Friday, March 26, 2010

Oh Deer! and the Bullies are Back


I had a very busy and productive morning. I started shooting images almost right after I got up this morning. First thing on the list was to warm up the car as it was really cold and frosty last night. Winter isn't going to completely disappear without going down without a fight. When I opened the car door I could see all these beautiful crystaline frost patterns all over the car. So I ran back inside,grabbed a macro lens and a tripod and just had fun finding interesting patterns all over the car.

My next job was playing taxi to take Annika to school. Did you know it takes an hour and twenty minutes to get ready in the morning when only an hour has been allotted to the task. You do the math and tell me if we were late in getting her to school on time. I truly love my daughter but it's a bit difficult to get her moving in the morning. On the return trip I passed a group of deer browsing on the side of the road. I have been wanting to get some behavioral images of deer feeding so it was now or never.

First though I had to tun the car around and get off that pesky macro lens from earlier in the day and put on a telephoto. Luckily the deer stayed put and I shot a series of them stripping the leaves off of the brush on the side of the road. That task complete I headed home to write a letter to our local board of county supervisors. They are planning as a cost saving measure to close our local library. As you can probably guess I'm one of the many local citizens against such a action. Just because we live in a rural area of the county it doesn't mean we can be bullied around.

Speaking of bullies after that I tried my hand at shooting some images of Bandtail Pigeons at my bird feeder again. Sitting in a blind watching the feeder is always an interesting experience. Whomever is bigger gets to use it. There is a progression that starts with the Juncos. They timidly approach it and then come in good numbers until the Stellars Jays come. The juncos are then pushed to the outskirts as the Jays come in groups of four and five and take over the feeder. They are like little gangs of thugs. After a long wait usually one lone Bandtail will swoop down, flutter a bit and then land with a thud on the feeder. The Jays will scatter and the Bandtail will warily begin feeding. After a few moments if nothing happens to the guinea pig pigeon the Bandtails come thundering down. They push and shove,screech and squabble. Sometimes they even land on top of one another. They somehow manage to squeeze ten or more pigeons onto one small platform feeder.

All at once in an explosion of noise that almost always gets my dogs to barking they all burst up into the air into the trees. I'm never quite sure what sets them off. Is it a passing hawk? A noise? I never usually know. Todays images of them aren't yet what I'm looking for. I need to move the perch for a better angle. I'll keep working on it.

God's light and love to all,

chris

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