The Story of the Robins

      One day my brother heard a knocking at the door.  He went to check who was there and there was no one.  He went back to what he was doing and heard the knocking again.  Going back to check, he still found nothing.  The sound came once more and this time he realized it wasn't at the door but at the living room window.  When he went to check, he saw a bird fly away.  So that was the culprit.  Each time he left the window, the knocking would return.  He would try to scare the bird off, but it would fly into the bushes and return to its tapping when he left the window.  How was he going to stop that incessant noise?  He decided to put a scarecrow in the window.

     That seemed to do the trick.  A while later, whenever he would walk outside via the garage door, he was dive bombed by a couple of birds.  What was going on?  He soon found out that there was a nest with little blue eggs on the engine of the tractor in the back yard.  It was a perfect spot, protected from the wind and the rain by the tractor hood. 

 

A few weeks later the eggs hatched.  My brother told me about the nest and I was able to take pictures of the four little ones.

 

 

I also decided I needed to take a picture of the tractor to remember the event.  It wasn't until after I looked at the pictures at home, that I realized I had captured one of the parents on the top of the back hoe with a worm in its mouth.  Now that's a story.

 

You Don't Always Get What You Wish For

        My brother had told me there were coyote pups out in the back of my parents property.  He saw their eyes in his headlights when he drove in the driveway one night.  They were under the tree in the back yard.  He said he could hear the parents howling at the train when it whistled as it went by.  The pups gave out little barks.  My mom use to get upset because they would sit on the back stoop which is under the bedroom window and howl in the middle of the night.

            My brother said they came out at sunset, so I was hoping to catch them.  I went out just before sunset and set myself up in a corner of the house with my telephoto lens and a tripod.  As it was getting darker, I saw something move in the tall grass in the back.  Wow!  It was huge!  I kept my eyes glued on the animal as it came closer.....oh, it's a deer.  The deer looked in my direction and came just so close and turned around and went back out.  I continued to sit and waited until it got dark.  Nothing.  I knew I couldn't get any pictures in the dark, so I went home.    

          I went out the next morning on a hunt.  My brother said he could hear them close by and thought they might have a den in the back of the property where there are a bunch of trees and brush. I carefully and slowly scouted around.  I saw the one trail the deer had taken and some deer prints.  Otherwise no other trails and no other footprints.  I went home disappointed.  As the saying goes "You don't always get what you wish for."
            The day went on and as we were coming home from lunch, I spotted something in a neighbors yard.  Here it is, my wildlife pic of the day.  Happy Memorial Day!

Spring is Finally Here

Spring is finally here.  That means little ones are arriving.  This year I went out to one of the ponds I usually find goslings and ducklings and I was not disappointed. There were 3 geese families, one even having 11 goslings.

And there was one duck family with 10 ducklings. 



 

I was early this year, as I even found nests with eggs in.  Most of the nests at this park are rather flat and right out in the open.  I was surprised to learn that the geese don't sit on the eggs all the time.  However, they stay rather close and keep a watchful eye.

I have gone back to check on the goslings and ducklings every few days.  The 3 geese families are intact, however the ducklings don't seem to fair so well.  Just one day later there were only 5 left of the 10 and today there are only 4.   It is probably because there are more geese in the park and they are larger and more fearsome acting when you get close.  The ducks are smaller and their little ones are so little and seem so fragile.



One Picture Can Say It All

One picture can tell the whole story.  Like when my niece, Lynne, surprised all the ladies at our Tuesday lunch group this week (before Mother's Day) by giving us free ice cream and some beautiful roses.

 

The problem is that the picture didn't start out like this.  It was like the picture below where it is hard to see the people in the picture, we are just too dark.  I knew this would be a problem because of all the windows in the background.  The camera was fooled by the outside brightness and underexposed us.  I could have used my HDR app on my phone, but my husband was taking the pictures.  If I had to set up the two boxes to expose correctly for the brighter windows and the other for us, then run around and get in the picture, then have him hand me the camera after each shot so I could adjust the HDR and contrast and color and save it, no one would sit still for that.  So I just decided to have him take the shots and  throw the best one in Photoshop Elements afterwards. 

      At home, once I found the best shot with the best expressions on each face, I made a selection of just us ladies.  I opened the levels and brightened the mid tones.  Then I sharpened this selection.  I then reversed the selection and darkened the mid tones to tone down the background and foreground a bit and I did not sharpen.  I then cropped the picture to cut out the uninteresting ceiling and have the picture just concentrate on the main subject, us.  Now you can see us better.  Happy Mother's Day!