Starling antics... after suet in my garden... Spring, 2011

So I bought a suet feeder that is SUPPOSED to keep birds (such as Starlings and Grackles) from dining on the suet because they don't like to feed upside down. And I hung it temporarily where there is a way to access it from underneath IF standing in just the right spot and stretching to reach the good stuff. Or perhaps, mimic a hummingbird and flap wings rapidly while powering up to the suet feeder. Or, obviously, ignore the belief that Starlings do not like feeding upside down and just pretend to be a woodpecker and have at the suet until sated!

I do intend to move this suet feeder where approaching from underneath will not be quite so easy to do. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the images. I watched these silly birds for quite awhile today and snapped away like crazy. I'd have never done that with a film camera!

Maybe next week I'll include a series of images of a quite frustrated Catbird attempting a similar approach and not quite succeeding. In the meantime, I'll be posting this at World Bird Wednesday which you should definitely check out for some marvelous bird images!

Yarrow blossoms... shallow depth of field... Summer, 2010

I think I've mentioned before that I've been experimenting with extension tubes when shooting some of my flower images. One thing about using extension tubes is that there is less light coming in to the camera compared to using the same lens without any extension tubes. (Stick with me, I don't speak "technical" when I talk about shooting pictures!)

Shooting with the aperture wide open results in the very shallow depth of field you see here. (The alternative is to use flash which isn't something I like to do when shooting flowers in a natural setting.) Yarrow is a perfect candidate for shooting with extension tubes because the cluster of tiny blossoms is nearly all in the same plane, making it easy to get a nice sharp image of the flowers with everything else "fuzzed" into the background bokeh.

A sure sign that fall is on the way... and now it is here!

Once again, I seem to have fallen WAY BEHIND on posting here... not sure why but things do seem to get in my way. This Coneflower image is from the end of July when our unusually hot summer had taken its toll on my garden... causing the Echinacea to finish blooming earlier than usual. This fading blossom struck me as photo ready so here you see it!

Delicate November Bloomer... African Daisy revisited!

Hope you aren't tired of seeing these flowers... they are still putting on a show in my garden and I simply cannot resist sharing this one... taken earlier today while the rain of the past couple of days was still misting down on the garden... flash photo because it was too dark to do otherwise without the tripod and I was too lazy to go get mine and set up in the rain for this shot. (This blossom is the exact same one as the photo below it... overnight cool temperatures cause the petals to curl up... this one won't fully open again today unless it warms up more than it has already.)