Crosswind Landings! It’s a nice day to fly. Well, most days are nice days to fly. After the storm passed, the wind stayed for a while. So, we get an extra treat today; crosswind takeoff and landing practice. Spring seems to always bring nice crosswind.
May Flowers Tonight’s walkabout, although a bit wet, was also a bit more beautiful with more May flowers.
On tonight’s walkabout, I accidentally scared a Great Egret. Luckily, the camera was ready to shoot. The first couple of frames were out of focus as were the last few. The background gives us a decent perspective to admire the size of this bird.
Flowering Crabtree Winter can not come back now. The Flowering Crabtree’s are flowering. On tonight’s walkabout, I carried the Nikon 1 V1 with the 50mm f1.4 lens making an effective focal length of 135mm. The f1.4 allows for such incredible control of DOF. After capturing numerous images at different f-stops, I settled on f2.5 to keep most of the flowers in focus with a nice blurred background.
A friend suggested honoring my mothers with a Mother’s Day post. Yes, I was fortunate to have two mothers. Margaret was my birth mother. In this photo she was about 23 years old; she passed three years later, very early in my life. Then, aunt Mary, my father’s older sister, became my mom. She passed last year at the age of 92; she’s 30 years old in this photo. These images are the closest in their ages I could find.
Although I did not know my birth mother, by all accounts from relatives, they both had a number of attributes in common. They were both nice quiet, mild mannered, loving, hard working, and religious mothers who were always ready to help others. Between them, they gave me more than I could ever repay. So, thank you both; I am so grateful for the values you left behind for me to follow.
Happy Mother’s Day.
American Goldfinch Sometimes, it really pays off to return to the same place often. Tonight’s walkabout wound along a familiar lake. Just as I thought I would be skunked (yea, it happens to all of us), who appears but this American Goldfinch. Even a non-bird shooter like me can get a decent image with a little luck and a bit of patience. The Nikon 1 V1 with the 70-300mm lens comes through again. Now, a real bird shooter would have a much better lens with longer reach. Still, for me, it’s not a bad image for a walkabout.
Great Blue Huron Great Blue Herons are such magnificent birds. This heron did not like people walking along the trail next to the water. For pilots, its landing was picture perfect; gear down, flaps full, spoilers out, speed brakes deployed, and full right rudder.
Nesting Robin It’s nice being back home on my local walkabout. This Robin did not move off her nest as I walked by her on a trail. Now certainly she must be accustomed to people walking by. Still, I was less than 15 feet away from her. Doesn’t she look comfy? So, that led me to investigate more about Robins.
Most birds lay their eggs at sunrise, but not robins. They lay their eggs at mid-morning after feasting on worms during the early morning. If you think laying an egg is easy, think again! Like most birds, they lay one egg a day until their four egg clutch is complete. Until they’ve laid a full clutch, robins allow all the eggs to stay cool so the babies don’t start to develop. Thus, all the babies hatch close to the same time. Mother robins may start incubating their eggs during the evening after the second egg is laid, or after all the eggs are laid. They sit on the eggs for 12 to 14 days. The female usually does all the incubating. Even in good weather, she rarely leaves her eggs for more than 5 to 10 minutes at a time. Usually, she only leaves the nest to feed, but her male may even bring food to feed her.
