I just put my husband into the hosptial on Saturday morning… So I’ll be back ASAP with more posts.  This is his 4th hospital stay in three months so we’re catching on to all the routines

Please be thinking of us at this time.  THANKS!

I asked in the previous post if anyone could identify this creature  in the bushes across the pond…and because it was so small no  one could help with an ID.  So I’ve cropped it and here’s what I got.

It’s still a mystery to me.  Can you help figure it out?  I’m now wondering what’s behind the bird/animal???   Could that be a baby ‘whatever’ or is it the tail end of the animal?

Any thoughts - since  I don’t have a clue what it is. Also had to make it very small because after cropping it there weren’t many pixels left.

Thanks!

Can you figure out what that ‘critter’ is that’s sitting on the bushes across the pond?  I think it’s a bird but just can’t figure out what kind it is.  Or do you have any other ideas about what it is?  I got the picture with my D3 and the Nikon 200/F2 VR lens. Also had the Nikon 1.4 TC on it so I got more distance.  I didn’t see that little animal/bird across the pond until I cropped the picture–suddenly it popped up.  I felt like I was doing the ‘Where is Waldo’ picture when I finally saw it

The second picture  is of a Vulture sitting on a can near one of the water pump stations on the dike.  We drove around on the dikes and the Vultures greeted us often.  Do you know what kind of a Vulture this is?  Is it a Turkey Vulture? 

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Here’s one I took on Thanksgiving day (08) .  It surprised me that it turned out well enough to like it.  I just never know what will look good when I take the pictures.  So that’s  another reason to shoot as many pictures as I can when I’m out there playing with my camera. 

It was late afternoon and the sun was setting.  Those are Mangroves to the right and they’ll never be removed because they’re protected.   There are many birds there.  Someday I’ll go just for the birds.  This day I went  just for the ‘turkey’

Yesterday I was able to get away and go to the Florida Water Treatment Area #5 out in the Everglades south of Clewiston, Florida.  It was a two hour  drive and we started at 5:30AM. 

I managed to get a few pictures but not many birds there yesterday. I’ve been there twice before and had a bonanza each time.  I will go again on March 7th and hope to have more birds then.

I will post the pictures as I work on them.  Here’s what I’ve had a chance to do so far.  The Nikon D3 with the Nikon 200VR (and Nikon 1.4 teleconverter) were used for these pictures.

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GREAT WHITE EGRET

WHITE PELICANS AND BUZZARD WITH TAG ON ITS WING

Take a look at this and be sure to look at all three pictures.  I use filters on all my lenses just as a precaution.

Our good friend, Chip, has come to our rescue once more. Because my husband has had medical problems lately it’s impossible for him to get up and fix screens etc.  So Chip came and helped us.  We’re having family here for the next month and wanted to have the house in good shape…but not easy to do if ‘out of commission’……….so thanks to the good folks who have helped us. 

It must be the holiday season because we are covered up with workers. We’re trying to get ready for our family coming over the holidays.  Today Duke pressure cleaned our roof.  When you live in Florida you have to do the roof every year or every two years at the most.  The tile gets mildewed and starts to look terrible.

Here’s Duke who pressure cleaned our roof and also our driveway… I got the pictures with the Nikon D3 and the 24-70mm F2.8 AF-S lens.

And here’s a picture of Mike, the man who mows the yard because I don’t want to do it.  I just don’t like snakes and bugs.  In Florida we have to be aware of those things. 

I took this picture of Mike with the old AIS manual focus lens, 80-200mm F4.  It is the ‘push-pull’ model. 

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Late today I went out back to walk the dogs.  The lens I used is one I couldn’t sell when I was selling some older  photo equipment.  I used it today with the Nikon D3 DSLR camera and I like it lots.  It’s a manual focus, push pull lens.  It’s the  old 80-200mm F4 AIS MF lens.  It seems to work okay on the D3 DSLR camera. The D3 is a full frame camera so perhaps that helps the lens. 

Here are two pictures that I got out there.  Both from my backyard.. The bird was about 100 feet  up in a tree.  The flower was on a hedge where I was standing to shoot the bird

The frames are in a program I have that gives me a good variety of frames.  Just happened to put this same frame on the two pictures…

Both pictures were  shot at aperture F4 and both shot at sunset.

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John drove me home from a dealership whle my car was being serviced. He noticed that the tile on my front entry steps was a mess.    Next thing I knew he was back with all his tile equipment ready to go to work. Turned out he had a tile business  for many years in this city and now is retired.  He knew he could repair our steps easily so he was eager to do it.   I had to get his picture while he was working. 

   I used the Zeiss 50mm f1.4 AIS MF lens with the Fuji S5 camera.  I like using the manual focus lenses.

Here’s ‘John the Tile Man’