning on a drive to go shopping I saw six red-tailed hawks on a 4 mile/6.4 kilometer trip.
+1 EV shooting against the sky, 5 point center focus. 1/1250th shutter speed was quite not fast enough to freeze the upper wing. I shoot aperture priority 99% of the time, but will try shutter priority also adjusting ISO and aperture for a faster shutter.
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Two juvenile eagles went after a great blue heron. I thought they were going to kill the heron, but the it escaped but in the photo this juvenile following the heron downstream. A little earlier one of the juveniles twice unsuccessfully attacked a group of geese downstream. The eagles must be hungry to be going after large birds.
I've not been able to get an in-focus photo of a fast moving bird with trees in the background until today. I use dynamic 9 point continuous autofocusing for birds in flight, and believe that as the camera pans it sees the trees as dynamic moving objects and focuses on them. Today I was in a hurry to see the eagle/heron ruckus, jumping out of the car and grabbing the camera but failing to change focus from 5 point static to 9 point dynamic. My failure worked.
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It took two weeks for the American goldfinches to find my bird feeder, but now up to six goldfinches at a time are feeding. Goldfinch plumage seems to be in transition, with many starting a patchy black spot on the front of their face. It looks like a dirty face t in some photos! In addition, the pale plumage of winter appears to be undergoing a change to the canary yellow of spring and summer.
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We have open water this winter, and as a result a few great blue heron are still around. Am not seeing as many as in the summer, however, as many of the ponds the heron fish are iced over.
An eagle played a game with me, hiding in the branches of two different trees so could not get a clear photo (see extra). When I was distracted taking photos of other flying birds such as common merganser, the eagle would fly away. Smart bird.
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Was out to look for eagles when spotted two red-tailed hawks hovering beside the Orchard Road railroad overpass just north of Mill. Winds were high, and the hawks were able to effortlessly hover in the same position looking for mice in the grass of the bridge embankment. Parked at the park n ride and climbed the embankment to cross the bridge.
Took pics of one hawk hovering (see extra), and then followed it back over the bridge where it settled down in a pine tree (main blip).
Later at Saw Wee Kee Park I heard a crow's warning call. You need to pay attention when hearing a bird's warning, and glancing up saw another red-tailed hawk gliding in looking for squirrels/birds at the bird feeding tree. This hawk came in just above me (see extra), landing higher in the tree.
Could not get near an eagle on this day, and could not get much closer to red-tailed hawks.
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This is the front of a bald eagle. Yesterday was a picture of the back of an eagle, but it does not matter much to the eagle since it can reportedly rotate it's head 180 degrees or 270 degrees depending on the reference you consult. I've regularly seen them rotate their heads 180 degrees. Ouch!
This shot was taken 5 miles/8 km upstream from yesterday. Is it the same eagle? I doubt it. The downstream adult eagle had a juvenile tagging along with it, and this one did not.
Yesterday's lighting was more filtered and the sun was lower in the sky, and I thought the result was better yesterday. I processed this photo more heavily in Lightroom, adding the sunflare on the upper right and increasing vibrance, saturation, and tint.
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Look for a large dark blob high in a tree on the water's edge, in this instance on the edge of a river. As is often the case, the eagle was on the opposite side of the river where there was nothing to disturb it.
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Drove north on Illinois Rt 25 along the Fox River looking for eagles and a large duck called common merganser. This is a male (bottom) and female (top) common merganser, also called a fish duck since they eat mainly fish. The male has a green head/neck and a long red bill. The female has a cinnamon colored head and crest which can't be seen very well in this photo. They winter in this area and summer in Canada.
The mergansers flew away as ducks often do when people approach. I think they are used to being hunted and shot, and wariness of people is therefore a virtue but not helpful for photos.
Fox River just south of the U.S. Route 30 bridge, Montgomery, Illinois.
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Photographed a pair of love birds at Meson Sabika tapas restaurant in Naperville, Illinois. Rebecca and Reuben were married today!
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Photo notes: Large windows were used as general light, rim light, and hair light, as well as to show the evergreen tree background. Flash white card used as fill light and to add sparkle to eyes. Shot at an angle to the window to cut down on reflections.
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After leaving the Yorkville, IL dam with no eagle pics, saw a family of white-tailed deer on the north side of Van Emmon Road as drove home. The mother deer and three fawns watched as I parked the car, walked down the road for a better view, and crossed the road. Did not get a good photo of all four deer together.
Since the deer were not in the same focal plane, set aperture at f7.1 in order to get additional depth of field. Backing off on the zoom probably helped increase the depth of field, too.
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The tufted titmouse was scolding me, first from high in the tree and then from a branch a meter off the ground.
An inch/2.5 cm of snow fell overnight. The photo background is the river, now almost covered with ice and topped with the new layer of snow.
On a trip to San Francisco my daughter bought a packet of sourdough starter for me. I make a lot of regular bread, and thought this would be a treat. A week ago I made the sourdough batter, and on Friday made sourdough bread using the starter batter. Unexpectedly we had company for dinner, and I hoped this could be served. It did not rise much, and after baking I did a taste test. Declared to those assembled that this was a failed experiment best served to the squirrels and birds, not to people. I promptly threw the bread outside on the deck.
It's now several days later, and the critters have not eaten much sourdough. A pack of hungry European Starlings came this morning. Starlings will eat almost anything, but they picked at the bread and decided they found a better use than eating it.
I think I heard one of them say, "Hey guys, I found a use for this sourdough bread. It makes a great place to park your rear."
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It was a sunny cold crisp 9 F/-13 C day, and once again made the drive to the Yorkville Dam to look for eagles. There was only one adult bald eagle at the time, and it was less than photogenically sitting far away in a tree on the opposite river bank behind the island.
After 20 minutes we had to make a quick about face to take care of some business in Aurora. Was able to get pics of ducks and gulls in that time, and the common goldeneye was one such duck.
The common goldeneye winters in locations where there is open water. Ice continues to build upstream above the dam, but below the dam the water is open.
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Took a drive to the Yorkville, Illinois dam on the Fox River to look for bald eagles. There were three juvenile eagles flying around the river, as well as gulls, crows, geese, ducks, a great blue heron, and a red-tailed hawk. The sky turned completely cloudy by arrival at the dam, and flying eagle pics were grainy and not good. Will try again.
East/upstream of the dam there is a large ice jam on the river which caused flooding on a Yorkville street two days ago. Temps will be below freezing for the next week, which could add to the jam.
Stopped at Saw Wee Kee Park on the way home for photos of song birds. Set at +0.67 EV due to lighter colored background and lower light conditions, and this was just about perfect.
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The birds at this park are a little like our dogs waiting to be fed. As with our dogs, the birds know when it's dinnertime. A retired couple feeds these birds at the same time each morning. When the appointed feeding time arrives, the birds are anxiously waiting in the trees and bushes. I arrived an hour too early today, and there were few birds until just before feeding time.
White-breasted nuthatch, Saw Wee Kee Park
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The bald eagle put on a show, flying directly over the park twice instead of flying over the river. The main part of an eagle's diet is fish, and we usually see them flying over water. Went to the canoe launch and checked the water. Although the level is high and running fast, the water is clear for fishing.
Another individual alerted me to the eagle overhead, calling it "baby". This is an immature eagle, and the term baby has some truth to it. This bald eagle is in it's second or third year.
EV+1 because was shooting into the sky and cirrus clouds. 9 point dynamic focus.
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This was a day for raptors. We've had a couple sub zero degree F nights, and this seems to draw more raptors out. Several bald eagles and four red-tailed hawks were at the river near or at Saw Wee Kee Park. The mature bald eagle in the photo was sitting in a tree by the road leading to the park. Could hardly believe it was this close, and that it did not fly away.
The blip is the first and best photo taken. When people in another car saw what I was looking at they stopped. This was too much attention for the eagle, and it flew to the other side of the river.
It was snowing, and the white out of focus spots on the eagle and tree branch are snow flakes. Used a knit hood I carry for keeping me warm, instead putting it on the lens/camera. This worked well to keep snow off the gear.
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High gusty winds ruffled some feathers this morning, also causing blowing and drifting snow. Took a few morning pictures before leaving for the day as insurance against no trip to the park. Did not get out to the park, and this is one of those morning pics.
The skinny squirrel showed up but had not yet placed seed on the deck or rail. The squirrel sat, shivered, and appeared to be pouting. Later I went out and put a cup of sunflower seeds out for the birds. I spied the squirrel watching me from the fence line two doors down. After I left, the squirrel and a friend came by for a meal.
Installed a wallpaper mural on a children's room wall at the church. The mural was made in Germany and the instructions were in German, which I muddled part way through before getting expert assistance. This was a paste the wall not the paper type of product. Directions said the 280 cm x 400 cm mural would be up in an hour. I wondered about that. It took us three hours.
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Stood outside for an hour taking pictures in snowy 5-10 F/-12 to -15 C temperatures. At the end of the hour I stood right by the bird seed scattered on the ground. The birds were hungry, and some had no problem coming close to eat such as this American tree sparrow. Others gathered around in a semicircle waiting for me to leave. When I got in the car, all birds promptly descended on the food.
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Arrived home from church and decided not to go to the park in windy 10 F/-12 C conditions. Instead, sat in the comfort of the house and took pics of juncos and sparrows through the glass door. This time the background is the neighbor's cedar fence.
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Tufted titmice don't spend long on the ground, and one must be quick to focus and trigger the shutter button. They are so speedy I often have a photo with no bird in it. After landing the titmouse will quickly grab a seed (usually a nut at this feeder area) and fly it to a nearby stockpile location.
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Observed two brown creepers at Saw Wee Kee Park this morning. This photo shows a better view of the species than the brown creeper pic posted on November 30, 2015.
Rain was falling and is forecast for all day. In an attempt to improve lighting, put an off camera flashgun on a tripod closer to the birds. Covered the flash with a ziploc bag for rain protection (see extra photo). It worked pretty well for birds close to the flash, but required sticking to 1/200 flash sync speed and adjusting the ISO for near or more distant subjects. In this photo the brown creeper was a little too far away from the flash, so pushed exposure value up in post.
On a gray day I would use the tripod mounted flash again. Although in some cases the light from the flash was harsh, It allowed me to take better photos and protect the camera by remaining in the car.
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Did not get out to the park today. Instead, let the birds come to me. This dove came to the deck late in the daylight hours. I left a trail of seed leading close to the glass door, but nothing doing for this dove. It was close enough anyway.
Drove along Roth and Woolley Roads looking for turkeys. Spotted a hawk or owl diving into a cornfield, but could not identify it. Saw an American kestrel sitting on top of a house when walking the dogs in the neighborhood.
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A skinny little squirrel has showed up at our deck the last three mornings. I spread some seed for it on the deck early today, and an hour later it arrived for breakfast. After polishing off the seed on the floor, the squirrel proceeded to the deck rail where seed was placed for birds, eating that as well. he squirrel spent two hours with us this morning, and does not mind seeing people or dogs through the glass door.
After finishing the deck seed yesterday, the squirrel investigated reaching the bird feeder. It climbed around the deck rails as well as the steel structure holding the feeder, but ultimately decided against attempting the jump to the feeder.
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House finches are year round residents in much of the U.S. This one is feeding on black oil sunflower seeds.
This picture was taken at the new feeder hanging over our deck. The main light is reflected sunlight bouncing off light-colored house siding, and the sun is the rim light. Feeder was hung so will often have a dark background provided by an Austrian pine at the rear of the property. This photo was taken through a glass door, which I scrupulously cleaned inside and out but the double glass still interferes with light transmission.
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Traveled to Lake Renwick Forest Preserve (Will County) as well as to Lake Bartlett looking for greater white-fronted geese, but without success. There are so many Canada geese crowding into ponds and lakes which have not skimmed over with ice that it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. There are thousands of Canada geese at Renwick and 500 or so at Lake Bartlett.
Returned to Saw Wee Kee Park. For bird's perspective photos tried sitting on an 8 inch collapsible plastic stool, but it was a little low for comfort. Took most photos kneeling, which has the advantage of being able to modify height to a small degree.
First bird to show up and feed at new bird feeder at home was a female house finch. Will post feeder photos in the near future after figuring out a good way to take these pics.
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Many birds spend time on the ground searching for food or nesting materials. I am attempting to be more consistent in getting close to a bird's eye view, on least on ground level (won't be climbing trees or ladders to get up to tree or flying heights!) Close to the ground gives a different perspective, includes more of the bird's environment, helps to blur foreground/background, and creates the opportunity for a better photo than always aiming the camera down from a standing position.
This perspective also shows what a jungle exists on the ground of a woods at a small bird's level. It presents a lot messier picture than what I prefer, but so be it.
In the past several days I have tried sitting on the ground, kneeling, and sitting on the first step of a step stool. All work, but the ground is cold in January!
This is a white-throated sparrow, and by being close to the ground I seemed to be better able to observe it's behavior. It approached the bird seed area by walking up the river bank not flying, and each time it approached the bird favored walking by a certain medium sized tree for cover (giving predictable photo opps at this tree). Although it mixed with juncos and other kinds of sparrows part of the time, it spent more time by itself on the edge of the group.
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Dropped son Matt off at Chicago O'Hare Airport International Terminal for his flight back to China. On the drive to the airport he said he would arrive at his apartment in Shenzhen 23 hours later. That kind of travel is not for me!
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Saw many of the usual birds at the park this afternoon, until along comes a bird foraging far off to the left and right of the main group. This is yet another type of sparrow, and I hope I've correctly identified it as a song sparrow. This bird lives year round in Illinois.
Didn't get to hear it's song, so played audio clips on the allaboutbirds.org site. The song sparrow alarm call caused Nilla our dog to start barking.
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Day 365 - I began blipping on January 1, 2015, and posted a photo taken that same day all year. When I started I thought there would be missed days, but that soon became unthinkable. Improved technique, a new camera body in April, and a new lens in September made the journey both easier and more enjoyable. God's great outdoors of birds, butterflies, bugs, critters, plants, and flowers is something which to look forward each day!
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A winter visitor to the Chicago area, the white-throated sparrow summers in Canada, northern midwest U.S., and northeastern U.S.
A fresh coat of morning snow helped reflect light on this sparrow.
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The fox sparrow summers in northern and western North America, and Chicagoland is on the edge between it's migration and winter territory. This is a large sparrow and which is named for it's red color. Feeding behavior normally involves scuffing in leaf litter for seeds and insects, but only observed this once today. This bird went straight for the bird seed spread on the ground.
The white stuff on the ground is not snow. It sleeted all day yesterday, and the slush formed a frozen ice pack. Today is cloudy, and the white ground served as an excellent reflector for fill light.
Saw Wee Kee Park
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This is son FarAwayWolf posing with friends.
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Just another day at the beach: 36 F (2 C), 20 mph (32 km/h) winds, and gray skies. Camera mounted flashgun was used to brighten photo, then intentionally blew out 40% of the background in Lightroom during post processing. The duck is standing on gravel at a boat launch, but am attempting to give the illusion of standing on white sand.
At the lake were 70 mallards, 20 geese, one muscovy duck, one common goldeneye, and one ruddy duck. Could not get close enough to the goldeneye or ruddy duck for a good photo.
Oakhurst Forest Preserve, Aurora, Illinois
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The cardinal is looking as if to say, "it's a wet day, why are you here?" I draped a rag rug over the camera and lens as a light rain started on arrival at the park. Spent a total of 10 minutes shooting pictures, and when I saw a drip run down the unprotected flashgun it was time to go. The sparkles are flash reflections from tiny water droplets on the cardinal.
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Luke 2:7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger
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Hairy and downy woodpeckers almost look alike. Hairy woodpeckers are larger, have a bill length almost as long as the head, and a black bar extending onto the chest. This bird has a red crown at the back of it's head, therefore it is a male.
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Another bird species to blip! This is the first time I've identified a golden-crowned kinglet. I walked a short way down the path at Saw Wee Kee Park, and when it encountered me this tiny songbird appeared to be confused about what to do. It continued to give it's high-pitched call as it flew from branch to branch in close proximity about 2.5 meters away. This bird is a winter visitor to the Chicagoland area.
Much of the day was cloudy and dark, and decided to try using a camera-mounted flashgun with the 200-500mm lens. As long as I was close to the subject the flash worked well, bringing out color and detail while bringing ISO to an acceptable level. Flash was used in this photo. The gray background is the Fox River.
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No bird photos today, the sun did not shine and son Matt is arriving for a visit from Shenzhen, China in about 15 minutes.
For background placed some gifts I wrapped this morning under the tree, selected the smallest ornament on the tree (1.5" diameter bulb), closed the window blinds, mounted the camera on a tripod, and started shooting at different apertures. Light is provided by white lights on the tree.
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From 12:30 to 1:30 pm there was an hour of partly sunny skies, so rushed out to Saw Wee Kee Park for photos. On the way out from the park on there were 13 wild turkeys in a Sundown Lane resident's yard. It was the same place I saw one turkey a few days ago, so I believe the resident is feeding the turkeys. Stopped and clicked off a few shots before the turkeys ran/flew away.
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Stopped by Oakhurst Forest Preserve on the way home from church. There was not much daylight left, and hoped for a quick photo and on our way home. A muscovy duck cooperated, and I spent 12 minutes at the site taking photos of the duck. It was standing on a rock in the water, and didn't seem to care how close I was. These aren't the prettiest ducks, and I tried to make a beautiful portrait by emphasizing the background colors.
Muscovies eat creepy crawly things and are reported to be excellent at controlling fly and mosquito populations. A muscovy duck's meat is 98% fat free and is not greasy as other duck meat.
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The tufted titmouse lives year round in the eastern half of the United States. This one was flocking with chickadees, sparrows, nuthatches, and woodpeckers at an area having both bird seed and suet cakes. It grabs a seed, then flies to a tree branch to crack the seed open.
Location: Saw Wee Kee Park, Oswego, Illinois
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We had sunshine today, and I took a number of keeper photos at Saw Wee Kee Park. I especially liked the colors, sunlight, shading, and overall detail on this female cardinal. There is even a bit of backlighting underneath the bird; am not sure of the source of the backlighting, but it might skylight bouncing off the Fox River behind the cardinal. This is one of my favorites from all of 2015.
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No rain today, therefore a bird post at last! The female red-bellied woodpecker has red at the base of the bill and the back of the head/neck, while the male has red from the base of the bill running over the top of the head and down the back of the neck.
This was at Saw Wee Kee Park on Oswego's southwest side. Whoever is throwing bird seed around the base of this tree also provided several suet cakes.
Six days ago I noticed that vehicles could park close to the tree and the birds did not fly away as readily as if a person approached on foot. Today I parked my car 6-8 meters closer and shot photos from the driver side window. One can get closer to the birds this way, but I like walking around. Sitting in the car is not very much exercise.
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This is a follow up on yesterday's blip, the point being there is a reason for the Christmas season and people should follow up on it and go to church!
Photo notes: used the odd assembly of foam board in the basement instead of the kitchen in order to better control extraneous light sources. The church is part of a small internally lighted ceramic village we purchased in 1991. The trees at the left were used to hide the electric cord going into the church.
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My entry for Blip's Christmas-themed Tiny Tuesday 29 is The Reason for the Season. Baby Jesus was placed close to the macro lens, with other figures about 0.5 meter behind so could fully capture figurine height as well as have them out of focus.
The set up was on the kitchen island using two pieces of black foam board, two pieces of white foam board, nativity figures, and camera on tripod. Light was provided by a single candle placed between the baby Jesus figure and one of the white foam boards to camera left. Window blinds were shut, although a little light leaked in from cloudy skies contributing to more blues in the photo.
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Another rainy day has come and gone. Stayed inside this afternoon and made manicotti stuffed with vegetable/cheese filling using the Joy of Cooking recipe. Of course there were modifications to the recipe, as I could tell there would not be enough filling so added more ricotta.
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"The indignity of it all! Although I make this cheap hat from the dollar store look good, it does not fit me. Finish and get this thing off me!"
It's been raining all day, and since outdoors photos were not going to happen Nilla was pressed into service as a model. She was not exactly thrilled. Part of the time Nilla looked off to the side, which is what she does when she's not happy with you.
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Travelled 100 miles/160 km to visit family in northwest Indiana. Brother-in-law Jim owns a 1934 Ford and is a major old car fan, and in the photo he is looking very pleased with his 1957 gas pump and various other automotive signs and equipment he has collected. The price on the pump is 32.9 cents a gallon.
I was trying to let the gas pump lights provide much of the illumination, and hoped they would light Jim's face. One incandescent light behind at camera right provided fill. Knocked the exposure value to -1 in camera to avoid blowing out the gas pump lights.
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Went to Saw Wee Kee Park on the advice of ebirder Mary. Someone throws bird seed on the ground by the parking lot, attracting birds and animals (cardinals, chickadees, downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, mourning doves, blue jays, tufted titmouse, sparrows, white nuthatches, squirrels, and hawks). Walked down the trail and unexpectedly came face to face with a hawk sitting on a branch 6 meters away, but did not get a photo.
Have not previously been able to get close to a blue jay, but I stood by a post in the parking lot for a period and the prospect of an easy meal brought the birds back to the seed.
Blue jays are seen year round in the eastern U.S. and lower eastern Canada. They are larger than most song birds, and were only second to the mourning doves in the pecking order at this spot.
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Last December I looked across the street at the neighbor's window and said "What the heck is that?" Walked closer and closer and still could not figure out what this was. Finally I was in the neighbor's yard, and could see it was a leg.
Discovered that the neighbors like the 1983 movie "A Christmas Story", and that the guys in the house like the leg lamp in the movie. They bought this lamp to display as part of their Christmas lights and tradition.
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Male and female common goldeneye ducks at Lake Bartlett in Oswego, Illinois. Adults have golden eyes! Goldeneye summer in Canada, Alaska, and along the Great Lakes. Their winter home is mostly in the U.S.
Photo was taken at 8:25 am from the eastern shore of the lake, with the ducks closer to the western shore. Sunrise was at 7:08 am, but with the sun so low in the sky this time of year I believe that golden hour is greatly extended.
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Nerve Plant Fittonia Verschaffeltii Acanthaceae from South America
Visited Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago, Illinois. Have some nice photos, but upon review I would shoot some subjects differently next time. I would get down low on the floor at the smallest plant level more of the time. Might bring a rag rug on which to lie down.
There are hazards from getting down at plant level. When taking a few parting photos I was on my hands and knees taking pictures of tiny silver dichondra. A small stream coming from a nearby watered plant quickly turned into a creek and soaked my pant legs!
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Duncan Fine-O-Meter on Third Street in Geneva, Illinois. The term Fine-O-Meter was trademarked from 1954 by Duncan Parking Meter Company which at the time was based in Chicago. It's a box in which to place envelopes to pay parking fines. I don't know how parking tickets are currently paid in Geneva. Doubt it's by putting money in a box, but the Fine-O-Meters are still in place so maybe in use?
Wife and her sister were shopping at The Little Traveler in Geneva, so I walked around town with my camera. It was a foggy and cloudy day. Saw lots of squirrels!
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We spent a few hours scraping/patching/painting at our daughter's condo in preparation for selling it. A first floor resident had a bird feeder, and took advantage of the feeder by taking bird pictures.
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At last! I've been trying to get close enough for a gadwall picture for months. The park district mowed the high weeds on the east side of Lake Bartlett, making it easier to approach the eastern shore. Although the gadwall swam away when they spotted me, a park district worker came to check a drainage weir on the lake's north end sending the ducks swimming back toward me.
Gadwall don't sport flashy colors, and what some might call drab I call refined. They mainly eat aquatic vegetation, but also eat invertebrates especially during breeding season. Northern Illinois is on the border line between their summer and winter homes.
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I'm blipping a cardinal for the second day in a row as he was the best looking of the photos. This one was in the open and not partially covered by brush. Cardinal blips may get to be as frequent as monarch butterfly blips were during the summer.
It was a high ISO day in which the sun should have appeared from behind the clouds in mid-afternoon, but never did so. Went to Lake Bartlett for photos of common goldeneye or gadwall (types of ducks), but given poor lighting conditions and distance it did not work out. These ducks were at the lake, and may try again within the next few days.
Later I walked the creek behind the Oswego Home Depot, an area with brush and large trees. This cardinal lives here. Other birds included a couple red-tailed hawks cruising along the creek toward the golf course.
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About one inch/2.5 cm of snow fell, and had a nice hike in the snow this morning. Tromped around Eagle Ridge disc golf course for over an hour with the usual birds were present: juncos, mourning doves, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, chickadees, brown creepers, and cardinals. There was one bird call I could not identify in the woods north of the Oswego township highway department driveway.
I was amazed how well the cardinals fly through the underbrush. Could hear them all around me, but most of the time could not see them. The cardinal in the photo was a little more fearless than the others, and in addition to posing in the brush he foraged on the ground nearby.
Photographed and identified one new bird, a white-throated sparrow, but decided to go for the prettiest picture for today's blip. The sparrow is posted as an extra on blipfoto.
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Gibson is a rescued four year old Australian cattle dog. This is a high energy working dog, and I watched Gibson run and leap after a tennis ball for over half an hour with only a few short water breaks.
In the mid 1800s the Australian cattle dog was developed to herd cattle from a Dingo-blue merle Collie-Dalmatian mix. This dog comes in various blue or red colors with black/tan, red, or tan markings. You might have heard this type of dog called a blue heeler.
The dog park was not busy today, and I think it's because of the weekend rain and muddy conditions at the park.
Posted an extra profile photo in which Gibson is normally posed and not stretched out flying.
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The Chicago area is a winter home for brown creepers. Streaked brown above, they blend into the large tree trunks as they creep upward searching for insects and spiders hidden in tree bark. Brown creepers have a "decurved", or downward curving bill.
It's been surprising that I've seen insects almost every day it's been in the 40s F. There was a cloud of midges (I think) after the snowstorm last week, and a moth flying around a couple days ago. This morning I saw the brown creeper with an insect it dug out of the bark.
Headed out at 8 am to avoid rain. Say what you want about weather forecasters, but weather.com has been highly accurate on the hourly forecast. Today it called for light rain by 10 am (yup, started at 945 am). Yesterday it forecast completely cloudy by 3 pm (yes, clouded over at 240 pm).
I plan to get high contrast less noisy photos of brown creepers in sunlight this winter.
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Despite the 45F temperature there were a lot of players at the disc golf course, driving the birds elsewhere. Was pretty sure the birds would not go far, and after walking around for 20 minutes I located a mixed group at a secluded edge of the course.
I met Isabella and her owner at the Springbrook Prairie Forest Preserve dog park in Naperville. 'Bella is a six year old Australian shepherd. Australian shepherds are working dogs with strong herding and guarding instincts. When I walked to get far enough from her for a photo, she followed herding me!
About 30 cedar waxwings were sitting at the top of a tree by Eagle Ridge disc golf hole #12. Cedar waxwings are normally brown and yellow underneath. The fluffy white feathers look like molts.
These birds live year round in the Chicago area. They like fruit, and one flew to a nearby berry bush and was eating berries.
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Happy Thanksgiving to those in the U.S. This is today's U.S. national bird, the Thanksgiving turkey. This one is a fresh turkey. Brined it overnight, then roasted in steps 400F then 325F then 225F. Have not brined before, and will see how it is.
Son Matt (sporadic blipper FarAwayWolf) called from Shenzhen this morning. He said that the word turkey in Chinese is huo ji, which means "fire bird". Matt, this is what you are missing!
I relate a cautionary tale on the little plastic pop up thermometers which come inserted in our turkeys. You might not want to trust them! After two hours the pop up thermometer indicated the turkey was done, and I said "no way!" Inserted a regular meat thermometer, and the internal temp was 20 degrees F too low.
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In this particular location cardinals travel deep in the brush where it's hard to get a photo without sticks and vines in the way. It's not hard to locate cardinals by their call and color, but the tougher part is getting close enough for a clear unobstructed view. A bird feeder would make this easier!
The cardinal is the state bird of Illinois and six other states, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia. Illinois schoolchildren selected the cardinal as the Illinois state bird in the 1920s.
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Wrigley is a German shorthaired pointer, and this photo was captured at the Springbrook Prairie Forest Preserve dog park off 83rd Street in Naperville, Illinois. The dog park is a fenced area where dogs are allowed to be off leash and free running. And as you can see, Wrigley can run!
The American Kennel Club notes that German shorthaired pointers are AKC ranked as the 12th most popular breed, and are friendly, smart, willing to please, and high energy.
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A group was playing around practicing "squinching" their eyes after shooting pictures for Christmas use. This was one of Jenni's practice squinches.
See Peter Hurley youtube videos to learn how to squinch!
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The red-bellied woodpecker has a reddish blush on it's belly that we usually don't see when the body of the bird is up against the tree. I was happy when this guy showed up, as daylight was waning and I didn't have much to show for my photo outing this afternoon.
Red-bellied woodpeckers have a white/black ladder pattern on their back. The male has a red cap from front to the neck, and the female has red patches on the back of the neck and top of the bill.
From what I've observed, red-bellied woodpeckers prefer large trees. This male was high over my head in Marina Woods Park, a 1.8 acre park with mature trees on the west side of the Fox River in Oswego.
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"What Happened?" asks the American goldfinch. "It's all white in my woods." Northern Illinois experienced the first snow of the season, and it is more than the usual first dusting of snow which melts on contact.
Covered the camera and lens with a nylon jacket to keep falling snow and slushy snow glops falling from trees off the equipment. With reduced light and contrast found it more difficult to find the subject in the viewfinder, and the camera had a tougher time focusing. Some of the time the camera focused on falling snow not birds.
Tried mightily for cardinal and red-bellied woodpecker photos, and hope for better results in the near future. Saw a bird with a very large wingspan fly away; this was likely a bald eagle. Juncos were everywhere.
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A male downy woodpecker (red spot on back of head = male) has a determined look when feeding. The male tends to feed on small branches and stems which are more productive than larger trunks and large branches. The male was periodically chasing a female downy, apparently keeping her away from the small branches.
One week ago I blipped a female downy at this spot. Reviewed photos from that day, and the female was feeding on tree trunks and large branches in all of them.
Later the male downy landed on a weed stem 2 meters from where I stood. I am certain he saw me, but he did not fly away and continued to feed. Wish some of the other birds were as friendly. Attempted but did not get good pics of a red-bellied woodpecker and of half a dozen cardinals. They are not fond of posing in close quarters.
Location: west side of driveway into Waa Kee Sha Park, Oswego, Illinois.
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This red-tailed hawk was sitting on a tree on the west side of the Fox River just north of the pedestrian bridge at Violet Patch Park on Rt 25 in Oswego, Illinois. There was not much bird or animal activity across the road at the disc golf course at Civic Center Park, and I was glad to see this hawk.
The diet of the red-tailed hawk is 85%-95% rodents. I don't believe they are known for fishing, but early in the year I saw one carrying a fish to another tree in this area.
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At the request of Diane M: a bird picture! It is not exactly a perfect day for outdoor pics,. It's cloudy but not raining, so crank up the ISO to 1600 and see what can be found. Again searched for a wooded area to protect from the wind and provide cover for birds and critters, and this time found a great spot. The park district has a disc (frisbee) golf course near the Fox River which is surrounded by woods and built into the woods. Open meadows and "fairway" areas allow for good light penetration on the edges of the woods plus provide access into the woods. Birds, rabbits, and squirrels abounded.
After the usual research and review of several photos taken, I've concluded this is a pine siskin. This bird is in the finch family and winters in the Chicago area. It's a social bird and will flock with goldfinches in the winter, as it was doing today at this location.
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Went outside in the wind and rain to take pictures, but was unhappy with the results. So I'm taking the time-honored easy way out. This is how my backyard looks today as viewed from the back door (can't you tell?).
Rain is forecast for tomorrow, and I'll try not to do a similar photo.
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Minimal sunshine is forecast today, so took the camera out on the morning dog walk as I could see there would be a 20-30 minute window of sun and that might be it for the day. This photo was taken of autumn blaze maple leaves as sunlight first peeped out from behind a cloud at 7:12 am while holding two dog leashes in left hand and camera in right hand. The dogs patiently waited for me!
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There are so many kinds of sparrows! 35 or more species live in North America, and 15 are found in most of North America. Here is another.
The American tree sparrow has a rust-colored eye streak and a dark spot in the center of a plain breast. The thing I am keying in on is the bi-colored bill, black on top and yellow on the bottom. This bird winters in the northern two thirds of the U.S. and portions of southern Canada.
Photo was taken at the west terminus of Cherry Road in the Henneberry Woods subdivision of Oswego, Illinois. There are farm fields, meadows, scattered trees, and a wetland in the area. The Kendall County Forest Preserve District owns part of the property, although it remains undeveloped.
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At Springbrook Prairie Forest Preserve, Naperville, Illinois.
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Downy Woodpecker - this morning I sought a place where there would be protection from cold winds, and headed to the woods at Waa Kee Sha Park. Arrived and there were signs stating that due to high winds the trails were closed. Made sense, who wants a dead branch or dead tree falling on them? I stuck to the pavement and open spots, avoiding the woods where I wanted to be.
Walked north on the asphalt drive leading into the park. At first there were no birds, then a spot where there were birds, then no birds. Walked back to the location where birds were hanging out. What was the difference? Berries for food. Robins, goldfinches, cedar waxwings, nuthatches, and grackles were present. Stood in one spot and the birds gradually returned. A waxwing watched me for a period, and then either judged me not a threat or was very hungry as it flew down into the berry bushes. A red fox trotted down the drive, stopping to look at me and then hunting in the brush on the west side of the drive.
A female downy woodpecker (no red spot on back of head as a male downy woodpecker has) arrived and drilled on dead limbs and trees. Took quite a few pics - she seems to shut her eyes when she drills into a tree, and eye protection is needed for this drilling operation. Some of my drilling pics had motion blur, and I think a shutter speed faster than 1/1250 is warranted.
In coming days I will return with a lawn chair to sit in this spot. I like walking around, but unobtrusively staying in one position could be a better strategy. Extra of American robin about to eat a berry is posted.
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This windy, cold, gray morning we traveled 25 miles/40 km for an appointment near where we formerly lived. While driving I thought of the Willowbrook Wildlife Center in Glen Ellyn, Illinois as a place to get an indoor photo of a bird. Willowbrook is a DuPage County Forest Preserve native wildlife rehabilitation center, providing care and medical treatment for injured and orphaned animals. Willowbrook also provides educational programs on nature, and 20+ years ago we regularly took our kids to the facility.
This is a ring-necked dove, a bird which originated in Africa. It is found living in the wild in the southern United States, and is a common pet. This bird continually coos. I found the soft cooing nice for the time I was there, but it could be irritating to some. Staff was accommodating and took the dove out for me to see.
Took photos of other birds through screen cages. Shooting through the screen made the photos a little soft, somewhat like shooting through nylon hosiery. Will try it again in the near future when I'm in that area.
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After consulting my bird book, the internet, and noting other birds accompanying this one, I believe this is an immature white-crowned sparrow. In the past I would definitely have misidentified this as a different type of sparrow. Now there is a reduced probability of misidentification!
This photo was taken at the south end of Lake Bartlett in Oswego Illinois, between the lake and the wetland. Am transitioning to photos of woodland/meadow birds from water and shore birds. In addition to ducks, geese, and swans, also observed house sparrows, a blue jay, cardinals, black-capped chickadees, and a downy woodpecker. The white-crowned sparrow had the best pose and lighting of photos taken this morning.
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Dark-eyed juncos started arriving to spend the winter in the Chicago area 2-3 weeks ago, migrating from their Canada/northern Wisconsin/northern Minnesota summer breeding grounds. This is the slate-colored subspecies.
I'm sure I'll be blipping more juncos this winter!
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One of six mute swans at Lake Bartlett near my home is featured. I've not seen swans at this lake in the past, and I periodically take photos and fish at this park. Swans are often brought to small ponds and lakes as they are aggressive and tend to chase geese away. However, one of the swans was mixing with the Canada geese at the lake this morning.
The mute swan was brought to the U.S. from Europe, and these swans live year round in the Chicago area.
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It was slim pickings for bird species at the wetland this afternoon, with only a paltry number of Canada geese, six species of ducks, ring-billed gulls, and an unidentified sparrow. The migrating birds are heading on their respective journeys south for warmer weather. Checked ebird reports on the web to confirm, and two to three weeks ago the top ebirders reported 28 bird species at this location. Yesterday the report was 15.
Sat on the bank partially hidden, hoping that waves of birds would fly in for a photo opp. Yesterday they flew in by the droves, but today they flew out as this group of mallards did 40 minutes before sunset. There was a third male mallard, but he was a straggler and did not make it in the photo.
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Late in the afternoon two red-tailed hawks were free-wheeling high over the east side of the Prescott Mill wetland. As I was leaving I spotted one of them in a large tree south of Wolf's Crossing Road just west of U.S. 30.
Red-tailed hawks are very common and live year round in northern Illinois. The underside of a red-tailed hawk is pale/white, but this photo was taken during golden hour 30 minutes before sunset lending the underside a golden hue.
]]>My dearest Summer, wherefore hast thou gone,
And left me in this dreary world alone?
Thy form is here indeed --a lovely one--
But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road...
With apologies on substituting the word "Summer" in the first line to Percy Bysshe Shelley, d. 1822.
Summer is gone, leaving the lovely form of these flowers yielding their seeds to become next year's summer flowers. The bloom may be gone, but the seeds and fluff retain the look of a flower. This is the area I spent warm and happy times taking photos of butterflies in summer and fall.
Marcus - 2nd annual playground photoshoot.
Another 72 F/22.2 C stunner of a November day in Chicagoland!
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Summer breeding grounds for the white-crowned sparrow are in Canada and Alaska. It winters throughout much of the U.S. It likes sitting in low branches and brush, which is why the background of this photo is so busy. Added a vignette to cut down on the busy-ness.
This picture was taken on the west side of the Prescott Mill wetland. Had one photo of a gadwall today, but it was too far away to be of good quality.
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The ring-necked ducks were w-a-a-a-y out there as usual, so had to generously crop for a better view. As I was taking a photo of the two males at the bottom left of the photo, a group of female ring-necked ducks flew into the frame preparing to land. This wetland is a busy place.
Ring-necked ducks summer in Canada and the northern portions of a few states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. They winter in the southern and western U.S. as well as Mexico, Central America, and islands in the Caribbean.
This was not the best photo of the day, but my personal mission was to ID and photograph ring-necked ducks or gadwall. Gadwall will be hopefully posted in the next couple days.
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A 72 F/22.2 C day on November 2, with another 2-3 days like this following. Beautiful!
In identifying different duck species, I have been going with the old maxim "birds of a feather flock together". If I see a few mallards, I figure they are all mallards. This maxim did not work today. There was a larger, much darker colored duck swimming with a mallard drake and female in the southeast corner of Prescott Mill wetland. I wondered about this, got 8-10 pics and moved on to the opposite side of the wetland.
A couple of ebirders were on the west side identifying and counting birds. Ebirder Jason looked at my pics and advised that this was an American black duck (large dark brown body, pale gray-brown head, and yellow-green bill). American black ducks are known for mixing in with other species such as mallards and gadwall, thus birds of a feather don't always flock together.
The ebirders also pointed out gadwall and ring-necked ducks, which were too far away for good photos. Tomorrow I hope!
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Daughter Laura's boyfriend Thomas is captured emerging from the woods portion of a Chicago Cross Cup amateur cyclocross bicycle race at Campton Hills west of St. Charles,.Illinois. Cyclocross races include obstacles, and a log across the dirt path awaited Thomas at the transition to a grass surface. This is a 30 minute race. I believe I heard the announcer say that cyclocross originated in Europe.
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She calls herself Raven Claw of Asgard.
Set up: black backdrop, radio transmitter fired flash in small octagonal softbox at camera left, two optical slave flashguns left/right behind subject for rim light and hair light. Camera set on manual exposure.
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Heavy fog pervaded the wetland and surrounding area this morning, making crisp clear distance photos of waterbirds problematic. Therefore I hereby blip this silhouette!
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On April 27 I took photos of a home for real estate listing purposes. Based on the quick sale of that home, the real estate agent (my neighbor) competed and was awarded the real estate listing for another home one block away from the first. Today we took photos for the new listing, and I'm calling for another quick sale. The last three listings we worked on together sold in one week, one day, and two days respectively.
As in April, am blipping a picture of the kitchen and dinette area. The dinette is located in a turret shaped corner, and is full of light. It's great. Also, the kitchen island is very nice.
On the technical side, I used a 12-24mm wide angle zoom, mostly at 12mm. Used a tripod in this shot and early photos to help keep verticals straight, but this was very slow and for expediency later shot hand held. A ttl flash swiveled to the left and up was employed to help light the front of the island. This shot was done at a greater height than most due to the desire to see beyond the island to the dinette sitting area. Was able to keep retain outdoor details seen through the windows, but the overcast sky blew out.
There is a harvested corn field behind this home, and they've had sandhill cranes foraging in the field for grain every morning. I'm still looking for sandhill cranes closer to my house of which to take photos!
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A second day of rain is charging the soil and filling the creeks and rivers, which is good. This is on the ground by the sloping sidewalk leading west from the downtown Oswego library.
No birds today...
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The day is rainy and gloomy. Stopped by the wetland on the way home, covering the camera with my jacket to protect it from the rain. Most camera angles were gray gray and more gray, but with the help of departing geese was able to find fall colors.
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A blue goose is the less common bluish-gray color morph of the snow goose. Snow geese are usually white with black wing tips, and to me the blue goose looks more interesting. These birds spend their summers on the Arctic tundra, and winters south in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. The suburban Chicago location where this photo was taken is probably just a stopping off point on it's southerly migration.
Ebirders have filed reports with up to three snow geese simultaneously at this wetland. I've only seen one snow goose at a time, usually a white one sleeping in an inaccessible spot on the far side of the water. Although I've never seen one prior to this month, they are abundant at a population of 5 million plus.
The photo was taken within 30 minutes of sunset, and the sun was behind clouds on the western horizon. Low light is not my preference, but I came back to the wetland a second time today specifically to capture a snow goose photo. It was a short window of opportunity. The blue goose flew off with a gaggle of Canada geese 1.5 minutes after the photo was taken.
I hope this write up made more sense with less rambling than some of the 11 pm posts I've recently submitted!
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It's not common for a killdeer to pose for you, but sometimes you get lucky. These birds are very alert to potential threats such as people, and they usually raise an alert and fly away. This one was pretty close and did not flush as I stood on the ridge above the mud flats.
I've learned to watch the skies when there are no people around and killdeer are crying out their warning, as this often means a hawk is near. Was able to get a nice photo of a broadwing hawk during the summer due to the killdeer's warning call.
This is a very common bird in North America, and they can be found in Central America and parts of South America in the winter. They are part of a bird family called plovers.
This afternoon there were few geese at Prescott Mill, perhaps 300, plus another 200-300 waterfowl. I was surprised to see five great egret and one great blue heron fishing at this extremely shallow body of water, as I thought the entire pond would freeze solid in the winter. A great blue heron caught and ate a largemouth bass, so there are fish here.
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There was a short break in the clouds and rain from 11 am - 1230 pm, and I raced out to the mud flats. Was surprised when I arrived at the flats, as there were less than 500 Canada geese in the water. Four minutes later this changed when about 3000 geese arrived all at once. Then it was noisy bedlam. I asked a resident if the geese settled down and were quiet at night, and the answer was not always.
These birds in the photo are both in the sandpiper family, summering in far northern Canada and migrating south to warmer climes for the winter. The small bird on the left is a dunlin whose name means "small gray-brown colored" bird, and the larger bird is a lesser yellowlegs. Ryan, an ebirder I met out here a couple days ago clued me in about the dozens of dunlin in the vicinity. Obvious differences between the two birds in the photo are black legs vs yellow, and the curvature of the dunlin's bill. Winter plumage of different sandpipers is often brown and gray so plumage does not always help on first glance, and bird size within a species greatly varies so that is not a telling characteristic either. I am rambling, and it's time for me to go to bed!
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It's been cloudy and gray, and not a great day for taking telephoto photos of birds out on the mud flats. Instead, stayed inside with the flower vase in the kitchen.
A handheld TTL flash on a cable was used to light the flowers and force the camera meter to darken the surroundings so the oven, doors, walls, and countertop are not visible.
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I did not truly appreciate all of God's creation before starting to post a photo a day. The northern pintail duck is another beautiful example. The male has a chocolate colored head with a white stripe on each side extending up the neck, and a blue-gray bill with a black stripe down the center. The long central tail feathers are what earn this duck the name "pintail"
Yesterday I was certain I had photos of pintails because of the blue-gray bill, but the head color did not match. I now believe the birds I saw yesterday were juvenile males transitioning to adult plumage. Male plumage, female plumage, breeding plumage, and various stages of juvenile plumage makes bird ID a little maddening!
Many of the migrating pintails using the Mississippi flyway winter in Lousiana and Gulf coast states.
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Cackling goose? Don't all geese cackle? I suppose they do, but there is a species called a cackling goose. There used to be a single species of Canada goose, but in 2004 ornithologists made a decision to split the Canada goose into two species, Canada goose and cackling goose. The cackling goose is smaller bodied and breeds in the tundra. The Canada goose and cackling goose are difficult to tell apart, but I'm going to stick my neck out and call the two smallest geese in the photo cackling geese.
Many birds are distinguished by bill size or color, and cackling geese have shorter stubbier bills than Canada geese, as these two birds do. One birder recommends looking for a blazing white cheek on a cackling goose, and this is also true for these two birds. I discovered these birds among a couple thousand other geese by scanning for a subflock, and these two geese were flocking together. In general the cackling goose is smaller, but one can't completely rely on size identification since Canada goose size is variable.
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I'm not one to use the word "cute" very often, but ruddy ducks are the cutest little things. They are 15 in/38 cm long. This is a female in nonbreeding plumage. Northern Illinois is not a common summer breeding area for these ducks, and this is likely a ruddy migrating south for the winter.
For comparison, a mallard duck is 23 in/58 cm long, and a Canada goose is up to 43 in/109 cm long. I've posted a male ruddy with a Canada goose in the background as an extra. The goose looks like a behemoth next to the ruddy.
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A greater yellowlegs catches a yummy leech. This bird was an efficient feeder, as it caught and ate two leeches in under a minute. Hey those black spots in the picture are dirt and water thrown off by the leech, and not dirt on my camera sensor!
It was a good day at Prescott Mill, sunny and probably 1000 or more birds present. Many smaller bird species hide among the flotillas of Canada geese, and you have to pick them out. Was able to identify more waterbirds including male and female ruddy ducks, greater yellowlegs, and a snow goose.
Agonized over whether this is a greater yellowlegs or lesser yellowlegs, but the bill length has me convinced that it's greater yellowlegs.
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Birders may have heard of dowitcher, but as for the rest of us I don't think so. These birds spend their summers in northern Canada, and winter in the southern U.S. and Mexico.
There are long-billed and short-billed dowitcher species, and they are difficult to tell apart. Each has an extremely long bill! This pair was feeding in the mud flats and shallows, and yes, they briefly stopped feeding to look at me as I was on the flats squatting to get a bird's eye view of them. As with many long-billed shore birds, dowitcher feed on invertebrates. I believe the shorebirds are all feeding on leeches, as I have a couple pics of yellowlegs snacking on leeches.
Here is what I'm doing to get better on bird identification. I checked out the ebird report submitted by the birder I met yesterday, then looked up pictures of the 12 birds with which I was unfamiliar. As a result, today I was able to get photos of four of them: northern pintail, greater yellowlegs, blue-winged teal, and dowitcher. Still some work to do!
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A "snipe hunt" is a North American prank, assigning or sending a newcomer off on an impossible task. What is not realized is that snipe exist. Today I went on a snipe hunt and returned with photographic evidence of success. The photo shows a pair of Wilson's snipes foraging for invertebrates with their long bills in the muddy shoreline. Snipe are secretive birds, and after a few minutes they flew into the grass closer to me and disappeared.
Met a birder at this location this morning (Prescott Mill subdivision wetland, bounded by U.S. 30, Wolf's Crossing Road, and Harvey Roads in Oswego). He advised he'd seen snipe, dowitcher, greater yellowlegs, and other birds I'd never seen before, so returned in the afternoon for more favorable light for a snipe hunt.
Northern Illinois is at the southernmost tip of snipe summer breeding territory, or these could be birds migrating south. There were about 500 Canada geese, 50 American coot, 40 northern shovelers, mallards, lesser yellowlegs, and killdeer at the wetland.
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Drove to the Yorkville, IL dam in search of birds migrating down the Fox River. Unsuccessful on the birds! Instead, three kayakers arrived to practice their kayaking hobby on the 1100 feet/330 meters long whitewater run completed to bypass the dam in 2010.
This kayaker was interested in having photos taken. He said they are always in the water and therefore they don't take photos. My pleasure to practice my hobby!
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After running an errand in Batavia, IL, stopped off at the grounds of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab, http://www.fnal.gov/). It may seem like a strange place to look for a nature photo, but there are extensive grounds at Fermilab of which a portion are open to the public. Was looking for a migrating bird, but in an infrequently mowed area there were many butterflies feeding on pink clover and that was that.
Although is looks like a cross between a moth and a butterfly, the silver-spotted skipper is a type of butterfly. It is relatively large for a skipper, with a wingspan of about 2 inches/5 cm. The silver-spotted skipper is a fast straight flyer and has bent knobbed antennae.
Note the reflection/refraction off the compound eye.
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Pair of migrating Northern Shovelers in nonbreeding plumage feeding in shallow water. There were two pair in the prairie park today.
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Yesterday I chose to blip a butterfly instead of a bullfrog, so went back to the pond to find a frog today. The American bullfrog lives 7-9 years and can grow up to 1.1 pound/0.5 Kg. They are predators and will eat insects, worms, frogs, tadpoles, small snakes, fish, eggs laid in the water by insects and fish, crayfish, and small mammals.
Bullfrogs range in color from all green to brown or gray. Their name is derived from the loud attractive bellow males make during mating season; this sound can be heard greater than 1 km/0.6 mile away.
The bullfrogs in this location hide among rocks to avoid becoming food for herons and great egrets.
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We experienced another glorious 80 F/26.7 C day, and friend Steve and I went looking for butterflies. I thought the last day for butterflies was a warm Sept 28th, but we've had other warm days since then and butterflies have been out. Steve and I walked around for one full hour before spotting the only butterfly of the day. We followed this one around for 25 minutes. Shooting was tough with 29 mph/46.7kph winds. With the wind, the flowers were moving around as much as a butterfly in flight.
There is a gathering of about 20 lesser yellowlegs in the flats at Bluegrass Prairie Park East. It has not rained much and the water is therefore shallower, aiding them in feeding.
The bird stood on two legs part of the time, and although it appears injured I don't believe there is anything wrong with the left leg.
Blipped a lesser yellowlegs on August 27th, but this bird was closer and used a longer lens for this photo.
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Headed out early before the clouds moved in. Went to the nearest big box store garden center for this photo!
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This photo is very different than yesterday's explosion of color. It's ugly, muddy, and I like it! The common snapping turtle loves shallow water where it can bury in mud as this turtle did. Snappers eat anything they can swallow, plant or animal. You do not want to be bit by a snapping turtle, as they can take a piece of your finger off.
Snapping turtles take from 12-20 years to mature, and reportedly can live greater than 100 years. The heaviest specimen caught weighed 75 pounds/34kg. They live in the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. and in lower Canada.
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Arrived back home after 5 days in Ohio and Indiana and rushed over to my favorite park to check birds and butterflies. On the bird front there was one northern shoveler, one great egret, a couple mallards, eight double-crested cormorants swimming together, ring-billed gulls, a bevy of green-winged teal, and hundreds of Canada geese.
Butterflies were limited. Two monarchs and a handful of cabbage butterflies were feeding on asters. The photo is a monarch flying toward a purple aster, and the photo was selected due to abundant color. Although in the air, it reminds me of an aquarium.
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Parke County bills itself as the "Covered Bridge Capital of the World", with a total of 31 covered bridges still standing. In the 1800s and early 1900s wooden bridges were practical and economical due to the abundance of timber in western Indiana, and many bridges were built to span numerous creeks. Bridges were covered to protect wooden floorboards as well as to calm horses which did not like to cross open bridges over moving water.
Most of the bridges are still in use and are open to one lane traffic. The 126 foot long 1914 McAllister bridge in the photo crosses Little Raccoon Creek on dirt County Road 400S just east of Bridgeton Road.
Today the bridges are a tourist attraction. The Covered Bridge Festival begins in a few days, and every town and highway for miles around is gearing up for the throng of people the festival attracts. I attended 30+ years ago, and no thank you to the experience of thousands of people and cars lining tiny country roads for miles! I'd rather go before or after the festival and skip the commercialism.
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This is East College, the 1870s centerpiece building of the DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana campus. If you take one photo to symbolize DePauw, it's a photo of East College.
I attended DePauw as an undergraduate student from 1971-75, graduating in June 1975. Had a chance to swing by the campus today, and despite the passing of 40 years it brought memories of classes, experiences, classmates, and friends.
The campus is chock full of many new modern buildings, as well as some of the older buildings. The new buildings are good and help make the university more competitive in attracting students, but East College as a symbol of the university is what I remember.
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It’s a beautiful sunny mid 70sF day in Cincinnati, Ohio, and it could not be a better day for thousands of U.S. style football fans streaming into downtown for a Bengals/Kansas City game. A large number of fans were wearing Bengals jerseys.
Bengals are leading 36-18 late in the fourth quarter.
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There's a lot of dough in a pizza restaurant! A worker at Dewey's Pizza in Oakley Square on Madison Street, Cincinnati, Ohio tosses and shapes dough for a pizza.
There were three large windows looking onto the kitchen, and was in no danger of being hit be flying dough or flour. I've tried throwing pizza dough at home and was never successful, having to use a rolling pin instead.
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Bring your cup of coffee and step outside with me to enjoy the alyssum in the golden morning sun...
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This great egret huddled down close to the water each time a strong wind blew, just as we might do to stay warm and out of the wind.
Went to two parks looking for migrating birds, but there were no new ones. Watched the egret for 25 minutes, and it caught one small fish in one attempt for a 100% catch rate.
Winds gusted up to 29 mph/47kph. This was enough to blow me and the camera around creating a few blurred shots. This was the sharpest photo, and the angle was nice. Usually the bird's mandibles are not open, but it had just taken a drink of water
The green-winged teal is another visitor stopping over in our area as it migrates to winter grounds, and there are 30-40 of them feeding in the shallow water and mudflats. It's the smallest of the North American ducks. They are omnivorous, eating plants, insects, crustaceans, mollusks, and more.
Posted an extra photo in which the green wing feathers are visible on some of the females.
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A cold front blew in about 8 am, with 10-20 mph winds (16-32 kph) from the north and dark skies not making outdoors photos easy. This is a flash assisted photo from camera left to add light, help freeze the subject, and add drama to the photo.
Smart: I took a plastic bag to cover the camera in case it started raining.
Not so smart: camera battery went dead and did not bring the spare battery.
Usual walking around garb of tee shirt and shorts did not cut it today, too cold!
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Temperatures are cooling off tomorrow to a high of 67F/19C and will remain in that range for a couple weeks, so I believe this is the last monarch butterfly blip until next year. Monarchs can fly above 60F (50F if it's sunny), but have not seen them actively feeding until it's in the 70s and 80s.
No butterfly flying photos were taken today as it was too cloudy and dark; tried taking some under similar conditions yesterday and it did not work very well. There were no northern shoveler ducks around, so I'm glad I posted one yesterday. Migrating green-winged teal are plentiful, but would like to get a sunny pic of a male or male and female.
The northern shoveler is a short term visitor to northern Illinois as it migrates south. This is a duck with a long dark bill which is wider at the end. The spoon-shaped bill has projections along the edges which enable it to sift invertebrates from shallow water.
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There were only a handful of monarch butterflies out today, despite the warm temps 80+F/27C and plentiful food supply of aster and goldenrod flowers. One monarch posed over and over again for the camera, and was able to get 8 butterfly-in-flight photos of this one butterfly in a 64 second time period.
At the marsh I saw what I think is a scaup, a duck which is either migrating through or wintering in our area. Will hopefully blip this bird in the near future, but butterflies and flowers are more colorful and appealing!
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Wildflowers opening in the morning sun, heavy with dew.
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Birds blast butterfly blips, demand equal time. Four butterfly blips in four days is enough, they say. As I don't want to star in a remake of 1963's The Birds, I give in!
Today's Best Bird is the double-crested cormorant, and the cormorant's classic over the shoulder as it swims away pose.
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Now for the serious stuff. Bird was an estimated 25-30 meters away. Shot wide open f5.6 at 500mm and popped ISO up a notch to 640 for faster shutter. Close cropped to see if image would fall apart. Looks good; a burst of sunshine through high clouds helped.
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This is a tight crop on a cabbage butterfly in order to check focus of new equipment. It's also a change-up from monarch butterfly blips for the past three days.
Flying is hard work! Let's see you try it!
In addition to the strong downstroke of it's wings, observe the focus a butterfly has when flying to the next flower. I've taken photos where the butterfly's tongue is drinking nectar before the butterfly has even landed on the flower.
This picture was taken about 3 pm and is backlit. Lost full sun due to wispy cloud cover, decreasing light and causing shutter speed to be a little slower than desired.
Butterfly blipping continues!
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It was another beautiful day. I will keep up butterfly blipping as long as possible. Goldenrod is hanging on, but other flowers are fading quickly and once food sources are gone, butterflies will be gone.
This photo was take with a pond in the background. Color temp was decreased from 4950 to 4200 to pump up the blue background.
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Summer is ending with a bang! Weather forecast is for above average temps and little rain for the next two weeks. This could mean nonstop butterfly blips.
Prefocused on the butterfly sipping nectar on a flower at camera left, set aperture at f6.3 for a healthy depth of field, and hit the shutter button when the butterfly flies to the next flower.
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Late season fishing is still good, it's time for an afternoon fish snack.
Great blue heron catches a bluegill, and with this capture I can check this picture off the 2015 photo bucket list. I stood waiting 20 minutes to get the shot, and wished I had brought a tripod.
The heron fished in the slop (weeds and duckweed), which is often the best fishing for people and for birds to fish.
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What has long forward legs, plumose antenna, clear wings, and a scorpion shaped tail? I didn't know! If you are a fly fisherman you might know, but it took me an hour on the internet to figure out this is a midge.
Midges live in lakes and rivers and are in the order Diptera, which are insects with one pair of wings. Other insects in this family are flies, mosquitoes, and gnats.
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Gloria P: yet another damsel(fly) to be rescued, but no knight in shining armor is available. Today was another 80F/27C day, and as it may be the last really warm day this year went looking for dragonflies and damselflies.
Made a similar photo yesterday, and posted on my FB cover page today. Windy and warm conditions were similar today, and wanted to see if I could duplicate yesterday's photo. On past attempts to duplicate a photo success was elusive, but being outside on a beautiful day is success in itself.
Getting this picture wasn't easy. After 30-40 minutes and 160 attempts, this photo was taken. You have to find a butterfly which is feeding on a specific flower and stayed on the same clump of flowers, pre-focus on the feeding butterfly, and watch for a slight opening of the wings signaling flight is imminent Hit the shutter button and shoot madly and continuously, following the butterfly if you can. Most shots will be out of focus, but with patience eventually you will be rewarded.
The brisk wind helped, as the butterflies only approached the flowers from the lee side flying into the wind. Could therefore position myself and wait, enjoying the sunshine while knowing the direction of approach and that the butterfly would be flying more slowly due to wind resistance.
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Rested, hair is combed, everything is looking good for the social media headshot.
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Two farms surrounded by hundreds of acres of corn fields five miles south of Oswego, Illinois at Schlapp and Johnson Roads.
After Lightroom edits brought the file into Perfect Enhance and was moderately successful in getting more cloud detail.
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Flushed and refilled the bird bath, and waited to see who would show up. The mourning dove was the first and the best looking. This fast flyer is one of the most abundant and widespread birds in North America, with an estimated U.S. population of 350 million. There are about 30 million more mourning doves in the U.S. than people.
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Haven't seen a chickadee in months, but chickadees don't migrate so it's my fault for not going to where the chickadees live. Today I went on the north side of Rush-Copley Hospital in Aurora, Illinois for pics of swans. Got those photos, but liked the chickadee better as it's a dynamic subject and tougher to photograph.
The hospital has pines planted in beds on the north side of the facility, and the birds were feeding on pine seeds. In addition, there are other trees along the nearby Waubonsie Creek, including dead trees which could house nesting and roosting cavities.
Chickadees live year round in roughly the north half of the U.S. and south half of Canada.
Extra photo - upside down chickadee feeding on pine seeds.
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A green heron took to the air as I walked by a pond at the south end of our development. Usually they cry "kyow, kyow, kyow" as they fly away, but this one was quiet. It's crest is partially erect, probably showing it's alarm at my presence. These birds will be leaving northern Illinois and migrating to Mexico and Central America for the winter.
At an adjacent pond I saw a small buff-colored duck-like bird which dove underwater from a swimming position. I've been hiking around this area for 5-6 months and have not seen this bird to date. Photos were not great (too far away), but have tentatively identified the diving bird as a pie-billed grebe.
The sun popped through a few times, but this was predominantly a rainy cloudy day.
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General is an Irish Wolfhound and is a little less than one year old. Old friend Dave H. called every dog he saw "just a puppy", and General therefore qualifies! These are BIG puppies, with males averaging 34-35 inches (88 cm) at the shoulder and 140-180 pounds (64-82 kg).
Full photo of General in the extra photo section.
Photo was taken at Aliboo Farm in Minooka, Illinois. When their three wolfhounds lie down to nap it's like three throw rugs taking most of the floor space.
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Male American goldfinch in winter/nonbreeding plumage eating sunflower seeds. There was another male in full bright lemon yellow breeding plumage 30 feet away.
As some of you would say, another creepy bug! This particular creepy bug is an agricultural pest. Cucumber beetles feed on cucurbits, which include cucumber, zucchini, squash, gourds, pumpkin, cantaloupe, and watermelon. The beetles damage the plant and fruit, and can transmit disease such as bacterial wilt and squash mosaic virus.
There are six types of cucumber beetles in the U.S., and this one is the spotted cucumber beetle. I found only one of these beetles among the prairie plants this morning, and it appeared to be feeding on sunflower petals and pollen.
Took this photo between 8 and 9 am when there was a break in the rain. Partial sun was coming through the clouds, and light was added via a bracket-mounted flash to the side. Picked this photo because the insect's top, sides, and face are all visible. The beetle did not like me there, and kept crawling to the other side of the flower petal. At least it did not fly away.
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Two broad-winged hawks swooped over the water while out hunting, and I was able to capture a photo of one of them. This summer I've usually seen them in pairs flying over the Bluegrass Prairie Park waterway near my home.
Broad-winged hawks summer in eastern U.S. and southern Canada woodlands. In the fall they migrate to Central America and northern South America in groups called "kettles" containing thousands or tens of thousand of hawks.
This is a smaller hawk with a wingspan of roughly 3 feet/just under a meter, and weighing in the neighborhood of a pound/450 grams. They eat small mammals, amphibians, and insects.
This morning I was accompanied by "Nuke", someone with whom I used to work. He wanted to see the osprey at Farmington Lakes. The osprey failed to show up, but we saw many other birds.
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After the kids were done, the adults got their chance in the bounce house at the church picnic. Jana, Chris, and Donna are pictured enjoying the jump.
I tried it, and didn't last long in the 93 degrees F heat. I thought I was in better shape!
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Monarch butterfly migration began about two weeks ago, and it won't be long before monarch butterflies have left northern Illinois. Monarchs from the eastern U.S. migrate to the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico to overwinter, the only butterfly known to make a two way migration. They fly 50-100 miles a day, roosting at night, and can take up to two months to complete the journey. They overwinter in cool mountain forests which have the right amount of humidity so they don't dry out, clustering in thousands to stay warm.
Poked the lens through the flowers and weeds for this photo. The edges are dreamy and unfocused because there were plants closer than the butterfly in the frame. I like a darker unfocused background for depth (check!), and a little bit of blue sky (favorite color, check). It was overcast this afternoon, but managed to get the only small patch of blue sky we had in the picture.
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There is no nature lesson today, just the beauty of God's creation. This is a cabbage yellow butterfly on a cloudbank of white flowers.
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The greater Chicago area is just outside the summer breeding range for ospreys, but the birds don't seem to know this! I had never seen an osprey before, and I don't think many people in this area have ever seen one either.
Ospreys are in the same family as hawks, eagles, and kites. Their diet is mainly fish which are caught by grabbing with their talons. Fisherman take note - the average time it takes an osprey to catch a fish is reported to be 12 minutes (reference: Cornell Lab of Ornithology allaboutbirds.org). Yesterday I saw the osprey eating a bluegill at this dead tree.
This osprey lives at Farmington Lakes Park off Douglas Road in Oswego, Illinois. This is a 77 acre park with a 32 acre lake and 2 acre pond plus Waubonsie Creek running through it. Similar to nearby Bluegrass Prairie Park, Farmington Lakes Park has asphalt paths running along the perimeter, but most of the acreage is wild where native plants, animals, and birds thrive. The Oswegoland Park District has fostered natural areas such as this, with 40% of the district's parkland left in a natural state and not developed.
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A great blue heron rests before going out to fish.
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Black blister beetles feed on foliage and flowers such as goldenrod. One should not handle blister beetles. As the name implies, their body contains a toxin cantharadin which causes blisters on skin. Animals such as horses eating feed containing blister beetles can become ill and die.
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This morning as I was leaving the the house I remarked, "I'd like to get a picture of a swimming double-crested cormorant from decently close, not 200 yards away. I've been trying all summer for this." I received what I said multiplied. Three cormorants swimming, plus other photos of these birds.
Saw a mink run across the path, but did not get a pic of it. Two park district employees came by later, and they advised that sandhill cranes will be migrating through this area in about a month, and that a bird I saw at Farmington Lakes was an osprey.
In the extras I posted a cormorant standing on a rock and the same bird as it takes off to fly.
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Before, during, and after triptych of Curtis' full immersion baptism by Pastor Jeff Miller. This is a public commitment to Jesus and Christianity by Curtis.
Despite the cool water, all smiles before and after!
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The day is cloudy and dark. It started raining hard, and I wrapped my camera in my shirt to protect it. There were not many pics to choose from when I got home, but Mr. Goldfinch is old reliable with the best looking photo of the day. Poked my lens through some grass and weeds, and got him against a sea of green. Thank you Mr. Goldfinch.
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A group of four lesser yellowlegs were feeding in the flats. This bird is a shorebird related to the sandpiper, and it eats small fish and invertebrates. I saw one catch a minnow. Few birds in this family have yellow/orange legs except lesser yellowlegs, greater yellowlegs, and upland sandpiper, giving me more confidence in my identification of the species.
The Chicagoland area where this photo was taken is far from either the northern Canada summer home or the southern U.S. to South America winter home of the lesser yellowlegs, but these birds have been here all summer. I assume they stopped here on their migration route north and due to favorable breeding and feeding conditions they stayed.
These birds were a distance from the camera, and I stretched the limit of the lens and cropping to post this photo.
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Today's nature lesson is about the bee's proboscis (tongue). Bumblebees have a long hairy/feathery tongue which can reach far into flowers for nectar. From within a hard sheath the bumblebee unrolls it's soft tongue into a flower, repeatedly dipping it into the liquid. As the bee laps the nectar, it soaks in and is drawn up the proboscis. The photo shows the horny sheath through which the tongue extends.
Paper wasps are the "guests" that build small open cell paper nests under your eaves, deck rails, and other protected areas. They live in the eastern U.S. and adjacent lower Canada, and are related to yesterday's mason wasp blip. Paper wasps prey on other insects and caterpillars. I watched this one for five minutes, and it appeared to be feeding on nectar.
The pictured wasp is a male, noted by long curling antennae, square yellow face, and blunt tip to abdomen.
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The four-toothed mason wasp is a new one on me. Saw it in the same place I have been doing the bird/bug/flower hike in the morning. It eats small caterpillars, pollen, and one source says it also feeds on nectar.
Did not get a photo earlier today, forcing me to shoot for the moon!
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Choose life! Outrage over recent videos about Planned Parenthood selling aborted babies and body parts has energized and increased the number of demonstrators at an anti-abortion demonstration outside the Planned Parenthood of Illinois facility in Aurora, Illinois (the building is out of the picture half a block to the right). This is part of 290 demonstrations in the U.S. organized against Planned Parenthood today.
One young woman's sign was particularly striking to me: "I regret my decision to have an abortion". It takes guts and commitment to parade in a public place announcing this to the city.
A monthly anti-abortion demonstration has taken place in Aurora since October 2007 when the facility opened, but with smaller numbers of demonstrators.
Today I saw a parade of people 0.75 mile long marching down the sidewalk, plus many more milling in the area of the PP building. The parking lot of the nearby Catholic church was filled over capacity with vehicles, as were other parking lots in the area. At 10:45 am I estimate the demonstrator crowd at 1500-2000.
This is not the usual blip - take a stand, choose life!
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American goldfinches are scrupulously vegetarian with an almost all seed diet. They don't breed until June or July, waiting until thistle, milkweed, and other seeds are available with which to feed their young.
This is a female goldfinch. I spent a couple months trying to get a photo of a female, and it seems to be getting easier as I now have more than one female goldfinch photo.
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Goldenrod soldier beetle is pictured, and it's also known as Pennsylvania leatherwing beetle. This type of beetle is 9-12 mm long. There were loads of them feeding on Queen Anne's Lace flower nectar; references indicate they also feed on aphids and insect eggs. The goldenrod soldier beetle is native to North America, and common in the eastern and midwestern U.S.
Winds were up to 25 mph when the photo was taken. I normally don't touch a plant, but today held the flower stem to steady the flower head in the wind. Discovered an added advantage to holding the stem: the angle of the subject could be easily changed. Photo was in full sun at 12:30 pm.
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The birdsfoot trefoil flower is dainty, roughly 0.5 inch/13mm in size.
Birdsfoot trefoil is a legume introduced to the U.S. from Europe. It's sold commercially and planted in grass-legume pastures, where it adds considerably to forage for grazing animals. It spreads in prairie environments, which is where this photo was taken.
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After preening it's feathers while standing on the muskrat den, the great blue heron decides it's time to fill it's belly and flies over to the shallows for fishing.
On take off the heron scared a carp (note disturbance in water just in front of and below the bird), and it landed on another carp near shore a few seconds later. The carp weigh as much as a 5 pound great blue heron, and are too big for the heron to catch.
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I am partial to American goldfinch photos, and have blipped goldfinches multiple times. They are not easy to approach, but occasionally one is so busy eating that it does not notice you. I was about 10 feet away from this bird
This male finch is eating seeds of the bee balm plant. From observations and other photos taken, goldfinches are preferentially eating seeds from still green bee balm and other flower heads which are not completely dried out.
Fresher and better tasting? The plant is in the mint family, and reportedly has a spearmint/peppermint/oregano flavor. It's edible by humans, and I found a bread recipe using bee balm flowers online.
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Soybean fields in foreground, power and telephone lines running along Douglas Road, and silos/farm buildings and trees farthest east.
From past blips one might ask, "Where are the birds?" If you look carefully there are 13 flying birds one-third of the way down from the top.
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It's mid-August and many of the wildflowers have dried up and gone to seed. However, there remain a few bright spots in the landscape to appreciate.
The muskrat is foraging for food in the dry creek bed, as we've not had much rain for 3-4 weeks and the shallow creek where it lives has ceased to flow. The entrance to it's den in the creek bank was underwater, but is now fully exposed.
The tail is vertically flattened to serve as a rudder and aid in swimming, and the muskrat's rear feet are partially webbed for swimming. This is a semiaquatic animal (rodent of the vole family) which for the time being has lost it's swimmin' hole.
There are three ponds in proximity to the creek so there is water, but the creek has the grasses which I often see it carrying home to eat.
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Crouched down in the tall grass as the great egret was flying toward me. It did not see me or swerve away, and as a result the egret subject fills almost the full frame of the original file. The bird was moving and I was not able to keep it quite centered at it's closest point, so cropped a little from the right side and bottom.
The great egret had fished the main waterway, and was heading to fish the flats at the heron family convention just east of this location.
Also saw a banded kingfisher this morning. Although I tried to blend in with a poplar tree, it saw me and also flew east toward the heron convention. Might have to try camo at some point in the future.
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The female goldfinch has more olive green in the body, and is less brightly colored than the summer bright lemon yellow plumage of the male goldfinch.
We have many goldfinches in northern Illinois, as food is plentiful. There are many types of thistle seeds and good quantities of bee balm in the area where I live. Lately the finches have been absolutely stuffing their mouths with bee balm flowers/seeds, sometimes not even noticing a human with a camera nearby.
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This sparrow photo is Josiah's pick. He thought a flying duck photo I took this morning looked fake, and that the sparrow pic was better. The duck photo was real, but he was correct in that the duck didn't look real.
The sparrow was singing like crazy, and did not mind me standing on the nearby path. 7:20 am.
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Juvenile ring-billed gull had just scooped food out of the water. It's bill has little bits of food on it.
...into the evening sun by the barn swallow.
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This green heron has it's neck extended and thus has a more heron-like profile. Compare to the crouching green heron blipped two days ago on August 6th.
These are shy birds and I was fortunate to get two photo opps of them in the same week. Today I was taking photos of another green heron walking in the creekbed, and a second green heron chased the first one away. The bully heron returned a few minutes later.
We've not had much rain for weeks, and the creek has turned into a mud flat with a little water flowing. The birds like the concentration of potential prey into a small amount of water.
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I don't plan on posting duck pictures often, but the lighting and pose made this the best pic of my day.
I was sitting on a rock at the marshy heron flats. The female mallard duck swam to me, stepped up on a rock 10 feet away, and gave an over the shoulder pose. The 7:30 am sunlight served as a studio light, creating shadows and a nice catchlight in the duck's eye.
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"Heron Central" again had a large number of herons this morning: 29 great egrets, a few great blue heron, and one green heron which is pictured with part of it's morning meal. The green heron is a smaller bird than the others with a wingspan of 26"/66cm.
I was positioned 30 feet from the water behind a single tall tuft of grass when the heron flew in and landed on the rocks in front of me. I sat and took photos of this bird for 40 minutes, as had not been able to get this close to a green heron without it flying away.
Answer to yesterday's blip question: 17 members of the heron family are in the photo. 14 great egrets, 1 great blue heron top slightly to right, 1 green heron bottom slightly to right, and 1 juvenile heron bottom slightly to left. The juvenile is either a green heron or a black-crowned night-heron, could not determine which.
Count the number of birds in the heron family in this photo. Answer will be posted on Blip and Facebook daily photo tomorrow. Extra credit: ID the types of herons.
I blipped a single great egret eating his morning sushi at this marsh two days ago. Word got out, as yesterday morning there were 12 great egrets and this morning there were 28. Could not fit them all in the photo.
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Bull thistle (spear thistle) is an invasive plant characterized as a noxious weed in a number of U.S. states. but I like the color of the bull thistle flower especially against green and blue. The monarch butterfly likes this thistle too, as it fed on the same flower for seven minutes.
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A great egret caught and ate a small (3"-4" ) fish every 2-3 steps in the marsh. I watched for 25 minutes, and the egret had a 100% success rate in catching minnow-sized fish.
Small successes add up!
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The family posed for pictures prior to dedicating their baby to God at church this morning, and this is dad and daughter. A baby dedication is a public commitment parents make to teach their children and be a Godly example.
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This great blue heron was returning from one of four times it chased other herons away from it's feeding territory. It was going to fly directly overhead, but as it breached a small tree line I was standing behind it spotted me and quickly turned right.
Although the great blue heron's wingspan is 5.5 feet - 6.5 feet, the bird weighs only about 5 pounds since it's bones are hollow (all bird's bones are hollow). Note the small size of the bird's torso in this picture.
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These gulls are usually seen in the nearby shopping center parking lot, but today they were foraging for food in the waterway. Ring-billed gulls live 3-5 years, and judging from the condition of it's wing tip feathers this particular gull could be a senior citizen.
The light, sky, and clouds were wonderful this morning!
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The Halloween Pennant is a common North American dragonfly. I often see Halloween pennants hanging onto a dried stem of last year's Queen Anne's Lace. Their Halloween name comes from orange and black wing colors.
The dragonflies I've blipped are found by ponds and streams, as they lay their eggs in the water and their larvae live in the water.
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This is the first time this season one of these guys slowed down enough for a photo. The male widow skimmer leaves after the females lays the eggs, hence the name "widow".
Widow skimmers are common throughout the U.S., except for Rocky Mountain areas. This one has white bands on it's wings, thus is an adult male.
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These carp are using aquatic surface respiration to get oxygen for their systems. During summer water oxygen levels can drop, and fish will resort to breathing in the water which is in direct contact with the air. The layer of water in contact with air has higher levels of oxygen.
The carp were also in the vicinity of a small waterfall flowing off a spillway, which would also help increase oxygenation of the water.
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Went out this morning with the intent of getting a good photo of a tern diving into the water and emerging with a fish. A tern came by at 720, 730, and 810 am. It made this dive at 725 am, and came out of the water without a fish.
I stood and waited for the tern starting at 710 am, an eternity for me. As far as the photo opp, the tern and I came up empty today. It caught a bluegill on the 810 am sortie, but was too far away for a picture.
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Walked down a short path by a flood control spillway, and both this heron and I were surprised. The heron is standing on the spillway and is illuminated by sunlight coming through an opening in the concrete. The bird didn't stick around for a more extensive photoshoot, and I was disappointed! 6:48 am
Have pics of a tern catching a fish, but will try to get a better one this week. The last couple days a tern came divefishing a little after 7 am.
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I think of common terns as waterbirds you see at the shores of large lakes or oceans, but they live spread out over half of the U.S. and Canada during migration and summer months. Northeastern Illinois is at the far south edge of the common tern's summer breeding grounds.
Black swallowtail butterfly feeding on a yellow thistle flower. This butterfly did not have a food preference, and stopped on every type of flower in the field.
Lately I've been stopping down to f7.1 to get a sharper pics of insect heads and bodies.
The eastern amberwing dragonfly is small, less than an inch long. It's wings makes it look bigger. Adults eat flying insects such as mosquitoes and flies. Yay!
Taken at 7:56 am, and few dragonflies were active yet. The photo is mostly backlit, but leg surfaces facing the camera appear to be illuminated a gold color by sunlight scattered through the wings.
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A monarch butterfly was feeding on the nectar of swamp milkweed. blossoms. There are 30 milkweed species in the central U.S., and this milkweed was growing on the edge of a pond. The background for the photo is the sky reflected off the unfocused pond surface.
Bonus photo: a tough capture, a monarch butterfly in flight.
I continually checked myself for ticks today!
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Who says a blip has to be pretty? This is a tick looking for dinner, and dinner was going to be me! Dinner was never served, and as I like variety and have a quirky sense of humor, this tick became blip material instead.
I spent several hours outdoors today, one hour in a place ticks would be expected and the remainder where ticks might be present. As ticks carry diseases, it's a good idea to check yourself for ticks after being outdoors in grass or weeds.
This female American dog tick (also known as a wood tick) was crawling up my left leg and had not yet embedded itself for a blood meal. It was in a perfect spot on my leg to easily take a close up picture. It's tiny, about 5mm (less than 1/4 inch) long. Ticks have eight legs and are in the same family as spiders.
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Dew was heavy on the flowers and grasses this morning.
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r a sunset photo at this location did not work the way I thought it would. Regrouped by aiming camera southwest at nicely colored clouds (instead of west at the sun where there were almost no clouds), and finding a strong foreground silhouette as well as including the moon.
This photo was taken 15 minutes after sundown.
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Face to face with a red milkweed beetle on a milkweed leaf. The antenna sockets of this beetle divide the compound eye into upper and lower eyes, and the beetle's scientific name Tetraopes Tetrophthalmus means "four eyes".
Adult beetles eat milkweed leaves, buds, and flowers, and larvae feed on milkweed roots.
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This black swallowtail, a bumblebee, and a monarch butterfly were fighting over milkweed flowers. The swallowtail spent the most time on the blossoms, and appeared to win the battle.
More butterflies were out and feeding today. I am looking forward to butterfly blips during the next 4-6 weeks.
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This was a mostly gray overcast day, and I was desperate (!) for color and contrast in an outdoor photo. Thought this could be done using a macro lens and a flashgun side-mounted on a bracket, turned to shoot at an insect or flower subject.
The flash brought out the green of the plant, shadows, and detail in the bee. This photo was shot up at the sky, hence the gray background.
The technique worked pretty well, and I will try it again the next time it's overcast. Bumblebees don't like it when you get this close (inches away), but this one cooperated.
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Black-eyed susan is native to eastern and central North America. It now grows in 48 states and 10 Canadian provinces. I blipped a black-eyed susan with different coloration on July 1; breeding has produced different colors and sizes of this flower.
In addition to Adobe Lightroom, Perfect Effects tilt-shift processing was used on this photo.
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Blue flax or prairie flax is native to the North American plains. Blooms are open in the morning, and that's when you have to take a photo. By midafternoon blooms have closed. This picture was taken before 7 am.
The photo was taken in a Chicago suburb, so the plant is slightly east of it's usual range and was likely seeded as part of a prairie restoration.
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The common green darner is one of the largest and most common dragonflies in North America. This male (blue abdomen=male in this species) was guarding a corner of a pond, chasing away other dragonflies. A tree swallow swooped through once, but missed catching this dragonfly. Adult dragonflies feed on flying insects such as mosquitoes, bees, wasps, and other dragonflies.
The background of this photo is the sky and clouds reflecting off the pond surface.
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Took many nice dragonfly photos with nice blue sky backgrounds, but this goldfinch in full sun exposure at 3 pm is the best photo taken today.
Yellow coneflower is also known as prairie coneflower. This one is growing in an undeveloped field on the south end of our subdivision.
This morning while out shooting this photo I saw a mink. I've never seen a mink in the wild before, probably because they are nocturnal. The mink stayed well hidden, otherwise it would have been the blip.
The mink sighting was at 7:20 am, which is hours after daybreak.
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A cabbage butterfly is shown feeding on thistle flower nectar. This might be the most plentiful butterfly on the planet, as it has spread almost worldwide from Europe/Africa/Asia.
Cabbage caterpillars are considered an agricultural pest, feeding on cabbage and many plants in the mustard family.
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This is only the second honeybee I've seen all year, with the first observed on June 8. I am out blipping every day and see plenty of bumblebees, but two honeybees is a low number.
Bee demographics for Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio are kept by beespotter.org, and one can set up an account and submit honeybee spottings including photos.
The U.S. commercial honeybee population declined 40% in the past year due to a variety of pressures including disease, varroa mite, pesticides, extreme weather, and forage plant loss leading to poor nutrition.
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I could say "here is a plant", but this is not just a plant! It's a reminiscence of my boyhood as well as a "living fossil" belonging to an ancient group of plants called Horsetails (Equisetum). More than 50 years ago I found these growing along the 18 Mile Creek in Hamburg, NY, and played with them. They are hollow and easily separate at the joints (it was not the electronic age, and I was easily amused). The blip photo was taken this morning at a stand of 3-5 foot tall horsetails along a creek near my home in Illinois. 50 years ago or millions of years ago, horsetails are the same.
There are quite a few subgroups of horsetails, but I believe this is a water horsetail. Larger horsetail relatives formed our coal deposits. Horsetails are used medicinally, and you can find horsetail medicinals for sale on Amazon.
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Common milkweed is important because many insects survive on it, and several only eat milkweed. Similar to yesterday's butterfly weed blip, milkweed sap contains a toxin (glycoside) which is harmful to some animals but not to Monarch butterfly caterpillars and other insects which eat milkweed as a primary food source. Nectar and pollen do not contain the toxin.
The fruits of the milkweed are probably more familiar than the flowers. Milkweed fruits are green pods which turn brown. When the pods burst open, fluffy seeds are freed.
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Butterfly weed is also called butterfly milkweed and pleurisy root. It was considered a heal all plant by early settlers in the U.S. The root was chewed by American Indians as a cure for pleurisy and other pulmonary diseases. Butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds are drawn to it's nectar.
Flower buds and shoots can be eaten if cooked, reportedly tasting like asparagus and peas respectively. If not cooked, the plant is toxic to humans. Monarch butterfly caterpillars eat the leaves, storing and passing on bitter tasting toxic compounds to the adult butterfly, rendering the butterflies distasteful to predators.
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The Mexican hat or prairie coneflower features a long cylindrical flower head of disk florets, surrounded by yellow or yellow/red-brown drooping rays. Flower heads are reminiscent of the traditional broad brimmed hat worn during Mexican fiestas.
This wildflower is native to the Great Plains in the U.S. My photos are taken at a restored prairie area in Illinois, and the wildflower seed mix used in restoration apparently contained Mexican Hat seeds.
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A member of the carrot family, roots and leaves of Queen Anne's Lace are edible in the first year of the plant when not so woody. Flowers and seeds are also edible.
This photo has a busy impressionistic blurred background of prairie fleabane, clover, and other plants. Flower pics were taken in the evening and a few flowers such as chicory close for the night, limiting selection. The other difference in the evening was more mosquitoes!
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Common chicory is also known as blue daisy or blue dandelion. Roots can be baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute.
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Prairie fleabane daisy plants are used to repel fleas and ticks. Blooms span 0.5 inch, and there are many blooms on a single plant.
Winds were high today, making it tough to take pictures of wildflowers. Used a macro lens most of the time, steadying flower stems by hand.
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Spent an hour taking photos of wildflowers in the prairie area north of Churchill subdivision in Oswego, Illinois. This is a variety of black-eyed susan Rudbeckia hirta of the aster family, and it's my favorite of the morning photo shoot.
Purple coneflower Echinacea Purpurea is a native prairie flower of the midwestern, southeastern, and eastern U.S., as well as Ontario. The flowers of Echinacea species were used as a medicine by native American Indians, and continue to be used medicinally today in herbal teas and as an extract in tablets and liquids.
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This Red Admiral butterfly was buried deep in the Canada thistle plants, but there was one opening through which to shoot a photo. Red admirals eat tree sap, fermenting fruit, and bird droppings, but in a pinch will eat flower nectar as this specimen was doing.
Canada thistle is a highly invasive species from Europe, not Canada, and this species of thistle is common in Northern Illinois.
Photo take by the asphalt path over the slough between Churchill subdivision and Rt 34 shopping centers.
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Goldfinch feeding on thistle seed in the wild. Cherry Road, Oswego, IL.
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This is the annual "Slop to the Top" mud volleyball tournament. The muddiest teams were enjoying themselves the most and were the most competitive.
It's a perfect sunny June day in the mid 70s F for mud to fly!
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This is a volunteer growing by the side of our house.
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Lilies don't fly away. Lilies don't run away. Lilies stand there and look purty.
Going with the flow today. Shot the lily photo this morning, and am not going out again looking to shoot a better blip.
Taking it easy.
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Objective achieved! I've been trying to get a photo of a barn swallow in flight for almost two months. Barn swallows are swift and agile flyers, and it's difficult to get a clean in focus photo of one.
When we mow our lawns this time of year, swallows follow closely behind us in order to scoop up moths and other delectables that mowing stirs out of the grass. My neighbor across the street had just started mowing, and a swallow showed up for chow time. Spacing between houses appears to have slowed the swallow down, as I easily took an in focus photo of the bird as it passed by second floor of the next door neighbor's house.
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After Mr.Squirrel had his fill of mulberries, he sprawled out on a 20-25 foot high branch to rest. He just wanted to be left alone.
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Oswego stylist Heather and her business partner leased and renovated a new roomier and more comfortable salon. I can attest to comfort, as I fell asleep on the sofa while waiting for spouse's hair to be finished.
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This is the second bunny blip within a week. Birds, you are not forsaken and you will be blipped again!
Big Bunny was chasing Little Bunny around our yard at 7:30 am Sunday morning, cavorting and appearing to play. When I came outside, Little Bunny ran to the bunny residence under our deck. After nibbling in the grass for a moment, Big Bunny took off running.
About 4 pm Big Bunny was out by himself and and I wanted to see how close I could get to him (her?) for a photo. He let me approach very close as I crouched down at bunny level; this photo is not cropped. Big Bunny seems to think he blends in with the grass.
Will try to get a pic of Little Bunny soon, perhaps both bunnies together.
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The Oswegoland Park District's four day Prairiefest is in full swing. The photo shows the gate to the carnival, which was very busy on a gorgeous Friday afternoon.
Prairiefest is an annual small town summer event attracting 60,000 visitors. It features music, performers, children's activities, business expo, carnival, parade, and other events.
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A row of pink Asiatic lilies fronts the next door neighbor's porch.
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Thank you Mr. Squirrel for coming out for your portrait despite being wet. We've had 5 inches of rain in the past week, and creeks, ponds, and rivers are greatly elevated or are flooding.
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Rustled up some grub for the household.
The wren took the grub into the nest box, so there may be young'uns in the house to feed.
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An eastern cottontail rabbit sitting in my backyard ran down the runway and took off flying. Birds in flight have nothing on this rabbit!
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The House Wren nests in tree holes and nest boxes, filling them up with twigs in which a soft lined cup is built from grasses, animal hair, and other soft materials. Both the male and female wren live in this ceramic nest box hung by neighbors in a small tree. In this house, twigs are piled above the level of the front door. The birds sit at the back of the nest box.
This is a busy area for a bird house. The colorful diffuse objects in the background are a kid's climbing and swing set..
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Seth is eager to start school at Aurora University, Aurora, Illinois in the Fall!
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For squirrel lovers everywhere.
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This bumblebee is feeding on "Little Princess" spirea flowers. There are 46 species of bumblebees in North America, and as with dragonflies I need to become better at bumblebee species identification.
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Global evangelist Dr. Kevin McNulty visited our church this morning and gave a message entitled Focus, Faith, and Fruit. He has evangelized in more than 60 countries, speaking to groups of up to 250,000. About 20 years ago he and wife Dr. Leslie McNulty began the Eurasian Tent Project, with a goal of 100 tents with local evangelists taking the Gospel all over Eurasia. 80 large tents are now in the field.
http://www.mcnultyministries.com/photo-reports.html
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Great Blue Heron hunting in the shallow backwater of a small creek
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Or is that Ducks Redux? Ducklings Reduxlings?
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While out taking pics of bird wondered if could focus on a flying dragonfly. Yes! This dragonfly was flying over a pond.
I've no experience in dragonfly identification, and have tentatively identified this is a Black Saddlebags dragonfly. The black saddlebag portion on the left rear wing has broken off.
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Flying away from me seems to be the only way I ever see this bird. It's very skittish of people.
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Was returning from taking bird photos in a neighbor's yard, I thought I saw a female cardinal at the top of a 12 foot tall birch tree at the corner of my house. When I got closer it was clear this was not a cardinal, it was a Cedar Waxwing.
We've never seen a waxwing in our yard, and have rarely see them at all anywhere. Blip has definitely added to observation skills and collection of birds identified.
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This little guy let me walk within 10 feet while a swallow buddy vigorously warned him to fly away.
The belly of a barn swallow is supposed to be buff orange, but despite the yellow belly I believe this is a barn swallow.
Barn swallows are fast and I could not lock focus on a flying barn swallow. Will try again earlier in the day when light is coming from the side instead of toplighting at noon.
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2 Cute....and hoodies don't lie.
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Today a lot of rain was available, so instead of crying about it I used it!
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By the powers no one invested in us, we officially welcomed Hsiang-jen Yen into retirement at his party today. Friend and former co-worker Dr. Yen and I are pictured. Thank you Juan for pulling the trigger on this one!
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This diminutive 0.4 oz/11g bird is a great singer. It's musical with a bubbling and cascading song. The song is loud, and one would think a much larger bird is singing.
I've been looking for a house wren pic after hearing it sing a week ago. Today this bird perched nearby on a low branch in a crabapple tree branch.
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Caught the angle just right for an incredibly blue reflection off the sky. The water in this pond is clear with a slight green/brown color. This is a shallow pond in northern Illinois, not the blue ocean.
The photo was taken walking by a narrow channel of water. The bird likes to fly over the water, and therefore stayed fairly close to land and the camera due to the channel's narrow width.
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The purpose of this photo is to show farmland in the midwestern U.S. South of town this farmland goes on for hundreds of miles. Grassy swaths running through the fields are drainage paths for heavy rains when the soil is saturated with water. The bit of green in the foreground amidst the stubble of last year's crop are corn plants which are up a couple inches. This is a big operation, as there are three tractors in the photo.
The area south of Oswego at Schlapp and Cherry Roads may look flat to most people, but to those of us who live here it's hilly. It's all relative.
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Today we remember the people who died while serving in our armed forces. We respect and commemorate our veterans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our liberty. Thank you for our freedom.
Photo comment: In a rain-abbreviated parade and ceremony, Oswego, Illinois remembered fallen veterans. This photo is at the ceremony in the Oswego Township Cemetery. American Legion Post 675 sponsors the event.
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We had a short break in today's rain, and just after I walked out the front door with camera in hand a chipping sparrow was perched pretty as you please in the next door neighbor's locust tree. It let me walk up close for a fairly clean view to snap two photos before flying away.
There are 32 kinds of sparrows listed in my National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America book. Chipping sparrows are small side in the sparrow world, with a weight of 0.4-0.6 oz/11-16g. I posted a photo of a chipping sparrow at a bird feeder in mid February, but this pic is nicer with the green leafy background.
His Eye is on the Sparrow is the title of a Gospel hymn written in 1905 which is based on Matthew 6:26.
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The bird of the day is the spotted sandpiper. This bird is the most widespread sandpiper in North America. It's small and on average the bird is 7.5 inches/19 cm long and weighs 1.4 ounces/40 grams. This is a shore bird which feeds on invertebrates (bugs and aquatic larvae). In this species the females establish and defend the territory, and the male incubates and raises the young.
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Robins built a nest in a fern hanging on the neighbor's front porch. Three chicks hatched a week ago, and within another week they will grow to be as large as their parents and will fledge the nest.
On these chicks downy feathers have been almost completely replaced by juvenile feathers. Feathers do not grow on all parts of the body, instead growing in defined feather tracts. Feathers overlap bare spaces on the bird, giving the adult bird the look of being completely feathered.
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I will have to quit taking photos when others are eating...
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Mr. Squirrel unconcernedly ate his breakfast walnut as I watched. He only shared the walnut shell with me, throwing it down to the ground when he finished.
Walked over to the neighbor's back yard before 6:30 am during morning golden hour looking for a small wren, but instead encountered a rabbit, duck, and Mr. Squirrel. Mr. Squirrel posed the longest and best. These are the same neighbors whose flowers I have frequently blipped. Their dog Lily did not bark this morning; Lily must be used to me and the belly rubs I give her.
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After helping move mulch at someone's house, took a zigzag path home looking for a bird to photograph. Hoping to see a pheasant, I zagged several miles out of the way to a marsh/meadow area that my son/blipper FarAwayWolf and I used to visit. As I was walking along the asphalt path next to the largest marsh, this little yellow bird popped out of the brush and sat in a small tree at eye level in front of me.
I have never seen or heard of this bird before. This is a male common yellowthroat, which is in the warbler family. The name may indicate it's common, but it's not! Length is 5"/13 cm and it's diet is insects.
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Bird blip binge continues with a photo of a great egret walking the shallows of the pond by our clubhouse. Breeding plumage extending beyond the bird's tail is still present. This egret caught catch one small fish as I watched.
To get this shot I had to hide behind several bushes and creep closer. Our egrets are skittish, and fly away when they see someone. Bought my fishing license today and will soon join the egret at the pond.
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Bird blip binge begets blackbird.
Male red-winged blackbird.
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10 little ducklings
Scouted the creek on bicycle late yesterday and spotted the ducklings. Stopped at the creek before 8 am this morning to take this blip just before a thunderstorm rolled in.
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Drove to the Redbox to rent a DVD and was semi-trapped by road construction, so went with traffic flow and drove to the Fox River. Three families of geese were at the park with a total of 50 goslings. Due to many pedestrians and bicycle riders at the park, the geese are used to people. A photographer can get relatively close to the brood without provoking parent goose anger.
Goslings would feed and rest, feed and rest, just like human babies. These guys were walking towards me and seemed to be looking for a food handout.
Photo selected due to the emotion shown by the subjects!
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Dear Great Blue Heron: Hey, you are fishing in my favorite fishing pond. Remember it's a catch and release pond, and you have to throw them all back!
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Egrets in this area normally won't let you get within 75 yards before flying away. This egret either did not see me on the ground or did not care, and flew 25 yards above me as it travelled to a pond to fish.
Ice cold processing applied to show off the white feathers. Blue is my favorite color, so I like this!
Goslings from yesterday's blip have increased in number by three. The three goose families now have 10+5+4=19 total goslings.
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I've noticed how y'all like baby pictures. This picture was tightly cropped for a better close up of eight goslings. The gander and goose swam at the front and rear ends guarding the goslings. A group of geese is a called a gaggle on land, a skein, team, or wedge in the air, but what is the group called in the water? How about a flotilla?
There were two other families of geese on this pond with four goslings each.
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This photo was picked over other candidates because the background color complemented the bird so nicely!
After overcast and rain most of the day, we had a welcome ray of sunshine.
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All that floats is not a duck. The American Coot looks like a duck when swimming, but on land is more chicken-like. They have lobed toes rather than webbed feet and are in a different family than ducks. This pair was dining on algae. Yum.
Location: Lake Patterson at Oakhurst Forest Preserve, Aurora, Illinois. I shot a couple long range pics of a coyote walking on the east side of the lake, but it went off into the woods before I could get closer.
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Nightmare or bad dream, that is. An invading army of dandelions are occupying about 3/4 acre east and behind us, and we are staunchly defending our territory one plant at a time.
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Killdeer are common on grassy fields and shores. This killdeer has both, as it lives by a creek, three ponds, and undeveloped land at the south end of our housing development. I walked a strip of mowed grass between the open fields and creek, getting good pics of male and female red winged blackbirds. The flying killdeer wins the blip due to level of difficulty to take the photo.
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Scarlet Tanager! Although we live well within their range, I don't recall ever seeing one of these birds and neither does my wife.
I was waiting in the car when spouse returned from her dentist appointment. She told me there's a red bird in the crabapple tree. I said "cardinal", but she said "no, it's red with black wings". The camera was in the trunk, and my long zoom was not attached. Went back to trunk and changed lenses (fumble, fumble). By the time I was ready the bird had flown from the sea of white flowers in which it was sitting. Imagine the photo that would have been! The tanager then flew back and forth between two Austrian pines, and although not the greatest technical photo I was able to photograph the bird just after it captured two grubs from the tree bark. The bird was happily singing after it's meal and it didn;t care that I was under the tree.
Note to self: Be instant in season, 2 Timothy 4:2. In the car have the camera instantly available with your go-to 70-200 lens attached. Then you will be ready for your opportunity. Today you got a shot, but it might have been much, much better. Be instant in season.
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Pink crabapple tree flowers
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White flower petals were blown off the trees by the wind and were flying about like a snowstorm today. It was spectacular seeing warm noncrystalline snow. With several days of rain forecast and blossoms falling fast, few chances for tree flower photos remain. I snipped a small sprig off our crabapple tree and took it to the basement, photographing it against a black muslin backdrop using a single fluorescent softbox for light.
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After four hours of yard work at the church, stopped off at nearby Spring Lake Park for what I hoped was a quick blip before going home to work on my own yard. Swallows are nesting underneath a metal fishing pier, and a good number of them were flying over the lake feeding. They are small and fast, and as a result are difficult to photograph. Most of my attempts were not in focus. Delete! Almost every photo taken was a barn swallow (deeply forked tail), but the best one is a tree swallow. At one point this particular bird slowed down and was close enough to get a decent picture. When I returned home and looked at the photo on the computer screen and compared to my bird book I realized this was a mixed nesting site of mostly barn swallows and a few tree swallows.
Photographer note: could not lock onto birds using 3D tracking. This shot was done using Nikon AF-C d9 focus, with back button focus button held down for continuous focus.
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This is a sweet scented but highly poisonous plant. Other names include May lily, May bells, and muguet. The scientific name is C. majalis; majalis means "of or belonging to May".
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Enough of the pretty Spring flower pictures! I took a load of those this morning, but you don't get to see them! Today's Blipfoto Derelict Thursday entry is a decaying barn on Rt 71 between Oswego and Yorkville, Illinois. Oak trees have surrounded the structure and are ganging up on it, using their "hands" to reach in and pick the barn apart. Although it's back is broken, there's a good chance this barn will stand for years to come.
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In taking pictures of people you should try to avoid sunlight/shade dappling on their faces. When taking pictures in the woods, I prefer dappling on the "faces" of the subjects, in this case violets. This appears to be Viola Sororia, the Illinois state flower.
Camera with 40mm macro lens was handheld at ground level very close to the clump of violets; live view used to frame and focus.
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Some may argue with this, but in the U.S. the kitchen is the most important room as it's the center for entertaining. This morning I was in the woods working on my flower portfolio and received a call from a neighbor/part time realtor to photograph a home she will list for sale next Monday. This is the kitchen from that home, and the kitchen is ideal for entertaining in that it opens to a dinette space, large family room, and multiple outdoor patio spaces. Holy cow, I sound like a realtor!
Neighbor Kathy only calls when there is an important listing or a space that's more difficult to photograph, otherwise she takes her own listing photos. I know what she really wants from me: a 12mm wide angle lens.
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Freshly leafed Autumn Blaze Maple leaves have a lot of color in the Spring, too.
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I worked outside in a steady rain all morning, and I know how you feel Mr. or Mrs. Mourning Dove. Thank you for stopping by on the deck rail right outside my kitchen window. I had no clue what I was going to blip today, and you my friend are inspiration.
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Three high school friends are off to the prom!
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An American Robin's nest six feet off the ground is today's blip. I've been having trouble with plant ID on some of my blips, but I know a robin when I see one!
The nest is in a blue spruce tree in the backyard, and leather gloves were needed to work through the spruce needles. Stuck the camera in the tree, hoped that it was aimed correctly, and fired off a bunch of photos. Parent robins were spazzing out, so called it a wrap on the three egg photo session.
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Today let's reach to the sky instead of crawling on our belly. Used one of the few sunny breaks in an otherwise overcast, cold, and windy day to photograph crabapple tree blossoms in our yard which are ready to burst forth. Am taking full advantage of spring flowers.
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I was crawling around on my belly for half an hour in the neighbor's yard waiting to get this photo. The sun briefly popped through the clouds, then would have to wait again for the next period of sun filtering through the tree overhead. They weren't home, but if they were home they would not have been surprised to see me crawling on their lawn. It's nice when neighbors know your quirks!
Photographer's notes: 85mm portrait lens works nicely for close ups on anything bigger than the size of a fist. Experimented with apertures, and in my opinion f4 is the best for depth of field for this type photo.
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For those of you who received Facebook notification, I connected my blipfoto postings to Facebook over the weekend. You might like it, you might not!
Searching for a nice background, used a narrow strip of land between the church parking lot and the street. It worked! But the location does not work well for full length photos. There's too much clutter: cars, signs, office building, houses, strip mall, etc.
These superheroes participated in the DC Marvel World Record of most superheroes gathered within 24 hours. DC Marvel sites spanned 15 countries mostly in large cities, and one site was Plano, Illinois. Plano (population 11,000) has billed itself Smallville since 2011 when film makers took over downtown Plano to film "Man of Steel".
Since these are comic book characters, a teensy bit (no, make that a lot) of extra vibrance and saturation was added to this photo.
Don't mess with the Mayor of Plano, he's on the left. This was good leadership on his part by participating in this event.
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Drove to the Yorkville Illinois dam and stopped by Lyons Forest Preserve on the way back home. This is at the forest preserve. Practiced shooting with wide angle lens, and did better than last week!
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I look at this photo and think that ducks look too broad across the body to fly. That or their wings aren't big enough.
Assigned back focus button on camera and practiced using it. It's gonna be good and will have more keepers when I remember to focus by pushing the button on the back, not on the front. Was successful some of the time, and this was one of them.
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This petals of this flower are surprisingly translucent. Placed the flower between the camera and the early morning sun and fired away. Some of the nonposted photos had greens and purples on the left side of the frame which I assume is from the lens coating.
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Just got home a few minutes before midnight, and there's no time to load and process a night time photo taken in downtown Chicago tonight. Instead, here is a photo I took early this morning just in case we did not get home in time.
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A trip to the veterinarian's office for a periodic exam is not on Nilla's list of favorite things. She quivers, shakes, and stress-sheds on the 6 minute car trip. We drag her in the front door, and then drag her down to the examination room. She whimpers while we wait. The vet and vet tech are very nice to Nilla, and she behaves during the exam and injections. The exam is over quickly, with a clean bill of health!
Thank you to Dr. Weaver and Kristin of River Heights Veterinary Hospital for letting me take pictures and post this blip.
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Jana, Amanda, and Ben are happy to be blipped.. Downtown Chicago, Chicago Avenue at LaSalle St looking south on LaSalle.
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Spring is arriving in the northern Illinois forest preserves. Wildflowers are sprouting and will be blooming within the week. This creek is often just a trickle, but with 1.5 days of rain it's banks are full. No one else was in the woods, and the only sounds to be heard were birds singing and the burble of the creek. If he were here, son FarAwayWolf would have crossed the creek by walking on fallen/decaying trees, urging me to do the same.
The mission in visiting this preserve was to layer new greenery with water, sky, and browns of tree trunks and dead leaves. This was the spot.
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Another Thursday, another derelict. This property is for sale, and it would be a great purchase. The barn and house are falling apart, but the land is 10 acres across the road from a high school. One day there will be development replacing the dereliction, best to get the photo now!
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This morning I put a wide angle lens on the camera for Wide Wednesday. Rarely use wide angle except for building interior photos, and forced myself to set the lens at 12mm and go outside. Results on this gray day were ugly, ugly, ugly. The only things which made me feel better about this blip were the rock texture and creative processing.
I learned a couple things from the experience and will try again, but not very soon. Ugh.
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It was overcast, cold, and windy outside. Strongly resisted the urge to chop off a few of these flowers and head to the basement to shoot this blip. The daffodils will live on for a blip when there's sun and blue sky.
40mm macro. Also used TTL flash hand held on a cable to simulate sun by generating shadows, contrast, and color.
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Nonpartisan local elections are being held tomorrow, and this means many election signs along the roadside. Village board, village president, and school board are being elected; candidates are far apart in their views, and all races are hotly contested.
Although roadsides and yards are full of sign clutter, in a couple days the signs will be gone. If a candidate fails to pick up their signs, local authorities know where to find the person!
It was a good year to be a sign printer.
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Daughter Laura's boyfriend Thomas levitates his dog Dash. The "kids" came over for Easter dinner.
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Spent several hours spade edging planting beds this morning, and as usual Robins tagged along after me for easy pickings of uncovered worms. This is the most fearless American Robin I've ever seen. It did not fly away even when I was close. After I went inside and got my camera the bird twice walked within the 4.9 feet/1.5 meter minimum focus distance of my lens, and I could not shoot any photos. In the shot I picked to blip the bird was 5 feet away so there is little depth of field. With a fluffed up spot in it's feathers on the left side, it looked like it might be injured and unable to fly. This was not the case. After walking front and back of the house eating worms the fearless Robin flew next door. Am sure I will see it again.
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Motor home appears to be about 40 years old judging from pictures on the internet. It's not looking great. Paint is completely oxidized, body is rusting, there's an open window, and drapes in the front windows are disintegrating. But the headlights look ok and it's still on wheels. I like the porthole window! Anyone up for a spin?
Son Matt wanted me to continue the orange color theme from the past two days. Matt, does rust count?
U.S. Route 30 on east side of Oswego across from the new industrial park.
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Taken exactly at sunrise 6:36 am, but trees are hiding the sun. Got up at 5 am, cleaned up, took the dogs for a nice walk, and hit the road before 6 am searching for a blip.
I was surprised how much detail the camera sensor picked up in the shadows, and this time I did not want the detail I wanted a silhouette!
Farm is at NE corner of Douglas and Woolley Roads, Oswego, IL
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I was planning on getting a wide angle photo of an Illinois farm in the spring, but saw a large smoke cloud which distracted my original plan. Save the farm for tomorrow. What looks like an uncontrolled fire next to a housing development is a prescribed burn of a natural area serving as a buffer for the subdivision. This is an early spring ritual in this area. One worker (the burner with the red hood on the far left) walks along dripping a fluid which is on fire, and multiple other workers stand by to control the fire. The burner lights small sections at a time, and after that section is burned he walks upwind 10-20 feet and starts another small often triangular section on fire.
Prior to development, the Illinois prairie thrived by regular fires, both natural and fires set by native Americans. Today prescribed prairie burns are done every 2-4 years. The burn kills invasive plants and rejuvenates the soil by releasing nutrients. Burns are typically done on prairies owned by state and local parks. This particular 9 acre burn was contracted by the homeowners association. There was a light NW wind with no danger to the homes except smoke and occasional ash.
Did not get close to the fire, didn't want to melt the coating on my lens!
127th St and Ridge Road, Plainfield, IL
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Adult heron is captured bringing more sticks to build the nest. This heron rookery is on two islands in the Fox River just north of the U.S. Route 30 bridge. View is from a pedestrian bridge which spans the river underneath the auto bridge.
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Whenever we are gifting flowers I like to take advantage by taking photos for long term preservation of the blooms. Shot a quick series of frames at 6:40 am before we were off and running for the day.
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This lift by neighbor Todd symbolizes victory. It was shot from a low position to emphasize his height and size, and also to reduce background clutter. Todd likes to do his workouts outdoors winter and summer.
My exercise was running to get in position to push the shutter button. It was a tough but manageable job.
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The elevator repair guys came to the church building this morning. Pastor Jeff asked them, "How's business?" Elevator mechanic Jake wasted no time in answering "It has it's ups and downs." The Pastor walked right into that one! I made a comment about never going sideways, and it turns out that's not accurate. Horizontally moving elevators have been invented. Parallels could be drawn between the elevator business and the church - the main purpose is uplifting, but also can have sideways and downward movements.
Jake had no problem being posted as a blipctim. He thought many people had never seen an elevator pit, and it would be good for them to know what one looks like.
This elevator serves a two story building. They were replacing an old access ladder with a new ladder which met the new code of extending 48 inches above the floor and also the centerline of rungs 4.5 inches from the wall. Old ladder is at the left, and the new ladder is leaning against the wall at the top.
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The last bit of utility is extracted from these vehicles at the auto salvage yard. People come to find used parts from these cars, and when a car is fully stripped it's off to the auto shredder.
Photo was taken over the yard's fence holding camera at arms length. That's the reason it's not very level. Slanted view seemed appropriate in this case, as did the light leak which was added in post.
There are days when I think I am better at finding dilapidated subjects to blip. But today was a fine day for derelicts!
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It's a gray rainy day and am not motivated to go outside for a blip. At 7 am workers arrived at home contruction site behind us and started pounding concrete forms in place. On this kind of day I go to the refrigerator and see what can be used in a photo. There was a lime past it's prime, so attempted to create an iced drink photo using a couple pieces of white foam board and one flashgun on a cable to the flash shoe.
Shot a few pics without the flash using windowlight, and determined that backlighting is essential to create the reflection of the glass off the board. Can't call this an unqualified success, but it gave me a couple ideas for doing this kind of photo in the future. Used water, and believe a colored drink would be more interesting.
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Watched a little friend while her mother was at work. Went to Bounce Town, a kid's play place full of inflatable mazes, jumps, and slides. Although 10 times her age, I kept up with her for the two hour period. Fortunately there was a break in the middle when we played air hockey. It was a chance to rest and to take a few pics. This was good exercise and I would go again.
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After last week's warm weather, put away all snow removal equipment. Premature! We received about 4 inches of snow this morning. Home construction continues on the lot behind our house. This morning a load of gravel was dumped and then moved into the future garage floor and other areas.
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Salvation Dalmatian looks to the skies when the sun shines in the day's only break in the clouds. Seth as the dalmatian worked hard attracting attention to the grand opening of our church.
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Friend Rebecca came over to get a LinkedIn profile photo taken, as well as a photo to send to her fiance who is serving in the military in Afghanistan. We took a half dozen quick shots at the house for LinkedIn, and the first one was the best one. Although she was tired, she agreed to go to the park to take a few pictures. I loved this one, as Rebecca's personality shines through in this photo.
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This fisherman is tired of winter, and he is itching to get outdoors and fish no matter the temperature. He spent the winter working on his hobby of making fishing rods while staring out the window waiting for the weather to break. Now is the time for action. David was fishing the Fox River below the Montgomery dam, but not catching anything today. Yesterday he caught a walleye, carp, and also accidentally snagged a turtle. He showed me a couple pictures; the carp was lip hooked on a shallow running jerkbait which in my experience is rare. Stuck my finger in the water and estimated water temp in the high 30s F, with air temp 45 F on a completely overcast morning. My preference is for it to be a little warmer for fishing.
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On the way to the Illinois Secretary of State office for driver's license renewal, cruised in the car looking for derelicts. Saw this abandoned house on Simms St., kitty corner to an elementary school. Former pieces of someone's life are on display in the front yard. Although I would have liked to get out of the car for a better angle, across the street there was a large barking dog tied with a very thin rope. Wisdom dictated taking photos from the car window.
Drove a few blocks north to the nearby African American Heritage Museum blipped on March 12, and shot some disturbing images. Am not blipping those today, decided to wait for a Thursday with sunlight to get more contrast in any images.
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The first outdoor blooms of the year appeared on daffodils in our yard. This is a miniature cultivar. Leaves and green portions are not looking good; they've taken a beating from the cold weather.
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This morning the view out our back door changed to a 10-15 foot high wall of dirt. It's a new view, and selfishly we are not sure we will like it. A foundation and basement for a new home was excavated on the lot behind us today. A home was to be built on this lot eight years ago, but due to the economic downturn this never happened. We enjoyed the extra space for eight years! D.R. Horton, a national builder in the U.S., has a dozen houses under construction on adjoining streets. Two houses in green housewrap (vinyl siding has not been applied yet) are on the right, and three other houses in the photo are not occupied yet.
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The northern Illinois Ice Age ended 1-1.5 weeks ago, and it's the warmest day this year at 75 F. Ice is 50% melted off the subdivision ponds and creatures are out and about. Had several other good blip candidates today, but the muskrat won because I was able to get close at 10 feet away. The muskrat was working his way along the pond bank, so I ran ahead and waited for him to arrive. The muskrat gave 7 seconds in which to fire off a few photos before it dove underwater. The photo does not show the long dark tail which is unique in that it's slightly flattened vertically to assist in swimming.
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Great church service, nice weather, neighborhood kids out playing soccer and football, flying kites, and riding bikes. It's a beautiful Sunday.
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I'm milking this Christmas amaryllis for as many blips as I can! This is the fourth bloom of six and the third blip. Outdoor spring flowers will start popping up in the near future, and will be able to move outside for flower photos.
Light clouds were filtering the morning sun through a south window into the kitchen. Used a scrap piece of black foamboard held on end by a C-clamp for the background, slanting the board to the right to get little sunllight reflecting back to camera and blackest background possible.
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Practiced taking birds in flight photos. Gulls, cormorants, ducks, and geese were flying, but no eagles. The way the sun skimmed off this Canada goose caught my eye. Think I'm improving but am starting to have lens envy; other photographers I see at the river always have zoom lenses going to at least 400mm. My extra zoom is achieved by cropping.
Except for ice chunks floating by, the ice is gone from the river. The river water is a foot higher from snow melt, flowing strongly, and has less clarity. Did not need gloves to keep hands warm while shooting photos today, yay!
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In 1986 Vietnam War veteran Dr. Charles Smith began filling the yard of his residential Aurora, Illinois home with sculptures dedicated to the leaders of Black America. Over the span of 25 years the lot was filled with sculpture he created as a tribute to these leaders through some of the dark times in our history. Dr. Smith moved to Lousiana 10+ years ago and built a second museum. Most of the statues in Aurora have been removed (purchased by the Kohler Foundation as folk art), but a rock and concrete wall and some of the sculptures remain. The figure you see in front is holding a snake, and the figure to the right of the front door is chained. "We Shall Overcome" spans the space under the front gable. The home is both an amazing commemoration of one man's vision and an eyesore in the neighborhood. Many towns would have condemned the property yet it still stands in Aurora.
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Day is beautiful, took the flower outside to take photos! Almost 60 degrees F and sunny. The flowers are small, width of each is 3 cm or 1 1/8 inches.
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Spouse had engagement and wedding rings cut off today. What does this mean? After 35 years of marriage is she tired of me? Is she leaving me?
In this case it means she has not had the ring off in 20 years, the setting is wearing out, and the ring is sometimes tight. The jeweler has a nifty circular cutter which quickly cuts the ring, although for a gag he first brought out a large toothy straight saw which would take off the ring and finger. Wife said I should title this blip "Wife Drains Bank Account", as she also looked for a new ring to replace the old one.
Perhaps a new ring for her means a new Nikon D750 camera body for me?
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This was blipped as a flower bud on March 4, now fully bloomed. This shot was taken in early morning full sun. Family room is behind, but closed the blinds to remove distracting background. I like how the new buds were translucently lighted, but flower itself had too much range darks to lights. Desaturated and deluminenced reds and oranges. When there are new flowers may try again but will filter the sunlight..
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One of the families at church bought a car yesterday, a black Mercedes E350. Looks pretty sleek and racy. Jazmine enjoyed driving it, and she also enjoyed getting her picture taken in the driver's seat. Having her picture taken has never been her favorite thing to do, so you know this is special.
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Chris, Sara, and Nicole came over today for a photo. We shot with Nicole's Nikon, then shot with my camera, then worked in Lightroom with Nicole on one of Sara's photos. I was happy with the result, but still need to work on hair lighting.
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After weeks of trying finally got one! This is a juvenile (less than 5 year old) bald eagle so it's head is not white yet, plumage is mottled not dark, and beak has some black not completely yellow. There were two juvenile eagles chasing each other upriver and another two eagles chasing each other downriver. To my surprise and delight the upriver pair flew about 60 feet directly overhead, and I was ready! This is the best of several shots I took. Photo is not cropped, but shadows are lightened in order to see underside better. It will be in the 50s F most of next week, and as the river ice breaks up these birds will return north for the summer.
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...even if the escape is only for a brief time. To son Matt in Shanghai: we went somewhere today!
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The amaryllis my wife received for Christmas is finally starting to bloom. She thinks she did not water it enough, so it's been a slow bloomer. This photo was taken in the den in full golden hour morning sunlight against black posterboard background. Using the light green wall as a background did not help the image pop. Time to post this blip and go finish ceiling painting!
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Accompanied my wife to her haircut appointment in downtown Oswego, IL. This is Heather cutting my wife's hair.
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Today's blip is a trip to the refrigerator for mini bella mushrooms. Shot this morning at 8 am when sunlight was streaming through south windows. Tried both direct sun and indirect light, and direct sunlight was better for color and also creating dark shadows for drama. Also used two different lenses and a variety of apertures for depth of field experimentation. Kept having to move everything as the path of sunlight shifted quickly through the kitchen and dinette. Moved the set up and camera to the floor for this photo, this blip was a lot more work than it looks. .
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Subspecies Slate-colored Junco. These birds winter in the U.S, and will be soon returning to Canada for the summer. The four light-colored specks in the air are suet thrown by the bird as it was feeding.
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Or are you really hungry now? For a month or more I've been putting bread loaf ends from bread I baked outside on the deck. No takers. Also put out a suet cake. This morning a variety of birds descended and had a party on the now really stale bread. I thank them for letting me shoot photos from the warmth of the house instead of the -8 F outside, no frozen feet today! My bird book tells me this is a house finch, which has a large range encompassing much of the U.S., Mexico, and lower Canada. Although this photo was taken through double pane glass, the image was not milky and soft as some of the images were. When the birds had their backs turned, I would approach the window to shoot. I'm pretty sure they could hear the shutter clicking. As you can tell, he was looking at me in the house. He might have been asking for fresh bread, not the old stuff!
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Nilla was sleeping/sunbathing by the back door. Or should I say she was posing? This is her right rear paw, and wife says this picture is not very pretty. Actual size of Nilla's foot is 2 inches/5 centimeters. To be fair I should take a picture of my foot sometime. My foot is is bigger but not hairy!
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Several years ago I bought a North American bird book, and I'm glad I did. Followed this female hairy woodpecker from tree to tree for this profile picture. Others birds observed today include a red-bellied woodpecker, brown creeper, mallard ducks, gulls, bald eagle, great blue heron with a fish, and red-tailed hawk with a fish. Fishing was good today, and judging from the red tails/fins both fish appeared to be river redhorse suckers.
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Tried to get an eagle photo, but this little guy was a closer, slower, more reliable subject. The squirrel found a bread crust and was nibbling away. Saw six eagles, and after setting camera to shutter priority mode 1/4000 second the flying eagle shots I obtained were a little better today but still not very good. Practiced taking photos on flying ducks and gulls. Best chance of an eagle photo is a clear sunny day and 2-3 hours to wait for eagles to fly down the river. Most of the time these birds sit high in the trees waiting to spot fish in the river. The water is very clear at this time of year, and most of the river is shallow so fish are easy to see.
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Went to see the tax accountant today and found this machine in his office. He told us he is keeping up with technology.
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Yesterday I was pining for the green of Spring and Summer, saying I can't wait to blip lots and lots of green. But it's winter, and despite temps in the single digits Fahrenheit may as well embrace it. Drove north on Illinois Rt 25 on the Fox River late this morning looking for eagles, which fly south down the Fox River and winter in this area. I saw four eagles and captured one in flight, but not good enough to blip. The only birds photos good enough to post today were hundreds of duck butts sticking up out of the water as the ducks fed in the shallow river. Perhaps we'll save that wonderful sight for another time. This photo is at a small side channel on the Fox River at Troy Park, Oswego, Illinois. I just looked at this photo closely, and there's a duck butt in this one!
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Although I'm a guy, attended a portion of a baby shower held by the ladies at the church this afternoon. This is sister, mother-to-be, and their mother, a great looking family. Baby is due in a three weeks.
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Many of us have features we don't know how to use on our cameras and other gear. This was an exercise to remedy that lack of knowledge for the repeating flash feature on a flashgun I own. Featured is an operating 50 year old Seth Thomas mechanical metronome illuminated by a flash cycling at 8 times a second at 1/64th power for a one second exposure. You can see how the metronome arm slowed at the ends of it's arc before reversing, and there are eight images of the arm. I needed this metronome when I took piano lessons long long ago!
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Visited My Sisters Lil Donut Shoppe in downtown Oswego, Illinois this morning for the purpose of taking a blip. The people running the store were very nice, even giving me tips for future blips in the area. I stayed for more than 30 minutes snapping photos, and was surprised at the amount of customers coming in the door. Purchased an apple-filled pastry to take home to my wife, and she pronounced it good with lots of filling. This photo was shot through the glass counter. Note to self: for better focus angle camera more so that focal plane parallels the slope of the product. Possibly stop down more (thought f6.3 would be enough). Try using 40mm macro lens instead of 85mm portrait lens.
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It was 0 degrees F outside today. Although this male cardinal was a little too far away for this lens, cropped a bit and this will be is good for today!
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After dropping the kids off from swimming, took a short drive to a barn I scouted for a blip a week ago. Location is U.S. Route 30 just west of Dickson Road in the Montgomery, Illinois area. This farm has three residential subdivisions encroaching, and perhaps the notion of selling out is why they've let the buildings start falling apart. There's a hay wagon inside the right side small building that's falling over. Weather was not conducive to outdoor photos, 10 degrees F and 20 mph NW winds. Spent a total of four minutes outside and right/shutter finger hand got pretty frozen from the wind in that short time. There were small snow squalls where on one side of the road snow reduced visibility, and on the other side of the road it was sunny and clear.
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This is my first camera, given to me by my parents approximately 1973 while I was in college. It's a rangefinder camera and has a nice, fast f1.7 lens. I usually shot black and white film in college (cheaper to buy a roll of B/W), and had prints developed in a smaller size 2"x3" (again, cheaper for the college student). The camera came in a button case which was always on the camera so the camera body is in very nice shape. Worst thing to which the camera was exposed was a college dining room food fight. Mashed potato snowballs and fistfuls of canned peas were flying everywhere. Camera and self managed to avoid getting pelted as participants respected the event being documented.
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The Incredible Hulk and his sister go swimming. Used green gels on camera mounted flash aimed at kids and off camera slave flash pointed at pool bottom. Green color was uneven on skin, and had to paint a bit in Lightroom. Whitened teeth and eyes. Tried one blue gel and one green gel for smurf hulks, but there was a lot of spill of one color into another. Kids enjoyed posing as they knew the result would be silly. Should have saved this photo session for St. Patrick's Day!
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This is my honorary granddaughter with her birthday cake. The theme was a Hawaiian luau, which was quite a difference from the -4 F temperatures outdoors first thing this morning.
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Kitchen creation :)
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Birds are popular on blip so thought I would try my hand at a bird photo. It was 18 F/-8 C this morning, and next time I try this will want it to be warmer. Using a guide to birds of eastern North America, I believe this is a Chipping Sparrow. Mounted camera with 70-200 lens on tripod about 8 feet from the feeder, and tripped with wireless remote. It was completely overcast so tried using TTL flash and also without flash. Color and contrast were better using a flash, and this photo used flash. The flashgun spooked the cardinals but not the other birds. Next time need to observe bird behavior for a longer period of time prior to positioning camera. Optimum position and angle at the start will save time from sitting in the cold.
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Used to take a lot of photos of food when eating in restaurants, but quit doing that a couple years ago. Today's lunch looked colorful and worthy of a photo and had the the camera with me, so why not? This is U.S restaurant chain Red Robin's smoke and pepper burger. The restaurant building has large windows around the perimeter, and photo was shot using window light and a very minor amount of incandescent light. We were at an interior table, so cranked up to ISO 2000 for a hand held shot using 85mm lens.
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The inspiration for today's blip is green onions purchased at Aldi this morning. Front round onion was held in place by rear onions, these were rolling all over the place. Tried adding a red bell pepper but this overwhelmed the image and was difficult to get in focus. The sweep is a king pillow case draped over a clothes drying rack placed on the dinette table. Light is solely from south facing windows about 7 feet away on a completely overcast day. A one inch thick white packing foam was stood on end as a reflector to camera left. Color popped up in Lightroom as well as vignette added.
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Today was my 80th blood donation at Lifesource. It's taken a long time to reach 10 gallons in donations!
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Opened up this sound system electronic component for repair and was impressed how much it looked like miniature factory buildings and fuel tanks. Let the blip come to you! I am not a professional electronics repair technician and it may be easier to take a photo than to fix this item. Played around with depth of field; wide open at f1.8 was not very good, somewhere between f3-4 was better.
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"It's got to be evening snack time by now. I've been waiting at the top of the stairs like I do every night for my 7:30 pm snack. I've been waiting 45 minutes, how much longer is Mom going to make me wait? I'm the boss around here. Get those bright lights out of my eyes and get me some food!" Nilla the Shiba Inu
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The neighbors were kind enough to let me join in their outdoor fun and to post one of the photos. It was a good day for making snowmen, throwing snowballs, and sledding.
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Took a short walk along the creek this morning.
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The impact we have on others can be like this shadow, much larger than our physical size. Make the decision to cast a large positive shadow! Photo subject is a panelled dewdrop pattern pressed glass serving plate, United States circa 1878, with inscription "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread".
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Snowed a little today, enough to make the roads sloppy. On the way home from swimming I stopped at Hudson Crossing Park on the Fox River in Oswego, IL. Liked the juxtaposition between snow and hot coals. The snow is winning! There won't be any leftover hot coals in this concrete receptacle until a few months from now when outdoor barbecue season is in swing.
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Practiced portrait lighting with myself as the subject. On Friday I am taking someone's profile photo for LinkedIn, and want to make the photo great as it may have to last a long time. This person is still using a photo I took of her 5-6 years ago. I am not a narcissist, and like many blippers I am usually the one with the camera and few photos of me exist.
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The morning after a decent size snowstorm, that is. Schools are closed as well as some banks, and there is little traffic. Regular roads are snow-packed, and multiple cars have spun off the roads. Only state highways have visible pavement. This is a railroad bridge over the Waubonsie Creek in downtown Oswego, Illinois. There is a plate above the right buttress showing the steel was made in 1948. Although it looks the evening sun is coming from behind the camera, this is not the case. The photo was taken about 8:30 am and the sun was front top right of the camera. Photo processing gives the illusion of lighting from behind.
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This winter has been mild, but today Chicagoland is getting hit with lots of snow, about a foot of snow so far.
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Sent a link of the first month's photos to son Matt who is working in Shanghai. Matt is the creative one in the family, and I wondered how he would like my blips. He liked them, and he suggested that I shoot a series on WWII items we have in the house. My wife's uncle Eugene Brambert was a tank driver in the U.S. Army 749th Tank Battalion which saw action in France, Belgium, and Germany. Of three visor hats from Uncle Gene, this one is in the best condition. Photos of more WWII gear will be forthcoming. Lighting was a gridded snoot containing flashgun on 1/32 power.
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I blipped this farm from a different angle three days ago on January 27th. Subsequently drove by and saw that I missed a key element, the windmill. Took today's shot from public school property to the southwest using a long lens, and due to shadows and leading lines I like it a lot better. Lesson learned is that it pays to walk and consider other shooting angles. If you look just right of the barn there is a brown goat. At first I thought it was a dog, but zoomed in during photo editing and this "dog" has horns!
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Am working hard to come up with unusual (weird?) blips. The metal hammer was my mother's hammer; I remember her closing paint cans with it and there is still paint on the hammer. I believe the other hammer was my father's. Notes to self: This was shot in a dark basement on concrete floor downlit by a fluorescent light softbox. The light bouncing off the gray floor played a large part in lighting the hammers. Used a couple old posterboards to block light spillage from hitting walls and bouncing to background wall. Camera was set on live view, 10 second self-timer, supported off floor by a couple of plush dog toys. Tried to include some other hammers but they would not stand up straight. Keeping it simple with two hammers is better anyway. If I did this again I would stop down to f4 for more depth of field.
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Rue and 'Nilla get two 20 minute walks a day to help keep them in shape. Dogs are creatures of habit and they don't seem to get tired of the same walking routes. If I veer in a different direction than usual, they pull strongly in the direction of the normal route to get me back on track.
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After 2.5 days of low color low contrast gray gloomy skies, the sun popped out. Hooray! Out to shoot some farmhouses I've been eyeing. This farm is surrounded by suburbia bordered by a junior high school to the west, elementary school to the north, and residences on the east. There are hundreds of acres of corn/soybean fields to the south. This is a 16x9 crop to remove some of the stubbly field in front.
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This is another day using the need to blip to motivate learning. Took a bright white LED and a flashing red LED and made spiral motions behind the fan guard of an old exercise bicycle (yes, this is the most use the bicycle has seen in months). This is two 6 second exposures merged using Photoshop Elements 13 (Enhance > Photomerge > Photomerge Exposure). I am wearing a blue sweater which added some blue to the background.
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This is a 50+ year old Craftsman 5242 vise. I've had it 30 years, and got it from my dad who owned it 20-30 years. It's moved from house to house, and will last forever if future owners prevent major rust. The reason for this photo is that I am considering doing light painting and wanted to try something similar on a small scale. If nothing else, this could be useful for dramatic product photography.
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Followed up on yesterday's blip and took another trip to the fire station. Weekends are not the time to go to the station as office staff is not available so will return soon during the week. This is a Sterling 6V fire engine siren on the front of a 1936 Ford fire engine. The siren body is chrome, and there are many out of focus reflections lights, paint stripes etc. off the siren.
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After painting for a good chunk of the day, went for a short drive for a quick blip before sunset. This photo depicts the pedestrian entrance of the local fire station, one of four stations serving this district. For a village of 32,000, this is the Taj Mahal of fire stations. An aerial view showing the full size of this building is in the front page slideshow at oswegofire.com. Sun flare off the window was a goal of this photo.
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This little guy is very shy, and like many people is wary of black scary objects (the camera). I cornered him in the den in order to get his portrait. Rue was adopted from shibarescue.org 10 years ago, and we believe he is 11 or 12 years old. Will take a pic of his Shiba Inu pal 'Nilla in the near future.
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I'm teaching a friend's kids how to swim. The biggest key to progress has been developing confidence in the water. The starting point was aversion to putting face in the water and fear of deeper water. Over time there have been small and large accomplishments, with confidence developed at each step. At this stage the kids are having fun, and when it's time to go it's hard to get them out of the pool. They are learning life lessons in overcoming obstacles at the same time as learning to swim.
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After several years of piling up in a jar, this magically turns into a photo gadget.
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Alliteration! Not only a backlit begonia, it's a backlit beefsteak begonia! This plant was given to me as a cutting in 1976 when I was a student at the University of Michigan. I left a cutting at a former workplace in downtown Chicago in 1988, and that plant is still going strong. This is one resilient long lasting plant. Am concentrating on backlit subjects this year. Shot during morning golden hour at f3.0. Out of focus portions make it look more wild.
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This was not staged!
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Neon signs in this dry cleaning shop looked interesting. This has me looking for more neon.
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Went for a drive along the Fox River. There were thousands of geese in a quarter mile stretch of the river in Montgomery, Illinois, USA. All I can say is messy! Also saw a couple great blue herons which I didn't think overwintered in the Chicago area.
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Took a walk out back today to look for a blip. Although a fellow blipper advised this newbie to let the blips come to me, I can't stay inside all day and have that happen. I have a fondness for blues, golds, and close-ups, and today's blip is all three! Don't know the name of the plant, it's the seed head of some type of reed growing in a wet area.
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We had a heavy frost last night. Attempted to capture an image of spiky frost crystals on an Austrian pine in the back yard. It was very cold outside, so did not stay long and threw out technique by not using a tripod. This is a tight crop from the original..
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Loved the color of the sunlight coming through this glass.
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I've driven by this house thousands of times before, but never stopped to take a photo. Today I happily stopped; this is what Blipfoto does to you! There are many nice houses in the area, but this is not a cookie cutter house and there are no other houses like this. Several years ago a commercial for the Illinois Lottery was shot here. They trucked in fake snow, lots of lights, and shot at night. Footage from that shoot continues to run at the beginning of one of the Lottery commercials.
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Pastor's daughter preached at our Sunday church service today. Photos are shot for potential use on social media and the church website. Although I don't like shooting at ISO 1600, you do what you have to do to get the shot.
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Shovelling the neighbor's sidewalk for fun
B+W high contrast processing
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Dropped people off at Midway Airport this morning, and was reminded of why I'm happy to no longer commute to work. The line of traffic is on Interstate 55 eastbound to Chicago at the Central Avenue interchange. This part of I-55 is called the Stevenson Expressway, but as you can see it's not express during rush hour. Mornings and evenings are jammed on the Stevenson.
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A gray, snowy, windy day
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Looks like ice, but it's not! Attempted to capture falling water droplets without using a lot of elaborate timing equipment. This is a trial and error proposition, must have shot 200 photos and never got exactly what I wanted. Pouring water in a darkened room and keeping water flow in the focal plane while a flashgun is blinding you is difficult.
Flash at 1/128th power positioned at the bottom of the water goblet to freeze the action. ISO 400 f13 at flash sync speed 1/200th sec
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Fuji Velvia 50 treatment in LR5. Also removed purple and green chroma noise between edges of the black/white keys.
ISO 100 f4.5 1/250 tripod Full sun south window
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There's nothing like a good cup of steaming hot coffee on a cold January day.
ISO 200 f1.8 1/500th sec.
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Gasoline prices have dropped for months to levels we thought we would never see again. At this station the price is $1.879 USD per US gallon. If I converted correctly, this is $0.496 USD per liter. Five years ago the price in my neighborhood peaked at $4.459/gallon.
Side note: winter finally hit Chicagoland.
+1 EV to help make the snow white instead of gray.
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During the colder seasons I bake no-knead bread every three days. Bread has a nice crust as it's baked in a preheated cast iron pot at 450 F/232 C.
85mm @ f1.8, ISO 200, 1/20th sec. Tripod mounted and wireless remote used. Kitchen windowlight camera left on cloudy rainy day, white board sitting on counter held up by two old C clamps on camera right, stove and oven incandescent lights left on for a little warmth.
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Painted a ceiling in another room today. Only about 5 gallons of ceiling painting left if I don't paint myself so much. I use a fluorescent light softbox with diffusers removed to assist in seeing what was painted, being careful to keep the unit out of the paint spatter. Works well.
This year resolve to shoot more photos with aperture wide open, shoot more photos using only ambient light, and use better technique in general. Practiced all of these in taking today's photo.
85mm, f1.8, ISO 200 1/320 sec. +1 EV. West windowlight only, tripod used, shutter tripped by wireless remote.
2015 dawns and the year awaits us. Events and happenings in our lives in 2015 are not in clear focus, but like the day’s sunrise the year glows with promise.
This is my first post. Will try to post a photo each day in an effort to try different techniques, styles, and perspectives. Photo subjects may be lofty, but will often be mundane. Today’s sunrise photo is an example of a different type of pic for me.
Am also publishing on Blipfoto daily photo journal.
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