“ Pink sky at night, sailors delight; Pink sky in morning, sailors warning”. This means that if there is pink sky at night there will be good weather tomorrow.
LINK ->
Guess it will be a nice day coming up for you today.
Back to Killaloe, hippie paradise - B&W photos taken with my Canon F1 35mm film SLR. While spending time in that rural Ontario area I came across a farm that was for sale by an elderly couple who wanted to move into the nearby village, a rustic old propery no longer being farmed - a total of 300 acres, 65 of which were cleared, a wholly enclosed clean 35 acre spring-fed lake, and the rest was forest. On it was a big old barn, a small fishing hut down by the lake, an abandoned brick one-room schoolhouse (beside which I was standing when I took this photo) at the corner of the township gravel road and the road in to the farmhouse that was a tight little bungalow. Just right of centre over the horizon you can see a small dot - it's a watchtower for forest fires. They wanted $15,000 for it, and I could afford it, and was sorely tempted at the time, but had I bought it I would have moved there and my life would have turned out very different than it has.
When I look back on it now I think it would have been a perfect venue for a small countrified folk music fesival, the hillside down to the lake for seating with a stage at the lakeshore, the schoolhouse which already had washrooms in the basement could have had more, and a large kitchen for food prep on the main floor. The audience could camp out on the grounds, or sleep in the barn. It sure would have been a different kind of life.
I wish the pic were as clear in my comment as it is on my phone.
They really do zoom and hover like hummingbirds. I expect moths to flutter, like butterflies, but these little guys don't. And they're almost aggressive. While I was taking this pic, others were zooming past my head, like they were trying to scare me off. Sort of like actual hummingbirds, which act like they think they're eagles.
35+ years ago the front of my house in the 'burbs had a bunch of 4 o'clocks and it attracted those moths. my kids were mesmerized by them, and were scheming their slaughter, until I convinced them they were "killer millers". they bought it for a few nights, until the ex finally got pissed off because she was also duped and then spilled the beans.
Bird of Paradise Flowers - Bird of Paradise? The plant has many meanings! It represents joy, as well as freedom and luck. Some even say that this plant brings good luck…
Water lily symbolizes resurrection, due to its nature of closing up at night and reopening in the morning, which simulates a daily spiritual rebirth.
The iconography in your imagery is an added joy to someone like myself who cannot walk past an icon without reacting!
Thank you very much, Mac. I'm very glad you like it, and thank you for the great information about the flowers. The Bird of Paradise is one of my favorite flowers.
Wow! That is quite an array of Finches, JBB. Lots of various colors and sizes. We got visits now and then by Finches to our bird feeders. Thanks for sharing this very interesting assortment with us.
That's a very nice photo, Mac. I have never seen a Finch with that coloring. Thanks for sharing it with us. I am learning a lot about various birds and other species we share our world with that I have never seen or heard of before. That is one of the things I really like about this group, it offers so many new things to learn about.
Hang a suet feeder on a tree where you can see it well from a window, and you'll be in for a treat. Heck, those red-bellies will even visit regular birdseed feeders.
I've had a bear on my front porch. My dog thinks he can take them, all 18 pounds of him, so I try not to do anything that would bring them near the house.
Today I saw a big bear was hit and killed about 25 miles away. Several Game Wardens and Deputies had one lane of road blocked moving the bear, probably todaled the car but it was already towed away. Sorry to see the bear was killed
We drive our garbage to dumpster sites if we don't live in town. I store it in the garage until I'm ready to make a trip. There is one company that does garbage pickup outside of towns, but I don't see many of their garbage cans around, so I'm not sure they have many customers.
Bears have been seen pretty often in town, though, so garbage cans are still a problem. I think about 2 weeks ago, one was seen wandering around for several hours in a residential area a few minutes' walk from my office.
That's sad. I like to watch them. I just want them at a distance. I saw droppings in my yard last week, and paw prints on my neighbor's property a couple of months ago.
I think it was 3 years ago that one died in a neighbor's yard - looked like he had severe mange.
I've been obsessed with my homemade bird fountain this week. I can't believe how much action it's been getting since I moved it over by that bush. More and more birds discover it everyday, and reviewing camera footage is actually exciting, lol. I'm already thinking about building a bigger and better one, ringing the area with rocks, and adding some flower pots.
This heat wave is killer, with every day being over 100 for the past week. It's also been really dry this summer, so the fountain is quite popular with the birds that have found it.
That's a really great video, Dig. So much fun to watch. Looks like many different birds have now found your new birdbath. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Thanks, RW. That cute little warbler and the oriole were total surprises for me. I didn't even know pine warblers could be found around here, and I thought the orioles had all moved on after the big migration through this area in the spring.
The robins seem to like it more than anyone. Today there were a couple of them practically camped out in it. I saw one of them just sitting there in the water for a really long time, as if it was sitting on a nest, lol. I didn't have the camera set up, though.
Oh I know. I feel so sorry for the little wren chicks I still have in a couple of birdhouses. Fortunately, the ones in the birdhouse I built this spring are about to fledge, so it shouldn't be much longer for them. The forecast says the heat is about to break here, too, so that's good.
It was in the high 90s here today, and then a storm system came through and cooled things down quite a bit. But it's supposed to be hot again tomorrow, and rain today likely means high humidity tomorrow.
Arvo dig..what I do here if I know where a nest is with chicks etc I hose the bush, shrub nest box down with water...
Helps cool the area down and puts the moisture back in the air etc..
Have managed to save quite a few chicks over the years by doing that...but if they are high up in the trees then it really is survival of the fittest I am afraid...
Here, too. Luckily, starting tomorrow it's supposed to be back down in the 90s for several days, with chances of rain on Monday and Wednesday. After that it's supposed to be in the 80s, with chances of rain almost every day. I'm looking forward to that.
The great thing about the fountain is that all birds need water, so I'm hoping to see new ones that don't eat seeds and never visit the feeders. That little warbler is already a new one for me. Even though the internet says they do visit feeders, I've never seen one before now.
Thanks. I have the camera set up on the new birdhouse right now (the chicks inside will be fledging soon and they're getting rambunctious), but I was just watching the fountain through binos, and what I think is a female house finch was literally sitting on the fountain nozzle, lol.
That's a great shot. I've been trying to figure out how people shoot lightening. I've read it's often done with fast-set time lapses, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.
One more time!
Exquisite photos!
Those are excellent photos of truly exquisite birds, Mac. Very well done!
Audubon class images.
Sunset Stone Creek, Ocala, FL.
Good night all.
Wow! That is a fantastic sunset, Kavika. The varied colors look like a fantasy. The timing could not be more perfect. Just breathtaking.
LINK ->
Guess it will be a nice day coming up for you today.
That's a beauty, Kav.
Here is one for Thursday, one some of may have seen before......
As usual worth seeing again.
Thank you, Buzz.
Back to Killaloe, hippie paradise - B&W photos taken with my Canon F1 35mm film SLR. While spending time in that rural Ontario area I came across a farm that was for sale by an elderly couple who wanted to move into the nearby village, a rustic old propery no longer being farmed - a total of 300 acres, 65 of which were cleared, a wholly enclosed clean 35 acre spring-fed lake, and the rest was forest. On it was a big old barn, a small fishing hut down by the lake, an abandoned brick one-room schoolhouse (beside which I was standing when I took this photo) at the corner of the township gravel road and the road in to the farmhouse that was a tight little bungalow. Just right of centre over the horizon you can see a small dot - it's a watchtower for forest fires. They wanted $15,000 for it, and I could afford it, and was sorely tempted at the time, but had I bought it I would have moved there and my life would have turned out very different than it has.
When I look back on it now I think it would have been a perfect venue for a small countrified folk music fesival, the hillside down to the lake for seating with a stage at the lakeshore, the schoolhouse which already had washrooms in the basement could have had more, and a large kitchen for food prep on the main floor. The audience could camp out on the grounds, or sleep in the barn. It sure would have been a different kind of life.
Great photo, Buzz. Beautiful countryside.
Dreamy, Buzz.
How wonderful.
My daughter calls him buddy. Not sure what type of flower he is.
Look Buddy had a baby....
Weird... Buddy is purple and baby is pink.....
Look like phlox flowers.
I think you are right.
Yeah, some kind of phlox. I had a nice looking red on pop up on the edge of the yard this year, but I have no idea how it got there, lol.
Beautiful flowers, Veronica. Thank you for sharing them with us.
Thank you, Raven.
The Queen's Palace in Edinburgh Scotland.
That's a very impressive photo, EG. I understand it is her favorite place.
It must be nice to have a cozy little place like that to spend a little vacation time in the summer.
Great B&W pic, clouds and all.
Great photo, EG.
A hummingbird moth visiting my butterfly bush.
I've never seen one of those, or heard of them before. Thanks for sharing it with us.
I wish the pic were as clear in my comment as it is on my phone.
They really do zoom and hover like hummingbirds. I expect moths to flutter, like butterflies, but these little guys don't. And they're almost aggressive. While I was taking this pic, others were zooming past my head, like they were trying to scare me off. Sort of like actual hummingbirds, which act like they think they're eagles.
No problem, sandy. I'm going to look them up so I can learn more about them. They sound very impressive indeed.
35+ years ago the front of my house in the 'burbs had a bunch of 4 o'clocks and it attracted those moths. my kids were mesmerized by them, and were scheming their slaughter, until I convinced them they were "killer millers". they bought it for a few nights, until the ex finally got pissed off because she was also duped and then spilled the beans.
"Killer millers"
Never knew about them before - thanks for sharing that with us.
A new one for Friday....
A Mayan Priestess
Bird of Paradise Flowers - Bird of Paradise? The plant has many meanings! It represents joy, as well as freedom and luck. Some even say that this plant brings good luck…
Water lily symbolizes resurrection, due to its nature of closing up at night and reopening in the morning, which simulates a daily spiritual rebirth.
The iconography in your imagery is an added joy to someone like myself who cannot walk past an icon without reacting!
Thank you very much, Mac. I'm very glad you like it, and thank you for the great information about the flowers. The Bird of Paradise is one of my favorite flowers.
Absolutely lovely.
Thank you, Buzz.
Wonderful image.
Thank you very much, G.
Great start to the thread!
More bird form diversity.
A Passerine songbird with perching habits
© A. Mac/A.G.
A truly beautiful bird, Mac. The varied colors and patterns of its' feathers is really interesting.
I think I saw one of those yesterday, but I'm not sure. It might have just been a house wren popping around under a bush like one.
Woman in a Kimono, Kyoto
© G. Gam
That is a very interesting image, G. And the lady in the Kimono is very well dressed. Well done!
Thanks, Raven Wing.
Walking in a dream.
Nice.
you do this on purpose. swap an image of me with the woman and that's me in the 70's...
Yep. Guaranteed to blow your mind...
Really appealing in its color, composition and linear perspective and subject.
Thank you! I appreciate that very much.
One of our directional signs in Stone Creek.
The sign for "snow" gave me a chuckle.
For me it was my first laugh out loud of the morning - due to the many times I escaped from the snow in order to spend time in Florida.
Oh my goodness. Now that is rather confusing, but, also very funny.
Alfred Hitchcock is close by. Stone Creek, Ocala FL.
oh look, the organic texturing crew has arrived for work...
Stone Creek version of ''Lonesome Dove'' except to us it's ''Lonesome Heron''.
Stone Creek, Ocala, FL.
That looks like a very popular place to the birds. Great photo.
Winter's evening drawing in...and time to head home to the warm. Roll on Summer.
Great photo of the evening setting in at the shore line, shona.
Arvo Raven...thank you...do tend to forget we still get magnificent days and nights here, even in Winter...
Finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae
© A. Mac/A.G.
Finches are a very diverse species.
Wow! That is quite an array of Finches, JBB. Lots of various colors and sizes. We got visits now and then by Finches to our bird feeders. Thanks for sharing this very interesting assortment with us.
When I was in public school I had a classmate named Ruby Finch, but she wasn't as pretty as those birds.
Evening Mac...three of these finches come from Australia...The Zebra, Owl and Gouldian...they live up North or in the Outback...
The colours of all the Finches are testimony to the hand of Mother Nature..
That's a very nice photo, Mac. I have never seen a Finch with that coloring. Thanks for sharing it with us. I am learning a lot about various birds and other species we share our world with that I have never seen or heard of before. That is one of the things I really like about this group, it offers so many new things to learn about.
Here's a not so old one for Saturday.....
Warrior Taming His New War Pony
An excellent image beautifully framed.
Thank you, Buzz.
Red-bellied Woodpecker, Male
© A. Mac/A.G.
I hear woodpeckers pretty often, but I've never seen one up close. Very pretty.
Hang a suet feeder on a tree where you can see it well from a window, and you'll be in for a treat. Heck, those red-bellies will even visit regular birdseed feeders.
I'm afraid to. Bears.
Ah. That's a shame. There are supposed to be black bears to the south of me, but not around here. I guess I'm lucky, with all the feeding I do.
I've had a bear on my front porch. My dog thinks he can take them, all 18 pounds of him, so I try not to do anything that would bring them near the house.
Perfectly understandable. How do people do rural trash pickup around there? I'd be worried about trash cans getting rummaged through all the time.
Today I saw a big bear was hit and killed about 25 miles away. Several Game Wardens and Deputies had one lane of road blocked moving the bear, probably todaled the car but it was already towed away. Sorry to see the bear was killed
We drive our garbage to dumpster sites if we don't live in town. I store it in the garage until I'm ready to make a trip. There is one company that does garbage pickup outside of towns, but I don't see many of their garbage cans around, so I'm not sure they have many customers.
Bears have been seen pretty often in town, though, so garbage cans are still a problem. I think about 2 weeks ago, one was seen wandering around for several hours in a residential area a few minutes' walk from my office.
That's sad. I like to watch them. I just want them at a distance. I saw droppings in my yard last week, and paw prints on my neighbor's property a couple of months ago.
I think it was 3 years ago that one died in a neighbor's yard - looked like he had severe mange.
... no comment.
Get your head out of the gutter!
That's a real beauty, Mac. We don't get woodpeckers around here. Not sure why, but, I haven't seen, or even heard one, in many many years.
Never saw or heard a woodpecker here - but saw and heard many back in Ontario.
Beautiful.
I've been obsessed with my homemade bird fountain this week. I can't believe how much action it's been getting since I moved it over by that bush. More and more birds discover it everyday, and reviewing camera footage is actually exciting, lol. I'm already thinking about building a bigger and better one, ringing the area with rocks, and adding some flower pots.
This heat wave is killer, with every day being over 100 for the past week. It's also been really dry this summer, so the fountain is quite popular with the birds that have found it.
That's a really great video, Dig. So much fun to watch. Looks like many different birds have now found your new birdbath. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Thanks, RW. That cute little warbler and the oriole were total surprises for me. I didn't even know pine warblers could be found around here, and I thought the orioles had all moved on after the big migration through this area in the spring.
Great video ! The hummingbird looked like it was having a lot of fun.
The robins seem to like it more than anyone. Today there were a couple of them practically camped out in it. I saw one of them just sitting there in the water for a really long time, as if it was sitting on a nest, lol. I didn't have the camera set up, though.
Who could blame them, in this heat?
Oh I know. I feel so sorry for the little wren chicks I still have in a couple of birdhouses. Fortunately, the ones in the birdhouse I built this spring are about to fledge, so it shouldn't be much longer for them. The forecast says the heat is about to break here, too, so that's good.
It was in the high 90s here today, and then a storm system came through and cooled things down quite a bit. But it's supposed to be hot again tomorrow, and rain today likely means high humidity tomorrow.
Arvo dig..what I do here if I know where a nest is with chicks etc I hose the bush, shrub nest box down with water...
Helps cool the area down and puts the moisture back in the air etc..
Have managed to save quite a few chicks over the years by doing that...but if they are high up in the trees then it really is survival of the fittest I am afraid...
Love the ''bird bathtub'', Dig.
My friends in Kimberling City said it's been over 100 degrees every day for a week.
Here, too. Luckily, starting tomorrow it's supposed to be back down in the 90s for several days, with chances of rain on Monday and Wednesday. After that it's supposed to be in the 80s, with chances of rain almost every day. I'm looking forward to that.
Luckiest birds in America - bird feeders, bird houses, bird baths with showers.
Lol, it's all just so enjoyable.
The great thing about the fountain is that all birds need water, so I'm hoping to see new ones that don't eat seeds and never visit the feeders. That little warbler is already a new one for me. Even though the internet says they do visit feeders, I've never seen one before now.
Terrific job with all that, Dig.
Thanks a lot, G.
very cool.
Thanks. I have the camera set up on the new birdhouse right now (the chicks inside will be fledging soon and they're getting rambunctious), but I was just watching the fountain through binos, and what I think is a female house finch was literally sitting on the fountain nozzle, lol.
One more for Saturday....
'White Buffalo Calf Woman'
One of my favorites, Raven.
Thank you, Kavika. I am very pleased you like it.
Very nice.
Thank you, Buzz.
Attention getter.
Photo taken by the Stone Creek Photo Club.
That's incredible. Amazing.
We get some spectacular lightning storms here, G.
That's a great shot. I've been trying to figure out how people shoot lightening. I've read it's often done with fast-set time lapses, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.
And one for Sunday....
Another stained glass window waiting for a commission; it really is a master work.
Thank you very much, Mac.
Spectacular.
Thanks Buzz.
That's a beauty, RW.
Thank you, Kavika.
A Stone Creek sunset from earlier in the week.
And this is what it looks like now with thunder, looks and sounds like rain coming soon.
Wow!!!
My "Wow!!!" applies to BOTH photos.
The sunset is beautiful, and the impending rain storm is very dramatic. Great photos, Kavik.
Bald Eagle
© A. Mac/A.G.
Great in-flight catch perfectly placed on that super background. Was it an all-in-one shot, or layered?
A truly amazing photo, Mac. The vibrant colors of the Eagle and the clouds around it are really beautiful. Very well done!
Closing shop until Thursday.
Thanks to all.