December 2017 – A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens

blessings, finding my way, healing, life goes on, loneliness, memories, photography, sunrise

Happy New Year…

December 31, 2017January 1, 2018 naturecoastimagesblog

… from The Lucky Dill. A friend threw me a curve ball yesterday. She didn’t mean to, she just mentioned that her grandmother had a superstition concerning New Years Eve. Be careful what you do that day, she said, because whatever you do on New Year’s Eve you are destined to do all through the new year. That gave me pause.

So I went out for photo ops all day, and it makes me happy to think that I’ll be doing that all this coming year. But except for the sunrise the rest of my photos aren’t keepers, none of them. Let’s hope that that isn’t a sign of what’s to come.

And Charley has been on my mind lately, nice memories. So I decided to buy him a corned beef sandwich from the Lucky Dill. I asked for it fatty, just like he liked it from Harry Atman’s in Baltimore. Nothing ever was quite as good as Atman’s, but this is the best in the area. It’s not the corned beef sandwiches that I want to keep coming in 2018, I don’t actually like them all that much. No, I need to be thankful for all the love I’ve given and received in my life, and for the memories that will keep me warm in the new year…

Bayport, birds, eagles, Florida wildlife, Jenkin's Creek, nature, photography, sunrise

Gloomy sunrise…

December 31, 2017 naturecoastimagesblog

It’s not as if I expected a great sunrise. It was very gloomy at home, but since I have driven to Bayport before and found it to be clear right there at the water, off I went. Not on Thursday though, there was no color in the sunrise at all. But my new routine when I go to Bayport is to swing past Jenkin’s Creek on the way home to see if I can spot an eagle. And while I haven’t found an eagle at any other time of day, I’m batting 1000 for finding one at sunrise. I tried to wait for him to fly away, or do something besides sit there and turn his head one way or the other, but it was cold and I gave up before anything happened.

birds, Cranes, Florida wildlife, nature, nesting, photography, Tricolored heron

Sandhill cranes…

December 30, 2017 naturecoastimagesblog

The featured photo, above, may or may not be the first photo I took with my Canon DSLR when I got it. It’s dated December 29, 2016, and it’s the earliest one that I saved. I had the new camera and was dying to use it, and right out back what did I see but the cranes out there. And I was thrilled with my 300mm lens that let me get a closer look. Despite the fact that I think I’ve taken pictures nearly every day since I got the camera, I’m still a beginner. And now I’m learning to use Lightroom to edit and that will make looking back on old favorite photos a little depressing, because they could have been so much better. I did reedit this photo, I couldn’t help myself. But I wanted to say that when I took this picture I had no idea that the Sandhill cranes would bring me such enjoyment as I watched the family grow.

I suppose they will be constant visitors again now, what with the nest out back and all. They came back yesterday just as I was thinking that if I was going out for the sunset then I had better get going. But instead I went out back and watched one of them wade over to the island, the site of last year’s nest. Eventually it flew over and joined the other one who was hard at work tidying the current nest. We should have a bird’s eye view when they do lay eggs. Here we go again…

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dogs, nature, neighbors, old dogs new tricks, photography, pigs

Meet my new neighbor…

December 29, 2017 naturecoastimagesblog

I have a new neighbor, his name is Wilbur. He’s short, and his wispy hair is quite wiry. He moves pretty quickly, darting around the yard and digging holes. He also likes to lean up against just about anything and scratch himself. He likes to play with the dogs, in fact my neighbor is sure that he thinks he is a dog, and not just because he uses the dog door and likes dog food. She says he is better behaved than her dogs are. Zoe didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about him. Maybe she has just learned to expect the unexpected when she goes into my neighbor Sue’s yard. After all, both dogs quickly accepted the chickens when they arrived, and pay no attention when they visit us in our yard. But Ozzie hasn’t met Wilbur snout to snout yet. I decided to let him think about it for a while before we take that step.

Facebook, friends, sending a message, silliness, strangers, technology

Hello stranger…

December 28, 2017 naturecoastimagesblog

Call me paranoid… but something is going on with Facebook and/or Messenger that has me creeped out . Maybe you get random friend requests, and if you do please tell me so I can stop being concerned, but I seem to get these random friend requests frequently, and it seems to always be from men. It has always seemed odd to me, but not necessarily alarming. Then I mentioned it to my uncle, who said that his daughter told him not to click on them at all, not even to delete them, because if you do then ‘they’ will send even more of them. Who will, Facebook? Is deleting them where I went wrong? If there is some sort of random-possible-friend-generator out there in Facebookland, I’m picturing the wheel from Wheel of Fortune here, shouldn’t the requests be pretty much evenly divided between men and women?
And Messenger seems to me to be one step further into being intrusive when I get a message from a total stranger that just says ‘hello’. I just got a mental image of my daughter reading this and rolling her eyes at how ridiculous I’m being. Again, always men, and always ‘hello’. If you communicate with them to ask who they are would it be some kind of gateway to your information being somewhere out there in cyberland where you wouldn’t want it to be? Is ‘hello’ some kind of code word? One of these random hellos did wind up, and don’t ask me how this happened, as a facebook friend. Yup. Did I somehow click on it when I was just getting pages off my phone? Was it one of those 4 AM half-asleep things? Maybe Ozzie plunked his chin down on the computer when he snuck up on me when I was in the recliner with the laptop in my lap?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, thinking I was being silly, but I got a friend request a few days ago that makes me think that things have really gone off the rails here. This friend request, from another random, no mutual friends, man, shows his profile picture with him naked! Only from the chest up, but what does that imply? Seriously? Is it me? My co-workers thought that this was hilarious, and I would too, if it was showing up on their Facebook page instead of mine.

I’ve never felt my age more than now, when I’m tempted to complain that today’s society its just too much for me. Up until now I’ve been such fan of technology in general. I think my New Year’s resolution will be to delete any more of these requests the second I notice them, the heck with what my cousin says. Sorry Deb, love you!

Faces have been obscured, I’m not sure why I thought I ought to do that. And these requests have been deleted, after I took a photo of course…

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birds, Florida wildlife, home, nature, photography, pond creatures, turtles

Just ducky…

December 27, 2017 naturecoastimagesblog

I was contemplating where I might go for photos yesterday when that elusive Tricolor Heron got me out back with the camera. From the kitchen window I saw him land on my side of the lake, just down the hill. But of course he flew all the way across the lake as soon as I got myself out there with the camera. But the light was nice as sunset approached, and the ducks were causing a ruckus out there. They were feeling frisky I think, must be that time of year. I could see something on the far bank across the lake also, but had to look through the camera lens to see that it was a turtle. I could see movement too, as if he had a creature trapped and was about to have lunch. When I saw the photos it turns out he was just waving his right front leg around. Not the photo op I thought I was getting. Even Merlin let me down by not being able to identify the pretty ducks that were swimming in a patch of perfect light out there. None of the choices suggested seemed to be the right bird. And then they all flew off in a group. After having had six days off you wouldn’t think that I’d feel the need for such a quiet night, but I did, and it was nice.