I'm a Bluebird

I hit the bird lottery this week when a flock of Bluebirds visited my yard. They were feeding on the chokecherries incorporated into leafy arrangements of pine branches and sticks nestled in the big ceramic flower pots that sit on our deck by the river. The Bluebirds stuck around the general area for a couple of days before abruptly disappearing into a snow squall.   

For the most part conditions were dark and I had to push my camera to it's limit. Fortunately, the objects of my affection tended to hold steady and I tried as best I could to settle my jittery hands.

A week later I am still craning my neck hoping my blue and cinnamon friends will return to the branches of the oak tree where they staged their forays into the berry laden twigs.

     We who live in traditional Bluebird territories have a responsibility to provide suitable housing for these beauties as they compete with more aggressive starlings and sparrows for nesting opportunities. Bluebird resurgence is a credit to human intervention.
     Sometimes it's a simple choice, to have or have not. 

Click here to see the "one board" Bluebird house plan!

    Consider the next four shots as you would a short movie. I think they tell a story and... I will resist the urge to caption them.

I'm a Bluebird!

 

Sir Paul McCartney's wonderful "Bluebird," take a listen.

To participate in World Bird Wednesday click here. ;-)WBW!

Heavenly Skies Prevailing

And at the top of the tree...


     It would have been easy to stay in a somber mood. Featureless clouds dominated the solstice skies and the spooky sad Minor chords of Christmas hymns had long ornamented our musical selections. I was starting to morph into a Gregorian monk. In concert, their forces made a contemplative state of mind irresistible. Even the trusty waters of the Pine River locked up glacier tight with ice flows. How startling it was to see the river asleep again. Of course, those of us masquerading as adults know the water flows quietly underneath; that should be a good metaphor for something. Suzanne suggests it aptly describes the vacant look on my face. Not much movement on the surface but, she infers, I must be considering something below.
    She further remarks, "Thank goodness we don't have to make a conscious effort to breathe like whales do."
   Was Suz insinuating I would not make a very good whale? To absent minded perhaps?
   I told her I had been contemplating the universe (dressing it a little grandly) and I suspected, whales do much the same thing when they're not occupied with their breathing.
   "Do you think I would make a good whale?" I ask her.
   "You'd soon get tired of eating krill."

   

    Suzanne is right, I do crave variety and a plankton diet would grow weary, however; I do not get tired of taking bird pictures. During holiday travels my trusty Canon T2i stacked with a 400mm L lens rode shotgun. It was high time to track down the raptors hanging in Michigan's canopy like so many flashy ornaments.
    Red tail hawks stalk prey from the limbs of road side trees and make good subject choices under light starved, leaden skies. There are leafless holes to angle tight shots through and the edge of my half closed car window, buffered with a bean bag, makes for a superbly stable platform. I focus at five times magnification until the image is sharp and trigger a short burst of perhaps ten pictures - refocus - fire another series...Whisk, the cars go by. Jittery hands make for lousy pictures at these slow shutter speeds. Now we're having fun!

I had been playing hell with auto focus. I reasoned there was something wacko with my lens when I could not track birds in flight effectively. Sitting on my rump at Overlook Park I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands, tracking the diving gulls while manically twisting the lens into adjustment. It turned out in the end the T2i was not set to center spot focus, a setting I never adjust. Go figure.

Working perfectly, auto focus would more than likely have botched this shot preferring the foreground gulls as opposed to the young Bald eagle as it's point of reference. The eagle flew frustratingly close and stayed chronically unfocused before settling into a tree a few hundred yards away perching with two other eagles. I was definitely getting a work out.

                                                                   The three wise men...

   Should I press in close and disturb their calm? Good sense does not often prevail at moments like these and I was left debating my conscience while my busy hands eagerly readied the camera for close ups.
   There would be a tiny window of perhaps 30 seconds to attempt a dozen pictures before the eagles spooked at the presence of a human being in their midst and flew off. I did not want to cross that line.
   The adult bird was partially clear of branch clutter and holding nicely when I emerged underneath them. Click, click, click, and I backed out, the threesome holding steady.
   Later in the evening our skies cleared and Suzanne and I partook of wine soaked star gazing. We looked out at the line formed by the three stars of Orion's belt and followed it to Sirius, the brightest of all stars, now resting on the Eastern horizon. A meteor streaked momentarily between them. An angel, no doubt, encouraging the Wise Men on their profound journey.
   I share with you my wish, on that shooting star, for a safe and awe inspiring New Year.  "May a thousand angels guide thy steps and keep thee on thy way."
   Peace to all who read these words, Dave.
;-)WBW!

Ahhhhhh...Leftovers!

 

    After the eating binge so recently concluded (and the decimation of Meleagris gallopavo  achieved nationwide) I am ready again to sit still and pick through the bones of my recent photo sessions. 

    A Brown creeper searching for insects is a fairly rare sight climbing up and around the trunk of the maple tree just outside my living room picture window. You will often catch me laying in wait with my camera cradled on the sill, the pane slid barely open. It is no coincidence a couch is parked right underneath. There is a wonderful confluence of terrains with the river, forest, and farmlands all close by, there's no telling what may perch for a moment in this particular tree. 

    I had been chasing the elusive Northern flicker popping back and forth between the trees until it showed up foraging for insects in the boulder pile at the base of the aforementioned maple. I happened to be at my post by the window and suddenly my heart was thumping.
    My super thin depth of focus at 5.6f, was part of a grand compromise with an ISO of 400 to achieve a shaky shutter speed of only 1/320. Finding focus on the energetic bird wasn't a sure thing, fortunately I had a few keepers. 

    Thank heaven for good pictures because describing the Flicker, appreciating its confusion of dots and dashes, would take a thousand telegraphs a thousand years.     

A Red-breasted nuthatch is a new neighbor, my first sighting ever just this Autumn. I'm pretty sure he's flying solo.

A male Downy woodpecker in his quest for nourishment.

    I have intentionally left this picture small in hopes you might click to enlarge it. It has a micro-focus on the Wax-wings right claw, nothing else on bird or background is clear. Somehow my eye travels right to that very spot and freezes. Up to size and spread across my 15" monitor I think the effect is kind of riveting.

   



    The pale bandits have cleaned the cherry tree of fruit and will not be back until there is a fresh harvest. That won't be for a good long time but even so, there will be others, the great diversity nature favors, and I shall be waiting for them by the window.

 

With Respect to Cavegirls...

 

 

    It seems that Fall has moved by me with astounding speed from the first unexpected tinges of red and gold in the hardwoods to these latter days of burnt orange, peppery grays, and of course, the omni-present browns that crunch underneath my feet. I have stayed pretty close to home for the most part this Autumn season except to visit Shiawassee Wildlife Reserve once on a preemptive photographic attack before it's borders were closed off to all but the bird shot slinging shot gunners. Fortunately, my own backyard can keep me busy with photo ops. Such is the blessing of living inside the wild and gun fire free boundaries of the Chippewa Nature Reserve along the Pine River. The wintering birds are arriving and I'm getting acquainted with a troupe of regulars that will have become old and dear friends by winters end. Take this Red-bellied woodpecker as an example, I've had plenty of opportunities to capture it's profile in the cloudy all day twilight so common in a Michigan November. The difficult trick, and it has become something of an obsession, has been to catch him (her?) clearly in-flight. Believe me, those wings are beautiful spread out airborne. That shot, when it comes, will take light and luck to pull off and Luck has been at hand, providing for example; a flock of Cedar-waxwings just at the golden hour scarfing up dried cherries in the orchard. I have been able to creep close and drop the shutter on these genteel souls often. So, the luck is there.

Now all I need is light. 

 



 

 

  Eaten Alive

 

    Night drops like an iron curtain at 5:30. After that the woods and river that surround my home crowd in with a deep and impenetrable darkness. When your out in "The Dark" and most especially alone, deep shadows can transform branches into bears and boulders into tusk wielding wild boars. Those under functioning hunter gatherer instincts, formed over 200,000 years of living in the field, can flood your central nervous system with an uncontrollable dread, the fear of being hunted and eaten alive by fellow creatures. I have seen this outdated instinct run amok in my partner Suzanne who has come to live with me in the pseudo wilderness outside fortress Detroit, leaving the street-light drenched safety of city nights behind. The call of the wild is heavy upon her and she feels a little threatened by it, just my opinion. 

   Yes, there is an increasing population of wild feral hogs in the general area and it is open season all year 'round on them, even the odd male bear has been seen to roam through the county in the early spring dejectedly looking for territory... But really, the circumstances surrounding the last person eaten alive by a wild animal in Mid-Michigan probably had a saber-toothed tiger associated with it.

   I have no problem walking through the neighboring woods at night, (that's how brave I am!) I kind of like the feel of hair standing up on the back of my neck. From here we can charge across the road and hike for miles through the familiar forest, lucky us. We do so nearly everyday and Suzanne is wonderful to walk with, when the sun shines. Her amazing sense of hearing and smell fill in nicely for my siren ears and other smoke reduced sensations.

   However; as visibility subsides and the other senses heighten in importance, she detects the aroma of things that are not there. Walking at night sets her on edge. Her freshly fueled ancient instinct to check for the possibility of wild animal threats burns brightly and unashamedly against a truly dark nightfall. At the witching hour the prehistoric Bio-chemistry that boils up from below bubbles away any small comfort statistical analysis can bring. In a single adrenalin filled heartbeat imagination can easily best boring old common sense.

   Last night Suzanne served us more than a morsel of shear fight/flight terror. We had just arrived home and I went in to unlock. Suz was alone outside unpacking the trunk when a pack of coyotes within a spears throw of our front door started howling loudly and plaintively. She yelled for me to come quickly. The blood curdling din, such as I have never heard, did not abate and the look of vindication on her face, that I told you so moment, well, I'm sure that has not changed in a hundred thousand years.

    Give the cavegirl credit, she had it right this time.   

 

     

 

 

 

Speaking of Howlin' Wolf... 

 

     I have been pushing my study of bass guitar perhaps a little to hard. My left hand is in a uproar. I am rehabbing, but what I need right now is to lay off. The Rickenbacker lays tilted against the couch pleading, "What's up man, wanna play?" How can I not say yes? So I pick it up and bang on it long enough to test for pain and stiffness and set it back down. I've got a gig Wednesday night; blues and rock for three hours straight, no breaks. Stupid right? That's why I'm being so good about icing and heating, I sure don't want to be dragging around a lame hand when things get cookin'.

     I am in dire need of diversion.

   

 

     Many a blues man has remarked about a supernatural influence on their playing. A crossroads moment if you will, when a sort of deal is struck with destiny. Did Robert Johnson truly sell his young soul? I've often thought Bob Dylan's deal involved never being able to come off the road in exchange for his genius and fame. These are extreme cases, often fate pushes it cause in subtler ways.

     I was tired of woodsy solitude and made the trip to town. Always I hit the second hand stores. Here I find my people, a little tattered around the edges, with that shy, yet wonderfully optimistic personality obsessive/compulsive people tend to have. Like them, I look for odd bargains and project materials mostly, occasionally I find something more. When I started poking through a bin of cassette tapes I had no idea what I was getting into. One after another old blues titles emerged; Robert Cray, Robert Johnson, Bobby Blue Bland, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker and on and on 'till my arms were filled with 50 of the little treasurer chests. What a gift, and they were half off too, the whole lot set me back only ten bucks! 

    As I play through these gems, so eloquent and soulful, I wonder, who originally collected them and why and how did they wind up on a shelf for me to stumble upon in a second hand store? Like the movie, "The Red Violin," the history of ownership can be as interesting as the object itself. 

    Certainly this find was a good push in the right direction for me, positively enlightening, and yes, I feel a little personal visitation from the powers that be was involved. The whole experience had that peculiar otherworldly vibe. Could moments like these soon be outlawed? 

    In my country, before our Supreme Court, rests this question: Should it be illegal for Americans to resell or give away their privately owned copyrighted material such as books, C.D.'s, and DVD's?

    Copyright owners argue that they should be paid every time their work changes hands. If our Justices come down in favour of publishers interests over the rights of property owners used book stores, thrift shops and their E-quivalents like Amazon and E-bay, will be restricted from selling used items such as these. The very premise of a lending library or a neighbor to neighbor sale might be threatened.

    Consumerism could reach new depths with this "buy and burn" idiocy.

 

   Will new rule?... and the Hand Me Down Blues sung from sea to shinning sea?

      

Click here to learn more about this issue!

 

  

 

            Be there or be square!   ;-)WBW!

;-)WBW!

What's Shakin'...

   Hummingbirds are darting around my backyard like stray electrons and I fell victim to the urge to dust off the 400mm and try for some clicks.
   I had been holding faithfully to the tenants of my own self-imposed bird photography austerity program. My resolve is apparently slipping. Can this hobby become an untenable addiction? I'm here to tell you.
   I knew I was getting into trouble when I could not see a bird without jumping reflexively into action, taking any chance to achieve a picture. It's taken some time but I can now actually take a paddle in my kayak (without the camera) and enjoy scanning the landscape for things other than avian life. And get this, I can even see that "well lit" bird and not lament the fact I don't have a camera in hand. This is progress for me, not being so driven. I can be a simple son of nature again and not a thorn in the side of every bird I get within a hundred feet of.
    Hummingbirds, however, have made me less cautious and I have risked this hard fought, if tenuous "cure," (my new relaxed attitude that is,) and taken up the camera again. It sure felt good, fraught as it is with danger, like a call from an old girlfriend. I should know better than to tug on the devils tail. My best interests lay in a more balanced approached to life, it's easy to get carried away.
    Still, I want to share!   

   I have dusted off another of my old toys, the '76 fireglo Rickenbacker bass guitar that has languished under my bed for to long. Laying down bass lines for a talent group of blues musician here in town is reviving an old passion. My mind has been awash with all things bass; scales, grooves, and electronics. I have been running over old Motown tunes trying to reclaim my funky heritage in the rhythmic rattling of rib cages.
   Shake it up baby!

"You'll never really know your friends from your enemies...until the ice breaks."
                                                                                 Eskimo Proverb

    I saw an article recently reporting a new record ice loss for the Arctic ocean this summer. This years melt has exceeded 2007's record with three weeks to spare. According to satellite images we are losing a mind boggling 29,000 square miles of ice per day!  The polar ice mass and Arctic region in general is acting like a heat sink with median temperatures raising much faster there than the planet at large. Old, stable ice that is formed by years of normally frigid temperatures has thinned to half its historic thickness and is diminishing into slush. 

   For hundreds of years humankind has dreamt of a North-West passage; a quick shipping route from Europe and the North Atlantic to Pacific Ocean markets. For the second time in history, 2007 and this day in 2012 the North-West passage is wide open!
    Oil speculators are jockeying for the rights to newly opened Arctic oil deposits and the potential profits implied from exploiting these vast under-sea reserves. This carbon candy, along with the realisation of a mythical short cut uniting three continents, has corporate planners eagerly preparing to take advantage of a possible complete summer Arctic ice melt in the near future. This should be inconceivable. Climate models put the arrival of an ice-less Arctic summer as soon as five years away and almost certainly within a few decades.
   Think of it, with a ice free polar ocean, no longer would commerce be at the mercy of political unrest along the Suez and Panama canals with the bonus of travel distances being cut for massive ocean going vessels by 40%.
    It would be no small coincidence, a choice irony, if the very corporate and political concerns that stand to profit from such a calamity are the same ones propelling the problem. While we, the "Great Unwashed," ponder the peril, others are busy maximising their financial positions, making friends with the inevitable. That's called hedging your bet.
   One of our Presidential candidates bites his lip in mock despair when referencing the rising tide. I can follow the money trail that leads to those who anticipate this disaster greedily.
    Their message: Global warming? Don't worry people, it's probably nothing...go back to sleep.
    I believe the polar opposite.

Good News!

Click on this picture to move to Wild Bird Wednesday!

Our good friend Stewart has picked up the ball I dropped with the conclusion of World Bird Wednesday and is continuing the WBW tradition with his new meme Wild Bird Wednesday. I could not have hoped for a better transition. Join me in participating with the WBW community at this new venue.

Carry on Stewart! Cheers everyone...Dave

World Bird Wednesday LXXXVI

Flying the Friendly Skies

I suppose everyone who raises a Dslr to their eye in hopes of capturing a bird in the wild will one day, perhaps in a fit of boredom, level their steely gaze on a dragonfly. I am no different. Chasing bugs to get their pictures is about as strange as I get, as strange as you can get perhaps. Couple that with the fact that dragonfly love is the most complicated and time intensive study one can take on and if your unlucky enough to get hooked on the color, vagaries, and alien good looks of these bugs to boot, you too will be considered one strange bird indeed.
   How naked is nature? Sex, death, and the fight for survival are all played out in raw theater. Look carefully and you will see the awful and the sublime living closely and improbably like poorly matched neighbors. When your looking for one, you will sometimes unfortunately find the other.
    Case in point. Suzanne and I were finishing up a lovely breakfast out at the Pine river when we spotted a young bald eagle cruising low over the water. When the bird returned a few seconds later we scurried out on the deck and were greeted with the sound of ducks quacking frantically. I grabbed the camera and bolted for the steps leading to the river bank.

    I guess it doesn't get much plainer than this. There's a kind of hard truth here that defies any attempt to anthropomorphise goodness, resourcefulness, or courage where it does not belong.
    Our eagle did not consume it's catch but dropped it back in the river and flew off in search of a more substantial meal. There is a one legged duckling swimming hard on the Pine river tonight.
    Just another random act of survival.

"Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."
                                                                               William Yeats

With this installment I am concluding the 86 week run of World Bird Wednesday. The Pine River Review will reemerge on a semi-regular basis. Take care birders!

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 beautiful treasurers, the birds.

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!

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

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

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

The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compatriots!

Come on it's your turn!

World Bird Wednesday LXXXV

Let's Get This Party Started!

    It's that time of year. The heat has reached triple digits and fireworks light our skies. It's time to party, crack the top on a few beers, and get a little crazy!
    I used to have a wild fascination with fireworks. That is until I inadvertently shot myself with a Roman candle years ago. I have a nice apple sized scar on the side of my knee to remind me just how hot pyrotechnics burn. Now I am a bit more cautious. Just last year my son and I lit one of those white hot bombs that explode with a chest rattling concussion. Instead of shooting high into the night, it peaked at about twenty feet and Kaboom...two very scared firemen hit the deck much to the amusement of our guests!
   That pure light against a black velvet sky is captivating. In my header picture a brightly lit Green heron flies through a shadowy background like a rocket taking flight. We bird photographers seldom reach for our cameras after dusk, that is our time to rake over our hundreds of brightly illuminated jpegs searching for something remarkable.
    In the spirit of our Independence from England that we Americans celebrate this week, I took my camera out and poked around in a dark and unfamiliar territory; a New World, if you will.

First, a tip of the cap to the Spirit of '76

"Far out!"

                                         Anonymous

      
      Okay, I'll admit our partying can go a bit far at times! This picture was made by mixing eight drunk hippies, two lighted Frisbee's, and a long exposure at 4:15 AM, well shaken...to be continued.

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 beautiful treasurers, the birds.

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!

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

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

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

The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compatriots!

Come on it's your turn!