Hummingbirds

Fantastic Females

For them not interested in reading, you can see the photos in THIS<<link SmugMug Gallery.  

I have a feeling traffic will be heavy for this post . . . and that — having come here with different expectations — most will quickly leave.

That’s right . . . this post is about female birds. Wait, let me be clearer; non-human birds.

Click for larger view
Click for larger view

So, Project FeederWatch<<link — by The Cornell Lab of Ornithology — has been running weekly contests (and I’ve missed a number of weeks). This week, it’s “Fantastic Females; Celebrating the muted tones of female birds”. Anyone wanting to see the current submissions can click this LINK.

Now, I’m always reluctant to enter contests (although I’ve entered a few<<link — warning: there are nine pages of posts), and I’ll tell you why.

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An update on the “N” stories and other stuff

Perry and Gary have sent me their “N” stories . . . and I’m close to getting an idea for a story. Yes, I’m late again. If I get hit by a flash of inspiration and a case of fast-finger-typing, there’s a small chance I might be able to put something up later . . . 

. . .but — realistically — I’m more likely to have something by tomorrow. Still, I want to post something . . .

Remember that guy? He appeared in THIS<<link post.

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A few minutes in the back yard

For them not interested in reading, you can go directly to the SmugMug Gallery HERE.  

For a SmugMug slideshow click HERE. 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 bottom-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 as this will pause the slideshow.

In this case, either option gives you the same experience but one has larger photos.

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A litle of this and a little of that

On a recent update, Samsung added the capability for Super-slow Motion to the Note 8. Mind you, it’s very limited. By limited, I mean that you can only shoot a few seconds of video and end up with about 6 seconds of slow motion captures.

The problem is that you have to catch whatever you want to film just right . . .

I’m about 18-24 inches away from these guys, for them who want to know.

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The better hummingbird

The main reason for yesterday’s post was to showcase the processing of a hummingbird using Topaz’s Impression and Glow Plugins. Sure, I added words in there. That’s because my readers are split into two camps. Some just come for the words and some just come for the photos. I think there are three who come for both, and one of the three might be me. 

Unfortunately, I picked a mediocre photo to play with. This time, I picked a better photo . . . 

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I also took better care in processing it, actually playing with the settings by throwing switches hither and fro and pushing sliders left and right.  

Now, I need to also up my game with the words I write. Not that I would know how to up my writing game. An amateur wordsmith, I be, and not even native born.

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Some stuff, some other stuff, and odd stuff

Writing a generic post begins by choosing a photo. In this case, a hummingbird photo. This hummingbird photo . . .

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As I work with the photo, I’m quasi-simultaneously thinking about what I might write. I finish my first iteration . . .

002-1661_rt_at_feeder-processed_digi

. . . and my mind is occupied with politics, religion, guns, food, writing, weather, people, socio-economic issues, and bemoaning the poor performance of electric stoves vis-à-vis the much better and more practical gas counterparts. 

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