Sure enough, it was snowing when I woke up, now it appears to be a light drizzle falling, so we’ll see what I come up with today.

What the heck do I know anyway? I shot over 100 pictures again today, including some of the best action shots I have ever taken, go figure.

The day started off much like I thought that it would be, I hadn’t gone ten feet when the drizzle began, and I slipped the camera into my parka with me. I was trying to stalk a few of the many birds that were singing, including a number of cardinals, but all I came up with is these two pine cones joined together.

Pine cones stuck together

I wasn’t able to get close enough to any of the birds, I did take two terrible shots of a cardinal, but they were so bad that I deleted them.

It was chilly out there today, a stiff southeast wind, which usually means a storm is on the way. That and the drizzle were enough to make me decide to pull my hood up. That of course blocked out the sound of two mute swans flying towards me, I didn’t hear or see the until they were so close that there was no way to get the camera out of my parka in time. I thought that my chances of any swan photos were nil for the day. Little did I know what was to come.

I got to the largest creek here, and even that seemed dead today, my mood was getting as dreary as the weather as far as what I thought my chances for any photos were. I turned around to continue on my way, and spotted a swan in a different pond than what they have been in so far. I wondered to myself how they had managed to get past me and into that pond when I had just seen them flying in the opposite direction just a few minutes before that. I didn’t bother with any photos, too far away, and what light there was, was all wrong.

I continued on, I did look over at the pond from another vantage point, and saw two swans this time, and two Canadian geese as well. I shot a quick photo of them all in the same frame, thinking that it would be an OK photo, and it was. Little did I know what was to come.

I stopped at the pond where the swans had been up until now, there were the usual mallards, and a herring gull. I have never seen a herring gull in the water around here, I see thousands of them, but always in flight. This one took off and made a few laps around the pond….

Herring gull in flight

Then landed in the pond again.

Herring gull landing

By now I had circled the pond where the swans were today, they were all the way across the pond from me, but as I stood there watching them, I began to think that they weren’t the same two as had been around before, the two that had flown over me earlier. Luckily, they swam over to give me a closer look.

Mute swan

That one looked like it could have been one of the same as before…

Mute swan

…but that one definitely is a different one, it is a younger swan that hasn’t turned completely white yet. Hmmm.

The geese started honking, nothing unusual about that…

Canadian geese

…kind of an OK photo, I caught the goose’s tongue out. Little did I know what was to come.

I backed away from the pond for the time being, going around the other side of the buildings to check out the last of the ponds here, then returned to the pond with the swans and geese. The geese were honking, or at least one goose was.

Canadian goose

I think that it was part of its courtship display, as it was doing a little dance of sorts, alternately lifting one wing, then the other as it continued to honk.

Canadian geese

And honk!

Canadian geese

I guess all that honking was more than the swans could take from what happened next!

Mute swan running for take-off

Mute swan running for take-off

It was awesome! I could hear those big webbed feet slapping the water with every stride! The whoufe…whoufe…whoufe of their wings with every beat! And the sounds of the water splashing in the wake they were leaving behind them!

Mute swan running for take-off

Once they were airborne, I could hear the whistle from their wings as well.

Mute swan in flight

The just got airborne, then set their wings to land again.

Mute swans landing

Mute swans landing

Mute swans landing

Mute swan just after landing

The geese watched this with great interest!

Canadian geese watching swans

I could tell by the body language of the cob (male swan) that he was ticked off about something! On his way towards the geese, he paused for a moment to run off some totally innocent mallards who just happened to be in his path.

Mute swan chasing mallards

Then, he headed towards the geese again.

Mute swan menacing Canadian geese

The Swan and the male goose went eyeball to eyeball with one another.

Mute swan menacing Canadian geese

The geese had gone completely silent as soon as the swan had made its intentions known. However, the male goose seemed to want to show his mate that he wasn’t scared of no swan!

Mute swan and Canadian goose in a standoff

Mute swan and Canadian goose in a standoff

Then, the females arrived to defuse the situation.

Mute swans and Canadian geese

Eventually, the swans retreated to their corner of the pond, leaving the geese to take up their courtship where they had left off, before the swans had so rudely interrupted them.

Canadian geese courting

Canadian geese courting

Canadian geese courting

That last one was one more than the swans could stand, for flying back across the pond they came!

Mute swan landing

Mute swan landing

Mute swan landing

Mute swan landing

The cob made sure that everything around the pond knew that he was the boss!

Mute swan

And took off after the geese again.

Mute swan

Only this time, he didn’t let the ice stop him.

Mute swan

He pushed hiself up on the ice, and headed towards the geese on foot!

Mute swan menacing geese

The geese decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

Mute swan menacing geese

And made for the other side of the pond, away from the swans.

Canadian goose taking off

Canadian goose in flight

Canadian goose landing

Canadian goose landing

Where they resumed there courtship yet another time.

Canadian geese courting

Canadian geese courting

Canadian geese courting

I really wanted to hang around longer and observe what happened, but I had been there for some time, and it was getting late. I headed home, deep in thought.

I was so deep in thought about what I had just witnessed that I darned near stepped on a fox squirrel, which scared the crap out of both of us. I did get a shot of its tail just for the heck of it, not that I am going to post it here.

It’s been an incredible two days here as far as photos.  And, the weather forecast has changed, surprise, surprise, no rain or snow tomorrow, maybe even some sun, so, on to Wednesday.

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

Before I even start on today, last night, as I was coming home from work right around midnight, I saw a heron hunting in the pond at the entrance to the apartment complex! At least I assume it was hunting. That pond is very well lighted at night, but I didn’t know herons were at all nocturnal. I should have parked somewhere and investigated further, but I didn’t want to bother the heron. I’m not positive which species of heron it was. It looked small for a great blue, but didn’t look like a green heron as far as how it was positioned. I’ll have to go there and see if it is still around.

Who knows what today will bring? The sun is out, sort of. There’s a layer of high thin clouds, a perfect day for photography! After the last two, one with bright direct sunlight, the other a cloudy dreary day, and taking well over 200 photos, what do you want to bet that I’ll return with very few today when the light’s perfect?

I am in a terrible predicament, I step out the door, and critters are coming at me from every direction at once, and I don’t know when to stop shooting photos.

Today, it starts with a fox squirrel, then, 4 different hawks of two species soaring overhead, swans and geese getting along, a swan using tools, mallards, chickadees, I don’t know what to do.

On top of that, I got a healthy raise at work! Not as much as I would have liked, but enough to actually live on.

Like I said, my walk today started out with a fox squirrel stalking me.

Fox squirrel

OK, so it wasn’t stalking me, it just looked that way when I first saw it. Then, it decided to perform a few tricks for the camera.

Fox squirrel hanging under a branch

A little farther into my walk, I was thinking that I seldom saw any wildlife in that particular area, when one of the sharp shinned hawks went soaring past me.

Sharp shinned hawk in flight

That shot was actually taken on one of its other passes past me, none of the shots from the first pass it made turned out well, and I had an idea that they weren’t going to be worth posting. I was some what bummed about that, and the fact that the hawk seemed to be going places and wouldn’t be back, when I saw a red-tailed hawk that was circling.

Red-tailed hawk in flight

Then, it gets really confusing, because as I was photographing that one, I saw its mate also circling low.

Red-tailed hawk in flight

And, both of the sharp shinned hawks were back and circling as well! I was going crazy, trying to pick out which one of the four hawks was on a pass that would bring it the closest to me, get the camera on it, get a few shots, then pick the next one to shoot. My back and neck got a great work out with me looking up and swiveling around to get these, I completely lost track of which hawk was which, other than the species.

Sharp shinned hawk in flight

Red-tailed hawk in flight

Sharp shinned hawk in flight

Red-tailed hawk in flight

Needless to say, I shot dozens of photos, until all four of the hawks eventually moved on, so much for never seeing any wildlife in that area!

The cloud formations were quite beautiful, so I snapped a few photos of them.

Clouds and blue skies

Snowstorm on the horizon

That’s the snowstorm we were predicted to get, but it stayed well south of here.

There was nothing more than a few mallards in the first pond I came to, but in the second one, the swans and geese were getting along today, nothing like yesterday at all.

Mute swans and Canadian geese

The two swans are the original couple that have been around here for some time now.

Mute swans

Mute swans

The mallards were all sleeping.

A flock of mallards sleeping in the grass

I think that they were depending on the geese to be their early warning system.

Canadian goose

But, neither the geese or the swans made a sound. Maybe they had already had a conversation before I got there and had all decided the quiet was the rule of the day, unlike yesterday.

Eventually one of the mallards heard the shutter of my camera going or something, he woke up and alerted the rest of the flock.

Mallards waking up

Then I saw something I’m not sure what to make of.

Mute swan with stick

The female swan would pick the stick up from the bottom of the pond, move it around a little, then drop it.

Mute swan, no stick

Then she would feed in the area where she had dropped the stick for a short time, then pick the stick up again.

Mute swan with stick

She did that repeatedly.

Mute swan dropping stick

Every time after she finished her little feeding binge, I could see her looking for the stick again, then pick it up.

Mute swan with stick

Mute swan, no stick

It sure looked to me as if she were using the stick as a tool to stir up stuff from the bottom of the pond for her to feed on. This went on for ten minutes or so, in the meantime, another male mallard joined the flock.

Male mallard landing

Male mallard landing

Male mallard landing

I am already way behind on this week’s post, and I took close to 100 good photos today during my walk. In my long-winded way, I am saying that I have to tweak this series somewhat, start doing other posts again, and get some other things straight in my head.

Starting out, I couldn’t help but notice how large some of the buds in the maple trees are getting.

Buds on a maple tree

I believe those are flower buds, and what the fox squirrels have been feeding on in some of the photos I have posted recently.

As you can see, it was a great day, but cold when I started, the overnight low was in the teens. Because of that, much of the open water on the ponds, and even the areas with a slow flow in the creeks had frozen with a thin layer of ice.

Ice and cattails

I was so busy shooting pictures that I didn’t have time to do much thinking, as I was checking the pond for more photo-ops, three geese flew past.

Canadian geese in flight

That’s my bad action shot of the day, I did shoot a few of crows flying low, but those are too bad to post.  Then at the next pond is where the swans have been, and they are still hanging around. Each one of the pair was in its own small patch of open water.

Mute swan

Mute swan

I know they are an invasive species, but they sure are beautiful birds!

Mute swan and reflection

Mute swan and reflection

Mute swan stretching its wings

Mute swan stretching its wings

Mute swan

Then one decided to play icebreaker and plow through the ice to reach some of the other open water.

Mute swan breaking ice

It finally made it through the ice field…

Mute swan

..and started feeding.

Mute swan

A pair of mallards swam over to join the swans.

Male mallard on ice

The footing was treacherous.

Male mallard on ice

The female thought it better to stick to one spot.

Female mallard on ice

While the male continued his walk.

Male mallard on ice

I heard the ice creaking and groaning, the second swan had gotten up on the ice with the ducks.

Mute swan on ice

But, that didn’t last long, the swan was too heavy for the thin ice…

Mute swan falling through the ice

The female mallard saw that, and found a little hole in the ice to sit in.

Female mallard

The swan that fell through the ice broke its way to join the other, and they both were feeding.

Mute swan reaching under the ice for food

A closer view.

Mute swan reaching under the ice for food

That sure looks cold to me!

Next stop was the largest of the creeks here, and the mallards were behaving differently than they have in months.

Mallards nesting?

I have noted in the last few posts how the mallards have been staying back in the brush along the creeks almost 100% of the time. Suddenly, they were spread out, up on the banks of the creek, in the tall grass, flying around the ponds, everywhere I looked, I saw mallards! I think the females are looking for nesting spots. I hate to admit this, but I shot some duck porn on Sunday, I am not sure I will post the photos of that, I haven’t been able to confirm that the participants were at least 18 years of age yet. (Truth is, the photos were taken at some distance, and I haven’t had the time to get them ready to post)

Last year, we had ducklings all over the place, but it was rather sad to see the numbers in each brood drop one by one as the little fuzzballs became food for the predators that live here as well. I have said it before, nature isn’t always pretty, but it is what it is, and it is always interesting. I also shot this one at the creek.

Ice on a branch in a creek

Next up, a pair of mourning doves, and I can’t tell which is which as far as male and female.

Mourning dove

I know they are nesting, as I have been seeing them head into the evergreens around here with nest materials in their beaks.

Mourning dove

These two seemed to be taking a break to enjoy the sunshine.

Mourning dove

Next up, a downy woodpecker.

Downy woodpecker

Downy woodpecker

As I was shooting those, a flock of turkeys strolled past.

Turkeys

I looked up at the woodpecker again, and it was giving me the perfect pose, but it flew off before I could capture that shot. I was also hoping for better turkey photos, thinking I would run into the flock again later in my walk, but they turned off in another direction I guess.

Then it was on to one of the other creeks, and this shot of the ice covering it.

Ice covered creek

Next up, one of those things that leave me scratching my head.

Berries in the wrong tree

Those berries didn’t grow in the tree they were hanging in, they grow on these bushes.

Berries where they belong

So, I’ll keep an eye or two peeled when I am in that area to try to figure out what may have transported the berries to the other tree. It could have been a bird, or squirrel, raccoon, or who knows, even a human.

I had seen robins earlier, they are still hanging around, but when I got to the trees they normally feed in, there was a flock of cardinals there instead.

Male northern cardinal

I know I went heavy on the photos again today, but I may not be getting many for some time to come. We’re supposed to get snow changing to rain, changing to snow, changing to rain for the forecasted future. There’s no sunshine predicted at all for the next 8 days, so good photos will be hard to come by.

That’s it for this one, Tuesday’s installment will be coming up shortly, with some great action shots, you won’t want to miss it. (Boy, do I sound like a huckster or what?)

Thanks for stopping by!

This week’s installment of “My Week…” is getting way too long already, and I have tons of great photos that I was going to put in stand alone posts, but rather than do that, I am going to do this week as daily posts, at least until my luck runs out.

It is bright and sunny, but still cool outside yet, and I am having a hard time getting motivated. Part of that is simple, I haven’t had anything to eat yet this morning and my energy level is way down, but, there’s more to it than that.

Some of it is because of the “winter doldrums” which may sound funny considering that we haven’t had much of a winter here. But, it has been brown outdoors since November, and I am ready for spring and lush, vivid green growth! I am so ready for the flowers and migrating birds to return!

Part of my lack of motivation has to do with making a decision as to where to go today. Several commenters have reminded me how lucky I am to live where I see so much wildlife on a daily basis, how my schedule permits me to do the daily walks I take, and capture the photos that I do. But, I want more, I suppose I’m greedy. I am by nature a traveller, even if it is only a day trip somewhere. I miss not being able to do that any longer, or for the time being anyway.

My poor old Ford Explorer is falling apart on me, and I can neither afford to repair or replace it at this time, so I have to make it last, and that means driving it as little as possible. I would love to be putting an itinerary together of all the places I want to go this spring, summer, and fall. A kayaking trip to Ludington State Park, a long weekend at the new Rockport State Park, a week in the Pigeon River Country, but I doubt if many of them will happen this year.

They say that familiarity breeds contempt, that isn’t the way I feel about my daily hikes, but I do want more.

I’ve done a dumb thing and stuck out the crummy job that I have until I am close to being fully vested in the pension plan, and getting two weeks paid vacation. I hate to admit it, but I am getting on in years, and throwing away a few extra bucks a month from any pension plan after I retire probably isn’t the wisest choice I could make. Having two weeks paid vacation sounds good, even if I can only afford to take one week off at this time.

And, part of my lack of motivation is because I have been wishing for a partner to join me for some of my excursions. It worked out so well when Larri and I went together, as when one of us stopped to photograph something, the other one was there to act as “lookout” and catch anything else that may have come along.

If all this sounds like whining, I suppose it is in a way, but I feel the need to explain some things from time to time. I have some long draft posts started on a few of these things, and I am going to go ahead and delete them, as they are whining. I know that I have put my self in the situation I am in, and it’s up to me to get myself back out of it. I assure you, I will not be opening a Pay Pal account and begging for donations through this blog, and neither am I advertising for a partner.

Time to get something to eat, and then head out somewhere, I guess I will decide that on the way.

OK, I’m back, but for some reason, not I’m not in a much better mood. It was a good day for a long hike, I took some really good photos, and a lot of not so good photos. Usually a good long hike on a day like today always changes my mood.

I went to Aman Park, I haven’t been there for almost a year, I decided it was high time to visit it again. I used to see pileated woodpeckers there on a regular basis, and was hoping to get some good photos of them. Not only didn’t I see or hear any today, I didn’t see any fresh signs that they have been in the area. And other than birds, there aren’t many critters in the park during the day, too many people there. So it was today, the park wasn’t as crowded as I expected, and by sticking to the long outer loops, I was able to avoid most of the people who take the short inner loops, but I could hear kids screaming most of the day.

Things started out well enough, I was able to get these pictures of a red-breasted nuthatch.

Red-breasted nuthatch

I made full use of the capabilities of my Nikon to shoot many photos quickly to get these photos! These little buggers make chickadees seem like snails as far as how quickly they move!

Red-breasted nuthatch

I have several photos that show nothing more than a blue blur, and a couple with nothing more than empty branches as the bird moved out of the frame as I was taking a photo.

Red-breasted nuthatch

Then, there was this magnificent sycamore tree practically glowing in the bright sunshine.

Sycamore tree in the sun

Then there were these fern-like plants that I used to know the name of, sorry, but I have forgotten what they are, if you can identify them, I would appreciate it.

Ostrich ferns

They are a fairly common plant, I see them often, but something about the light and background prompted me to shoot that one, which looks a lot better full size by the way. Thanks Allen from the New Hampshire Garden Solutions for identifying these ferns for me.

I crossed one of the small feeder creeks to Sand Creek by going across where an earthen bridge had been all but washed away…

Foot trail all but washed away

…the last little bit of the trail that was left was  muddy and very slick, so when I finished that loop, I looked for another spot to cross the creek, and spied these ice formations on the creek.

Ice on a small creek

Ice on a small creek

While still looking for a place to cross the creek, I looked up to see a red-tailed hawk circling over me, almost as if it were taunting me, because of all the tree branches.

Red-tailed hawk through the tree branches

What the hawk obviously didn’t know is that I practice those kinds of shots everyday, so by timing its flight and shooting between the branches, I got these!

Red-tailed hawk in flight

Red-tailed hawk in flight

It isn’t everyday that I am able to outwit a hawk.

Sorry if this hasn’t been up to my usual standards, but half of the Kent County Sheriffs department has been outside my apartment for some time now, and it looks as if one of my neighbors is getting a free trip to jail.

The rest of my hike was much less eventful, there were a few birds, nothing close enough for a photo though. I was a bit bummed that I didn’t get more and better pictures, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. I’ll have to go back to Aman Park latter in the spring for what it is really known for, the large numbers of wildflowers.

As I was pulling onto the street for my apartment, I spotted ice formations sparkling in the late afternoon sunlight, like this.

Ice sparkling in the sun

I parked the explorer, grabbed the camera, and shot these.

Ice sparkling in the sun

Ice sparkling in the sun

Ice sparkling in the sun

Ice sparkling in the sun

Since I was out there, and had my camera in hand, I had to go over and see if the swans were there. I drove past the pond on my way out, the swans weren’t there then, the pond had iced over during the cold night that we had. They were back, but I couldn’t convince them, or the ducks, to swim over to the really great lighting of the evening sun, this was the best I could get.

Evening mute swan

I also shot this one, because the swan was using its neck and head to break the thin ice.

Evening mute swan

I now know why I was lacking in motivation this morning, some of what I explained in the beginning holds true, but it is also because I know my best chances of getting great wildlife photos is right here at home! It’s like living in a wildlife refuge, heck, it’s better than any wildlife refuge I’ve ever been to!

However, I do not live by wildlife alone, while there are tons of critters running around here, I would miss the trees, hills, dunes, open vistas, and other types of terrain that don’t exist here. So, when I am debating as to where to go on a weekend, I am trying to find places that will top what I have here, but there aren’t any as far as wildlife is concerned. That makes it a tough decision to make. Do I hike someplace for just wildlife, which means staying home, or hiking someplace else to satisfy my desires for nature other than wildlife?

I’ll figure it out, I always do. It may mean that some hikes won’t have many photos, or will just be mentioned in passing, but I can’t live only to post photos to my blog.

Anyway, since it is already Wednesday as I type this, I can tell you that there are some of the best photos that I have ever taken coming up in the next couple of daily posts, which is why this week is going to be done in daily installments. There are swans, geese, ducks, hawks, tweety birds, just to name a few species, with action shots along with the interactions of some of those species, and photos of a swan using a tool, at least that’s what it looked like to me.

So sorry for daily posts, but I don’t want to make one huge post that ends up even longer than last week’s.

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

The hill that leads to Sand Creek

Then these two fox squirrels looking down at me as I almost fell down while negotiating the slippery hill.

Fox squirrels looking down

Then, a red-breasted nuthatch hanging upside down.

Red-breasted nuthatch

Then, this house finch that looked as if it was going to fall down.

House finch

And finally, a fox squirrel imitating the nuthatch by hanging upside down.

Fox squirrel hanging upside down

That’s it for this one, sorry I didn’t have time for better pictures. Thanks for stopping by!

The day started out cloudy and cold, but just as they predicted (for a change) the sun came out about mid-morning, and it looks beautiful out there! Nothing like sunshine on freshly fallen snow. I am late getting outside today, I have prepped the veggies and thrown them and the beef roast in the crock pot. You can’t do a blog without at least some cooking references I have found. Since I was busy in the kitchen, and it was darned cold in the apartment, I also whipped up a Johnny cake, along with making one of my scrambled omelette for breakfast.

The reason it was cold in the apartment this morning is the same as every morning, I turn the heat down to around 63 degrees at night, I sleep better in the cold. Maybe I am part bear.

I am off to do a long hike in the local park near me, we’ll see what I come up with as far as photographs today.

Well, I’m home, what a great hike! Almost as good was walking in the door and smelling the roast cooking in the crock pot, it’s making me hungry!

I am making a cup of tea to drink while I check out the photos I took, but first, one other things. I can’t believe the number of hits my blog has gotten through the search engines about the new Michigan Rockport State Park. The state just announced that Friday, and already people are looking for information about it. I found the area because I was looking for access sites for kayaking on Lake Huron. I was rather surprised when I read that it had been turned into a state park. Over the last decade, news stories about our parks have usually been bad news, more parks closing, or other bad news.

The state implemented the new recreational passport last year, and that seems to be bringing in more money for the parks, plus, the new director of the DNR, Rodney Stokes, did a major reorganization of the department last year that seems to be paying dividends as well.

One thing I forgot to mention about the park is that there are no developed campsites, at least not of yet. That holds true of the entire area, including Thompson’s Harbor State Park which only has a couple of cabins for rent to campers.

Next, before I forget, there were many things I saw today that I didn’t get photos of, the one that comes to mind is the mallards “whitewater rafting” in Buck Creek. I actually laughed out loud watching them having a grand time shooting the rapids, then swimming back upstream in a slower part of the creek, only to shoot the rapids again. Then, there was the small hawk that whizzed by overhead so fast that I couldn’t even begin to identify it, let alone get a photo. Sometimes I forget about things like that if I didn’t get a photo. And speaking of photos, here we go.

Red bellied woodpecker

I took these right on the edge of the park, I thought it was cool the way it was hanging upside down. But, here it is right side up.

Red bellied woodpecker

Then came the real surprise of the day!

Great blue heron, snow, and ice

I had already titled this week’s post as “Cold blue”, honest, I did. I was referring to the bright blue sky this morning, but knowing that it was also one of the coldest mornings this winter. I had no idea I was going to see a great blue heron in Michigan during the month of February while the temperatures have been as low as they have been all winter.

Great blue heron, snow, and ice

I tried to circle around to get a better shot, but the pond the heron was in is surrounded by brush, and I spooked the heron off before I could get a good photo of it. I think that I found the same heron again for these shots.

Great blue heron, snow, and ice

I took that one with the lens set to 70 mm to capture the setting, here’s one taken zoomed in to 300 mm and cropped somewhat.

Great blue heron, snow, and ice

There may have been more than one heron, when I got to the very first pond along the trail, I saw a larger bird that flew like a heron. I didn’t think it was large enough to be a great blue, I thought it may have been a little green heron, but had convinced myself that it was impossible for any herons to be around here, wrong! So, now I have no idea what the first heron-like bird I saw was, it didn’t have the wingspan of a great blue, but it flew like a heron. Hmmm.

Here’s a couple other shots, no wildlife, just scenery pictures.

Grass and snow

Ice on a twig

More ice on another twig

After yet another flash freeze Friday, the woods were all sparkly again today. I thought that this next one was kind of cool, with the reflection of the blue sky on the creek.

Blue sky reflected off Buck Creek

Then, there was this little clown.

Fox squirrel that made a poor choice as to where to sit

That doesn’t look to me to be the best place to sit down for lunch, but then, I’m not a squirrel.

Fox squirrel enjoying lunch

Then it gave me “the look”.

Fox squirrel

As if it were telling me to go bother something else for a while.

Then, for the next series, I have to ask, does anything like this ever happen to you? You’ll see what I mean as I go along in the pictures.

I noticed a flock of tweety birds, and thought that I would take a few photos.

Tufted titmouse

They were all landing in a couple of the bushes near me, then they would fly to one tree, land on the side of the tree away from me, then fly back to the bushes. I even tried to get a good photo of the shadow of one of the birds as it landed away from me on the tree, but that didn’t work well, so I kept shooting when they landed in the bushes.

Tufted titmouse

White breasted nuthatch

Tufted titmouse in flight

After standing there for several minutes watching the birds come and go, it finally dawned on me that maybe I should walk around to the other side of the tree and find out why they were all going to that one spot. This is what I found.

White breasted nuthatch, bread stuffed in a hollow tree

Some one, and it wasn’t me, had stuffed some bread into a hollow tree, and the birds were taking turns grabbing a bite to eat.

White breasted nuthatch eating bread

In all my days in the outdoors, I had never seen that before. I knew people brought corn and other goodies out there for the critters, but I have never seen bread stuffed into a hollow tree like that before. Then you have to wonder, how do the birds find it, and not just one bird, but flocks of them?

I continued on my way, the only other photos I took are of whitetail deer.

Whitetail deer in hiding

Whitetail deer laying in the snow

Sorry about the brush, they were on the other side of the creek, and I couldn’t do any better than that from where I was.

Here’s one of a doe chewing her cud.

Whitetail doe chewing her cud

By then, the sun was getting low in the sky, the wind was getting even colder than it had been all day, and I had a stop to make on my way home, so I called it a day. A very good day!

Monday

Today is starting out sunny, we’re supposed to get snow this afternoon or evening. Things are getting interesting already as I am drinking my coffee, I saw a great blue heron flying between the apartment complex and the housing development that is across a short wooded area from me. That along with the more typical cackling of the turkeys is telling me that I have to get my butt in gear and get out there. One thing that I have forgotten to mention about the swan photos I have been posting, I actually had enough sense to set the ISO on my camera down to 200, its lowest setting. I have been keeping the camera set at ISO 400 for the action shots I try for, maybe there is still some hope for me as a photographer after all. So far at least, I haven’t been forgetting to switch back and forth depending on the subject.

I was going to start by saying that there wasn’t much going on around here, but that isn’t true, it seldom is. What I should say is that I didn’t take many photos today, and I doubt that any are good enough to post. That gives me time to say a few other things.

Walking the same place every day is good in one respect, you really learn the area and the wildlife that lives there. The downside is that, at least I, become complacent at times. I think that I have photographed everything worth photographing around here, other than the wildlife. I will have to work on that, which will become a lot easier when the flowers begin blooming, and the insects and migrating songbirds return.

Another thing is that I have been wearing the Red Wing hiking books around here, and they are killing my lower legs. They are some very well constructed boots, built to last, but I’m not sure my ankles can take them on a daily basis. I lost count of the number of times I have sprained my ankles, between playing basketball, riding dirt bikes, and all the walking I have done while hunting and hiking. My left ankle seems to be especially bothered by the Red Wings, between how much they weigh and the fact there is no cushioning in the soles. I am adding this not to whine, but as a tip for any one thinking of buying hiking boots, there’s a lot more to consider than how well they are built. I wore the New Balance yesterday, five miles and my ankles held up just fine. Two miles today in the Red Wings, and I have developed a limp from the pain. So if you are shopping for hiking boots, be very careful what you buy.

OK, here’s the short version of my hike. It was fairly nice out, the clouds held off until I was about done, but the wind was cold, a continuation from yesterday. About a third of the way through my walk, I pulled my hood on to protect my ears from the wind, even though I was wearing a knit hat that covers my ears. I hate wearing a hood, it blocks the sounds somewhat, and the birds were chirping away, getting ready for spring.

The swans weren’t at the pond where they have been, not surprising, all the ponds are frozen over. So, what was that heron doing here this morning? It was flying low, it may have been looking for food in one of the creeks before it took flight. The ducks are all back in the creeks, hanging out in the brush, if I post a photo from today, that will probably be what I post.

I watched a muskrat gathering more grass, and was going to try for a good photo, but as I was waiting for it to return, I got distracted by the mallards and other birds in the brush along the creek, I ended up with nothing. There were a few turkeys around, and of course the usual tweety birds, just a typical day around here, nothing really special in one way, but very special in the fact that this was a typical day. Lots of wildlife to keep me entertained, but no great photos.

The weather forecast for Tuesday is more snow, that should be interesting, and later this week, they are predicting yet another rain to snow event with a flash freeze. How many does that make for this winter? I have lost count.

That’s it for today, on to Tuesday.

Tuesday

Today was one of those “yucky” days, terrible for photography, but I love hiking in the kind of weather we’re having today! It is around freezing, a little snow, a little rain, a little drizzle, a little mist, a little fog, a little wind, and lots of low dark clouds.

Since I downloaded the pictures from yesterday and today together, I will start with a couple from yesterday.

Male mallard sleeping

That’s one of those really not all that great photos I post that I am actually quite proud of. Not the photograph as much as being able to get that close to a sleeping duck! I recently read that ducks and some other birds only sleep with half their brain at a time, with the other half still active and alert to be on guard for any danger. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I know sneaking up on sleeping birds of any species is one of the most difficult things to do as far as getting close to critters. That photo also show once again how the mallards have taken to resting back in the brush this winter.

Another shot from yesterday, the new species I have discovered!

The rare blue headed mallard

OK, so I’m kidding about it being a new species, it’s just a male mallard that due to a quirk in the lighting, his head looks more blue than green. The ice hanging from the brush adds a nice touch I think. Which brings me to the last from yesterday.

Ice on a fir

That does remind me of something else. I noted earlier that with the return of so many species, it was as if I was starting out all over again as far as learning about those species. There are two other components to that as well. One is my memory, it may not be as good as I think it is. At one time, I could identify every species of evergreen growing in Michigan. I knew the typical length of their needles, how many needles were in each bundle, all that stuff, as just one example. Now, I don’t have the foggiest idea how many needles are in each bundle of a white pine, or any other pine.

Part of the reason for that is that over the years, the exact identification of wildlife became less important to me than just being out there enjoying nature. Now that I am doing this blog and would like to get the exact identification correct, I am finding that I have to relearn it all.

And that brings me to another reason that I more or less gave up identifying things, scientists are renaming some species on me! I go to look something up, and I find a big long discussion as to whether it is a distinct species in its own right, or a sub-species, or a hybrid of some type. I understand the scientific reasons for wanting to get it correct, but the outdoorsman in me wants to say, “When you people figure it out, let me know, for right now, I’m calling it what I have always called it”.

I really have to change my mindset. This was brought home to me when I did the post on the new Rockport State Park and included a couple of photos Fringed Gentian flowers. I have been seeing them for years in the Pigeon River Country here in Michigan, I assumed they were a domesticated species of flower that had escaped into the wild again. Then it dawned on me that the places I was seeing them were some of the most wild parts of the PRC, so maybe I had better look them up. I did, learned what they were, correctly identified them in some posts from last year, then, promptly forgot what they were again. Memory, don’t fail me now!

One more thing before today’s hike, now that I have mentioned the new Rockport State Park, the last two days have been record setting as far as the numbers of hits my blog has gotten, mostly due to people searching for info on the park. I am amazed! I think that I will be back up there over the Memorial Day weekend, if I can find room. From all the people searching it, the park may be too crowded….

Anyway, today’s hike. If your memory isn’t as bad as mine is getting, you’ll remember that the weather wasn’t the greatest. First up, almost right outside my door, the female sharp shinned hawk.

Sharp shined hawk taking off

I know, not very good, but I hesitated even getting the camera out from inside my parka at first. I knew any photos were going to be crappy, and with the moisture of all kinds in the air, I wasn’t sure I wanted to expose the camera to it. But, I haven’t seen her for a couple of days, and wanted to record it.

Next up, no photo, but there was a male cardinal singing his fool head off, from the top of one of the tallest oak trees around here, and on the back side of it to boot, which is why no photo of it. The birds around here are really going into their springtime mode, lots of singing today, not just that one cardinal. I was watching it, and a large flock of tweety birds, when I noticed that the robins have returned.

Robins

They have been gone for a few weeks, and I have speculated that they had gone north when the snow melted around here. Now, we’ve had snow on the ground again for a week or more, and the robins have returned.

Robins

I have a theory, that it isn’t food, snow cover, or even temperature directly that influence the migration of some birds, it is the availability of open water, and that the birds only go as far south as it takes to find open water. Here’s why. I see the migrating birds like robins, bluebirds and others, hanging out in flocks along the creeks that are still flowing. There’s food there for them there, but I also see them drinking from the creeks quite often. During our last cold snap, when the creeks even came close to freezing completely over, I watched a flock of robins take turns drinking from a very small opening left in the ice. I think that we tend to forget about how important drinking water is to birds, and focus on food and temperatures as to why they move in the patterns they do. Something else for me to study more closely.

Then there was this guy.

Northern cardinal singing in February

I told you about the other cardinal singing already, not long after that, this one took up song. He was in a smaller tree, so I was able to get a bad photo of him for the “record”.

Let’s see, I stopped at one of the creeks and watched the ducks for a while. Since the ponds are all frozen over, the ducks are crowded into the creeks, and being jammed in together, there was much splashing, chasing, and butt biting going on. No great brawls like in an earlier post, just a few scuffles from time to time.

The only other noteworthy thing was a tom turkey thinking that since it is Valentine’s Day today, that the hen turkey he was courting should have been in a “romantic” mood as well, but she was having none of it. He was doing his displaying and circle dance around her, she was ignoring him, stuffing herself with acorns. No other comments from me on that one!

That’s it for today, tomorrow is supposed to be great! High near 40 degrees, and the sunshine is forecast to return for a day.

Wednesday

Well, the sunny day that was predicted yesterday has given way to a lighter continuation of yesterday’s gloomy day. There doesn’t seem to be as much precipitation coming down, and the clouds are a bit lighter, but still, a dreary day. We’ll see what I can come up with as far as photos.

I think the science of meteorology has gone downhill since they all began relying on computer models to do the forecasting for them. Twenty four hours ago the forecast was for a warm sunny day, now that it didn’t turn out that way, they are predicting a cool, cloudy day. There are times, not just when it comes to the weather, that I think we are letting bad computer models run our lives. But, I don’t intend this to be a science fiction blog, so I had better get out there and see what’s going on today!

That was interesting, almost as soon as I began my walk, the clouds began to break up. I spent a lot of time talking to the groundskeepers here, they were out shovelling the snow from the parking lots because so many people have been complaining. But, that’s the subject of another blog that I won’t do.

It seemed really dead around here, despite the pleasant temperature, that is an odd thing around here. I took one bad photo of the pond that the swans were hanging around in last week, trying to capture the strange color of the ice due to the clouds and the ice melting, but it didn’t turn out the way I want. The swans weren’t there, the pond is still frozen over right now.

I did watch the mallards in the creek for a while, I’ve posted enough photos of them recently, so I didn’t even try for a photo.

I was 3/4 of the way done with my walk, and not too much to write about, when the sun broke through the clouds for good, and it was if it instantly when from dreary to bright! I caught this photo of a fox squirrel that was taking advantage of the sun to soak up some rays.

Fox squirrel sunning

It was like some one had flipped a switch, the birds started singing and flitting about as soon as the sun came out.

Robin

I stood at one corner of a wooded area right outside my apartment, that’s how close I was to finishing my walk, and took photo…

White breasted nuthatch

…after photo…

Black capped chickadee

…after photo..

Downy woodpecker

…after photo, including this one, which is I think, the best picture of a chickadee that I have ever taken.

Black capped chickadee

The only reason I didn’t get even more photos was that the birds were going at hyper-speed! They weren’t sitting still long enough for me to get them in the frame and focused on them before they were gone again. I did get a few very bad action shots, like the back half of a downy woodpecker in flight, but I’m not going to bore you with them today. I also tried for a shot of the male cardinal that was perched and singing in the top of one of the trees I was standing under, but he was too high up, and there were too many branches in the way. It sure felt great, warm sunshine, birds singing and going crazy, a sign of things to come.

I really wanted to do another lap around here now that the place had come alive, but time didn’t permit that. In fact, I would like to expound further on how I think that it is the availability of open water that determines a good share of the migration habits of some birds, but time doesn’t allow me to do that right now either.

That, and I received an update from the Little Traverse conservancy of which I am a member. 2011 was one of their best years ever as far as both fund-raising, and the amount of land they have helped to preserve. It is their 40th anniversary this year, and in those 40 years, they have protected over 14,000 acres of land in northern Michigan!

Of course I would love it if every one who reads this would join as well, but I know that isn’t going to happen. However, I would urge every one to find a local land conservancy in their area and join. With the loss of habitat one of biggest challenges facing most species of wildlife, protecting habitat by preserving it from development is one of the best ways to ensure that those species survive.

One more thing, Rebecca in the woods just did a post above wolves in northern Wisconsin that you may want to read. You can find a link to her blog on the right side of this page, along with a link to the Little Traverse Conservancy, if you’re interested. Anyway, the reason I mentioned her post is that wolves have been removed from the endangered species list here in Michigan as well as in Wisconsin and Minnesota. I am not happy about that at all, and I need to do a post on that subject when I get the time.

Sorry about how short this day’s entry is, time to head for work today, on to Thursday.

Thursday

The rain overnight melted most of the snow that was on the ground, and all that moisture is now hanging in the air as a very heavy fog. I am hoping the fog will either burn off or be blown out before I go for my hike, in the meantime, I whipped up a loaf of banana nut bread for later.

It will be interesting to see if the robins are still around now that we are back in a warming trend, along with the herons and swans. Since they all showed up towards the end of a two week cool spell, I am thinking they came from the north rather than from the south.

I’m back, no robins, no herons, but the swans are back. Two days of warm weather, a warming trend predicted to continue, and a little open water in one of the ponds was all it took. The herons and robins could still be in the area, and it could be that I just didn’t see them today. Time will tell.

Before I get to the photos, there are birds around here that I seldom, if ever mention. I have posted a few photos of herring gulls, taken both here and along the lakeshore, just as practice shots on moving targets. The gulls are around here daily, always flying east to west. I don’t know if they roost east of here, or what, but I see them all the time. I can’t tell you the number of times I have caught the motion from one of them out of the corner of my eye and pulled up with the camera in hopes it was a hawk or other species. It isn’t that I dislike gulls, it just that they are always around.

Two other species always around are the English house sparrow and English starlings. I know from other people’s post that some of you like them, so I won’t offer my opinion of them. I’ll just say that you will never see a photograph of either of those two species here, unless it is something truly spectacular, like one of them in the claws of a hawk, or something on that order.

Now then, on to the swan photos.

Mute swans and ice

You can see in that picture how they had landed on the ice, then broken a path through the ice to reach the little bit of open water around the edge of the pond.

I was still zoomed out to get that photo, when two mallards took off.

Mallards taking flight

I zoomed in on the male…

Male mallard in flight

..and got two surprisingly good photos considering how dark it was today.

Male mallard in flight

And as I type this, the sun is trying to break through the clouds, bad timing.

Oh well, this looks cold to me.

Mute swans and ice

I wouldn’t want to be dunking my head into a bucket of ice water today.

Mute swans and ice

If you’re a large, hungry mute swan and you think a flock of mallards have discovered something good to eat, what do you do?

Mute swan herding ducks

You herd them out of your way….

Mute swans and ice

and go for the goodies yourself.

Mute swans and ice

Mute swans and ice

Almost a heart, not quite, darn.

The rest of my walk was rather uneventful, I was deep in thought about a number of things. One was the migration of the birds. If I had been really smart, and had I known we were going to have a mild winter, I should have made a spreadsheet to track the weather, the ice coverage on the ponds and creeks, and what species were here when. I suppose I could go back through the weather records and my photos and do a close approximation, but that would be quite time-consuming, and I don’t have the time right now.

The other thing on my mind was work and the Teamsters union. I doubt if I will be getting the promotion I wrote about before, the idiots that manage the company I work for think that I am harder to replace than the person that retired, so I will be stuck in this job forever. Then there’s the money sucking leeches in the Teamsters, how I wish Michigan was a right to work state!

I don’t want to turn this into a political blog, but I hate unions, always have, always will. On a regular basis, the Teamsters send me mailings warning me that large, evil corporations are out to ruin my standard of living to the point where I can no longer afford to purchase the products and services that those evil corporations depend my making in order to turn the obscene profits they do.

Also on a regular basis, I get mailings from the Teamsters telling me that they have partnered with those evil corporations to try to sell me overpriced products and services and that I should really take advantage of those offers because the Teamsters get a kickback, those evil corporations have agreed to make a donation to the Teamsters for every unit sold.

Maybe unions were something needed 100 years ago, but as I see it, the union leadership are nothing more than a bunch of fatcats living the good life by sucking money out of my paycheck. When Jimmy Hoffa Jr. agrees to take the average rank and file Teamster member’s salary as his own, that would be one thing. But, when his salary is about equal to the salaries of the CEOs he’s always bashing, it’s hard to take him for anything more than the crook that he is.

Enough of that, on to Friday.

Friday

The big news today, Cabelas is coming to this area! I have already written that Cabelas is one of my favorite sources for outdoor gear, now I will no longer have to pay for shipping, if I can’t find what I want in the store. The store they are building here is a downsized version of their more typical stores, so I will probably still have to order much of the clothing I buy.

The other big news, sunshine! So, I am off for my hike!

What a fantastic mid-winter day! No camera in the parka, in fact, I carried the camera most of the day, it was wonderful out there. I wish I had a ton of photos to share from today, but for the most part, all I got were more of the same old same old. There are so many reasons why, as you will find out about as I go.

The weather was great, but the snow removal service that has been doing such a rotten job around here sent their skid-steer operator over here to finally finish removing the snow from the parking lots. For better than the first third of my walk, it was as if he were following me around. I could hear many birds over the noise of the loader, but because of the noise, I had a hard time pinpointing where the birds were. That, and about the time I found a bird to shoot, the loader operator would drop the bucket and frighten everything away.

I got to the pond where the swans had been yesterday, no swans today, but I did shoot this one.

Half frozen pond

And for one of my bad action shots of the day, I took this one of a fox squirrel making a leap.

Fox squirrel feet

I got to one of the other ponds, where the swans had spent most of their time when they first arrived here, but they weren’t there. I could see from the paths in the thin ice that they had been there since yesterday’s hike, so they may be back.

At one of the creeks I could hear lots of birds, including some bluebirds, but I couldn’t spot anything close to me other than the mallards.

Male mallard

Male mallard

I included those last two for a reason. After taking nearly 9,000 photos with my Nikon D 50, it seems to be finally working the way that it should, most of the time. It still has its glitches, but for the most part, it is working better than ever. Part of that is that I have finally learned its glitches, and pay special attention to certain things it does, but I have never been happier with it than I have the last month and a half or so. I am still using the spot metering mode, I’m afraid to change any settings for fear it will revert back to doing whatever it feels like.

As I said, there were birds singing everywhere, especially the male cardinals. I tried getting some shots of them, this is the best I could do, and it isn’t very good.

Male northern cardinal

Just like yesterday, they were in the tops of tall trees and hidden by branches most of the time.

And another photo to jog my memory.

American robin dancing

As you can see, the robins are back here again, that’s not the only reason for the photo though. I forgot that yesterday I saw a small flock of cedar waxwings for the first time this spring. I was getting set to take a bad photo of them when some one else spooked them off, and I had sort of forgotten about them. I shouldn’t have.

The cedar waxwings were feeding on mountain ash berries in trees that none of the other species of birds around here seem to touch. I almost shot a picture of those trees today to show how many berries are left on those trees, especially in comparison to the trees the robins were feeding in and under today. I do notice one thing now seeing the picture of the robin, the berries on those trees are more red than the berries on the other mountain ash trees, which are more orange in color. Hmmm.

I thought that part of the reason could be due to available cover nearby, the trees with the more orange berries aren’t near any of the evergreens around here, but when I looked at the trees with the reddish berries the robins were feeding on today, there are no evergreens around them either. Hmmm again.

The mountain ash trees that all the birds seem to go for are the ones near evergreen trees. Now that one is explainable.

Then I wonder if any one else even cares, or if I am obsessed with berries?

No, because as I was trying to get a good shot of the robins feeding on the berries, I noticed a red-tailed hawk circling close and fairly low. I was trying to get a good photo of it, but I was under the stupid mountain ash trees and their berries, which kept blocking my view of the hawk. I ran out from under the trees, and got these not so great shots of the hawk.

Red-tailed hawk in flight

Red-tailed hawk in flight

Those were taken on the hawk’s second pass overhead, which of course wasn’t as close or as low as its first pass had been, darn!

Then, I looked back at where the robins had been, I thought for sure I would have spooked them while chasing the hawk, but they were still there. In fact, I was nearly directly under one of the robins. I carefully circled back around to get better lighting, and the stupid robins all flew off long before I got anywhere nearly as close as I had been just a short while before, go figure. I guess they were full.

Back to the berries and the trees that bear them. As I noted when I first started obsessing over the berries, there are mountain ash trees planted in several groups around the apartment complex here. Some of the groups are near evergreens, some are out in the open. As I discovered today, some of the trees have berries that are more orange, some have berries that are more red. Now, I am going to have to stop at each grouping and figure out if they have red berries or orange, because some of the trees are nearly stripped of berries, and some have hardly been touched.

I never really noted the difference before, but I remember that the trees I saw the cedar waxwings in yesterday was one of the same trees that I photographed the cedar waxwings in last spring when they arrived. As a matter of fact, that’s what I was thinking to myself when I first saw the waxwings, “That’s the same tree they were in last spring”. So their preference for those particular trees isn’t something from just this spring. Maybe I will have to do some taste testing to see why some species prefer the red berries, and other species prefer the orange berries. Or maybe I should quit obsessing with the berries and just shoot bird photos.

Cedar waxwing from last spring

That’s it for the berries for today, tomorrow is supposed to be a bit cooler with some snow, maybe, we’ll see. On to Saturday.

Saturday

Has every one heard more than they ever wanted to about mountain ash berries? If so, raise your hands please.

We had a pathetic little snowstorm roll through here late yesterday afternoon, when it began it had all the look of being the real deal. Once again, it looked like the first snowfall of the season, rather than a February storm. That didn’t last long though, and this morning, almost all the new snow has melted already.

The long-range forecast for March is in, and they are calling for the mild winter to continue. That has me worried, as the long-range forecasts are seldom correct.

As for today, partly sunny, with a stiff breeze out of the west and temperatures mild for this time of year. I am thinking about doing two laps here today, one for photos, one for more exercise. Of course I will still have my camera with me on the second lap, we’ll see what I come up with.

There was a change of plans during my walk which you’ll find out about when I get there, the other story was that the clouds rolled in and began spitting snow almost the minute I walked out the door. Also almost right outside my door was this turkey.

Turkey lying down

It’s not everyday that I can get that close to a wild turkey that’s lying down, so I had to take that one. That turkey and the one that was with it took off running of course, and I snapped this one as they did.

Turkey stretching its wings

Since there was little light with the clouds blotting out the sun, it came out blurry, but I kind of like it, makes me think I should try for a similar, but better shot.

I got to the pond where the swans have been hanging out, and they were there again today. I stood there for quite some time, knowing that I had all day for a change, no work to interrupt my pleasure! I took over 100 photos today, mostly of the swans.

Mute swan preening

I’m not going to bore you with all of them, just a couple. But first, as I was standing there, other waterfowl, ducks and gees, either flew over the pond, or landed in it to join the swans. I took many photos of those birds as well, but very few of them came out well due to the lack of light. Here’s the best of a bad lot.

Male mallard preparing for touchdown

The geese I saw didn’t land, they had their wings set, their feet down, it looked like they were coming in for a landing, but I don’t know if the sight of me or the swans made them change their minds, but they did. The photos I got of them were really bad, no reason to post them here.

Here’s another shot of the swans.

Mute swan stretching its wings

It was quit chilly standing in one spot with the cold wind blowing the way that it was, besides, how many swan photos could I take in one day? So, off I went. I wasn’t seeing much, I don’t know if it was because of the time of day, or the wind. One thing I did see was hundreds of herring gulls, as is usual around here this time of year.

The other thing I noticed is that a small flock of robins was in the process of trying to eat as many of the mountain ash berries as they could, from one of the trees that up until today, I had never seen a bird in this winter. No photos, for some reason, I didn’t even make an attempt. I think it was because my hand was frozen from taking the swan photos, the light was crummy, and the robins themselves didn’t look very photogenic today. I just made a mental note that the robins were there, and continued on my way.

As I got towards the front of the complex, a thought occurred to me, I should walk down to the chain of lakes to the west. I seldom go there, I have to walk along the road, which is not my favorite thing to do, especially with the amount of traffic there is. I knew that if I took a second lap here, I would end up with another 100 swan photos. Besides, I was wondering what I would find there. I haven’t been there since early this winter, when the weather was so bad some nice young kid offered me a ride because of the weather.

Another reason I don’t go to the chain of lakes very often is that they are surrounded by houses and condos, and to make it even worse, I have to shoot into the sun for most of the day, making any photos I attempt, not worth taking.

I got to the lakes and found out why I always see the gulls flying west, it’s to get to the lakes. There were thousands of gulls there, along with several hundred each of both mallards and Canadian geese. I did shoot this one of a small part of a small flock of gulls.

Herring gulls

I was hoping to find a heron or two, no luck on that. The chain of lakes is really good for seeing large numbers of waterfowl, but as I said, terrible as far as getting good photos of any of them.

On the way back here, the sun broke through the clouds again, it felt 30 degrees warmer than on the walk over to the lakes. I headed back to the pond where the swans were, hoping for some better photos in the sunlight, they were sleeping when I got there, however, as soon as I stuck my head around the tree I was using to get close to them, their heads came up, and they went back to preening again. I took these two pictures with my Canon, I haven’t been using it very much of late.

Mute swans preening

Mute swan

For a relatively inexpensive camera, the Canon does a really good job!

I also used it on these two.

Ice and snow on an evergreen

Ice and snow on an evergreen

I was really hoping for better pictures today, that happens I guess. All in all, not a bad day, and all in all, not a bad week. Kind of an average week for around here, which is why I love living here!

One more thing before I publish this week’s post, I have added a link to Jack Elliott’s Santa Barbara Adventure blog, it is about a little bit of everything, from hiking to history to surfing, with some great photos to help tell the story. If you haven’t checked it out already, I would suggest you do so.

That’s about it for this week, I’m not sure yet what I am going to be up to tomorrow. It looks like we could have a spectacular sunset here this evening, I should find a good spot and wait to see if I could capture any good photos, but I think I’ll eat supper and watch it through the window. This week is ending much as it began, with bright blue skies, but on the chilly side. No snow left from the beginning of the week, that’s OK, no snow makes for easier hiking and longer hikes!

Thanks for stopping by!

My parents

I don’t have many regrets in my life, the one that comes to mind is not getting to know my parents better. This is especially true as far as my mom, and how she came to be so knowledgeable about the outdoors, nature, and in particular, plants.

My parents were very private people, you simply didn’t ask them questions about themselves. I understand a lot more about my dad’s knowledge of the outdoors, since he was a hunter and fisherman who brought me along with him even at an early age.

My mom was way ahead of her times in a way, a college degree, and she worked as a book-keeper until we kids started coming along.  But the not so typical things about her were that she was an excellent archer, better than my dad, and she knew the names of so many wild plants, and wildlife in general.

I assume she learned from some of it from her parents, my grandparents, and growing up on a farm lends itself to that type of knowledge I suppose. My grandfather was also a member of the National Geographic Society, and I read many of the back issues of their magazine that he had saved, and I’m sure my mom did as well when she was growing up.

Still, I regret not learning how both of my parents became so well-educated about nature.

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

There isn’t much information available about the park yet, for that matter, there isn’t much there yet except for an abundance of natural beauty, and the remains of past uses of the land by man. Here’s what the DNR website has to say about our newest park.

“Rockport State Park offers many unique and special features. With 4,237 acres of land located on the shores of Lake Huron, north of Alpena, the property includes a deep-water protected harbor, an old limestone quarry of approximately 300 acres, a unique series of sinkholes, a dedicated Natural Area (Besser Natural Area), and a broad range of land types, vegetative cover, cultural resources and recreation opportunities. At the harbor, the Department has a boat launch facility, and there is a small park developed by Alpena Township on land leased from the State.”

Located between Thompson’s Harbor and Negwegon State Parks this new park will be a perfect fit. This is an incredibly beautiful area, and as luck would have it, I visited it late last summer and of course, took a few photos which I am about to share.

The old deep water dock at Rockport State Park in Michigan

Lake Huron shoreline at Rockport State Park in Michigan

Middle Island, part of which is part of Rockport State Park in Michigan

A Lake Huron marsh at Rockport State Park in Michigan

A wildflower at Rockport State Park in Michigan

A dragonfly

Daisies and butterfly

Fringed gentian

Fringed gentian

Wildflowers

Unidentified hawk

Wildflowers

There’s an existing boat ramp for kayakers and fishermen there, and a very nice small park that has been leased to Alpena Township. I am hoping the DNR will map out some hiking trails soon, but the area is open to hiking now for those who don’t need a developed trail system. If you go, and I would recommend it to any one, please tread lightly, the marshes and many of the wildflowers are very fragile. I can’t wait to go back, I was there at the “wrong” time of the year, spring and early summer is the best for viewing the wildflowers.

The area is also rich in history, there are a number of shipwrecks in the waters of Lake Huron not far from the boat ramp, including one in the Besser Natural Area.

To get there, take US 23 north from Alpena to Rockport road, turn right to go east, and follow it to the end.

Monday

The day has started off with an early morning fog, the fog has lifted, but the clouds remain. I am getting set to go for my walk, if there’s anything interesting, I’ll be back.

The clouds still haven’t cleared, with my luck, they won’t until I head to work, that’s OK. The fog in the air may have cleared, but I’m still in kind of a fog myself right now. Nothing major, just enjoyed two days of hiking without worrying too much about any photos, not that I didn’t take any. Mostly, I observed what was going on with the turkeys, tweety birds, squirrels, and even listened to some Canadian geese going crazy, never did figure out why, they were too far away for me to track down.

I don’t know if my belt has stretched, or if I am finally beginning to lose some weight. I am going two notches shorter on my belt in the last two weeks. That’s one of the reasons I took the tough trails at Muskegon, I know when my metabolism finally kicks up a notch, I can shed pounds like a duck sheds water. I just can’t believe how hard it has been to kick up my metabolism this time.

Anyway, I was moving a lot faster than normal today, but I was wonderfully surprised when I got to one of the ponds.

Mute swans

The mute swans I have seen flying around here from time to time were swimming around in one of the ponds. I would prefer that they were trumpeters, but it would be so cool to watch any swans raise a family here!

Mute swan

Of course I got closer, but not close enough for them to start giving me the Bronx cheer. Other people describe their call differently, but it sounds like “aaaththththt” to me. You can find out more about them and listen to their call here at all about birds.

Mute swan

You can tell two things from this last photo, one, it was dark and dreary here, even though the forecast was for bright sunshine. Two, these two haven’t decided to nest here, or those mallards would have been toast!

Mute swans are one of the most aggressive birds there are, heck, they’re one of the most aggressive anything when it comes to defending their territory. The mute swans are considered an invasive species, they were imported to the US from Europe, after we had almost wiped out the native trumpeters.

Mute swan

I did manage this one of a mallard in flight, one of my practice shots on moving targets.

Male mallard in flight

I also shot a couple of one of the sharp shinned hawks, I knew they were bad when I shot them, they have properly deleted and given a good burial.

I also watched a little bit of another turkey fight, but no photos, sorry, they were back in the brush. I do know one thing, I wouldn’t want to get smacked by their wings! The two going at it were landing some pretty heavy blows by the sounds of it. That’s all for today.

Tuesday

Another cloudy, cool day. The wind wasn’t as cold as yesterday, but it still felt nippy out there. The cooling trend is supposed to continue all week long, until it begins to warm up again next week. I am so spoiled this winter, a few cloudy days in a row, and I’m complaining about it. The last few days have been above average as far as both temperature and sun, but compared to earlier this winter, they have seemed cold and dreary.

That reminds me, I missed the anniversary of the Groundhog’s Day blizzard from last year. Last year we were digging out from under 16 inches of snow at this time, this year, there is no snow. I could go on at length about how the media has turned weather averages into supposed weather normals, but I’ll save that for another post, along with a couple of land use news items I read recently.

The story for today, timing, luck, and not paying attention.  When you photograph on the move the way I do, timing and luck are everything. I started out, and right off the bat, I heard a goose honking while in flight. I was too far away for a photo, but I watched and listened anyway, and kept right on walking. Right up on a pair of mallards that would have offered a great shot of them taking off, if I hadn’t been watching the goose.

Still early in my walk, I heard more geese approaching, and I wasn’t sure I was even going to try for a shot as cloudy as it was, until I could hear their wings. I knew they were close, but they came right over the building I was next to, no way to pull up and shoot that quickly, especially as low as they were. I did shoot this one for practice.

Canadian geese in flight

I know that it’s horrible, but it also gives you an idea how low they were. Here’s another bad shot to go with it, a chickadee.

Black capped chickadee

I tried to get a better shot of it and its buddies, but had no luck there.

I made it to the pond all the way in the back corner of the apartment complex, where I saw the swans yesterday. One was still there, and as I was sneaking up on it, this little bugger decided to pose for me.

Fox squirrel

It asked for a profile shot, so I obliged.

Fox squirrel

And here’s a couple of the swan.

Mute swan

I tried for a good reflection shot, but the wind kept the ripples on the water too active for that, so I went for a close-up instead.

Mute swan

Mute swan

Then, I saw something white stuck to a branch in one of the creeks, it turned out to be this..

Duck feather in the stream

..and spooked a pair of muskrats that were there by the stream. When will I learn? I had given the area a quick glance, then focused on the feather trying to figure out what it was. From where I was when I saw it, I didn’t know it was a feather, but instead of paying attention to my surroundings, I stared at it until the splashes from the startled muskrats woke me up. Oh well, there will be lots of chances for muskrat shots.

That wasn’t the only mallard feather in the creek either, in fact, there were a lot of feathers. I worked my way upstream following the trail of feathers to see if they were from a hawk having attacked one of the mallards, or from the mallards preening. I can’t say for sure, but from where the trail ended, and the fact that all the feathers were in the water, I’m thinking they were from the mallards preening. I do know that the mallards around here are a lot more cautious than what they used to be. The only time I see them out in the open is in the ponds, when they are in the creeks, they tend to stay back under the overhanging branches where they are safe. Now that I think of it, that has happened over the course of the winter. Earlier, the ducks were behaving as they always had in the past, but as the winter has progressed, they have been spending more and ore time in cover.

I have seen the sharpies here since I moved in, but I see them almost daily this winter. Before, it was once every couple of weeks. I wonder if those two things are related?

That’s it for today, on to Wednesday.

Wednesday

The sun has returned! It was still chilly though, the sun hadn’t been out long enough to really warm things up, which in a way, was a good thing. It did warm up during the time I was out there, and the difference in the behavior of the critters was noticeable.

My first shot of the day, taken just to shoot something, a fox squirrel sticking a landing.

Fox squirrel in motion

They may be common critters around here, but it is still fun to watch them in action, especially the way they use their tails for balance.

I paused at the first creek, there were a few ducks quite a way downstream, I didn’t bother with them, but I did shoot this.

Sumac drupe

The birds and weather have taken their toll.

I was watching the pair of red-tailed hawks soaring high above the fields to the east, way too far away for any kind of a photo. As I was watching them, I thought about just how good their eyesight has to be. I thought I was doing well to spot them, but then it hit me, they are looking for mice and other small rodents, and that reminded me that I have wanted to do a post on protecting your eyesight.

I know that I have been blessed with eyesight far better than average, and due to an injury my dad suffered, I know how fragile eyesight is. I have seen recommendations that hard-core outdoors people should buy cheap sunglasses, knowing that you are probably going to lose them. As with many things, I take the opposite tack, I say buy sunglasses so expensive that you can’t afford to lose them.

I am on my second pair of Ray-ban aviators. Yes, I did lose the first pair after many years, but they were old, beat up, and the lenses were getting scratched to the point I was considering replacing them anyway. Back when I was shooting rifles, the Ray-bans were about the only glasses any shooter wore, because of how good the optical quality was. That’s why I still wear them to this day.

I could go on at length about them, but the important thing is that sunglasses should be worn anytime you are out in the sun, to prevent cataracts. Both my mother and my brother in law had cataract surgery, and while it did improve their eyesight, it is never as good as before the cataracts. In addition, a good pair of sunglasses will protect your eyes from twigs and branches as you are walking in the woods. I will not fly fish if I don’t have protective glasses on, the thought of casting a sharp fishing hook back and forth near my face is enough to convince me of that. So protect your peepers, you only have two, and losing sight in one is bad enough, you could ask my dad about that if he were still alive.

Anyway, I got to the pond where the swan(s) had been the last two days, they weren’t there. That really wasn’t too surprising, as the pond just about froze over again last night.

I almost forgot, as I was approaching the pond, I saw a turkey right in front of one of the apartment buildings, and I though that there was no way I would miss getting a great photo of it. The turkey looked as if it was going to go into the building, and didn’t seem to be in a hurry, so I thought that the turkey could wait, I would check the pond first. On my way there, I stopped to shoot a few pictures of house finches.

House finch

Even better than seeing them was hearing them, a couple of the males were in full spring song.

House finch

Of course the ones closest to me weren’t the ones singing.

I did check out the pond, no swans, a small flock of mallards though. I did shoot a few photos, nothing worth posting here though. Then, I went after the turkey, but it was gone. I looked all over for it, I swear it went into one of the apartments, that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Later on though, I did shoot this bad photo of a turkey just to show you how well they can hide.

Hidden turkey

All I saw was a dark lump where there shouldn’t have been a dark lump, so I walked closer until I could make it out as a turkey. There’s actually two in that photo, good luck if you try to find it.

Then it was on to the main creek here, and some good mallard photos, maybe the best one I have ever taken.

Male mallard

I like the way I was able to get the subtle barring of its feathers, but I think I can still do better. In the meantime, here are a couple almost as good.

Male mallards

Male mallard

As I continued on, I noticed a distinct downturn in the critter activity. I think that with the sun out, and it getting warmer, all of them were taking a siesta. That would fit with the way the ducks and turkeys were behaving.

A few more notes about today before the last photos. It has been dry here for a couple of weeks now, and the creek levels are dropping. As they drop, I see cardinals out on the flats of the creeks that had been under water, but are now dry. I have been trying for a photo, but the cardinals are extra spooky out in the open like that. It isn’t just cardinals, there are other species as well, but the cardinals are the most noticeable, and I am wondering what they are finding to feed on there. I thought I was going to succeed as far as a photo yesterday, I had the camera pointed at a cardinal out on the flats, but when the auto-focus finally locked on, the bird was gone.

And, that reminds me once again to check my Nikon out as far as the auto-focus settings. I thought that I had it set so that the auto-focus would function continuously, but in playing with it today, sometimes it does that, other times it locks and will not continue to focus as I move the camera. I made note of that before, once the battery is recharged, I have to check it this time.

Last note of the day, the weather forecasters have no idea what’s coming. Some of the computer models say warmer, others say colder. Time for a dart board. It doesn’t really matter, I will be doing the same thing whether it is warmer or cooler, but it would be nice to have an idea so that I could make plans for the weekend as far as where I was doing it.

OK, last photos of the day, a pair of mourning doves.

Mourning doves

Mourning doves are among the earliest birds to nest in these parts, I’ll be willing to bet that these two have already built a nest, or are about to. It isn’t unusual to see young mourning doves in March.

Mourning doves

Hmmm, no flying birds today, not even ones that end up being deleted. That’s odd for me. Well, better luck tomorrow!

Thursday

I was going to start out with no clouds, no swans, but neither was the case. It got relatively cold last night, and I thought that the ponds were probably frozen completely over, but they weren’t. And, although it was cloudless most of the time, one or two did managed to form overhead.

I used a couple of the first photos I took today for the post “The Weekly Photo Challenge: Ready“, those of the greenery starting to show up in the woods, and of the fox squirrel and nut.

It was still cold when I started out, and that wasn’t helped by the stiff wind out of the west. Other than pausing for the photos I mentioned above, I was moving right along. I had another brainstorm as I was walking, a couple of  posts ago, I complained how heavy and unsuited for slick conditions the Red Wing hiking boots I have are. I was wearing my New Balance boots today, as I normally do, when it ht me. I am wearing them out on short hikes in nice weather, that’s when I should be wearing the Red Wings! So, beginning tomorrow, I will wear the heavy Red Wings around here on my short daily hikes, and save the New Balance boots for when I really need them.

Then, I came to the pond that I thought was going to be frozen over, but instead, there was enough open water that both the mute swans were back. There are several photos of them in my last post, with the link just above, but here’s a couple more.

Mute swans

Mute swans

There are two colors that are particularly hard to get the exposure correct on when photographing something, white and black. I am quite happy with the way the swan pictures turned out, so my next challenge was something black, a crow.

American crow

That’s not too bad, I think to do any better, I am going to have to get closer to one. That will be a challenge!

Next stop was one of the trees that has berries left on it, I forgot to identify the tree. I noticed this female cardinal first.

Cardinals

Then the male on the backside of the tree, somewhat hidden. Here’s the female close-up.

Female northern cardinal

I tried to get closer, but she flew off, and as I was standing there, several goldfinches arrived for lunch.

American goldfinch

I had trouble getting a clear shot of any of them, that was the best I could do.

I noted earlier that the mallards around here are hiding out more than they ever have before, I think it is because of the two sharp shinned hawks hunting the area this winter. Here are two photos to show you what I mean.

Mallards hiding in the brush along a creek

Female mallard hiding in the brush along a creek

Whatever the reason, the ducks are staying well back in the brush most of the time now.

And here are a couple of just because photos, just because I like them.

Just because

Bubbles trapped in ice

The rest of my walk was non-eventful, except that I saw a large bird soaring off in the distance. At first I thought that it was a red tailed hawk, but the more I watched it, the less it looked like a hawk. It was a turkey vulture!

Turkey vulture in flight

What is a turkey vulture doing in Michigan during the first part of February? That shows just how mild this winter has been, which is kind of funny. I am finishing this on Friday, and it is snowing hard outside right now. I’ll bet I don’t see the vulture again today, it is probably on its way back south where it belongs this time of year.

Friday

As I said, it is snowing hard this morning, it is turning colder and it is forecast to remain cold over the weekend. That’s OK, we do need some winter around here. I’ll be sticking close to home, more on that in a minute, first, my hike for the day. There really isn’t too much to say, as it was snowing hard. The closest I got to taking a photo was un-zipping my parka and putting my hand on the camera as I approached a cardinal. It flew off before I got close enough for a good shot. I did watch the mallards in the ponds for a while. Nature always reminds me how good we humans have it.

Since it stayed a little warmer overnight before the snow began, the ponds around here were more ice-free than they have been in a week or more. The ducks were out there feeding in the parts of the ponds that had open water, but, the snow was coming down so hard that the open water was acquiring a covering of slush. I wouldn’t want to be out there swimming in an ice-covered pond, leaving trails in the slush behind me, that’s my definition of cold! The ducks were out there having a good old time, better them than me.

I don’t mind the snow, although no matter how many times I inhale a snowflake up the nose, it still makes my nose itch.

Since there were no photos from today, I’ll throw in a couple that I didn’t use from last weekend’s hike in Hoffmaster State Park.

Just a sawed off log

Driftwood

Sun on an evergreen

I will be hiking here at home on Saturday, I stopped last night and did my grocery shopping. I picked up a beef roast for the crock pot, I’ll be eating well for a month from that. I think that on Sunday I’ll do one of the local parks, it depends on the weather.

For some reason, I haven’t had as much time this week to work on this, so I am somewhat displeased at the way this week’s summary is going. Actually, I know some of the reasons. For one thing, I am following too many other blogs. I know that WordPress encourages people to visit other blogs and “Like” them, leave a comment, and so on as a way to build a following for a blog, but I didn’t do it that way. I started out just adding content, and it took some time, but eventually, people started finding and following my blog. I am very grateful for the regular readers who follow my blog!

However, it seems as though there are a number of bloggers out there who are determined to drive the statistics for their blogs up by any means possible. Six posts in one day? Most of them nothing more than reblogging some one else’s post?

I know that there have been a couple of days when I posted twice, but I would like to think that there was some solid content to my posts, or when the Weekly Photo Challenge comes out.

So, I am “Unfollowing” a few blogs, which takes some time, keeping track of the ones that I do want to continue following, and noting those who post multiple times a day, without much content to them. Also, any blogs that are  done by commercial enterprises solely as a means of advertising, I won’t be following. I have been getting a lot of those of late, I am not interested in purchasing a travel trailer, a timeshare in Boca, or any of the other “blogs” that are nothing more than thinly disguised sales pitches.

There are many talented photographers and bloggers out there, then there are a lot of wannabes as well. I suppose that I actually fall under that category, but there is a purpose to this blog other than my photography, and that is understanding nature, and where the best places in Michigan are for that purpose. If you have a photography blog that you use to try to be “artsy-fartsy” and please the photography critics, I probably won’t follow your blog for very long, if at all. Been there, done that, years and years ago.

By trying to achieve critical acclaim, most budding photographers end up shooting their versions of photos that have already won critical acclaim.

Me, I go out there and shoot nature photos to tell a story, nature’s photojournalist if you will. If some of my photos turn out really well, that’s all the better. But, I don’t do photography to please the critics, I do it to please myself.

And, as far as the stats for my blog, yeah, big numbers are nice, but I would rather have half a dozen to a dozen faithful readers, than a one hundred “Likes” from people trying to build up their own stats.

So, the blogs I like are nature blogs, of course, travel blogs, because I love travelling and like seeing other parts of the world, and blogs by people who can actually tell a story, either through words or photo, or both.

Enough of that, on to Saturday.

Saturday

Well, well, well, a night and morning chock full of surprises, so good, some bad. The light dusting of one to two inches of snow that they were predicting turned into a full-blown snow storm overnight. It was going as predicted, I got to the Lansing, Michigan branch of the company I drive for, and it seemed the snow was letting up.

I had noted to myself on the way there that the way the weather has been so far this year, every snowstorm looks like the first snow of the year, it has been very nice in that respect, as well as the mild temps and more sunshine than average.

It is always amazing how quickly the weather can change. It took me about an hour to unload, then reload the trailer, and my first inkling at the changes were when I opened the door to go outside to the truck. The wind ripped the door out of my hand, nearly tearing it from the hinges, the light to moderate snow was now heavy snow, and the temperature was dropping like a rock. The local meteorologist reports that the temps fell 10 degrees in less than an hour.

Yet another flash freeze, everything outside was coated in a layer of ice, then the snow and blowing snow over it. Driving was miserable for the rest of the night, putting me way behind schedule. Then, to top off an already bad night, the truck broke down just a few miles from the end of my run.

I waited over an hour and a half for a service guy to show up, luckily it didn’t take too long to get the truck running again. He followed me to the company that my company leases the truck from so they can do the rest of the repairs needed, then the service guy was nice enough to drop me off at my company saving me a 4 mile walk in the cold and snow. But, between the bad roads and the breakdown, I didn’t get home until nearly 4 AM.

I woke up way too early for when I had gone to bed, but bright sunshine greeted my eyes when they opened, another surprise! Even though I wanted to sleep another hour or so, I got up, and took my walk, after coffee of course.

Another surprise! The swans are still here! I haven’t downloaded the photos yet, I am going to drink a cup of tea to warm up, then see what I managed to get today.

Wow! If I do say so myself, you’ll all be tired of swans if these two take up residence here, but I will love watching (and photographing) the cygnets as they grow up! Here’s the pictures.

Mute swan on ice

Until today, I never realized what large webbed feet they have.

Mute swan in flight

Coming in for a slippery landing, notice the use of the tail as a skid!

Mute swan landing on ice

Mute swan landing on ice

Mute swan landing on ice

Here’s what I think is the male doing some stretching.

Mute swan on ice

I was hoping the male would take the short flight to the other end of the pond as its mate had done, but not at that time. I was getting cold, and didn’t want to disturb them too much, so I headed off, turning around to capture this one.

Mute swan on ice

But I couldn’t resist checking them out from another angle later on. As I was approaching the pond, the male did take flight, and I stood there trying to yank the camera out of my parka where it was safe and snug, but totally unusable. I did manage to get this one just as he slid to a stop, you can see how long of a skid it was by the pattern on the ice behind him.

Mute swan on ice

Then this one of the female resting.

Mute swan on ice

About that time a flock of geese flew over, giving me one of my funny, almost winner shots.

Canadian goose's butt

The geese were so low that they were actually too close to me, that doesn’t happen everyday. I was hoping that they would circle and join the swans, but no such luck.

As I continued my walk, the clouds returned, along with some snow, so I shot this one of a turkey taking it all in stride.

Turkey in the snow

To wrap this week up, last week started with a snowstorm, it turned warm, but cloudy, which continued this week, until it ended with another snowstorm. I am not quite as happy with this week’s installment as I was last week for the first one, but I had to free up more time to devote to this series, so hopefully, it will work out well.

I’m not completely sure where next weeks installment is going to start. Since I was so late getting home last night, I didn’t start the beef roast today, I’ll do that tomorrow. Also, tomorrow is supposed to start cloudy, but clear up in the afternoon, so I am thinking I’ll hike the local park near here tomorrow afternoon/evening, and see what I can come up with there. In the meantime, I have a couple of posts in the works that I need to finish, I’ll be posting them over the course of the next week or two.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

I’ll start simple, a fox squirrel ready for lunch.

Fox squirrel

Then a close-up view.

Fox squirrel

And, another fox squirrel ready for lunch, this one has broken off a twig from a maple tree, and is busy chowing down on the buds on the twig.

Fox squirrel eating maple buds

A better view.

Fox squirrel eating maple buds

I am so ready for spring and to see green again that I took this one.

First green of spring?

I know, very good photos, but hardly spectacular, well, those are about to come. A pair of mute swans getting ready for their afternoon nap!

Mute swans

I could tell it was nap time by the yawns.

Mute swan yawning

A little more preening to fluff up the feathers…

Mute swan preening

Then it was time for them to lay their heads down for their nap.

Mute swans napping

It took a few minutes, but first one..

Mute swans napping

..then both drifted off to dreamland.

Mute swans napping

That’s it for this one, thanks to all for stopping by!