FLYday - Common Tern In Flight Vocalizing

Common Tern, immature in flight vocalizing. Phippsburg, Maine summer, 2012

 

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

Power Of The Porky - Porcupine Encounters

This is the business part of a porcupine, the quills. In the top collage, the porkies in the trees are babies. The one in the middle is an adult.

Tough foot pads and claws help porcupines to climb trees.

Baby porcupine feet, teeth and 'product.'

Porcupines can be very destructive to trees. When they girdle the bark as in the lower photograph, it kills the tree. They are voracious eaters. The food they eat is low in nutritional value, so they must consume vast quantities. That results in lots of 'end product,' as seen above.

When there were six feet of snow on the ground last winter, the porcupines sat on top and ate the bark of these Spruce trees. These trees will die soon.

The sharp, hard quills are mixed in with stiff, guard hairs. The quills contrast with the hairs so that predators can see the porcupine in the dark when they are the most active.

"OUCH!"

     A couple of months ago, our dog got a face full of porcupine quills. It was the fourth time he has done it. They say that dogs don't learn from the misery of that experience and will do it again and again. Apparently so. Our dog doesn't attack them, as some dogs do. He does not have strong prey drive. He just sniffs them, but that's all it takes.
     The common name "porcupine" comes from the French porc d'epine, meaning "thorny hog" referring to the more than 30,000 quills which serve as their main defense. They are docile creatures reported to make good pets (don't try this at home, kids). Porcupines do not attack dogs; dogs attack porcupines. Porkies have muscular, rolly-polly bodies like small pigs and smell kind of like old sawdust. Their quills are simply specialized hairs which raise up when the animal is tense, much like the hair on your arm raises when you are scared.  An alarmed porky will rattle its quills to warn a predator. The quills also emit a strong hormonal smell when the animal is threatened. 
     Neither do porcupines shoot quills, as is the folk lore. They raise the quills up to make themselves look bigger to the enemy. A threatened porky will thrash its quill laden tail back and forth impaling its assailant. The quills come loose easily, much like hair. The outer tip has a reverse barb which hooks readily into whatever it contacts. The sharp quills cause tremendous pain, prompting the dog to paw at itself and roll its face in the dirt in efforts to remove the quills, only driving them deeper.
    We live in old spruce forest, favored habitat for porcupines. We have met the porkies face to face in the dens they make in the piles of windfalls. They have denned under our house and I've seen as many as seven at one time! We are over run with them! This time, our dog encountered the porky at home under one of our decks. He yowled, then raced to the door, desperate to come in with what looked like a dead animal in his mouth. "Oh no you don't, Buster!" I yelled and slammed the door in his face. At the same instant, I realized his muzzle was bristling with quills.
     We have a wonderful dog, but he does have his issues. Besides lapses in judgement, he also hates to be restrained. Though he only weighs thirty-eight pounds, it nearly requires a straight jacket  to trim his nails. We have to take him to the vet for that. He gets so wrought up he trembles and pees himself. Not unlike myself, he requires sedation for almost everything.  Nor will he take pills of any kind. No matter what it's hidden in, he will spit the pill. He won't take biscuits from the UPS driver, either.  He makes the driver put the biscuit on the ground only taking it after the guy leaves, so that it never appears that he can be bought. He's no dumby, though he is very difficult when it comes to medical needs.
     So, of course the latest quill debacle happened on a Friday night at six-thirty, when all good vets are at home working on their second martinis. Emergency veterinary services were more than an hour away. Quills need to be removed immediately. Some suggest that if you take a dog into a wooded area where you expect porcupines, take pliers with you so you can do the job right away. The longer the quills stay in flesh the harder it is to extract them. They also begin to migrate into the body and can kill an animal.
     The dog was shrieking in pain and clawing at his own face. It was not a time for timidity. There was nothing to do but get  the pliers, swig a mouthful of whiskey and pull. First, we offered the dog a couple of shots of whiskey, but he said no, he only wanted a bullet to bite down on. So we swilled his share and commenced. We pulled three quills before we had to get help. Brute strength was needed and the two of us weren't enough. I raced to our neighbor, Ed's house.He was standing at his barbecue grill tongs in hand, but did not hesitate. He tossed down the tongs, shut off the gas and ran with me to our house.
     We put the dog in the bathroom so he wouldn't escape and because blood was coming from somewhere. It was tight quarters for three adults and a dog. The bathroom turned into a steam bath, sweat was pouring from all of us. The dog started blowing hair everywhere, which dogs do under extreme stress. He immediately slipped his collar and leaped into the bathtub to get away. We bound him in a blanket and started over. After the dog had seen the pliers, we couldn't get near his face. The strength of a terrified animal is astonishing! We had to blindfold him. He curled back his lips, snarled and bared his great, canine teeth in self defense. That may have been because he had quills in his mouth or simply horrendous pain. Either way, it was dangerous. A terrified dog in pain will bite no matter how loyal a beast he may otherwise be. Hell! I would have bitten someone myself under the circumstances! We were all fearful that we would be bitten or otherwise maimed. It's easy to injure a dog in a melee like that. Their shoulders can be dislocated or bones broken while you're wrestling them.
     I got a golf club to put between the dog's jaws and teeth so he had something to bite besides ourselves. The plastic covering of the club was shredded immediately, but the metal held. Somewhere in there the dog bit down on his own tongue. Blood gushed all over the place as he screeched. The four of us floundered in a battlefield of blood, sweat and hair . Just when it seemed it could not get worse, the dog pooped himself.
    We suffered two and half hours in the  bathroom hotbox, flailing in dog poop, blood, sweat and fear. In the end, we pulled eighteen quills. With nothing left in any of us, we had to give it up and hope for the best. If the dog got through the night, I'd take him to a vet the next day. Exhausted, we all went outside. The dog was double leashed, though he didn't have the strength to go anywhere nor tangle with wildlife. He could barely stand up! We sucked deep draughts of fresh, night air and  babbled light hearted chit chat, while reconnecting on a friendly level with the dog.
    When this whole affair had started, my husband had just gotten out of the shower and was in his pajamas. There he stood in his P.J.s staggering as badly as the dog and about to collapse. I realized it was hours past when he had needed dinner. Ed made soft talk to the dog. "There, Perry. You'll feel better pretty quick. Have a little drink of water will ya? Here ya go, fella," he said, nudging the dog to the bowl of water. We were all plastered with blood, dog hair, and "other." Though we were out of the bathroom, I could still smell intense poo."Ed, I can't thank you enough," I said. "I'll owe you forever for this." "No, no you don't. Don't you worry about it," he said. "These are the things friends do for each other." I watched the dog teetering sideways. Awash in after crisis let down and love, I thought I might cry. My husband muttered, "Ya, Eddie, thanks. Oh God! I've got to sit down." As he sunk to the steps, I saw that he had a big smear of dog poop across the lens of his glasses.
     Ed went home. The dog went to bed. My husband took another shower. I made dinner. While cooking, I pondered the nature and depth of friendships. Ed was a friend indeed and heroic, as was my husband. If I were to be stranded on a desert island, they are the two people I would want to be with me. I want people in my life who love me enough to do whatever it takes to help me. No matter what it costs, I'm worth it to them. Our dog will one day probably engage with a porcupine again. We love him anyway and we love him enough to rise above our own fears to help him through his serial stupidities. That's the kind of person I want to love me.
     The question remains: why do dogs persist in contacts with porcupines? It's unlikely they forget the pain and terror, because dogs have good memories. It must simply be that there is something so enticing and attractive that it's worth it in the end. As a photographer, I understand. To get close enough to a porcupine to smell it and feel its chubby body, to photograph its teeth, quills and feet was risky. But I couldn't help myself. I did it anyway. Now, we'll see who loves me enough to hog tie me and pull the quills from my snarling face!

FLYday - American Kestrel

An American Kestrel diving from its perch for prey. The kestrel is our smallest hawk. Phippsburg, Maine 2011

An homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

Note:  For those of you who may have been wondering where I am, I've been working on a project and Weeding For Dollars as 'tis the season. In the mean time, our dog took a face full of porcupine quills which has really fouled up my time lines. Thus, a FLYday that is on Sunday. I do know it's Sunday and have not totally lost my mind, yet. I'll be back, never fear!

SCENIC SUNDAY

Lubec, Maine March 31, 2011

(remember that to see this image full screen, all you have to do is click on the image)  

Shadblow And Alewives

 
     Amelanchier canadensis
The Service Berries are in bloom. The diaphanous shrubs almost look like puffs of smoke across the marshes and meadows. Indigenous to North America, the small trees are not only lovely, but important to wildlife for the fruit they bear. I just planted one for a gardening customer at the bottom of their serene meadow. It’s in a perfect setting where the soil is consistently moist and the flowers will be back lit by the evening’s setting sun. It has plenty of space to send out suckers and make a clump which it prefers to do. Maybe I’ll talk to them about putting in some ferns around it’s legs. It’s also fiddlehead season, so it seems like an appropriate combination; they like the same conditions. The tight fisted crosiers of Ostrich ferns are a traditional Maine spring food. Like the flowers of the Service Berries, they are only around briefly before they unfurl and aren’t edible any longer. It has been a record breaking warm spring making us tend to forget that often at this time of year, there is still frost in the ground in the deep woods and in Aroostook County - “The Crown” of Maine. ‘Service Berries’ were given the name because their bloom coincides with when the ground has thawed and can reliably be dug to inter those who died when it was still frozen. When the Service Berries bloom, winter is over. They are also called Shadbush and Shadblow because they bloom when the shad or Alewives run. ‘Blow’ is an old fashioned word meaning full bloom. The Alewives have just started to run. When I was young, my father took me up the coast from here to Damariscotta Mills to see them. Alewives are a type of herring that lives out at sea, but travels up freshwater rivers to breed and spawn. Damariscotta Mills is narrow so thousands of the fish can be seen clearly from the shore. The Osprey, gulls and eagles go crazy feeding. At night, the raccoons come around for the dead ones that line the shore. For many of us, like eating fiddleheads, it’s a spring ritual to go there to see the fish and birds. I remember kneeling down and putting my hands in the water to feel them when I was a kid. The water was so thick with them you could literally grab them with nothing more than your hand. So many people go there now that there is a parking lot and traffic jams. When I was a kid, though, my father and I had to climb down the banking through the bushes risking poison ivy and a slip and fall on wet rocks. We could hear the water and feel the cool mist from the little falls above the pools of fish before we came through the bushes. It was thrilling!  Alewives are caught en masse by netting. Today they are used mostly as bait fish for lobster trapping. When eaten, they are usually smoked, though I’m told they have a very mild flavor. Traditionally, a little vinegar is served with them which is true of fiddleheads, too. I can only imagine, back in the days of our settlers in the late 1600s and early 1700s, how thankful folks must have been after surviving winter to have fresh fiddleheads, bountiful fishes and to be able to bury their dead. They must have wept when the Shadbush bloomed.


                                                                    

Technorati Tags: Robin Robinson photography, Maine, fiddleheads, Ostrich ferns ,alewives, shad, shadblow, Service berry

Skunk Heads - Surf Scoters- One Funky Duck!

I spent some 'pier time' today as it is about fifty-five degrees and sunny. There is a brisk, off shore breeze, so I admit to donning more than my bathrobe. There were plenty of sea birds around, but few of them were close enough to photograph well. Exceptions were these Surf scoters. This chunky diving duck is called "Skunk-Head Coot," or "Skunk Head" because of the white patch on the back of the head. I don't usually see them in this close to the shore, but rather, out at sea in groups of a dozen or so. They are easy to identify from a distance as the white patch is very noticeable against the dark of the sea. Like the skunk mammal they get their name from, you don't have to see them up close to know it's them! These birds nest on freshwater lakes in Canada. The males circle around the females while on the water protecting a moving territory. When the chicks hatch, they hit the water really quickly. The mothers don't do much for them other than to protect them. Frequently, the little Skunk Heads get mixed up from one mother to another, so they may be raised by a mother other than their own. None of them seem to mind this. Surf scoters spend the winter on shallow marine shores like Maine, New Jersey and California where they can dive for crustaceans and mollusks. Spring has also brought out the other kind of skunk. The unmistakable smell of burning tires is riding heavily on the night air of late. Perhaps it's a good thing there was a stiff breeze down on the pier, in case those Skunk Heads sprayed me. Now that would be a bad birding adventure! Get out the tomato juice!

This Herring Gull stole the crab from the Skunk Head, then tore it limb from limb, breaking it down to a consumable morsel.Can you imagine the conversation between them?


And here we have a little "happy dance!"
Sick, really sick.


Thanks to David Allen Sibley -The Sibley Guide To Birds, Wikipedia and allaboutbirds.com for the information. Another terrific birding site I've discovered is 10000birds.com. It was very informative and I shall be referring to it again in the future.

Barn Swallows Versus Michael Jackson

     The Barn Swallow is the national emblem of Estonia. Their currency bears an image of a swallow. The Estonians were ahead of the curve on that, in my opinion. I wish our money had that kind of image, rather than those rusty old presidents whose hair makes them all look like madmen. When I’m commissioned to redo our currency, I’ll put these hungry mouths of Barn Swallow chicks in an egg-like oval in the middle of each bill. Swallows would also be good representatives on our currency as the most widespread swallow in the world, much like our influence, good or bad. For that matter, Michael Jackson should be on our money. Toss up: Barn Swallows or Michael Jackson. If a pool of school children was chosen from around the world, then asked to identify a Barn Swallow or Michael Jackson, which do you suppose they’d be most likely to recognize?
    Perhaps I could consolidate the two: a Barn Swallow in flight, harnessed and trailing Michael Jackson through the sky. Throw in a little Shakespeare, “True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings,” and you’ve got yourself a world class devolving dollar bill.
     All Barn Swallows migrate, some far as Argentina and South Africa. Swallow tattoos are a tradition amongst sailors symbolizing long journeys and safe returns. A sailor gets his first tattoo after traveling 5,000 nautical miles. These Barn Swallows occupy a friend’s barn here in Phippsburg. There are ten nests, each one with 4-5 chicks. They usually lay twice in a summer, so that’s about 100 baby swallows from that barn each year. The success rate of the broods is about 75%. That’s a lot of swallows! Sitting in the barn, watching them zoom in and out feeding their chicks practically requires an umbrella. The barn owner has every square inch draped with plastic and paper, a sort of canvas for the splatter, like a Jackson Pollock painting without the talent.
   Their mud pellet nests are repaired and reused for 10-15 years, but have been documented to have been used for 48 years! That’s a dilemma for a barn owner. The nests could be destroyed, forcing the swallows to rebuild. After all, what did Barn swallows do before barns? They nested in more precarious places, such as overhangs on cliffs. In the Northeast, they nest under Osprey nests. It’s a reciprocal arrangement where the birds of prey drive away other predatory birds while the swallows gobble up the flies accumulating in the rotten fish scraps in the Osprey nest. Barn swallows have thrived in our company and our safe structures for their nests. We also tolerate these flying guano machines for their fine dining on flying insects. Swallows have always been one of my favorite birds. Their zooming flight is like my mind - an elegant, dark thing tearing through a dim barn, resulting in a lot of crap.

Mallard X Mold

Mallards are our largest dabbling ducks. They are found everywhere from urban ponds and drainage ditches to large lakes. Up the road from us in Bath, there is an outdoor hockey rink. Every spring when the ice finally thaws, there is a pair of Mallards that hang around in the melt water. I look forward to them as a sign of spring. These ducks were photographed in the wild in their 'natural' habitat. The female below is clearly a Mallard and has the classic orange and black bill and dark eye line, elegant! We'll call her Maybelline. The male appears to be crossed with some other kind of duck. I'm guessing by his mottled cheeks that his parents were a mix of Mallard and domestic duck (Mallard X domestic) which is common. Or, perhaps since we've had heavy rain here for almost two weeks straight, it could be mold. Even ducks have their limits of how much water they can take! I vote for mold. I will confess that I didn't get out of my car for the shots. I had gone to a garden center and purchased plants for a customer. My car was as loaded as it could be with greenery. My car usually looks like it is operated by a headless driver because I'm so short. This day, my car looked as if it were being operated by shrubs. So, when I saw the ducks in the marsh as I was whizzing along, I was able to pull right up to them. They didn't take any notice of the moving bushes. I was able to put down my window and shoot through the four foot tall Japanese irises in the passenger's seat. Leon Leonwood of L.L. Bean fame couldn't have come up with better camo. than that!

Ophidiophobia & Weeding For Dollars

I love gardening. I love it so much, I do my own and I do other people's. My gardening work for others I call Weeding For Dollars. And I earn every nickle. Every season, somebody says to me "Oh, you're so lucky! I would love to work with the flowers all day!" It's not that I'm complaining (well, yes, I am), but they have no idea what they are talking about. First of all, when you do it for other people, you can't just decide after a couple of hours to knock off when your back is killing you and go have lemonade. You have to continue until the work is done. No matter how hot it may be, how many Black Fly bites you have, rashes, Poison Ivy, leaking hoses: you must continue. Today, it was snakes. Mind you, I'm not afraid of snakes. I've caught many of them by hand. I get a certain satisfaction when I get one behind the head so it can't bite me and feel its sinewy body wrap around my wrist, tongue flicking, staring me in the face. But that's on my terms. I do not like being sneaked up on, or 'snaked' up on, as it were. In the garden where I worked today, there was a nest of Garter snakes. I saw six of them. Though they were all Garter snakes, each one was distinct enough that I gave them names: Mo, Curly, Larry, Groucho, Harpo and Zeppo. I don't know what gender they were, but that seemed to cover all their behavioral bases. They dodged, slithered, writhed, curled and slipped around the peonies and astilbes while I worked. Repeatedly startling me, they kicked my anxiety disorder into high gear. Gardening is very hard work, but it's never been as nerve wracking as it was today! I may have advanced my position from a run of the mill herpetophobe to a full blown ophidiophobe.

BIRDS Of Maine

This is a video I made a year ago of various photographs of birds. You know the drill, give it a minute to buffer or it will get cranky. At the bottom of the video box is a little button for full screen viewing which you might like better than this itty bitty doll house movie. It's a soothing movie, but in deference to Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill One and Kill Bill Two), I've given you part two first. Go figure.

Sick Of The Rain

Even the birds are sick of all the rain we've had. They sit around sulking. Ever seen a bird pout? Well I have. These crows appear to be a mated pair. The female is on the right, I think. She was grooming the boyfriend repeatedly. "Awe, come on, fella! You can make it! This will end soon, I promise. It always does. Don't let yourself go to pot over it."

Destroyers And Rabbits

Lathyrus japonicus-Beach Peas


The Vietnam War and the Sexual Revolution flavored the background for my teenage development. I entered the sixties as an innocent five year old and came out a jaded fifteen year old. By the time the decade closed, I had done drugs and had sex. So, as 1970 dawned, I was sure that war was wrong and that everybody should have sex whenever they wanted. Now, forty years later, I’m not so sure. Theoretically, the more years a person lives the wiser they should be, but for me, the opposite is true. With every breath taken I’m less certain because the older I’ve become, the more times my core values have been tested. When I walked in on my son, then later, my daughter having sex the test was huge! Each of them was older than I was the first time I had sex, but still - I was appalled. How dare they! Not my children! They may disagree, but I think I was cool about it. There weren’t any dramatic scenes and they were each suitably mortified. I was ultimately, more taken aback by my own gut reaction than about what they were doing. First, I was sure that my generation had invented sex. Certainly, this was true because my parents never had sex. Ugh! Oh shudder and wince; what a revolting thought! And my dear sweet little children would never have sex because now we know: I would kill them! So what was my horror about? Wasn’t it perfectly natural and to be expected? It was very okay for me when I was a teenager, why wasn’t it okay for them? Many nights I wrestled with that crocodile; hypocrisy floundered in a swamp of dreams. I concluded that natural as it is, teenage sex is not sanctionable (easy enough since I’d already had my teenage sex!). When children have sex, they are not prepared to be responsible for the consequences of their actions. I know I wasn’t, even though I thought I was. After all, I knew everything there was to know. The life altering fallout of disease and unwanted pregnancy seemed even manageable to my naïve mind.
Now that I wrapped that up with a nice bow for my psyche, that brings me to war. I wish that was as clear. Ideally, I would like to say that I’m opposed to war. I’m opposed to the death penalty so it should be clear, right? But, what if somebody intends to do harm to those precious children having sex like rabbits in your living room? Do you stand back or do you fight back? My response to hurting the ones I love would be damned primal; I’d hurt the other guy if it came right down to it. I’d mangle the beast that messed with my kids. I know this because I’m the mother of the rabbits. That’s taught me that I’m capable of things my intellectual mind thinks repugnant or just impossible. I’d like to think of myself as more evolved than the aghast mother who stood slack jawed while her daughter and the pimple faced boyfriend scrambled for clothes. But, I’m not. I’d like to think that I’m sophisticated enough to rise above my fear for my own losses to not wage war. But, I know I’m not. After all, I did have sex in my parent’s house while wearing a training bra. The drives are basic.
Fort Popham, built of granite in the 1840s, sits where the Kennebec River meets the Atlantic Ocean. At the end of the school year, teachers take students there for a last dose of history, a romp on the beach and at the old fort. These kids were throwing sea weed, screaming and daring each other to go into the cold water when this destroyer appeared. It’s a Bath Iron Works Littoral Combat Ship, the U.S. Navy’s first Trimaran war ship. Designed for speed and maneuverability, at 419 feet long, it was awe-inspiring. I wish that we could design a better way to settle our differences on the globe and defend our rabbits. I wish that teachers could tell kids about old forts and destroyers as truly things of our human past. I hope I never am a shocked, bewildered mother screaming “Not my child!” if one is lost to war.


The Spring Azure butterfly is a little guy, only about the size of a nickle. This one was enjoying the Beach Peas at Popham, but usually they prefer woodlands.









Rock Doves (feral pigeons) have nested in the observation slits in the granite fort.

If you zoom in on this, one of the girls on the left has her hand raised in a peace sign. Figures.

Selective Adoration

This is a juvenile Red squirrel. It is small enough that it could sit comfortably in the palm of your hand. They are destructive little critters that chew everything in site and will make a huge mess in an attic or eave. They are voracious bird seed eaters. We have platoons of them because we feed the birds, so we feed them, so they make more of themselves. We have altered the balance of nature in the course of promoting and enjoying a different aspect of nature: birds. The Red squirrels are almost at the point of being a problem for us that we will be obliged to do something about. But, then I look at this adorable little mug and think "What could I possibly do to hurt it?" I'll think of something.




The American Goldfinches are quite busy at the feeders. I give them what they want. How could I not when it looks into the window at me like that? There could be a million of them and I think I'd be glad, unlike the Red squirrels. Seems kind of unfair in a way, doesn't it?

BATHROBE BIRDING

One of my favorite movies of all time is The Big Lebowski starring Jeff Bridges. "Dude" Lebowski, mistaken for a Los Angeles millionaire, is actually a time wasting slacker, a bum that never gets out of his bathrobe. I often think of myself as "the Big Lebowski." If a person shows up at my house unannounced, no matter what the time of day, I'm apt to be in my bathrobe. The seriousness of my intent can only be discerned by whether or not I'm wearing reading glasses, but not by my wardrobe. I've always got my camera by my side, too. So, I was able to get all of these shots without hardly getting out of my chair, never mind getting dressed. Now, I think that makes me very rich. Don't you? Of course, when that eagle blew in, I was on the phone with a friend and had to abruptly hang up. "OH CRAP!" I yelled and threw down the phone. Later, totally engrossed in the day's bounty of photographs, I neglected to call that friend back. I had left him wondering if perhaps I'd had a sudden heart attack or merely had fallen off my deck. Another reason I feel like a very wealthy person is because my friends usually love me enough to forgive my annoying self absorption.

Bald Eagle landing on rocks in surf












Ruby Throated Hummingbird

Great Blue Heron on rocks in front of house

TURTLE TALES

Yesterday really was my day. I've been trying for a year to get a good shot of these Painted Turtles. "How hard could it be," you ask. "Turtles are really slow," you say. Well, let me tell you, when you want a good photograph or maybe to eat one, they are REALLY fast! This type of turtle is known for basking in the sun on semi-submerged logs. I don't know where they go on cloudy days, maybe to a bar with a big screen TV. You've got to have a long lens to get a close shot. That was my first problem last year. Once I had that solved, I had to wait for a sunny day and sneak up on them. That's where it got tricky. You can not sneak up on a turtle. No matter how quietly you walk, skulking along like an Abenaki hunter in buckskins, they can feel your footfall. The turtles in this photo are in fact, on alert. See how their heads are all up, looking for the noise source? Then, plip, plip, plop, plop, and into the water they go! They gave me such a headache I could have used some "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz!" No matter how long you sit and wait for them, they don't come back. I've done a lot of meditation while waiting for the Return Of The Turtles, to no avail. I've driven by these same turtles on this same log a hundred times. They idly soaked up the sun, taunting me. But yesterday, I finally got them! I observed that they werent' bothered by cars whizzing by, so I drove right up to them. They did not flinch! I kept the engine running and stepped out carefully, creeping around the body of the car like a cop with a suspect in his sights. I had two seconds, no more, to decide to aim for the heart or the head. I took both and the perps went down! So the question is, was that lazy man's wildlife photography since I drove up to them or was it patience, patience, patience?

Benefits of Dilly Dallying

This Bald eagle landed in a tree that I could see from my living room this morning. I took these shots while still wearing my bathrobe. Sometimes it pays to be a slob. I'm a proffesional dilly dallier. It's a good thing, too. If I had hurried out of the house in a timely and efficient manner, I would have missed the whole thing. This is real lazy man's photography when you can still be holding a cup of coffee and not be dressed and still get these kinds of shots. Maybe I can get one to actualy fly into the living room sometime to make it easier for me. After all, I'm getting older.