A Fun Opportunity and a Great Cause

      It is great to be able to shoot large birds of prey...any kind of owl, hawk or falcon.  There are a number of places that take in injured birds and animals and release them into the wild when they are back to health.  There are some that, due to their injuries, can no longer survive in the wild on their own.  Nature centers will take care of these creatures for the rest of their live span.  They will feed them and care for them and use them to educate children about wildlife.  One of the nature centers near me is Stillman Nature Center.  They have a number of raptors in their care.  It takes money to run the center and so one way they have devised to help raise funds is to have a nature photography photo day.  They will set up the birds in natural settings as trees and let nature photographers, like myself, come in and photograph them for a short time for a fee.  The birds all have tethers on their legs to protect them and us.  Some of them are hidden by tree branches and snow.  On two of the birds I did Photoshop the tethers out...just because.  It was a fun time to be able to see these birds up close, to learn about them from the nature center volunteers, to get some nice pictures and a worthy cause.

Do The Flamingo

On our Chicago night photo shoot with Chris Smith and Out of Chicago we stopped at the famous Flamingo sculpture by Alexander Calder.  We were there about sunset and watched the lighting in the sky change and the lights come on in the city.  We stayed to photograph in the different light and from different angles.  This is a good idea wherever you are shooting.  Here are the results.

 

 

Chicago at Night

I took a night photography workshop in Chicago with Chris Smith and Out of Chicago this past weekend.  It was fun looking at things in a different light.  Here are a couple of my favorites.

 

All you need is love and a dog

Every once in a while I get a fun offer from Shutterfly.  This time it was for a free mousepad.  I couldn't resist because the design they showed was with a dog "All you need is love and a dog."  It was easy.  I just uploaded a few pictures of our dog, Sebastian.  Then I dropped them into the three spots provided and added his name in the heart.  It was done and I clicked to order.  I like to do little creative stuff like this when a cute template is already provided.

Weather- Good or Bad

Sometimes when you think the weather might be bad, it is really good.  So it happened on a trip to Chicago Botanic Gardens.  It was predicted to rain and it looked like it could at any minute, but it was very calm out.  What I got was fog.  I really liked it as a black and white.

 

The gardens have many interesting little corners to photograph.  The fog gave a nice diffuse lighting for scenics and flower close-ups instead of a harsh look if it had been sunny.

 

 

 

 

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!