You may not think so at first glance, but that lizard in the feature photo is a real daredevil. He took his own sweet time walking along the fence, stopping to puff out his neck and impress any females that happened to be paying attention. This female, however, wasn’t especially impressed. But by being on that fence I’m sure that the hawk that had just stopped by could easily spot him and then what would he do? He tested the limits of my zoom lens.
Yesterday we sat out on the lanai visiting with college friends after having lunch in a nearby restaurant. For once we had a six-minute drive home, it was great. The birds provided the entertainment while we enjoyed our drinks, but then it was time for our friends to set off for their 90 minute drive home…
I was delighted when the red wing blackbirds first showed up in the yard last year, but when they came back in large numbers this year and were emptying the feeders regularly they weren’t so delightful. But their name comes from the Greek, agelaius, meaning belonging to a flock, so I guess they come by it naturally. Lately we are seeing them one at a time, I confess that makes me happy.This may or may not be the culprit who chewed a hole in the screen after I left a chunk of the woodpecker cylinder on the lanai. I removed the temptation and we patched the screen, but somebody chewed another hole in the screen just to make sure it was really gone.It was getting later in the day when the brown thrasher emerged from the bougainvillea and hopped around on the ground looking for tasty treats.Maybe Mrs. Cardinal saw fit to toss him a tidbit or two.Mr. Red Belly opted for a grab-and-go snack this time.This Carolina wren stopped by for a drink while we were enjoying drinks of our own while we chatted.Female cardinals used to be the most common birds we saw out back and I used to wonder why I was taking yet another picture of one. But the males were always fewer in number, and I’ll never get tired of seeing them.
If the hummingbirds would have shown up it would have been perfect. But I’ll keep watching for them.
Every other time I’ve tried to photograph a hawk I’ve had to run to get my camera and then try to sneak out onto the lanai and get the door open without sending him on his way. But this time I was already in the doorway to the lanai with the camera in my hands when this hawk just appeared out of nowhere and landed on the fence. He looked this way and that, and stayed long enough for me to take lots of shots and think how nice it was that the light was lighting up his feathers. And then he took off all of a sudden, and I thought we were done. But this time he was back in a few seconds, landing facing me this time. And again, he was keeping an eye out, looking around, and then he got an itch…
I appreciated the nice light on his feathers.Then he was back, and facing front this time.Then he had to scratch an itch.And scratch some more.Imagine him scratching your back for you.And then he was done, I thought.
But he wasn’t done. I thought we were done so I put the camera down, but he flew into the yard again, facing towards me with his wings spread and perfectly lit up by the sun. I was concentrating on the hawk, so I didn’t see a grackle fly onto the feeder, but the hawk did, and he very nearly got him. One of my many almost perfect shots that live only in my mind. He really was done this time, and I heard him calling as he flew away.
I should be ashamed to be lamenting over every day that isn’t sunny. In the summer I tell myself that I’ll accomplish lots of stuff when the weather breaks. Then when it’s in the 60s I think it’s too cold to do anything. Yes, I’m spoiled, I’ll admit it. We will have to put out some bird feeders for the various fence sitters I’ve been seeing out back. This one posed in front of the dark shadow of the neighbor’s lanai, making the day look that much gloomier. He stayed put when I opened the door to our lanai so I didn’t have to shoot through the screening. Nice of him.
This is a Northern Mockingbird. If he had been facing the other way and I was looking directly at that long tail I wouldn’t have had to look him up.They have an amazing repertoire of songs they sing. They are very common in this area, and everywhere actually.
Happy Thanksgiving to friends and family near and far.
I found myself to be more affected by the trip to Gettysburg than I expected to be. Those beautiful preserved landscapes got to me. Looking much like they would have in 1863, it was impossible to imagine the scene as troops met in that peaceful looking place, and so many of them died there.
Fields and fences, beautiful now, as I’m sure they were then. The town was there, and quiet farms, and then the armies came.The hills, the high ground, sought after by both sides.I hope you can read this account of the day. I usually zoom in on the signage, but in this place I wanted the landscape to show also.I used this picture in a previous post, but it does bring the lesson home.What would it be like to charge up a hill in the face of canon fire?Another account of battle.The caption on the eternal flame reads, ‘Peace Eternal in a Nation United.’Another landscape that I found so pretty, but the monument is in addition to what it may have looked like at the time.Just as the battle came to the people who settled this land back then, the townspeople now go about their business among armies of tourists who come to remember.
We attended a screening of the movie Casablanca the other day at the Tampa Theater. We did this last August also, but this time the scene depicting the German army occupying Paris stood out to me. Another war, people helpless in the face of armies, and with much different weapons. And then my mind went to the war in the Ukraine, and I’m stunned to think that people are again, or should I say still, experiencing the horrors of war.
If you ever get a chance to go to Gettysburg don’t do what we did. We were going to ‘see’ Gettysburg, only an hour from where we had stayed the night before, and then be on our way back home to Florida. We arrived at a little after opening, around 9:30 AM, seeing the Cyclorama (amazing) and the museum, and then heading out for the auto tour which we only finished by 5PM by rushing a bit at the end. I didn’t ever understand the impact of that battle on the outcome of the war, and my head is spinning as I look at the pictures and try to remember where each one was taken when we have just arrived home this morning. I was as much taken with the beautiful landscape of Pennsylvania itself, as I was by the historical significance of the scenes before me. And yet there are monuments to be seen in the pictures. Three days of battle leaving thousands of soldiers dead and dying in these fields, and a townspeople of less than 1300 to cope with the aftermath. This place is beautifully preserved lest we forget…
All that was missing was the apple pie! An early 4th of July fireworks display following a Clearwater Threshers baseball game. As you will see, the fireworks took most of my attention, but there were a couple of reasons for that. First, and mostly, it was the new netting that has been erected to prevent injuries from foul balls of the line drive sort. So you happen to see a cute interaction between the Threshers mascot and a cute little old lady in the stands, and you happily shoot a picture, but you get this…
Did I have a clue in the world that the netting was there? No, I did not. And yes, I was disappointed when I put the photos into the computer and lost what I expected to be my favorite shot.The camera ignored the netting better than I would have expected for this shot. Not quite the ball on the bat, but close.I might have been tempted to try to take the dark line of the top of the netting out of this shot, but it does illustrate the dilemma.
It was about this time that I noticed that my camera had dropped under a full charge, and I have misplaced my extra battery. And there were fireworks to come. I remembered being disappointed in my actual baseball shots the last time I was there, and there was no netting to contend with back then, so that was the end of my baseball shots. And the thing about fireworks shots is that you make your settings in the camera, setting an 8 second exposure, and every time your camera shows you a completed shot on the screen you fire another one off. Your camera only covers a small portion of sky, and you have no idea where exactly the next display will come up, so it’s a crap shoot. But on this day I got lucky…
And then there was the fiasco of trying to get off of the parking lot. The close in parking spot we were so happy to find when we got there turned out to be a liability when we wanted to leave. But I’m sure you’ve all been there. Fireworks and baseball at the stadium the next two nights in a row. I hope the weather cooperates as nicely as it did for us, and that they win for them, they didn’t for us. God bless the USA!
A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens 