PhotoAbuse – The Blog

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It must be something about Saturdays lately. I got bored sitting around and thought it might be nice to go out and make a few pictures of the deer near me. The other day I wrote about looking around when you are out making pictures and that couldn’t have been more true on this walk.

I hadn’t even taken my camera out of my backpack yet and I noticed something crawling on a milkweed leaf. A pretty big caterpillar! I quickly pulled out my camera and  put my trusty Sigma 50mm macro on. Then I thought to myself, “Why not use a little flash?”. I busted out an sb600 and set it to a low power via CLS and started experimenting. Once I thought I had the picture I wanted, I shot a few more frames just in case and picked up my stuff and moved on.

I hadn’t seen any deer and was starting to think it might be a short walk when I saw a thistle with a few bees on it. I pulled out my sb600 again and thought it might be fun to see if I could make a picture of them flying around. It worked out better than I thought! Next time I might bring a small umbrella though to diffuse the light a little. Again, I picked up my stuff and moved on.

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I didn’t plan on doing much on Sunday. I never do.

I did want to go to a local flea market to visit with my Uncle Jack and have a look around. Kieran and I showed up around 8:00 to find the place hoppin! We visited with Uncle Jack for a while and then took a walk around to see if there was anything interesting out there. I did end up finding an old Dads Root Beer crate. Perfect size for storing all my clamps, tape, and misc stuff.

We got home around 11:00 or so and chilled until the Sox game started. They have been on a tear for a month now with a 24-5 record since early June. No one is more surprised than me! Not only did they win Sundays game against KC, they thumped them 15-5! With Detroit losing to Minnesota, the Sox also go into the All Star break leading the AL Central!

After the game was over we met up with Wanetta and Logan for an afternoon walk at a nearby lake. Wanetta called me earlier in the day saying the she saw the beavers out swimming around and wanted to see if they would come out again. About 5 minutes after we arrived at the beaver lodge we heard a big splash and then a pretty big beaver appeared. Couldn’t tell if it was protecting its territory or if it thought Logan was a big black beaver. Logan was fetching sticks and the beaver kept patrolling. After about an hour, it started drizzling out and we headed home with plenty of time left to relax!

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It’s been a pretty cool 24 hours!

Last night I stopped by my sisters house to see the new addition to the family. Gracie was celebrating her 9 week birthday in fine form! She fits right in over there and spent the evening messing around with Libby and just doing the explore thing around the yard.

Best of all, she doesn’t seem to mind being photographed! Liz was my VAL for the evening and did a great job. I used a 16″ softbox with an sb600 for these pictures and was pretty happy with them. Gracie stayed in any one spot for approximately 4 seconds so things moved pretty quickly and it was actually more fun watching her wander around than it was making pictures. Very cool pup and I look forward to making some nicer pictures down the road!

This afternoon I stopped over at my friend Wanetta to see what’s been going on. Wanetta is a bigtime hiker and bird watcher and has shown me more cool things in the woods around here than I could have found in a lifetime. She also has the most interesting dog in the world, Logan! Well, I’ll have to put this afternoons conversation into the I didn’t see that one coming category for sure.

“Hi! Hows things been going? Anything new?” “Not much, same old stuff. I have a brand new fawn in the backyard” Huh?

It seems mom gave birth last night and a neighbor thought there was a fox in the backyard and came over and told her about it. The mom took off and the wobbly baby just sort of wobbled towards the back of the yard.

Wanettas back yard is a miniature nature preserve so it didn’t surprise me all that much for some reason. But a fawn? I had never seen a brand new one before. She said it was in the high grass in the back and I asked her to call me if it got up or if mom showed up. She called me this evening as I was picking Kieran up and we stopped over to see the youngun. Kieran didn’t know what to expect when we went back there and was pretty surprised at what he found! I only made a few pictures and while they aren’t the best, they are my first baby deer pictures. We didn’t want to freak her out too much and left quickly.

Hopefully mom will be back tonight or Wanetta will be breaking out the baby bottle and some goats milk!

Well, that’s all I have to share for now. Hopefully I will make some interesting pictures this weekend to share. Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Morning Update: I talked to Wanetta this morning and the youngun is gone and all the food she left out is also gone. Good news on a Saturday morning!

Another Update!: I got a call from Wanetta Sunday morning. She was looking out the window this morning and saw mom nursing the fawn. Looks like the fawn will be around for awhile! Maybe some more pictures to follow depending on if I can get close enough without causing problems.

Not much of a story this time around. Just out making pictures whenever I can!

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3 out, 1 to go! The babies are leaving the nests. I have been watching 2 families this spring. Each family had 2 babies this year and they are heading out into the world this week. I have gotten so used to them peering down at me it seems odd to see them out, sitting on a branch 60 yards or so from the nest!

They look a lot bigger out of the nest too. They don’t fly yet. They just hop from branch to branch, usually in different directions. The parents will keep an eye on them and feed them until September or so.

The 2 babies near the slough hung out together for the first day but when I went out there later in the afternoon, there was only 1. That’s the guy in the picture. I have no idea where the other one went. I looked for quite some time to no avail.

The nest down the street from me still has one youngun in it. His/her feathers are still pretty light so it might be a few more days before it leaves. The other one was about 60 yards or so from the nest yesterday.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again. Sort of sad in a way. I tried to visit a couple times a week at least. They are amazing animals to say the least. Total stealth when flying and it’s also pretty darn hard to see them sitting on a branch. They blend very well with the surroundings. I will miss them but still look around for them on my walks. Even if I don’t see them, they’ll see me and think to themselves, “There goes that crazy guy with the camera again!”

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It still amazes me how many cool places there are around here that I never knew existed! I’m not talking about a long drive either. More like a 15 minute drive. Ok, there are some nice walks involved after the drive but they are pretty cool walks!

Saturday was a pretty lazy day. I just opened the windows and hung around the house but did take a ride over to check on some Owls down the road a bit. It was sort of breezy out but I made a couple of decent pictures. Mom was in the nest and the younguns were sitting pretty low. I could only see one. Those nests are a little deceiving. Much deeper than they look! Later on in the day, I made a few pictures of Simba, a neighbors dog, while we sat outside enjoying the weather. Later on, my neighbor came over to let me know a skunk just walked right by her! Couldn’t pass that up. I grabbed my camera and an sb600 and made a few pictures before he/she disappeared. I still have no idea where it went. Pretty crafty animal I’m thinking.

I had been thinking of going a little farther from home Sunday and see if the Pelicans were still around but decided to hang out with Wanneta for awhile. She was going for a walk on a trail that was supposed to be pretty cool and asked if I wanted to check it out. Sounded good to me and it was pretty close. I met Wanneta and her friend over there and was amazed that this place was right under my nose all these years. I used to go mountain biking near there but never went that far west. Now that the county has paved so many trails around here I didn’t know that and single tracks that long existed anymore. Boy, was I wrong. Read the rest of this entry »