Zerphyr's hard day

Zephyr had two teeth pulled today.  She's home resting now.  Got the S95 today.  JPeg at ISO 800.

Monarch's last hurrah

Darwin and I ate dinner outside tonight.  As the sun was setting the butterfly bushes were busy with monarch activity.  Just as the sun was setting this butterfly flew up to the grapevine after feeding.  Soon they will head south....

Roosting Double Crested Cormorants

Wagon Train Lake 1D +100-400 on monopod

Eagle is back - perhaps the same one from last year!

Deb, Pam & I went down to Crystal Springs this morning.  It was pouring rain when we got there, but the eagle didn't mind.  It just sat on the tree.  We sat in the car and waited for the rain to stop.  There also was very little light after the storm.  I shot at ISO 3200 a good part of the morning.   When it lightened up a little bit, the sky was a beautiful blue color.  It was nice to not have to blow the sky out to capture the details of the eagle.   We saw LOTS of different things.  It is such a delightful place to watch birds.  7D+100-400

Mr & Mrs Osprey

Female and Male Ospreys.  This is the first time we've seen them at Crystal Springs.

Birds at Crystal Springs

Various Geese Varieties

Kingfisher

Green Heron

Blue Heron

Color Coordinated Swallowtails & Butterfly Bush

1D + 200mm

2 Planets and 4 Moons from my backyard

Jupiter and its 4 moons and above and left is Uranus.  Pretty cool - thanks to Darwin for reading his daily astonomy calendar!!  7D + 100-400

Faux Mat 1 hour later!

Wow, did this ever take a long time.  Page 90 of this month's Outdoor Photographer takes you step by step through this process.  Hopefully it will not take that long next time.  This could be printed and framed with spacers to prevent the picture from touching the glass and giving the illusion that there is a physical mat.

The picture was taken in RMNP in Colorado.  24mm TS-E with Singh Ray Vari ND filter and a 20 second exposure.

Sunday morning hummingbirds at Deb's

Finally a pair of humminbirds.  I've only ever seen a female in my yard.  I sat there for nearly 2 hours and had 2 opportunities to get 4 pictures!  They just didn't want to stop by this morning.  They kept just flying in and flying out.  To process the pictures I went to CS5 and then did an HDR look in Phototools.  That was the only way to see the color of the male, since he was mostly backlit.

Hummingbird - no light

7D+100-400+580II flash.  She was about 20 feet away from me and the sun was nowhere to be seen.  The morning glories are just starting to bloom, so maybe that will be the next place they discover.

Finally, a hummingbird flew in

 

Yeah, right before dinner I was in my office and a hummer came to my window feeder!  They're about a week early from last year, but I'm so happy they came back.  My morning glory vine should be ready for her in a week or so, so I hope they'll stay around.

 

And a little PS....

Pathway at Sunken Gardens

Rainbow Bridge, with a little "rainbow" added in PS & Antelope Canyon

I took a rather boring picture of the Rainbow Bridge, got rid of the Yucca blossom and added a Monet effect from Phototools - a PS plugin.  Made the otherwise boring picture come to life.

 

I really think I could spend the rest of my life editing pictures that I have already taken.....might be fun for winter, but for now....I'm going to go out in the morning to explore God's handiwork.