Posts in Category: yard
Buddhist Red
Red Squirrel, The Yard, Kennebunk Maine
The Red Squirrel that lives in our backyard, and visits our deck frequently these days, is clearly a Buddhist monk. He has the pose and the posture down pat. He does not carry a begging bowl so he is evidently a cloistered monk (I think that might be a mixed metaphor, but I am not sure 🙂 A member of a monkestary? Clearly a sage presence.
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 140 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom. A feeder pole cropped out on the right.
Wet and Red
Red Squirrel, The Yard, Kennebunk ME
The Red Squirrel was back yesterday. He always seems to come on rainy, or at least overcast, days. He did figure out how to climb on to the feeder…not a good development as far as I am concerned. I could not grudge him the few seeds anyway, at least not yesterday, in the rain, when he looked so sad and miserable…ears flattened and beads of water in his fur. He may have been having some issues at other feeders too, since he was a lot less bold yesterday. He scampered off right quick when I opened the deck door. Or maybe he just knew that I feel differently about squirrels right on the feeder, than I do about squirrels on the deck. 🙂
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. (Again, I had to run for the P610, as the squirrel was too close for the P900.) 1/100th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Red Again
Red Squirrel. the yard in Kennebunk, ME
I can’t resist posting another Red Squirrel pic. (See yesterday’s Generous Eye post.) He was back on the deck yesterday for a half hour or so, entertaining us again. When I open the big glass sliding door out to the deck when there is a Gray Squirrel at the feeders, it scampers as fast as it can go…especially now that my war against feeder raiders is well known among the neighborhood squirrels. Often just looking out the door is enough to send the squirrel flying. The Red is completely different…sort of the chickadee among squirrels. It stops what it is doing to look at me, but then just goes on about its business. This shot was taken with the squirrel on the deck rail about 8 feet from the deck door. I had to open the door, and poke the camera out to take it, but the squirrel just sat there and looked at me while I got into shooting position. I took a dozen shots before he decided to go back to the feeders for one last snack before scampering off the deck and into the yard next door. Talk about bold!
Since the squirrel was well inside the minimum focus on the Nikon P900, I had to run to the bedroom for my P610. This uncropped image was taken at, as I say, about 8 feet…at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 280 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
A First! Red Squirrel in the yard. Happy Sunday!
Red Squirrel, the yard, Kennebunk ME
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
I don’t have a lot of patience with squirrels around my bird feeders. They can finish a block of peanut-butter suet in a morning, depriving the birds of the treat. I do what I can to discourage them. They have learned to keep away from the seed, but they simply can not resist peanut-butter suet blocks. 🙁 We have the common Grey Squirrels in our yard…cute when encountered in the forest…not so cute on our deck with the feeders.
There are Red Squirrels in our corner of southern Maine. I have seen them along the Kennebunk Bridle Path, and in a few spots on the grounds of the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms just south of us in Wells. This summer they were pretty regular…I saw them on at least three separate visits…along the boardwalk through the Maple Swamp there. Even so, compared to the abundant (especially so this year) Grey Squirrels, they are pretty rare. I have never seen one in your yard…until yesterday that is. I came back from a trip to the store to find one gathering left-over seeds from the deck and the rails under the feeders.
I can’t speak for other folks, but I find the Red Squirrel much more attractive than the Grey. They are a size smaller, with little round heads and perky ears, and delicate shock of tail when compared to the dense brush of the Grey. And they seem to have more personality…or squirrelality…or however it needs to be said. They are fearless, curious, and somehow engaging. The Red Squirrel on the deck, even when I got my Nikon P900 and went around outside for some pics, went boldly about his business…but he kept running out to the end of the deck rail nearest me to sit and watch me as he ate his latest seed find. Even when he went for the seed feeders, he did on glom on like a Grey, wrapping the feeder in a squirrel coat and stuffing as many seeds in his cheek as is squirrelly possible…no, he made a lighting, leaping, raid…only touching the feeder long enough to grab a single seed. Just like most birds. And then, again, he would run out to sit up above me on the rail and nibble it until it was gone. After, he would sit, Buddha like on his behind, back feet tucked under, upright, with his front paws just touching above his belly, and contemplate me for a few moments before scampering off in search of another seed.
When he left the deck he did the same thing in the branches of the young maples that edge our yard. Instead of running away, he worked his way out on the branches until he was practically right above me, and sat and enjoyed a few seeds from his cheek pouch…spitting each one out and maneuvering it with his clever paws, so like hands, as he again nibbled it away. We had a good time there, for 20 minutes or so, he posing, and me taking pics…until he scampered away into the neighbor’s yard. (He came back an hour later and repeated the performance for my wife, two daughters, and a partner who had joined us for a Saturday lunch…providing another fifteen minuets of entertainment after the meal.)
I have read that Red Squirrels are actually more of a problem for humans than Greys. Perhaps because of their boldness, they are more likely to damage buildings and ornamental plants than Greys. Some college campuses have imported the Black variant of the Grey Squirrel (a slightly more aggressive variety) specifically to cut down the number of Reds. On the other hand, in the UK, where the invasive Grey Squirrel has lead to a drastic decline in Red Squirrel numbers, there is an active “save the Red Squirrel” campaign pretty much nation wide. Here in Maine, at least for me, a Red Squirrel is still a special treat.
Or, since it is Sunday, a blessing. The Red Squirrel visit filled me with joy…and delighted the family at lunch. Delighted! Filled us with light…or at least topped up our light supply. It was an “all creatures great and small” moment, when we felt generous toward all that lives. And I am still feeling generous this morning. So generous I think I will put out another block of peanut-butter suet for the Grays! God’s creatures, after all. And for that they can thank the Red Squirrel.
Happy Sunday!
Squirrely!
Grey Squirrel, The Yard. Kennebunk ME
We have more squirrels in our yard this year than I can ever remember seeing. They are after the acorns, of which we also have more than I can ever remember seeing…and of course they are after my birdseed and suet blocks. I have to admit, squirrels are cute…when they are not on my feeders. This one popped up while I was testing my newly repaired Nikon P900 and I could not resist.
As I mentioned yesterday, I am in Texas at the moment, and hopefully tomorrow will have some butterflies or birds to show. But for now, you are stuck with this squirrel 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/100th @ ISO 800 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Hairy Autumn
Hairy Woodpecker, The Yard, Kennebunk ME
I am on my way to Cape May New Jersey today for the Cape May Autumn Bird Festival, so this is an early post. I tend to avoid feeder shots, but sometimes I just can not resist. This Hairy Woodpecker posed on the feeder pole against the afternoon light on the Maple leaves just once too often, and I had to do it. 🙂
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/200th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom.
First Day Lilies
Day Lily, The Yard, Kennebunk ME
It is one of the mysteries of our life here on Brown Street in Kennebunk is that our Day Lilies bloom a good two weeks after Day Lilies both up and down the street from us. We might live in a tidal trough…just slightly depressed enough so that the tide blows and draws the breath of our cold sea, two miles downriver, right through our yard. And it might be the shade of our big maples and oaks, that make our yard, our whole neighborhood, look like unbroken forest from the air (easily verified with Google Earth). And it might be when they were planted, or the particular variety, or something in our soil, or…
Whatever it is, I have to wait patiently to photograph my own lilies weeks after they have appeared even 10 houses away. Sigh. 🙂
But when they do bloom, one whole side of the yard are double blooms. Instead of a single, simple, swirl of petals around the anthers, there are two…the outer fairly normal, and the inner smaller and more ornate. Again…who knows why? Close in like this, it looks almost like an abstract of itself.
Sony HX90V macro at about 35mm equivalent field of view. 1/160th @ ISO 80 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Chipping Sparrow Chicks
Chipping Sparrow chicks, Kennebunk ME
We had had a nest of Chipping Sparrows in our Honeysuckle bush in the front yard, right at eye-level but buried deep in foliage, right next to the driveway where there is a lot of foot traffic (my wife teaches piano and her students and their families are coming and going all day long, every day). I had little hope for a successful fledging…but they made it. At least four chicks moved off the nest yesterday. For a while it was just an adult on eggs peeping up over the edge of the neatly woven nest, and then you could see a few dark grey heads with bright yellow gapes if you stood on your tiptoes, and then they took on more of a sparrow look, and now they are gone…probably sheltering on a branch somewhere near and still being tended by the adults. This shot, though it might look invasive, was taken from outside the bush with about a 170mm equivalent telephoto. I was careful when checking the nest, not to get close enough to alert predators, and I only checked the nest about once a week…and I certainly did not move branches for a better view. The Chipping Sparrow buried the nest deep in the bush for a reason. Considering the placement of the bush, I was really happy to see them succeed. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 170mm equivalent field of view. 1/80th @ ISO 100 @ f4.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Fluffed Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
We may still have 3 feet of snow in the yard, but the Goldfinches are coming into summer color, so spring must be creeping up on Southern Maine. This Goldfinch was at the feeder, and then popped up to a branch overhead. It is “fluffed” or “puffed”…with its breast feathers standing out from the body. Birds fluff for several reasons. On particularly cold mornings you will see them perched and fluffed before the sun comes up or just after. The additional air trapped in the fluffed feathers acts as insulation to keep them warm through the night. They might also fluff in the first sun of the day…sitting directly in sun…in which case the spread features allow the sun to get in closer to their bodes and warm them faster. Occasionally on a particularly hot day they might fluff for exactly the opposite reasons. Finally, they fluff to allow the sun in were it can kill feather mites when they reach troublesome levels, as they might after a long cold Maine winter. It was not particularly cold when this images was taken, so I suspect the mite cause for this bird.
The image was cropped slightly for composition, but it shows the incredible detail possible at 2000mm equivalent field of view with the new Nikon P900 superzoom bridge camera…at least in good light. You should view it a full screen. 1/500th @ ISO 220 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise (it did not really need it, but Topaz is a new toy today) and Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Valentine’s Day in Maine
Carol (my Valentine) in the sidewalk snow canyon
We are bracing ourselves, here in Southern Maine, for what they are already calling the Valentine’s Day Blizzard. 18 inches of fresh snow, winds to 50 mph, and temperatures in the single digits (it is -12 as I write this). And this on top of the 60 inches or more of snow, drifted often to much higher, that we already have on the ground. The piles of snow in the parking lots are reaching three stores high. The industrial grade snowblower tractor that makes canyons out of sidewalks finally made it through the snow plies from the drives along our street yesterday, and Carol came out to pose in the gap for scale. Okay, so Carol is not very tall, but it makes the point.
And, since Carol is my Valentine, it makes a perfect pic for today. 🙂
Sony WX220. Intelligent Auto. 25mm equivalent field of view. ISO 100 @ f3.3 @ 1/500th. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.