Much to my delight, snow fell last night and covered the muddy trails in the park. Winter without snow can be pretty dull and tiresome, in my opinion. The unremitting brown-and-greyness of it wears on me after a while...a pretty short while to tell the truth. I think my feelings stem from our location on …
Unusual pose for a nuthatch
Walking in the park, I am much more likely to see the nuthatches (and there are hundreds of them) land in a tree and walk down the trunk. That is typical behavior for the nuthatch, but this fellow decided to pose a little differently for his portrait. I wonder if he is more vain than …
Something different
A late afternoon walk in the park garnered nothing more than the usual suspects: the chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and other little birds. Then as the sun sank lower, it cast a soft glow on the scene, and I decided to go for a landscape shot of the power towers. Not my usual style, but I …
I found “big bird!”!
Look at those holes the pileated woodpecker has dug in the tree. I have been tracking this big bird for weeks, actually for the entire winter, ever since I realized that there was one living in our neighborhood park. Now I know that there isn't just one, but a pair, a male and a female. …
A photo portfolio
There is a pileated woodpecker nesting somewhere in our park, and I have been searching for him for weeks. Occasional sightings have not rewarded me with a good picture to post, so I will just have to keep trying. It is a very elusive quarry and perhaps, just perhaps, there is a pair. One day …
Birding with a camera
Most birdwatchers, or twitchers, as they are called in Britain, carry binoculars. I carry my camera. You can probably guess that I am not a serious birder with a long life-list and a longer list of exotic locations I've visited in the pursuit of elusive species. I have high regard (envy?) for the experts who …
Cold; no, scratch that! Freezing!
We ventured out this morning for brunch, followed by our traditional New Year's Day photoshoot on Headlands Beach. Seven people and two dogs made the trek this year. That's Lake Erie you see behind us in the distance. Headlands Beach is located about 25 miles east of Cleveland, Ohio, and in the summer time, crowds …
Winter Wonderland
Consecutive days of snowfall have turned our park into a winter wonderland, making for some wonderful photo opportunities. The tree branches and fence rails are heavily laden with snow, and the wildlife have gone into "mooching mode." With a deep blanket of snow covering their source of food, the animals have become conditioned to turn …
Can’t they get it right?
Brrrr! It was a cold morning in the park. I encountered a mother with her snowsuited toddler and felt envious of his warm winter snowssuit. It was cold and it was snowy, but they (the national weather service people), never manage to get it right. They predicted that it would snow through Friday night and …
Bird watching
My photo walk this morning turned out to be a bird walk. All the photo opps that presented themselves were birds, and they were real "posers", as in posing for the camera. It was a great morning for a walk: some filtered sunshine, no wind, and relatively mild temperatures for February....somewhere approaching 40 degrees Fahrenheit. …
SEEN ALONG THE TRAIL 