Little Hummingbird

Lots of hummingbirds around each day harvesting from the flowers in our yard. I see them resting on a little clothes line in our back yard 7 to 10 times a day. With my new camera I can sometimes get great shots of them. I enjoy being able to see the details of their plumage. There is one that sometimes has bright scarlet highlights as it turns certain ways but I haven't quite been able to capture it yet. I'll keep trying.
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Red Shouldered Hawk in Caspar

As I drive along Highway One on the Mendocino Coast, going north from Caspar to Ft. Bragg I often see a small hawk sitting on a power line to the west of the road. I've been seeing this for probably over 10 years. It's either the same hawk or others just like it. It's almost always in exactly the same place. I have thought for years about stopping on the other side of the highway and trying to get a picture of it. Well, I just acquired a new toy, a small Canon camera with a 40X optical zoom. Like my old one but with 3 times the zoom power. It's pretty far out.
Yesterday as I was driving this route I saw it and I immediately pulled over to the side of the road, rolled down my window and took a number of shots at maximum zoom. This is the one I liked best. I looked it up on the internet to find out that it was a red shouldered hawk. It's somewhat smaller than the red tailed hawks we see here also. Feasts mostly on small mammals. I'm glad that I was able to get a good shot and identify it and be able to see the details of its feathers and body.

Irises in Ft.Bragg

In walking the streets of Ft. Bragg recently I've been seeing a visual treasure of flowers in bloom and smelling the wonderful fragrances wafting in the air on warm days. I've been especially enjoying the beautiful irises and taking pictures of them. Here are some of my favorites so far.

Birds, birds, birds

I've recently started drawing simple birds and adding them to the textured drawings that I have been doing for 60 plus years. I started doing the textured drawings on the edge of notebook paper in boring junior high classes in about 1957. Some of the bird images come from photographs I've taken some from images from books. I'm planning to continue this play and hope to start adding other creatures soon.

Raven at the Beach

Carlie and I were walking at Glass Beach a couple of days ago and a large raven was doing an odd and interesting thing, fluffing/puffing out the feathers on it's head and neck and opening it's mouth. I think it was making some soft sounds but the ocean was too loud for me to hear clearly. It did this for several minutes and let us get to within 6 feet of it while it was doing it. It seemed ritualistic somehow, although Carlie wondered if it had something stuck in it's throat perhaps. When it stopped doing it, it starting walking around and I made soft clucking sounds to it. It walked to within probably 4 feet from me but then some other people came along the trail and it flew off. BUT I was able to take a lot of pictures during the time that it was close and got one that I really like. I've taken a lot of pictures of ravens here over the years but never one that shows the subtle colors and shades of it's feathers like this one

Buck in the Yard

When we recently returned from being out of town I found this handsome fellow hanging out in the back yard. We live in a neighborhood of houses in Ft. Bragg and the house next to ours has a very large yard, the size of 3 or 4 normal sized yards and is filled with trees and nobody lives full time in the big old house that is on the property. Because of this, various critters sometimes hang out there. Raccoons, possums, a month or so ago a very loud barn owl was there at night sometimes and, of course deer, like this one and the occasional skunk. They come up from Pudding Creek which is north of us and is an avenue for a lot of diverse wildlife as the water flows from the east and into the ocean near where we live. Normally I chase deer back over the fence into the big yard but I liked looking at this young guy so let him stay until he decided it was time to depart.

Bee out Back

This little guy was back on my back deck today. I think he was on his last legs as he wouldn't move much even when I touched him gently. The situation let me take lots of pictures from lots of different angles though and I got this one which I really like. Trying to have more flowers for pollinators each year. This is a native here on the coast but I forgot its name.