Mushroom Clippings

Last Wednesday we were all minding our own business inside the house when we heard a loud thump. We ran to the front door, only to find a very unfortunate female mourning dove gasping. She had flown into the large pane of glass int he front door and broken her neck. She had a brood patch so she probably had a nest with eggs somewhere. We all felt bad, and we buried her after I took some pictures of her feathers.

The rest of my non-bird photos from a trip to Mt. Auburn Cemetery on May ninth.

Sometimes you have to look up.

Lilac.

Reflection of a monument.



There was a light drizzle.

I really like this one.

On Saturday I went on a photography field trip to Mount Auburn Cemetery for the first time. These are my measly excuses for nature bird photography.

Yellow Rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata)

Curious American Robin (Turdus migratorious)

My first ever sighting of an Ovenbird!  (Seiurus aurocapillus)

First picture of the beautiful Magnolia Warbler (Dendroica magnolia) one of my favorites.

Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula)


Our bird list for the entire day was the following:
Black Capped Chickadee
Great Crested Flycatcher
White Throated Sparrow
House Sparrow
Tufted Titmouse
Mallard
Eastern Phoebe
Great Horned Owl
Screech Owl
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Common Grackle
Canada Goose
Red-winged Blackbird
Chipping sparrow
American Robin
Cardinal
American Crow
Red-taileded Hawk
Baltimore Oriole
Grey Catbird
Mourning Dove
Eastern Kingbird
Cooper's Hawk
House Wren
Ovenbird
Hermit Thrush 

Photoshop.. My eye.. result.

Today while volunteering on an Open Space property in town I discovered a killdeer's nest with four eggs.

The bird was upset and screaming at me the whole time I took there- of course I was only about three feet away at the time

This afternoon I'd been exploring some options in my image editing software and came across a feature to limit the number of colors in an image to black pixels and white.

On Saturday morning I travelled by car with a good friend of mine down to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for a two night stay at another friend's house. We arrived at the Meeting House Theater, where my friend had directed a fantastic production of Othello. The next day we walked around Philly for hours, buying food and regretting buying coffee. I took all of these travel snapshots from the car.

The George Washington Bridge at twilight

City of Newark, NJ- the most foul city

This picture was taken in broad daylight. The cloud cover opened for a minute and it looked like the sky had been ripped open. I did quite a bit of darkening to enhance the drama.

Today as I was cutting up some strawberries, I marveled at the extraordinary pattern in the cross-section. I set some up on a small square of tin foil. I used window light and some CD cases as miniature reflectors.






I moved the camera downwards toward the bowl over a 1/3 exposure.. I thought it was cool...

Yesterday morning my Mom woke me up to let me know that two deer were resting peacefully on the top of the hill in our backyard. They were clearly visible from all the windows on the south-facing side of the house, so I got out of bed, threw some clothes on and got my photography kaboodle out. The dear were quite alert- they could see us moving inside the house, but they stuck around. While taking pictures from my Mom's bedroom window, I spotted a third deer in the vicinity of Linus's abandoned treehouse. Soon I grew tired of photographing them, as they were just sitting around. We ate our breakfast watching them, and soon after that all three rose and sauntered off. It was great to see them- normally we wake up and find lots of deer tracks running across our backyard, and we see the large sleeping depressions in the snow, but it is rare that we see them, and for such a long time, too!

Unfortunately for this picture, the house behind ours is quite a bit too visible.



This deer was behind a bit of a snowbank, so it looks like its buried. And by the way, that's an icicle of drool hanging from its mouth.

Thanks to all for their support- After much stressing, pulling out of hair, and twisting my body into tortured positions it was not meant to be in, in agony of the elimination of one of the four photos in my previous photos, I made my choice and it was decided that the flower image was the weakest link. The remaining three were made into prints and entered in my town's annual competition, and I was lucky enough to snag first place prize for the picture of me in the red hat. Huzzah!