Easter in the Mountains

Heading down Maggie Miller Hill on my way to the grocery store, this piece of art work caught my eye and I stopped to get a picture on my way back.

Once known as the Hastings Fire Hall the Hastings Borough Building is undergoing a roof restoration. The building is well over 100 years.

Spice Shelf.

The old Milchalk farm on Murphy's Spring Road.

A pair of cardinals take a lunch break.

Fresh water keeps the birds coming back...

and the chipmunks too.

Now that the sun is moving higher in the sky in the morning I'm getting a lot more time to shoot the birds.

With her mouth full, a female Hairy Woodpecker heads back into the tree line.

Male Hairy Woodpecker.

I'm always looking for things that will give me some kind of action shot and test my hand and eye coordination. On Sunday I had the chance to watch this chipmunk as it went back and forth between the plate and the wood stump. I missed the first 2 or 3 tries but got lucky with this shot. I'm shooting from approximatley 25 feet away and the distance between the plate and the top edge of the wood is 24 inches.

Take off.
The lucky shots just keep on coming. Anticipation is the name of this game.

Landing.
Bad timing can sometimes get you a result you might otherwise not have considered possible. My goal was to get the chipmunk halfway between the stump and the plate.

Rufous-sided Towhee

Purple Finch.

Have you ever wondered how they go about determining where to put windmills? What you see here is a tower set in the middle of a field in the northern part of Cambria County, PA that will give them wind data gathered over time. To learn more about wind and other renewable energy sources visit http://www.francis.edu/REC.htm.

Daffodils.

Shot on Tuesday, this last picture says a lot about the last week here on the ridge. There's no denying that spring is really here. The daffodils are flowering, the trees all have new buds showing and the grass looks green for the most part. Tuesday was also my 64th birthday and the new Marine Corps flag was a present from my wife.