Sunday, February 24, 2008

Cats & a Cardinal


A cardinal silently graced my evening on sit day #10. I did not get a picture of it - I didn't have my 10x zoom camera with me and he moved too fast through the yard to get a good shot anyway but it sure was a nice surprise, especially after commenting on what a wildlife desert I picked.

Today was relatively warm (upper 30s) and hazy - we have a temperature inversion here and driving around town today it was quite noticeable, more so than yesterday when I also detected the blurriness in the air.

The cats were also very active and I saw 5 of them again. The black one was hanging out on my other neighbor's porch - like he lived there. Does he? Hmmm - time may tell.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

My secret spot is a desert for wildlife so far

Today was sunny and in the lower 30s:
Maybe it's the time of day and the season, but aside from the neighbors cats, I haven't seem much besides a squirrel and a chickadee on one day only.

I did get out somewhere else on Wednesday night to see the lunar eclipse and take some photos, which all turned out horrible! Just horrible - comically so. I'll tell that story some other time.

Today, I saw no wildlife at all and ended up taking a few more pictures:

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Sit Spot Challenge Day 5

Another cold one today
(2 degrees when I was out about 10:30 this morning), but the Sun was very bright and I had to take more photos -




I also watched the cats and they watched me. I saw 4 of them today - all behind the fence, so there were no photo ops of them today but I'm sure my time will come...in the meantime, here are more Macro shots of snow and weathered wood, etc:

Monday, February 18, 2008

Camera Fun

I was out about 10:30 this morning and It was really cold again today (about 4 degrees), with a bit of a breeze and some light sun.
OK, so for my sit spot today I didn't really sit - it would have wrecked the snow on my deck! I took a bunch of pictures, several of which make me pretty happy - the photographer in me is waking up! Here is a sample:





Sunday, February 17, 2008

Day 3 of Sit Spot Challenge

It was gray much of the day but the sun peeked out a bit in the afternoon and I kinda went crazy with my new camera and took a bunch of photos. You'll see more of 'em later. Temps in the 30's again today.

I actually heard a crow and then a chickadee too. First wildlife sensed in this challenge. I also saw a squirrel and 4 or 5 of the cats that live in the neighbors yard. I got photos of 3 of them but one was just the tail as it slunk away.

Blackie hissed at me and ran away before I could get a good pic of him
Calico never knew I was there
Gray Eyes was ready to bolt when he saw me but I shifted my body language and he stayed long after I got a shot.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

My first bird digiscoping attempts



I was hardly prepared for these. I was actually on a date and did not have my adapter to mount my camera to the scope so just hastily snapped a bunch of photos of this eagle at Prescott, WI on January 26th

I did have my camera (Fuji Finepix F650) at nearly full zoom (5x) and my scope is a Fuji Super 60 (angled) w/ a fixed 25x eyepiece. It has super long eye relief and so vignetting is not a problem, but the slow shutter release is (without a mount anyway)

First Post



Today is Day 2 of the 30 day secret spot sit challenge. I have photos from each day and I will be posting them. The sunset is from yesterday. It looks all warm and cozy but it was 7 degrees out! Today's sunny one was 34 - quite a big difference for one day.