Fledgling Purple Finch
Purple Finch, Kennebunk, Maine, USA — I have featured this young male Purple Finch before in a more active pose, but he deserves a portrait shot. 🙂 Such a subtle beauty. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Woodchuck
There is a poem that goes with this:
6/24
My wife surprised a woodchuck standing
by our steps out front (a first for our yard
in our 25 years here) ...or he surprised her...
big and grizzled over brown, with those
ever-growing buck teeth hanging out. He
scampered under our front steps. Then
when she went back out to try to find
him, he was standing on the bottom step
of our back stairs, bold as nobody’s
business. By the time I got the camera
and snuck around the house, he was
standing right there at the corner and
disappeared back around. I crept to see
if he had stayed, and there he was, standing
by the porch, surveying the yard as though
it were his domaine. Makes us wonder if
it is he who has been eating the marigolds,
and what else he might take a fancy to
as the garden grows. We are not running
a woodchuck restaurant here. It is not that
he is not welcome, but I am not sure how
good a neighbor he intends to be. I don’t
envision a big hole in front garden being
a welcome addition to the yard. Time
might tell. Of course he might have just
been passing through (unaware that the
governor has mandated a fourteen
day quarantine for tourists in this time
of coronavirus). Whatever. I think it is
okay to be be concerned when Wood-
chucks show up in the neighborhood,
and not for the marigolds alone.
Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Chipper at the fountain
The water feature I put in for my backyard photo blind has been a mixed success. I would have to keep it running all the time I think, for the birds and other critters to get used to it and figure it out more than they have. The Chipmunks were actually the first to learn to use it, and this youngster is supremely confident now. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Froggy went a courting…
American Bull Frogs, Kennebunk, Maine, USA — The drainage pond at our local hospital health center is full of huge Bull Frogs, among the biggest I have ever seen, and certainly the biggest collection of big frogs that I have come across. Here we have both a male and a female. For some reason I see far fewer females than males…or perhaps it is just that I am noticing the difference more often. 🙂 I would not make a good Bull Frog. 🙁 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Beach Rose Pond
This little pond is right on Route 9 between Brown Street and the Kennebunk/Wells town line. The beauty of this view stopped me on my eBike as I rode by yesterday. Sony Rx10iv at 24mm equivalent. HDR mode. I used Program Shift to select a small aperture for increased depth of field and selective focus on the roses. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Proud and not purple yet…
Immature Purple Finch, Kennebunk, Maine, USA — This has to be one of this year’s fledglings. It shows just a hint of color in the plumage. By next spring it will be more pronounced, and by summer this will be a full purple male. Or that is my theory at least. He was really enjoying the buffet of aphids on the bittersweet vine. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Proud and Purple!
Purple Finch, Kennebunk, Maine, USA — This is most likely the first-year male that was just coming into its purple this spring. The other male we have coming to our feeders is even more intensely colored. He enjoyed a long drink from my stacked buckets water feature. I used the chair blind again. What a great invention. I sat it just into the edge of the shade of one of our big maples and had a very pleasant hour close to the birds. Then just packed it away into the shed. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Delta-spotted Spiketail
There is a poem that goes with this:
6/18
Stalking one of the (admittedly,
kind of ugly) drainage ponds
on the grounds of one of the
senior citizen condo complexes
(very upscale) between here
and Wells behind Route 1,
I was hit hard enough to stop
me in my tracks with one of
those “whoo, what is that!”
moments. You know them if
you are into any kind of nature
study...I get them still once in
a while, in birding, and I am
new enough to the whole dragon
and damselfly thing so they can
still happen on any outing. This
was a dark dragon, relatively
large, with bright yellow spots
and big jade green eyes, something
I certainly had never seen before.
“Whoo, what is that!”
Those moment are certainly
part of what keeps me birding
and a big part of what has me
hooked on dragons and damsels.
“Whoo, what is that?”
And then you have the fun of
finding out...digging out the
books and apps and coloring in
the background, fitting the critter
into the complex framework of
what we know about dragonflies
and damsels and life in general.
(This was a Delta-spotted Spiketail.)
That too is part of what keeps
me watching and photographing
nature. Always something new
to see and learn. How great is that?
Says it all. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Juvenile Bluebird visit
Juvenile Eastern Bluebird, Kennebunk, Maine, USA — I took down my photo blind last week when I mowed the lawn. It has given me much joy this spring, but it already killed one patch of lawn and was going on its second. There had to be a better solution so I researched and ordered a “chair” blind. It came yesterday and I had to try it out. It is just a standard double camp chair. You sit down in the chair and pull the blind up from behind you and down over the front. The fabric is supported by spring steal bands and it is quite roomy. It has lots of viewing options…two small windows on each side, and your choice of opening the whole top of the front, or just a round window about about 14 inches across. The advantage, for me, is that when I am done for the day, I can just fold it up and put it in my shed…and then just as easily take it out and set it up the next time I want to use it. In theory it should be much easier on the grass since I can set it down in a slightly different spot each time I use it. We will see. The birds are still coming to the feeder station I established for the blind, though it is much harder to photograph them with the undergrowth of vines and bushes in full leaf under the big pines. Yesterday, on my first trial of the new blind, I had a visit from our juvenile Eastern Bluebird, which I have only occasionally seen in the week since I took my original blind down. It is getting very independent…hunting and taking insects on its own, and not waiting around for dad to feed it. In fact, dad must be busy providing for mom, who is, most likely, on her second brood of the season. I have not seen her in over a week, though the male is stilling coming for meal worms many times a day. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Stream Cruiser
Stream Cruiser, Cold Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Kennebunk, Maine, USA — I am thinking the north side of the Kennebunk Plains is still under State management, as the signs have not been replaced, but the big yellow gates are up there too, limiting access to Cold Brook Pond at the back of the plains as it slopes off to the Mousam River. I did make out there on my last odes trip to the plains, and found many Stream Cruisers patrolling the path as though were a stream. Males this time, and perhaps a few females that did not perch for me. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. I noticed something I had never seen before. The club on the end of the abdomen was “breathing”, visibly swelling and contracting in a regular rhythm. ??