We Can Take More Winters Like This One

I can't wait for winter to end so I can get out of here and see what is happening in the rest of the world.  But, with the rising cost of gas, I'm not really sure how far I can roam this spring and summer.

One of the projects I wanted to work on this year was making some videos and slideshows and posting them onto YouTube.  You'll find two links in this week's blog to the videos on my YouTube channel.  Enjoy!

This male cardinal flew into a window and I rescued it from the deep snow it fell into. See a video.

A grey squirrel trying to raid the feeders.

Although this little red squirrel climbs up the tree and looks at the feeder it normally doesn't bother them because there is enough seed laying on the ground.

Male Hairy Woodpecker descending on the suet feeder.

A Female Cardinal on a sassafras branch seems to have an attitude about her as the wind rustles her feathers, thus my caption.

Tree sparrow.

I shot this mourning dove just as it was preparing to take off from the branch.

The good lighting allowed me to get this male red-bellied woodpecker approaching the suet feeder for a landing.

Most people don't get to see this view of a mourning dove because they are usually flying away from us as we approach them.

Coming in at almost 2 pounds I call this my Elvis Banana Bread.  Yep, it has banana, peanut butter and bacon!

The next two photographs show the pattern of the deck railing on the snow early in the morning.

 

Sunrise on the ridge.
In the summer time the sun rises just to the left side of the photograph and in the winter it rises just to the right of the tall trees on the right hand side.

Just another foggy day on the ridge.

Early morning sunrise.

Ed's Pond
I stopped at my friend Ed's pond on the way back from the grocery store the other day to shoot a little video of a flock of geese that were returning to the area after migrating south in the fall.

A couple of my bird-brained friends flew in today from Margaritaville to check out the weather on the ridge.  We're having a party to celebrate their first time playing in the snow.  So if you are in the neighborhood, stop in.  You know what they say "Birds of a feather, flock together."

Thinking Spring

With the mild winter that we've had I really hope that these are the last pictures of snow for the year.  But then again, I'm probably just fooling myself. 

It's not often that I get a chance to take a picture of two different kind of birds sitting close together but this week I was fortunate enough to get two good shots.  A Mourning Dove and a male Hairy Woodpecker hang out on a sassafras tree.

Tufted Titmouse

A Mourning Dove leaves its perch heading down to feed underneath the feeders.

Sometimes it takes me ten or twelve tries to get a shot like this because a dove has the brain the size of a pebble and it takes them forever to make up their minds whether they are going to take off or not.

My second shot of two different birds features a female Downy woodpecker and a Black-capped Chickadee perched on opposite sides of a sassafras tree.

Male Hairy Woodpecker.

One of at least two male Red-bellied Woodpeckers that we've seen at the feeders.

I've probably used this old lobster trap as a subject before but with each snow it looks a little different.

We can't wait for spring time so we can put a nice looking pot of blooming flowers on this chair.

This monolith was once in the back yard but when we finished the edition to the garden this summer, it found a new home.

Seed pods from a Spanish Yucca covered with snow and enhanced in PhotoShop.

A Sharp-Shinned Hawk sitting directly above the feeders.

My wife shot this of me getting ready to plow the driveway and play in the yard on my new toy.  And Think Spring worked because as we prepare this post on Wednesday, 1 February 2012, the temperature outside is 51 degrees at 5 p.m. EST.