Cleaning up the kitchen after lunch, my eye was arrested by the sight of a lonely bluebird huddled on top of the nesting box in falling snow. The temperature was 18 degrees, and I could only imagine that, despite his fluffed out feathers, the little fellow was feeling a bit cold. Grabbing my camera, I …
Too cold for trailwalking
As I warned in my last post, right after spotting the red-bellied woodpecker above, our temperatures plummeted and for the past several days have hovered around zero (F). Yesterday the high temp here along the south shore of Lake Erie peaked at zero degrees Fahrenheit and went down from there. The "feels like" temp, given …
When the snow finally fell…
I saw a walker hurrying toward me... Then I noticed why she was in such a hurry. A big buck behind her was closing in! And right behind him were two more bucks, headed her way. With a healthy sense of self preservation, I clicked off a few pictures, swung around, and left them all …
Lazy (and wet) Sunday afternoon
The temperature was hovering around zero with freezing rain tapping on the window pane, so backyard birding seemed like a better idea than trudging down the trail in the park. Call me a wimp, if you want, but I'm happiest indoors in weather like this. The bluejays don't seem to mind much as long as …
Back to birding in the back yard
It wasn't a fabulous day for photography, so I decided to take some shots through the kitchen window. This stump and several others are what remains of a large oak tree we had to cut down last year. I decided to take advantage of them to create tables, just for the wildlife. The little birds …
That’s determination for you!
I think this is the first time I have seen a mourning dove in Chagrin River Park. They are homebodies, usually content to hang around the Backyard Buffet, eating the food I put out for them. A mourning dove in the park was an unusual sight, but then this was an unusual day. After a …
A rare event
Many years ago, when Bob and I relocated from central Pennsylvania to the south shore of Lake Erie, I was a stay-at-home-mom with three little girls. We moved into our new home in January, and we hadn't been living here for long when I realized that something was missing, something I was accustomed to in my former …
Winter walks in Holden Arboretum
My project for this week is assembling a portfolio of my winter trail walks . Although I take regular walks in Chagrin River Park which is only five minutes from my home, another of my favorite places to walk is Holden Arboretum. If you follow my blog regularly, you have seen many pictures from my …
An uninvited dinner guest
I have been playing around with creating diptychs and other collages, so today, after I "developed" my pictures in Lightroom, I chose three related images that I think tell a story. Can you follow the storyline? Hint: Start in the upper left corner. Here's the sequence: Sparrow was ready to tuck into his favorite meal: …
Bonanza!
On my photowalk this afternoon, the first "almost sunny" afternoon we have had in a long time, I headed down the trail with some sunflower seeds in my pocket. Passing a bench, I sprinkled a handful of seeds, hoping to attract a few birds for a photo opp. Some chickadees and titmice flew in, grabbed …
SEEN ALONG THE TRAIL 