animals

First up - this week's animal photo - one of the many frogs that live in the pond:

We had an extremely busy holiday weekend.  Jami & Larry were down from Indy from Friday to Sunday.  We had a huge Labor Day bash to break in the new homestead on Saturday, which yielded a turnout of about 40 people.  Lots of food was consumed, jello shots were popular and the fishing was good.  It was a great time and I can't wait to do it again!  Unfortunately I was too busy to even think about taking photos and didn't get a single one.  

With the holiday weekend I took off my half day Friday to get the house cleaned up.  I have today off for the holiday and I have tomorrow off for working the fair last week - not a bad deal!  So today we're running some errands, cleaning up around the house, and hopefully relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather this week has brought!

And for duck updates - we lost three of the original four to what we thought was a snapper in the pond.  So we got three more to put the number back up at four and got bigger ones.  This time the larger one went missing.  After thinking about it we have come to the conclusion that the coyotes are getting them.  So we put up an electric fence around the tree they roost under and haven't had any come up missing since.  They are getting big and right now I'm calling them my Tweens.  ;)  As you can see, their color is starting to come in.

Another Ruby Throated Hummingbird - the finches and chickadees weren't cooperating!

When we first moved into the new house we noticed a little hummingbird occasionally coming by to sample the flowers in the front flower bed.  Jason promptly made his tasty vanilla flavored hummingbird food and now we're up to six hummingbirds all fighting for the feeder, all day, every day.  Earlier this week I was out on the front porch and decided to see if I could get some decent photos of them.  Being hand held they didn't turn out too bad, though next time I want to tripod the camera and use off camera flash, rather than the speedlight in the hotshoe.

These photos were taken with a Nikon D80; 18 - 200mm VR Nikon lens; SB600 speedlight on the camera hotshoe.

I noticed this turkey vulture sitting on the fence the other day while I was eating my lunch.  He, apparently, was looking for lunch, too.  We have a fly trap in one of the trees near where he was sitting that stinks to high heaven of rotting flesh ( to attract the flies ) and we're betting he smelled that thinking he hit the jackpot on a yummy meal.

Friday we brought home four of the cutest baby ducklings!  We have set up a temporary enclosed area in the pond where they can be on land, in the dog igloo that is their shelter, or in the water, until they learn where their new feeding spot and shelter is.  We should be able to let them out of the pen in a few more days.  They are so cute and fuzzy and soft!  They have tiny little wings that they flap around as much as they can.  They are Muscovy ducks, but we don't yet know what the female to male ratio is.

More photos:

Over the weekend I decided to start up a new photography project.  Project 365 is a little much for me, so I decided to do a themed Project 52 focusing on only animals, since they are my favorite subject anyway.  Two years ago I did a general Project 52 with no theme and successfully finished it, so hopefully I'll be successful with this one as well.

I'm kicking off the project with a photo of Big Worm I snagged the other day while he was cat napping on the porch.

Finally - we're starting to settle into the new house.  We finished up work on the old house this week and the renters move in on Monday.  I'll be so glad not to see that place for a while.  The dog fence posts are being installed today and will continue on Monday and possibly Tuesday. Hopefully by end of day Tuesday we will have a completed fence for these dogs.  They need their running room and ability to free roam!  They are getting a little more than an acre all to themselves with plenty of trees and open areas.  They are going to love it!

We managed to capture Big Worm about a week after we actually moved.  He's elusive and we had to go to the house at 10:30 one night in order to get him. By that time he was pretty hungry so I was able to coax him into eating some canned food inside his carrier.  He was pretty leery but hunger won out and I was able to shove him in the cat carrier and close the door before he was able to remove one of my appendages.  He was not happy at all.  Once we got him to the new house, after much ruckus and mewling in the truck, we let him out of the carrier and he took off.  We didn't see him for three days.  Finally I found his hiding spot under the back porch.  Jason fed him some tuna laced with dewormer and we Frontlined him for fleas and since then he's been hanging with us on the porch in the evenings.  As you can see, he was not a happy camper at first, but he's coming around.

We're loving all the wildlife that we've been seeing.  We have a resident pair of humming birds that we see on a daily basis.  Lots of rabbits, frogs and dragonflies.  Unfortunately also a lot of houseflies that are driving us nuts.  We've seen a few deer and woke up one morning to 3 wild turkey strutting around the yard.  Now that things have settled down I'll be trying to get some photos of some of the creatures we see.  Here is a Waved Sphinx Moth that spent an entire night and day on our screen door.

Hopefully I'll get back to my regular postings again and I plan to start Project 52 up soon as well.  Happy Friday!  

As the 4th of July weekend approaches, so does Buddy's adoption anniversary date.  As of next weekend we've had this beautiful, gentle giant for one year.  At a now healthy 90 pounds Buddy has come a long way since that day, a year ago, when we first met him.  He was a dirty, scrawny bone rack of 55 pounds, half starved to death and living in 6 inches of feces with 38 other dogs - all in bad conditions.  Happily all animals were seized and re-homed or fostered.  And Giant Dawg is now content with his full belly, his sheltered home and his new family. 

This is also the photo I chose to enter for the I Heart Faces Photo contest.  It's a recent one but also one of my favs.    Check out the link for tons of other adorable photos!  

After a month long hiatus from taking any photos I'm back in the saddle again!  The monthly scavenger hunt I try to participate in is having a challenge right up my alley and I figured what better time to jump back in.  The challenge is to find various shapes in nature...and with it being spring with all the fresh blooms and critters out and about, it's a really fun challenge! 

Some of the photos are below...but first, a house update!  I think we finally managed to get it after all that we've been through!  We were able to come to an agreement with the sellers that I believe is pretty fair for both parties.  So if all goes well from here out we'll have a closing date tomorrow and will be looking to physically move in 6 weeks.  Photos of the new digs can be seen here.

And here are some photos I've taken this weekend.

Blue Dasher Dragonfly

Cabbage White

Matrix Lily Innards

Finch Buffet

Project 365: 102/365

I was able to get a better photos of the bullfrogs tonight by sneaking up behind them.  This is a different one than the frog I snagged a photo of yesterday.  They are elusive little guys this time of year, but they are starting to get braver. Though I don't know if this one even knew I was there.  

We added 6 more small Koi to the pond today - hopefully they don't become dinner for these guys.

And Blue was posing pretty on the deck steps so I had to snag a photo of my boy!