Rend Lake is a man-made lake/reservoir about a half hour from where we live. On occasion, when Melisa has something going on nearby, I take the opportunity to drive around the lake and hit most of the boat ramps and day-use areas. Sometimes, I take photos.
OK, so those weren’t the first photos I snapped. This Eastern Box Turtle takes the honors.
This is probably not the first hummingbird that stopped at my feeders (I have five out) since hummingbirds are well into Canada by now. However, it’s the first I’ve seen this year. It’s a crappy photo because I was shooting through glass and a screen using my S23, and while I could have played with the focus, I wasn’t sure how long the guy would sit there.
Mainly, it’s just to validate my having my feeders out for the past week. Also, it inspired me to run a few Dream AI by Wombo prompts . . .
A quick video shot through the laundry door’s and screen door windows with the S23 Ultra at 10X […]
Just a quick . . . er . . . semi-quick post about the communal bathing habits of House Sparrows. It all started in September, when House sparrows became regular visitors to the birdfeeders. They usually come in small flocks of about ten or so, but occasionally more.
They got into the habit of doing vigorous bathing, usually with multiple birds in the birdbath at the same time. Wait, let me back up a bit . . .
It’s been a while, so if anyone needs a refresher, Parts 1 and 2 are HERE and HERE. BUT . . . since it’s a rare reader indeed who follows links, a quick recap:
This post, then, is about September 18th, 2022. Them who read the previous posts know today’s travels start at the Ojibway Hotel in Sault St. Marie (The Soo). It would end nearly 300 miles later in Traverse City, MI. We’d originally planned a stopover at Tahquamenon Falls, but based on the accelerated schedule, we decided to skip Michigan’s largest falls (upper and lower) and its tannins-tainted waters.
For some reason, some of the photos are loading slowly, and I don’t know if that’s WP or SmugMug’s fault, but if I mention something and you don’t see it, try refreshing the screen. Like, for instance, the following map.
That’s the route, and what follows are the photos . . .
Kind of busy today, but took the time to relax and play with a few photos from THIS post.
I keep forgetting to play with Plot-A-Verse (Plot-A-Graph is the option I use within Plot-A-Verse), but I occasionally remember . . . and then I look for photographs suited to the effect.
Here are three . . . I don’t know how they will play because I’m linking them from SmugMug . . . and these files are large (~12MB). The first is of one of the pelicans (remember, you might have to give it a few seconds or longer for it to load) . . .
Here are two more . . .
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Let me explain . . . on Monday, Labor Day here in the US, I started the day by sitting outside and photographing hummingbirds. Mind you, there were lots of other birds around, but I concentrated on the hummingbirds. Then, throughout the morning, I shot more photos.
For the record, 170 photos were snapped, of which I kept 123. The SmugMug gallery (HERE) has 75 of those 123.
How many am I going to show here? Don’t know yet, but not that many.
These photos are all cropped from the originals. Even after cropping, the photos are about 2400 pixels per side, and I’m linking photos about half that size (meaning, SmugMug offers larger versions, as will the slideshow at the end).
A quick reminder to vote for your favorite Round 6 story (if you’ve read them). The poll and links to the stories are in THIS post.
We’ve had an uptick in votes as the various factions (… two factions …) weighed in for their favorites. There are about ten days left to the deadline, and them days will go by quick (there’s a holiday in there), so if you are interested in reading the stories (and voting), I suggest proactiveness.
Today, I share a few more recently recorded videos. Again, these videos were shot with the D7500. They were shot in 4K, but I downsampled them 10 1080p for publication. The file size differential makes the choice easy . . . unless I happen to have an amazing video. These are fine as presented.
First up, the action at one of the feeders. You can see another in the background, but this is zoomed in to just one feeder of the 13 I have spread around the house. The original recording is almost five minutes, but I pared it down to a bit over 3 minutes.
We had tentatively scheduled posting the Round 6 stories (It’s A Wonderful Life) today, but that’s now likely for tomorrow evening or Monday morning. One writer is traveling, another is not ready . . . and, in a first, I’m actually done ahead of time.
I can say with confidence that very few people will like my story (even fewer than usual, if that’s even possible) . . . but you’ll have to wait until I publish it to judge for yourself.
Instead, today, I share a few recently recorded videos. Normally, I use the P900 for video recording because it’s a little easier, but these videos were shot with the D7500. They were shot in 4K, but I downsampled them for publication. I mean, if they were amazing, I probably would have posted them at 4K, but these are just casual captures.
Per the title, I’m sharing a few videos I’ve shot. I have a number of videos, but I seldom share them. In part, because they usually need editing, but also because it’s a bit of a pain to upload them.
But, when I do, I do.
So, this year (2022, for future visitors), the hummers started swarming the feeders a bit early. By mid-July, I had to add a few feeders, and now, early August, I have 13 feeders up and have gone through about twenty pounds of sugar.
The hummingbirds seem to feed in waves, but they are especially active when it’s raining (which hasn’t been all that often here in Southern Illinois).
I’ve added music to most videos, but you can lower it or mute it by clicking on the blue bars on the lower right corner (smaller bar, lower volume). Part of the reason for the music is that those feeders are near the A/C unit, and when it kicks on, it’s pretty noisy.
I’m about 20-25 feet away, but the microphone on the P900 still picks up the sound. Also, whenever it rains, the sound from the highway — about a third of a mile from the house — is louder, and the way the patio is positioned acts like an amphitheater for picking up sound.
Anyway, on with more videos . . .
. . . because I like the calming music . . . but now, I’m especially saddened by […]
For them not interested in reading, you can see the photos in THIS<<link SmugMug Gallery.
For a SmugMug slideshow, click HERE<<link. When you click the link, it will open in a new window, and you have two options:
1) Manually scroll through the photos by clicking the “<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos.
2) There’s a PLAY/PAUSE button at the top-left of the screen with the transition set at about 5 seconds. Note: clicking the PLAY arrow will run a full-screen slideshow. You can then still use the”<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos (this will pause the slideshow).
If you want the full experience, keep reading.
When I composed the last post, I forgot to include some of the artsified versions of the grizzly and her cubs.
And, I figure I would remind readers to visit THIS<<link post and leave their suggestion for a title.
For them not interested in reading, you can see the photos in THIS<<link SmugMug Gallery.
For a SmugMug slideshow, click HERE<<link. When you click the link, it will open in a new window, and you have two options:
1) Manually scroll through the photos by clicking the “<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos.
2) There’s a PLAY/PAUSE button at the top-left of the screen with the transition set at about 5 seconds. Note: clicking the PLAY arrow will run a full-screen slideshow. You can then still use the”<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos (this will pause the slideshow).
If you want the full experience, keep reading.
In June of 2015, we took a drive to Yellowstone, our favorite National Park. Late one evening, in poor lighting, we were lucky to watch a grizzly and her cubs foraging for food.
I first mentioned the encounter in THIS post, and at the time I said it was late, the lighting was bad, and I had to shoot at a high ISO (2500 and above). Meaning, the photos were grainy, soft, and of low quality. The photo I shared in that post was one I tweaked and worked on to “make better” and still wasn’t very good.
This post documents our September 16, 2017, arrival and sojourn in Vancouver, British Columbia. It’s also the continuation of my documentation of our 2017 Alaska Cruise which began in November 2017. The documentation began in November of 2017; the cruise itself was in September 2017. With any luck, I’ll wrap this up this year.
Anyway, current and previous posts relating to this cruise are HERE(link).
There’s a gallery at the end of this post and a SmugMug gallery HERE(link) for photos from this day. Photos in SmugMug can be viewed full-size. The SmugMug Folder Containing all of the Alaska 2017 galleries is HERE(link).
You can click on the photos in the body of this post to see a larger-but-less-than-full-size-version. I’m breaking up photos into multiple posts in an effort to keep them manageable. Meaning, composing long posts in the Block Editor (ptui!) is still an exercise in frustration.
On December 11, 2021, I shot this image of the moon with the Nikon P900. I cropped the sides a bit, and output the image with a maximum dimension of 1200 pixels (for the purpose of what I’m posting, there’s no advantage in viewing the original size).
Yes, the sky was blue because I shot this a little after 4:00 pm, when it was still light. Let me show you two versions, one post-processed with Topaz DeNoise AI, the other with Topaz Sharpen AI, and then both processed using Lightroom to turn them into Monochrome images.
Disperser Tracks 