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Welcome to the Pine River Review. Our sight is dedicated to our little homestead located along the Pine River tucked inside the Chippewa Nature Center's 1400 Acres of wild in Michigan's lower penninsula. We love to share our pictures, video, comment, and our own homespun music. Step inside our world as we celebrate this beautiful nook!


Tuesday, April 5, 2011

World Bird Wednesday XX


    Monochromania



     I know that spring is still at least two weeks away and my Technicolor dreams of photographing colorful Baltimore orioles and Ruby Throated hummingbirds will have to wait awhile. The leaf buds on the hard woods haven't even pumped themselves up enough yet to shed their brown husks. Where is that thin pastel green wash that colors the tree line when true spring is at hand? Nowhere in sight. It is a bare, drab brown monochromatic landscape around these parts.
There are, happily, a few positive signs my monochromastic existence may soon come to an end as our late arriving thaw creeps along. The river is running fast and noisily over the rapids where an icy silence hung just a few weeks ago. The calls of the early migrators such as the Red Winged black birds are a welcomed new song and I swear I heard the monotones of the frog chorus the other night. If the sounds of spring have begun can the color be far behind?
    

   
      Excepting what nature offers I have been running down hawks again, scanning the bare tree tops for the hunkered down predators that wait for small rodents to stick their heads out from under the scattered snow banks. Soon enough the forest will leaf out again and hawks will be much harder to spot. I will miss the natural drama of their monochromatism when the greens come. Gladly, I'll share 'em while I can still get 'em.  I consider these dark and brooding pictures lucky catches because the center weighted auto-focus on my Canon lens loves to latch onto the high contrast background of branch and overcast sky instead of the cruising bird. Unless I'm very steady,  pictures of in-focus branches and a blurry bird are all to common. The Hooded Merganser below was working the Pine River just behind the house making for yet another majestic monochromatic moment. Yeah I know, it's monotonous. Such is the case when you've got a bad case of monochromania!



           Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

This is the home of World Bird Wednesday. A place for bird photographers from around the world to gather and share their photographs and experiences as they pursue Natures most diverse and beautiful treasurers, the birds. The Blogosphere connects like minded people from around our planet like no other technology can do. World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.


You are invited to link your blog with other bird photographers in a weekly celebration of these most diverse and intriguing of Earth's residents, the BIRDS.



                                                   CLICK THIS PICTURE!

#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/


#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST North America through Wednesday midnight and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!


You don't have to be a Bird Watcher or expert photographer to join in--just enjoy sharing what you bring back from your explorations and adventures into nature.The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres!


The thumbnails below are links to our contributors blogs where you can view their beautiful posts.

                                Come on it's your turn!

24 comments:

  1. Great shots, all three. Love that second one . It looks so secretive.

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  2. Nice shots, Springman, and good job capturing the hawks against those autofocus-stealing-stick-filled backgrounds! I like the intensity of the stare in that second shot.

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  3. NICE work! Here we are having our hard spring storms the hot air hitting the cool and BANG-
    Catching a great action shot requires a steady hand and a lot of patinece..YOU have done both in these shots I really love the top photo of the hawk in his downstroke...Excellent!

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  4. Cracking shots Springman. It's always nice to see some quality in-flight photos. Spring is well under way here in the UK with lots of migrants already arriving. Have faith as I'm sure it will reach you soon.

    Adam @ My Life Outside

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  5. Frustration, frustration ... I know how it feels .. plenty of vocals over here but the sun has disappeared and everyone perches where the view is obstructed or the light is just crap!
    Despite the camera's intentions you did exceptionally well with the flight shots.

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  6. You never cease to amaze me, Springman. Outstanding shots!

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  7. Beautiful shots of the hawks Dave! And that Bufflehead in flight is cool. I too hate to see the trees leaf out in some respects. I sure makes our photography more difficult.

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  8. I love the hawk shots! Mine never turn out like this. :)
    The Buffalo Head is a wonderful capture as well gliding over the water.
    I have to say I love your writing as well. Really nice descriptive commentary.

    Carletta@Round The Bend

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  9. Not at all monotonous! These shots are splendid!

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  10. lol. soudns like the same as we have. :) The swedish blog is monochromania too, but not the CR one.

    The Buffalo head, is that so´me kind of Goldeneye?
    Very good shots or the birds of prey.

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  11. I love the first shot, an awesome flight shot. I was sure that the bottom shot was of a Hooded Merganser, but I am not an expert. It is a great flight too. Thanks for hosting and have a great day.

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  12. Beautiful captures of your lovely wildlife.

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  13. Thanks for hosting this... I'm very new to linking up my blog through Linky tools and sites hosting themed posting... birds have been a life-long interest although I'm not an expert birder by any means... I do LOVE looking at them and trying to capture decent images so I'll be back again and again now that I've found World Bird Wednesday!

    PLUS, I really enjoy reading your posts... you definitely have a way with words that makes me want to read more as well as to enjoy the images. :-)

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  14. Monochrome or not, those are teriffic pictures!
    No Spring here either except the brave Crocus flowers, and oh the beautiful tunes of those early songbirds.
    B.

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  15. Eileeninmd,
    Yikes, Thank you for the correction. A Hooded Merganser it is! As much as I debated whether to include that picture in or not I should have got it right. Who's the Buffalo head now?

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  16. I know the frustration of perfect branches and fuzzy birds.

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  17. At least you know that our world will turn green sometime soon :D
    Gorgeous photos again!

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  18. We all have to deal with branches and emerging leaves. You never crease to delight me with your captures. Love the action shots!

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  19. Hey man move down south. Spring is in full swing in KY right now; temps in the 70's, warblers, flowers, the whole deal (sorry for rubbing it in). I gave a shout out to World Bird Wednesday on Twitter. For those tweeters out there, follow me @lvillenaturally.

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  20. I don't get bored with your monochromes at all -(course I don't have to live there ;>). Really your pictures are beautiful and you have wonderful birds. I especially love the last picture. I had no birds to post this week, so I'm just hear to do some virtual birding. Thanks for putting it all in one place!!

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  21. A site for sore eyes?
    I'm sure you look further:-)
    Love the cardinal header with the matching red lettering. Even though I miss seeing that gorgeous white bird.

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  22. I Love this last shot too, but the whole set you presented is beautiful!

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