Comfort food

There's nothing better on a blistery autumn day than a properly made pot pie.

(or a woolly bear caterpillar)

;-)

Common folklore says the severity of the coming winter can be predicted by the amount of black on a woolly bear. It's believed that if a woolly bear caterpillar's brown stripe is thick, the winter weather will be mild and if narrow, the winter will be severe.

I'm guessing none of that mattered to the mantis.

(Click on the pic for a better view of the gory details)

Sanderling

Yes... I'm still adding to my collection of sanderling shots.

(They're to me like shoes are to other women, in that one can never have too many!)

My camera's CF card's gone wonky... this always happens... anyone have a guess why?

How to photograph a tern

First find a marshy place

with a dock.

Around the dock, look for some comfortable pilings

where the bird might like to perch.

Then, on the pilings, photograph something for the tern

something beautiful and strange that will make it feel at home.

(I found a couple pelicans.)

Then wait with your camera.

Don't speak.

Don't move.

(Hide behind a piling if you have to.)

Sometimes a tern will come quickly

but it can just as well take hours.

Don't be discouraged if one doesn't come right away

wait.

Wait years if necessary

it doesn't mean that your photo won't be good.

When the bird comes

if it comes,

remain absolutely silent.

Wait until the bird poses for you

then quietly take frame after frame.

Move closer if you like.

Try not to cut off its tail feathers.

If you get too distracted or excited

and forget to show the best angle on the bird

or have too much pelican in the background

don't worry.

(You can fix most anything in PhotoShop later.)

Just photograph the bird

with the prettiest splash of blue for a background

or green if that's what you prefer

and remember to have fun.

Photograph the summer breeze, too

and the smell of the sunshine and the ruckus of the boat-tailed grackles.

Then wait for your bird to sing.

(With terns this is an optional step, of course.)

If it doesn't sing, don't be sad.

You did your best.

But if the bird sings,

it's a very good sign.

(Terns seem to spend a lot of time looking at their toes when they should instead be singing.)

It helps to have a great lens when taking photos of birds.

It also helps to have a friend willing to loan you such a lens

be warned tho

you'll want your own.

Santa

are you listening?

;-)

Too easily forgotten

A lecture and slide presentation yesterday sponsored by SHBO on NJ's native orchids has me reviewing photos from this place and drooling with the memory of it.

One problem with waiting forever to process photos is the forgetting of details that happens in between.

;-)

I've all these photos of drop-dead-gorgeous flowers and can hardly remember the name of one of them!

I'm thinking this one is Ragged Fringed Orchid, as the deeply fringed petals make the flower look pretty tattered.

Am I right? Anyone know? Jim?

Boo!

Some of the scary people I work with...

Best costume I saw this year was the Gorton's Fisherman, right down to the hairy chest and plastic shark.

What about you?

A promise kept

Boomer, my heart-bunny

2003 - 10/28/09

In my most pragmatic moments, I think of the Dickens quote: "Life is made up of a series of meetings and partings," and try to convince myself that this is, indeed, the way of it and that mourning and memory are the mirror-twins of joy and experience. The latter cannot exist without the former, because otherwise life would be featureless and flat; either constant valley or relentless plateau.

Each bunny brings its own heartbreak, be it with their coming or their going.

Despite his sad start, Boomer came to live an enviable life among bunnies and he lived it well, I think. He was the beloved of two beautiful Flemish-bunny girls in his lifetime and enjoyed many hours napping in the sunshine. He loved a warm bed and a soft pillow. He was easy in the way only a Flemmie can be: gentle, big-hearted, all feet and big ears.

The vacuum and the roar of a lawn mower were the only things to bring out any memory of fear in him.

"You're safe, Boomer. You're home."

And that was enough, whispered time and again into those sweet velvet ears, to calm him. My secret promise; a reminder for us both.

There's some part of me that's in tune with bunnies; that sings in the same key with them. Others don't get it; they might love cats or dogs or iguanas, but the love of a bunny is different, somehow. It touches some other place; a place that seeks to protect them in their peculiar frailties, as much as it delights in their boundless joy.

The love of a bunny is different.

And the heartbreak is different too, somehow.

Sailing wisdom

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

-Mark Twain

Pic taken from the ferry to Cumberland Island, somewhere along the intracoastal waterway.

Any sailors among us?

;-)

I had just one experience as a child in sailboat that I remember looked something like this. I didn't fall overboard or get seasick. Considering how scared I was... both major triumphs!

Now... to have that same opportunity today...

(dreaming)