A Quick Wildlife Photoshoot

Thanks to my 365 day photo challenge at https://tookapic.com/jenniferfaye I have been taking so many photos recently and I love it!  I took my camera to work with me last night, and went out during my break to see what I could find.

Mostly I captured birds, but this one squirrel was very curious as to what I was doing it seems.

I almost didn’t share this pigeon because I’m not too happy with the composition, but I just love the eye. 

The following photos are all of Purple Martins.  They were everywhere!  And not very shy. 

For all of you Disney fans, this one below is standing on an “I’m Celebrating” button.  I was so focused on the bird that I didn’t even notice until afterwards when I was reviewing the photos.  I wish I had caught it sooner to get a clearer angle. 

And I think this last one might be my favorite.  Not necessarily because of the quality, but the story.  There was a larger bird (a Raven I think) standing on a light post directly above.  He kept dropping crumbs and hitting this guy on the head.  This was his reaction. 

As always, thanks for looking!  Feedback and comments welcome!

A Day at the Park

It is a rare day when I venture out into the Disney parks when I’m not working.  But today was one of those occasions, and of course I had my camera.  My original intention was to take some photos of the Tower of Terror, and use a black and white edit to create kind of a spooky, mysterious image.  I just couldn’t find a vantage point I liked. So naturally, then I just started stalking the wildlife.  It started with these two, wondering around begging for breadcrumbs. 

Caption this photo! Ha I wonder what is going on in their heads. Probably something like “this crazy woman with a black box stuck on her face keeps following us around, what do we do?”

Next it was time to grab a peanut butter and jelly milkshake (the main reason for the trip into the park to begin with).  Yes, a peanut butter and jelly milkshake.  It’s from Fifties Prime Time Café at Hollywood studios, and it is delicious.  I highly recommend it. 

But on the way there, I saw baby ducks and they were just too adorable to not stop for more photos.  The problem is they were tiny.  And very very fast.  So after, oh I don’t know, fifty or eighty snaps I managed a few with the little ducklings close enough to see clearly, that weren’t either blurry or too dark from a fast shutter.

The adult ducks were pretty relaxed, and even seemed to pose from time to time. 

Kind of unrelated, but I really liked the look of these flowers I also ran across today.  I felt like the color took away from the interesting textures, so decided to go with a black and white edit for these.

Thanks for taking a look, and Happy Friday!

Birds

I love going outside every day and taking photos of the beautiful things I see.  I have many photos of all kinds of flowers and critters, but today I wanted to share a few birds.  I didn’t have to go very far for this first friend below.  He had gotten himself trapped in the screened in area with our pool.  I wanted to help him out but decided to snap a few pictures first, because I rarely get the chance to be so close.  So here he is perched on some framing.

The bird was absolutely beautiful as he was, but I thought it would look pretty artistic with some black and white edits.

After only a few minutes I put the camera away and transitioned to the rescue mission.  He was being so still and reserved I thought I could just pick him up, but didn’t want to risk startling him.  I grabbed the pool net, and much to my surprise he just walked right on and sat patiently as I walked to the door at the other end of the enclosure.  As soon as were were outside I put the net down close to the ground and he flew away.  Very quickly and very far haha. 

This next bird had been flying around my neighborhood for a while.  I’d seen it many times without my camera, but finally I caught him (Or her.)  I caught it having a snack and was so glad to finally have a photo of it.

And then it happened again!  I had my camera and saw him fly by on a second occasion.  I followed it around from tree to tree for a while, but it flew away he went when I got close.  Finally he decided to stay in one spot long enough for me to get a picture.  Of course he wasn’t really staying here for me, he just wanted a snack. 

And speaking of having a snack, I caught these two for just a brief moment on a nearby roof.  I’m not sure if they were sharing or arguing over the unlucky insect, and they didn’t stick around long enough for me to find out.

These next two photos are ones that I took as contenders for my daily posts, but decided to go with other images.  I still really like both.  There is just something so peaceful about the solitary birds free, for the most part, of any distraction.

I love shooting wildlife!  And hope to someday soon be able to get better equipment to capture these moments in better detail.  I’ll post again soon with other critters I see from day to day.  Thanks for looking!