Delilah And A New Camera

It's been a little while since my last post. I'm sure you've noticed. Like I said in my last post, it's because I've had nothing to post about. I wasn't going out because of the flooding and because of my dog's behavior. I'm going to try to change some of these problems now though.

But for now, let's talk about what's been happening since my last post.

I've been trying out a different camera than my usual one. My current camera is getting kind of old, even though there's still a lot of life left in it. It's a top of the line point and shoot camera. It looks like a DSLR but it's still just a point and shoot so it has some limitations.

Now I have a new DSLR I'm trying out for business. I won't use it for my personal photography. But after using this new one for a couple of weeks now, I'm seeing a huge difference in photo quality and ease in some cases.

The pictures on the DSLR seem so much smoother than with my point and shoot. And the manual settings are so much easier to work with. I can adjust so many things that I couldn't dream of before. I sometimes want to get a white background with some things, but that's unthinkable with my camera. The business camera can get it easily.

I'm not sure whether I'll get something like this for personal use yet, but it's a thought. One thing a point and shoot like mine is good for though is that I don't have to ever change lenses. That makes nature photography easy. So we'll see what happens.

Let's change the subject a little bit (a lot).

I took Delilah to the vet to get her nails clipped. She took the vet visit well, as usual. It's the rides that she hates. She was actually eager to go. She jumped up into the back of my Jeep and into her cage all by herself. She was very excited.

The big thing is that she didn't use the Jeep as a toilet, not even a little. I said before that I'd have to wait a while to take her on trips because of this little problem, but now maybe it is solved. So I'm going to take her on a trip to a nature park very soon to check her progress. Let's hope she is better.

Here's something good Delilah is doing at home. I have taught her to pick up any object that's not too heavy and bring it to me. I've been telling everyone that she can now help me keep the house clean because of this. She's a smart dog.

She's now much bigger than she was the last time you saw her. She's not the biggest dog in the world, but she's standard German Shepherd size, maybe a little skinnier. She may fill out later, but I'm not sure she'll be as widely built as a normal German Shepherd. We'll see. She's still only about 7 months old.

So we come to the end of my long update. Next time I'll have a little story about Delilah and a toad, with some toady pictures. I'll talk to you later.

Trying Out HDR Photos

I decided to try out the HDR setting on my camera the other day. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. What this setting does is take a few pictures with different exposures and then combines them for a picture with extra detail.

When this is done right your pictures can seem to pop right out of the screen. I'm not really sure I did it right. Actually with my camera you can't do it really wrong, but I think my subjects maybe weren't quite right for this kind of photography.

I think the pictures turned out fine enough, but they aren't quite what I was hoping for. So, what was I hoping for? I'm still not exactly sure. Maybe these are just fine and I'm just nitpicking. Sometimes I think my problem is that I'm really never happy with the pictures I take.

The pictures do really seem to capture the colors of the scenes the way they looked when I was there. You can see in the pictures that the sky was really clear that day. It was very bright outside, and maybe that caused the negative effect that I feel I am seeing. And maybe I'm just imagining the whole thing.

I'm going to try this HDR setting again, but I'm going to choose some different subjects for the pictures. Maybe I'll choose something like a barn or a farmyard scene. That might work better than these cornfields. I think the cornfields are kind of ugly this time of year anyway, in one way of thinking.

I know I seem negative about the whole thing. That's just the way things come out with me sometimes. But the whole experience was a positive one. I was able to begin trying out the different features of my camera, so I'm gaining so new knowledge. And I've been getting more pictures, so I've been having a lot of fun. That's always a good thing. I'll talk to you later.

Time Keeps On Ticking

Time seems to have gotten away from me again. I looked up this morning and I suddenly realized that I haven't written a blog post for a week and a half. This is after I had planned to try to gradually get back to doing this every day. It seems the outside world is still pulling to hard at me right now.

It's not interesting or fun things that grab my time. But it is tedious and boring things that tear me away from this that I love so much. I actually had these pictures ready the day after my last post. I was excited to share them with you, but now I can only remember part of what I wanted to say about them. Isn't that how things always go when you wait too long?

This first picture was all about the scene. I just thought that old broken down fence made such a good scene.  Part of what I've been wanting to accomplish with my photography is slowing down to capture just the right view or place. Finding a good place to do these things just seems important to me.

I remember reading some things about lighting effects. One of the things I read was about light coming in from the background. Remembering this, I found the perfect spot to test this out for myself. I've taken pictures like this before, but without putting the same thought into it.

Always before, I would just quickly react to a situation. That sometimes works well that way, but having a plan going in and being prepared with what I want to do helps make things that much easier. So I took this picture with a clear plan in my mind. It's not the greatest, but I was able to get the effect I wanted.

I always loved seeing the beams of sunlight shining through the tree branches from a view like this. Now I was able to capture that same thing. I actually took several pictures of this before I remembered to change my camera settings back from macro. Oops!

This last one is of a piece of firewood I have stacked up. I just thought the textures were interesting. I take pictures like this often, but I keep most of them to myself. I thought it was appropriate for this post though. How do you like it? I can't remember what I had the camera set on for this one. Macro would have probably been best, but I suspect that's not what I chose.

So that's what I've been up to. My photography's getting better, even if I'm much too distracted by obnoxious and boring things. Hopefully my next post will only be in another day or so. I looked at the comments from the last post, and there are much more than I thought. I really only thought there were a couple. I read them as soon as they arrived, but my mind just wanders too much.

Maybe I can work on my plant knowledge between now and the next post. I'm not sure if there will be much more time for that this year. It's getting cold out there now. Summer was scorching hot, and now it's already getting cold. That's the breaks I guess. What you gonna do?

A Little Plant Photography

I'm on a  bit of a new adventure now. I've decided to begin teaching myself more about plants. I hope there's still enough time in the warmer part of the year to accomplish something with this new quest. Along with learning about plants, I've decided that I want to also improve my photography.

I want to go from shooting anything that moves as quickly as I can to actually knowing and understanding better how to set up my photos. I want my pictures to look beautiful when I want them to. I already get lucky sometimes, but I mostly end up with stuff that looks like what I have for you today. It can look nice, but I have some room for improvement.

I have no idea what the plant is in the photo above. I only know that it's covered in those sharp spines. It also has these purple flowers that look similar to clover. These are things I know now that I should be observing. I used a flash on the camera to bring out the spines. Very small progress in both areas.

I do know what the above plant is. Can you guess by looking at the picture? This stuff grows wild all over this area. I'll take pictures of it, but I will never even touch the stuff. It's not poisonous or anything like that, but it can be illegal in the right circumstances.

I didn't get a better picture of this hemp weed than this one. I was in too much of a hurry. That's something else I need to teach myself; I need to slow down a bit. I need to take the time to examine my subjects a bit and to decide the best way to get a good picture.

I used the camera's flash on this one, and it seemed to work the best on a few things. These plants seemed to evade the camera's automatic focus. I need to slow down and remember to use the manual focus on some things. I don't need to hurry so much on non-moving targets.

I did remember those lessons after a bit of time. One more thing to learn is how to better use the light around me. I'm paying more attention to that, but I'm still learning. All of that will also help give me better pictures so I can better examine just what plants I might have.

You may have noticed the little yellow critter in the picture above. He'll be the subject of my next post. After remembering a few good photography lessons, I got some better pictures of him. I have no idea what he is yet, but I'll be looking to find out.

Wait! After a quick check, I found the identity of the bug! I'll share that information with you, as well as some better photos, in my next post. See you soon.

From Cloudy To Bright

I've made my most dramatic photo edit so far with the pictures you see here today. You can see the original at the bottom of the post. The most obvious change is that I replaced the sky. It was a a dark and rainy day when I took the original picture, so I thought a change would be fun.

I also had to brighten up the photo just a bit. That was my subtle change in the picture. You may not even be able to notice that part. the horse has a little bit more definition to it now. I think the biggest thing I did though was to straighten out the grass just a bit.

Straightening the grass and the ground wasn't easy. there may be a better way than I used, but it's the first time I tried something like this. I think I did okay with it. Overall, the pictures I made aren't super realistic, but I like what I was able to do. They show the kinds of things that can be done with a free photo editor, such as Gimp.

Another thing I've been up to is having to deal with my crashing computer again. I've known the problem for awhile, a bad solid state hard drive, but I've been waiting to fix it until the next version of Windows comes out. Well, I couldn't wait any longer. My computer once again crashed so badly that I had to reinstall the whole operating system. I've had to do that several times in the past six months.

I finally switched to another hard drive to end my problems. But after all of my problems I decided to have a little fun. Instead of installing Windows 7 once again, I decided to install the release preview of the brand new Windows 8.

Some people will tell you that Windows 8 is too different from previous versions of Windows. It's true that it is a drastic change from older versions. They'll also tell you that Microsoft removed the start button. That's not true. the start button is still there in Windows 8, but they moved it to something called the charms bar.

For those of you who think all this computer talk is mostly gibberish, you're going to love this new, easier version of Windows when it comes out in October. It's easier to use than anything else you might have ever tried before. And Microsoft is offering very cheap upgrades to it for everyone who has a previous version of Windows installed already.

That was a long bit of nonsense for you to read, but I really do love talking computers. I'd start another blog about just that, but I already have my hands full with the blogs already have. Oh! You may recognize the picture above from one of my past posts. I like this picture of the horse, but it was fun messing around and changing it too.

And good news! I was able to get out a bit and get some decent nature pictures for my next few posts. My truck wasn't running well before, but the trusty garage down the road seems to have gotten it fixed pretty well this time. Maybe that will mean a return to more posts from me now. I can hope. Things are really looking brighter.

My Fantasy Photo Editing

The big heatwave here is finally over. But I'm still staying close to home because my truck needs a little work done on it. That means I get to have a little more fun with my photo editing for awhile.

It wasn't too long ago that I visited Five Ridge Prairie Preserve and took this pictures. I always take a picture of the sign to mark my place on camera. I do that so I immediately know where my pictures were taken when I look at them in my archives. So these sign pictures are never intended to be special. I do try to make them at least okay though.

I decided to give this one a dark fantasy feel. I think it worked out pretty well. This area seems good for this kind of effect. I've been changing a lot of my pictures just to see what I can do with them. I always keep the originals though.some of those pictures started out very good.

I've been learning a few things through all this editing. I've also learned to make subtle changes to bring out the reality of a scene a little better than the original pictures captured. I haven't done that here today. I wanted to show off my fantasy scene here. This second photo is the original.

I've also been learning a little more about photography and what pictures to take. I'm learning how to shoot at different angles and from odd places to get something more creative and special. That way I won't need very much special editing. I'll still do some crazy stuff just fore fun though.

I do have some more interesting edits I'll be sharing soon though. I have a few pictures that definitely needed changing and fixing. Sometimes a gloomy day just isn't a good time to take pictures, but it can be fixed up later. You'll see.

A New Sky

I've been doing some more photo editing because it's been a little too hot around here for me to get out lately. I still get dizzy much too easily, and the heat doesn't help that at all. So I've had a lot of time to work on my photo editing, and I like what I've been able to do.

The picture above is the result of a few changes. I first brightened it up and deepened the features of the land a little bit. This made the place look like it really did while I was there taking the pictures.

But the big edit was the sky. I took out the original sky and replaced it with a new one. This new sky makes the picture really stand out now. You can see the original picture with the original sky below. It really only took a few small steps to change this once I learned how.

Now we have the original picture. It really looks kind of barren and dull after seeing the fixed up version, doesn't it? I didn't make a work of art or anything, but I think I improved it a little bit. I've been learning how to replace many things in my pictures, including whole people. It's been fun.

It really has been fun trying to see just what I can change in my pictures, and it gives a whole new life to my large archive. You might want to try a little photo editing if you ever get the time.

My Newest Passion

I have a new passion. Of course that doesn't mean my passion for nature has lessened. My new passion compliments and enhances my passion for nature. What I have found and am enjoying so much is photo editing. The best part is that it inspires me to take the best nature pictures I can.

You've already seen some of my work in many of my other posts. I can't say that I'm great at it yet, but I'm improving. Maybe one day my stuff will be beautiful. For now I'm trying out many different little techniques.

For instance, with the picture above I tried to get a bit of a fantasy feel. I always liked the original picture, but I always imagined the scene closer to what I did with it now. Now I see it with magical creatures hiding behind every tree and bush. click on it to make it larger if you like.

The picture above is the original photo. you can see that it was a nice enough scene when I took it. I imagined it as a look into a secret fantasy world. The problem is that, like so many other good photographs I've taken, it fell just a bit short of that in my eyes. I wanted a way to capture what my imagination saw.

Have you ever had a dream of being in a far off place or maybe a fantasy land?  I think of things like that all the time. That's why I like to edit these pictures. Some of you may like to travel. A few of you may even pick up and move to your ideal place in the world. There are Apartments for sale In Turkey if that's your kind of thing.

I like different environments and times of day too. For example, I took this picture above right before a huge thunderstorm. I've always thought that it was a beautiful picture. The quality of light was special when I took the picture. The camera was able to capture that just a little too.

Honestly, after looking at the picture after resizing it for the blog, I think I like this upper one every bit as much as I like it after I did my edit. The full size picture I edited showed a more noticeable improvement. I guess that's the price I gotta pay when I'm trying to save space for this blog.

Now here's the picture after I did a little bit of editing. This technique works really well on pictures of people. I learned this one on a Gimp message board. It makes pictures look similar to the super sharp pictures that National Geographic has. When I used it on this picture, it made it so clear that I felt almost as if I could walk right into the picture.

That's about it for my talk of editing pictures this time. I haven't given up any of my other passions for this. And who knows? Maybe I'll get bored with doing a lot of this as time goes on. But maybe I'll get much better. It's just something fun to do while I'm home.

I'll be back next time with something of which I have no idea yet. How's that for an ending?

Bright Red

I'm on a roll! This is my fourth day in a row posting something. I almost feel like my old self as far as that goes. This cardinal is a bit of a trick though. I did something that I don't normally do with my pictures.

I doctored this one somewhat. Well, when I say "this one", I really mean these! Each picture you see here is a combination of two pictures. I did indeed get the pictures, but I thought they could be a little nicer for you.

The first thing I did was to brighten up the cardinals just a bit. I had to do it because the day I shot them was rather gloomy out, and full of dark clouds. That made it a bit hard to see these birds the way they were originally.

The next problem was that after brightening the pictures the sky background was bright white! That obviously also had to be fixed. So I went into my archives and found a good sky to go along with my newly brightened cardinals.

I then placed my good sky behind the first picture and then erased the bad sky right out. That left me with these pictures that I have here. I didn't do the best job ever of fixing them up, but they're much better than they began, and I now can share some presentable pictures of the cardinal I found.

And yes, I know that I do things like this on occasion. So this is not an isolated incident. I constantly experiment with many things. Many things. I watch nature very closely. I edit my own photos. I write fiction. I have written my own video games. I won't share those. I design my own blogs. I have even built over two dozen computers from the ground up.

That's enough of the bragging. I love bragging, even from someone else. It's fun. Go ahead and try. You'll see. It's called tooting your own horn. Even the smallest accomplishment is worthy of a bit of a blustering brag or two. And my comments section is so close and inviting that you can taste it.


Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

Chickadee In A Tree

So, what did I find on that tree in my last post? Well, I guess you can already see that it was this black-capped chickadee. I love these little birds. They are the one kind of critter that has been here all winter. And they are such friendly and curious little things.

Black-capped chickadees will fly in very close. And they don't mind me getting close to them to get my pictures. They usually make sure there are some branches between us if they are resting, but they don't mind me one bit.

I had some more pictures of one of these birds a few weeks ago, but it was my first time getting back out in a while and my camera settings were wrong. So the pictures were bad and I couldn't show them to you. Pictures are funny like that. The new one above wasn't perfect so I had to sharpen it up a bit.

The animals don't always cooperate either. You can stand there begging and pleading with them to pose in just the right way, but they seem more restless than a bunch of little kids. Then your picture comes out clear, but your critter is distracted by something shiny in the other direction.

But what can you do? The only answer is to get as many pictures as you can. That's the great thing about digital cameras. You can get hundreds of pictures in one trip. And if you get out often you will probably end up with a few great shots. Check my last post for one of those.

Oh, before I go on I want to say hi to those of you who get my posts through email, especially who has sent me a few encouraging messages. Thanks, they are really appreciated. I won't mention names because email is generally a private thing. It's just nice to hear from people who appreciate these posts.

Now, even though it appears you can only see the wrong end of this little chickadee this is actually an interesting picture. Notice that you can see only one of the bird's legs. Take a close look at that little broken branch sticking straight up just left of the bird. There's his foot grabbing ahold of that branch! See? Interesting!

But the bird still isn't posing the way I want him to. Animals never seem to want to cooperate for some reason. But my subject for the next post is a little more agreeable. It stands there looking right at me. You'll never guess what it might be. You'll just have to come back to find out. It'll be fun.


Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature! Mine too!

A Deer And A Flower Bush

I was surprised by a deer that I must have surprised first! Does that sentence sound strange? I guess I need to explain this a bit. This odd incident happened kind of close to home while I was experimenting some more with my camera's macro setting.

I was standing in front of some type of shrub taking pictures of the flowers. I had been standing there for quite some time. I was using macro, super macro, and manual focus to see which one would work best for me. I had been under the mistaken impression that the camera might be somehow flawed as far as these closeup shots went, but I now know that I just need to learn a bit more. It actually works better than my old camera.

But back to what happened! After what seemed like a quiet time at the edge of the forest, I began to hear some rustling in the trees behind the shrub I was looking at. It all began rather quietly. But then as they continued, the rustling sounds picked up in volume and intensity.

Oh, by the way, these are the flowers I was looking at when all of this happened. I think the camera did just fine with the macro setting. These flowers are kind of small, and the camera was able to pick them up clearly enough. I've since fine tuned other settings to make all of my pictures come out better. These macros seem to be mostly a matter of holding the camera at the right distance.

Anyway, back to the incident with the rustling noises. I thought maybe the squirrels were kicking up their heels in that thick little forest area. The squirrels back there don't like me as much as they do in other places, so they stay well-hidden and they'll go to any length to run away.

But then just when I was getting tired of the flowers because of the sounds now becoming very distracting, a deer came bursting out of the forest! It was to my left only a short distance away. It ran across the field I was standing in, and towards the freedom of the trees on the other side.

Two things enabled me to get these pictures of it. The first thing was that I just happened to turn my camera's setting back from macro to normal view. The second was that I'm now experienced enough to have the presence of mind to react quickly enough to start taking the pictures. That's not as easy as some people might think.

When the deer finally got to the edge of that other line of trees, after only a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, it turned and looked at me. It studied me for several seconds before finally turning and disappearing into the trees. I feel bad about probably disturbing its nap, but it was an exciting event for me.

Betty Bunny Update! Today was a whole new day for my favorite little rabbit. I found her outside my door once again. But this time she was looking and acting just fine. She was hooping around with a lot of energy. She even scared a bird that happened to be in her way. A true happy ending to yesterday's story.

Nature Center Magazine - Steve from Out On The Prairie has a fun and very informative story called "What's Bugging You?".  It's about keeping away some of our least favorite wildlife. Go take a look!

Confession For The Birds

I have two confessions I want to make today. The first one is that even though I have pictures of a few birds that I find much more exciting than these pictures of robins that I'm showing you today, I really like these pictures of the robins because they're some of my best. The second confession comes further down the post.

This robin above is one of my favorites not because I consider it to be the most beautiful that I've had, but because of the detail it shows. I have never been able to show you this much detail in a photo of a robin before. You can zoom right in and see individual feathers on this bird.

One reason for this is because when I was on the trail I suddenly looked up at a branch just above me to see this robin perched there. It was only five feet away from me. Somehow I had walked up on it without it noticing me. I guess I'm geting better at being quiet than I thought.

This is one of the many other shots I got of this robin as he stayed perched there oblivious to me presence. Honestly, it didn't take him long to realize I was there. Maybe he knew all along, but just didn't mind. I did notice that he subtly turned his back to me while I was getting my pictures. A sure sign that he had detected me.

I tried to move to a better angle for the sunlight, but it didn't work out well. Even though he stayed where he was, the sun just wasn't cooperating. I couldn't get a better angle than this. I guess these were just the pictures I was meant to have. I really like robins because they do let me get very close to them.

From close to far. The robin in this picture wasn't close up like the first one. As a matter of fact, it was very high up in a tree that I wasn't standing very close to anyway. All I could see with my eyes was a flash of red. I thought maybe I had a cardinal, but the other birds that had flown with this one were definitely robins. The camera proved this was too.

Now, why do you suppose I've been getting such good results out of my camera lately? I'll explain below.

The picture tells the tale. I got a new camera! As you can see, it's a Canon PowerShot SX20 IS with a 20x zoom. I researched for a very long time, and bought the very best point and shoot camera there was. The previous version of this camera is the same, except this one is a little higher in megapixels and it shoots high definition video. I don't use the hi-def, but you might notice my video quality has also improved.

By comparison, my old camera is a Canon PowerShot A590 IS with a 4x zoom. It's a very good camera, especially for a beginner, but I wanted to move on to the next step. My new one seems to focus right in on any animal I aim at. And I don't have too many problems with blurry shots like I was having before. I'm very happy with this camera.

Okay. Meanwhile over at Nature Center Magazine today, Emma is featuring another Nature Site Of The Week. She always features the best of nature on the internet, so go take a look at what Emma has to say about this newest site she focuses on. Who knows? One of these times she might find your site, and decide to write about it. She also takes recommendations if you know of a site that should be featured.

Happy Accidents

There is something I must confess to all of you! Even though I feature photos on this blog every day along with my stories, I don't consider myself much of a photographer. I really consider myself more of a quiet adventurer, and more than a bit of a story teller.

Sure, I know that I sometimes come up with a gem or two with my photography, but that's mostly because I take so many photos. And when I think about it, I have gathered some good experience over these past couple of years while doing it. I guess I'm not too bad at all.

But my photography is still a lot of happy accidents, with a little bit of skill thrown in. The picture at the top, for instance, was never intended for anyone's eyes but mine. I take a picture of that sign and benches every time I go to that park. I do it only to mark my place. I don't really even pay much attention when I get it. But why am I showing it to you then?

I'm showing it to you because of this next picture. You see, I decided to go hiking in a pretty good snowstorm last week, just for fun. When I got to the park I decided to get a few good pictures of the snowfall for you. I tried every camera trick I knew to get some snow to show up for you.

It worked pretty well most of the time, but not every time. It was snowing much harder than you see in this last picture. As it turns out, the first picture, my place marker, shows the snowstorm better than any picture I purposely took for you. That's what I call a happy accident.

Tell me what kind of happy accidents you have had. Have you ever been looking through your pictures at home and discovered something much better than you intended? Has something happened that didn't even involve photography? Tell me about it. I'm sure everyone else who visits here might be interested as well.

I'll see you in the comments section.

Chasing A Robin

The last few days here on The Everyday Adventurer have been sort of odd, haven't they? Actually if you look back in my archives you'll see that this has been closer to normal for me than anything else. This is why I mention sometimes that you should never take a guy that pretends to be a giant rat too seriously. Still, there is a serious side here too.

I have a couple of pictures for you today that I've been trying to bring to you for a very long time. All summer long I have watched while robins have hopped along my hiking trails in front of me. For some odd reason, whenever I tried to get a picture of any of them my results were less than spectacular.

Sometimes I would get ready to try for the shot and the bird would fly away as soon as I lifted my camera to get it to the right position. Other times I would get the pictures, but every last one of them would come out as nothing but a blur. You would think this would be an easy task, but it has always eluded me.

I'm finding it slightly easier lately to get things like this because of my new zoom lense. I don't have to get quite as close to any of the animals, so I can take a little more time to set myself for the shots. I did love the challenge of sneaking up on the animals, and it is still mostly there, but I am getting better results now.

Another improvement is that it used to be very difficult to find my targets in the camera's view screen when I had to zoom closer to them. One tiny movement of the camera could point it very far away from where I started. With the zoom lense on I seem to be having an easier time of finding my targets. I thought it would be the other way around.

The main thing is that now I'm able to bring you things like these two photos of this American Robin. Incidentally, American robins are not closely related to the European robins. The American version of this bird is only related by name. American robins were named after the original European robins because of their similar bright red breast.

There you are, a nice normal post today. Let's see how long it takes before I slip back into raging insanity again. The countdown has begun!

Robin Of The Fall

They've come back, even though they never really left. American Robins were the very first bird I was ever able to get a good picture of. I have had many pictures of them since then, and they are now one of the first I was able to capture with my zoom lense.

There had been a time for awhile last summer when I would find hundreds of these birds foraging the forest floor. Many times when I thought I heard a squirrel playing around under some old leaves it turned out to be a robin or several of them. I would turn to get a picture of them in the dark forest, and they would either fly away or the picture would come out blurry.

I was having that problem with them for quite some time. It was just that they were in the forest and the lighting was too dark for the camera to get a good shot of any moving things. If I had a still shot the camera would focus easily, but if anything at all was moving the camera would only get a blur because the movement in the dark was confusing it. I'm still trying to work that problem out.

Now with the coming of fall the lighting is again changing, and so are the habits of all of the animals, especially the birds. Some of the summer birds have gone south to warmer climates. And some are eating as much food as they can so they can fatten up in preparation for a long winter. These last will stay here through the winter.

Robins are of the latter group. I'll be seeing them here all winter long, and I hope to get even better pictures of them than ever before. These that I have for you today are maybe the best so far. They are at least the closest shots I have, and with the zoom lense I didn't have to work so hard to move in closer. This is exactly what I bought it for.

I found these robins in the meadow where I see many of the other birds I find. I'm hoping to be able to identify many more birds now, and it's only a matter of time and patience. Maybe there will be more robins around, but there will be others. Today it's robins, tomorrow it's the world!

When I Fail

I don't know how much you can see it in the picture at this size, but this picture of the black squirrel is very blurry. I don't really like showing you pictures that come out like this, but I wanted to tell you a little story about this.

I was standing on the walkway to the fishing platform at Carpenter Lake when this little black squirrel came wandering over. This was my greatest opportunity ever to get a good picture of a black squirrel for you. This little guy was almost completely unconcerned with my presence, and that is totally unusual for one of his kind.

I was using my new zoom lense, and I hoped it would help me get some very good closeups of him. The only thin I forgot was the bad lighting in this area. The light is in between light and dark right here, and it confuses my camera very badly. The zoom didn't help at all either because the camera sees light differently with it on.

So finally after about two dozen photos of this black squirrel, it finally decided it wanted to go somewhere else. I figured after that many shots of the squirrel that at least a few of them would be okay. Nope! Not one bit. This one shot is my lone picture that wouldn't make you go blind just looking at it. This kind of thing happens to me sometimes. This is what happens when I fail.

Now here is the very next squirrel I saw that day. It was very near where I saw the first one. I also took about two dozen pictures of this one. Some of them would have been absolutely spectacular if they would have turned out okay.

I even had one where the squirrel stood straight up and stared at me. It's standing up so straight, it looks like the squirrel is hovering off the ground. After it looked at me like that, the squirrel ran around giving me several different presentably nice poses. This is the only one that came out okay. Sometimes there are days full of these when the camera just doesn't seem to work right fore me. This is what happens when I fial. Oops, I meant fail.

The Little Bird

One of the main reasons why I bought a telephoto lense for my camera was so that I could get better pictures of birds. I'm still learning how to use the lense so that the pictures come out okay, and I'm just beginning to get some decent shots with it.

It's kind of irritating to have to learn to use my camera all over again, but the final results will hopefully be very satisfying for me. Today I took a big step forward in learning to get better shots. The one good thing about this new lense is that I'm able to get shots that look a little closer to my subjects.

This was actually the first day I had a good opportunity to really look for birds. There either weren't any birds that I could find or it has been raining very much. So when I finally got my chance I made sure I took it. The results were that I got a few very good shots of this little bird that was very far up in a tree.

I knew right away that the shots were going to be good. In the first days of the lense I got some shots that I thought were good, but I wasn't sure they would come out okay. This time I knew I was getting good shots. The pictures didn't look blurry on the camera's view screen, and I was reasonably sure there was no noise in the picture from the ISO being too high.

I had big plans after I got these pictures too. This little bird is one I had never seen before. I was going to go home and find out what kind it is and tell you all about it. I thought it should be halfway easy. I use a few online bird guides that help a lot, so I would heavily rely on them. But did they help this time?

Not even one bit! I looked and looked at so many pictures of birds that my eyes hurt. I found very many little birds that look similar to this one, but none of them were the right bird. The more I looked, the more frustrated I became. There must be at least a picture to lead me in the right direction. But there  was nothing at all. So even though I got some pictures of this nice looking little bird, I can't tell you what kind it is.

In the end the only thing that really matters is that I got these pictures and I had fun doing it. What more could you really ask but to look up into a tree and see a little bird that you've never seen before? It was actually a thrilling experience when I did it.

One of these days I'll find out what this bird is and I'll share my findings with you, but until then I'm just going to enjoy the pictures and enjoy the fact that I got them all by myself. And while we're all waiting for bird identification you can have fun voting in the new poll.

The Geese Are Moving

One of the noticeable things around here at this time of the year is the geese. In the fall and the spring geese come around in hordes. Actually, the technical term isn't horde. For geese it's gaggle, but I don't care, this is a horde.

It seems that everywhere I go I am seeing gaggles(hordes) of geese resting in their favorite places. What are these places? The places I find them aren't lakes or ponds. Well, I guess it's not really a big secret or anything, and since it's you who I'm talking to, I guess I can tell you. The place I constantly find these geese are on any large patch of grass.

If you have a large yard with no fences or any wide open area that is full of grass, and you live in an area like mine, you'll see geese laying around. The grass has to be short. If it's even half as tall as the geese they won't like it. They especially love freshly mown grass. Mowing kicks up all kinds of stuff that they like to eat.

The geese also can get kind of loud this time of year. You'll hear their honking calls from very far away. They also get quite rowdy. You'll see them running around in their large crowds, playing and fighting for the oddest seeming reasons. I've seen anwhere from one to several hundred geese gathered in an open area like the one in the pictures.

This is also the time to be careful around the geese. They won't really do like a squirrel would, and run towards you to protect their territory. They're only visiting, so they are only there to rest. But if you get too close to a goose you might be sorry.

A goose is much bigger than a squirrel. They can seriously injure you if you seem like a threat. Most of the time they'll just ignore you or move away, but not if you get a particularly mean one that doesn't want to move away from you. You can still get close to the edge of their group as long as you don't bother them too much.

This is what happened when I got only a little too close to a few of them. Maybe they were leaving anyway, but any others just moved away when they saw me standing there. There were about fifty geese out there when I was taking these pictures.

The pictures could have been better if I wasn't still experimenting with my new camera add-ons. One of these times I'll find the right balance to use the camera and the add-ons correctly. I hope I will. For now the pictures are inferior to what I was getting before, except they're a lot closer to the animals.

It's been raining here for several days and there's no end in sight yet. I hope to show you a few interesting things I've seen before the weather changed. Maybe now in the next several days is my chance. This will all work out one way or another. I'll be right back here tomorrow, and today I'll be trying to catch up on reading your blogs. You all have a lot of blogs that I like so much. See you soon!