So like I said at the end of the last post, there were a lot of animals out and about for this kind of weather. Of course, it's easier to see them when there's no brush or leaves in the way.
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| Bunny Bundles Up |
The first critter I saw was a bunny. So was the second and third. It was Bunny, ten steps, Bunny, ten steps, Bunny for a while. All of them hidden in this thicket of the remains of the tall grasses and flowers of the spring and summer.
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| Literal Crow's Feet |
I know crows freak a lot of people out, but I find them kind of cool. I love the texture of the feathers at his shoulder. Also there's something inherently interesting to me about a completely monochromatic animal, down to his eyes and feet.
And then he decided to head for the next tree and I got this cool shot of his wing. I also used this shot to be sure it was an American Crow and not a Raven - a Crow's tail is that seashell/scallop shape and a Raven's tail is triangular.
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| I Seed What You Did There |
There were some seriously pudgy squirrels out there today. A woman I was talking to said she was the one putting out the seeds. She wants to try to attract cardinals. Now, to be fair, I spent an hour and a half today hoping to get that iconic picture of a male cardinal in a snowy evergreen, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to start tossing down seed in a wild sanctuary. You could easily end up introducing a plant that doesn't go there when you do that. Not to mention you influence the way the wild animals behave and then what will they do when you don't come back with more?
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| M-Y Geese |
Then there were the geese. Again, there was a big crowd of them because there was someone out feeding them bread. But when the bread-man left there was just this big flock of geese on the lawn. There had to have been 75 - 100 of them easily. And at some point they all decided to leave. But not at once, like something scared them. About fifteen of them lined up, facing the lake then all at once they took off. Then fifteen or twenty more spread out in a line like the first set had and after a minute that group took off. They kept going in batches like that. Which, as a photographer was great. I was able to start predicting their behavior and I knew where to aim the camera. :)
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| The Second Heat Takes Off |
So here was the second set. I love that my camera caught them all with virtually no blur on any of them. It does, however, make it look like a slightly weird photoshop job where the birds were just pasted in haphazardly.
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| The 3rd Heat |
The shapes of the wings in this one are so very cool. There's the "M" guy in the extreme foreground, the "V" guy above him. There's the "U" guy on the left and the "Y" on the right. Too bad they couldn't spell anything. :)
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| Last Group Gets Off the Ground |
The guy in the middle of this shot looks like someone just lobbed a bird into my picture. Don't you wonder how anything that big, with that much mass gets off the ground without jet engines? I love the white "V"s on their tails and that you can see the "V" on all 5 geese in the shot.
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| I Know I Buried Food Here Somewhere |
There will be many, many squirrel pictures, later. But for now, one guy who must be looking for *something* he buried. He kept shoving his face in the snow and then coming up and looking... annoyed. :)
Okay, that's the first half of the shots I took today. More later.
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