A Stunned Cardinal

This young lady flew into my sliding glass door.  She was out like a light and I moved her from the bushes where she fell to a table top.  She eventually flew away but still returns to my bird feeder.

 

 

 

Douglas Robinson Pickett; 1929-2011

 

 

“Big Doug”, as we called him in the family, died while sleeping on November 30, of heart failure.  Many of you will remember Doug while he and Ann ran Ridgewood when we were chutes, or from his years with WOSA.  We called him “Big Doug” to differentiate him from my brother Doug who was 31 years his junior.  But Doug was always big in heart, soul, integrity, and humor as well.

Doug was my childhood idol and my first memories of him are when he blew into our home in Detroit when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade.  He had spent the summer break from Ohio Wesleyan working on the Alaskan Railroad and his clothes were so dirty and crusted they stood up by themselves!  I was thrilled that he shared my bedroom during his visit.

Doug was a super uncle to all of us and he became a good friend and mentor during my adult life.  We will miss him greatly.

Services will be held at 3 PM on Saturday, December 10, at the Highland Ranch retirement center in Black Mountain, NC.  Friends are welcome to attend.

Hummingbirds–2011–Part I

I’m determined to get better photos of “my” hummingbirds this year, so I’m moving the feeder closer to where I sit on the porch, and vice versa.  So far I’m two arm lengths away with my camera on a tripod right behind me, using a remote shutter button, live view shooting to reduce the camera’s noise, a 1/800 shutter speed, and an 18-55 mm lens zoomed fully in to 55mm.  I’m going to have to play more with the camera settings, but here are the best results of the past two days, selected from about 120 mostly rapid burst pictures.  All of these are cropped way down with some adjustments to exposure, and color enhancements, in Photoshop.

There are 3 birds who frequent my feeder, presumably a mom and two new hatchlings.  They consume half a liter of nectar from two feeders in about 5 days.

Notice the difference in the wing positions in these two shots.  In the one on the left they are as you would expect from a bird.  In the photo on the right, the bird has them rotated from the shoulder 90 degrees vertically and is flying backwards.  “Normal” birds cannot do this.

These birds love to play.  I assume Mom is the one on the perch, but that’s just a guess.

“I got here first!  Go find another place to stick you fracking beak!

Hair Study

So, I was at my niece Miranda’s graduation and her last name is rather late in the alphabet.  Given 300 or so graduates, it was quite a wait.  Not to be bored, however, I found something interesting to do.  And who says barbers and stylists are the only people who find hair a bit interesting!

Preludes

To a Manhattan spring:

And a lifelong love of chocolate!

Happy first birthday, Alice!

Music to Start Your Day

Heart warming story and a wonderful voice of Ani Choying Drolma ; a Nepali/Tibetan “Sound of Music” story.  Click here to see the NPR story and listen to a sound track.

Super Video of Space Shuttle Launches

For those who are fans of our space program, and of the 30 years of the Shuttle’s trips into orbit, these videos are outstanding and well worth the 60 minutes it takes to view them.  So, click here, set the video to full screen mode and kick back to watch.