One thing is for sure, I have plenty of old pictures to play with while I keep my distance. I had totally forgotten about these ducklings on the lake until I scrolled past them in the computer. And since I talk about all the wildlife out there, and a variety of ducks out there to boot, it now stands out to me that I only saw these two families of ducks out there. Ever.
I had to include this picture of Ozzie out there even if the ducklings blend into the weeds in the water. As I was sitting there taking pictures of the ducklings I realized that Ozzie was laying in the grass not 15 feet from the edge of the water and the momma duck was letting her babies play along the shore without a care in the world. I had already figured out that the wildlife out there paid no attention to Oz, there simply was no hunting gene in his make-up. When Zoe was around she loved to run through a flock of birds on the ground, not to catch one, just to make them fly. It was the labradoodle in her. I once saw Ozzie snuffle a frog on the patio and then walk away. He was a live-and-let-live kind of guy. So I wanted to get a picture of Ozzie with the ducklings so close at the edge of the water, but I had to reposition myself to do it which caused momma to swim a few feet from the edge. You’ll have to use your imagination to fill in the gaps.
And I came across this picture too, of the pied-grebe face to face with his lunch. There was a frond of grass that had blown right across the action, leaving a hazy green smudge. Try as I might with all the new tricks I’ve learned in Lightroom I couldn’t do any better than this to clean that up. Poor froggie, it just wasn’t his day…
And I hadn’t ever seen them before, but because of all the pictures I see online every day I knew what they were and dashed out with the camera. I was barely able to get a photo of them in flight at all, but then they landed in a tree out there. I believe that the female landed in the tree and I was surprised to see the male come and feed her. That’s what’s going on in the feature photo. It’s an assumption on my part but it makes me happy to think so. I don’t miss the work and expense of maintaining a home that was too big for me alone, but I do miss my feathered friends.
They got me excited yesterday. I happened to look out the window and Dad was on the drain spout with a nice little worm in his mouth. I immediately got excited that they were feeding babies, or at least he was feeding Mom while she was on some pretty blue eggs. But off she flew, and he gulped down his catch, and I was left scratching my head.
Dad’s contribution to all this was to sit on my TV antenna and serenade all of us while Mom was busy. All day. All day busy for her, all day as the singing supervisor for him. I guess it works for them…
This last picture was taken the next day with my little Lumix lx5 camera, which I had tucked away and nearly forgotten was there. It’s a point and shoot, easy to carry, and I wanted to take the same shot as the iPhone shot from the day before, just for fun. It must have been the same time of day because the shadow is in the same place. I should carry it with me more often.
