Hey, hey hey! It’s me, Penny, your adventure girl!
Want to go on a walk with me?
Well, I haven’t had many adventures lately but I’ve sure been having fun! Mom took me to the park last week and I wasn’t as afraid as the other time.
I didn’t even notice this snake when we walked by it. Mom kinda screamed though. Mom is a wimp.
Mom is noticing I am happiest when I’m out in the open where I can see the sky and not so happy when we’re in the woods where it’s dark and there are strange sounds.
I think I can handle this, mom!
But this is the second time we’ve been to this park and I liked it a whole lot better this time. I ran up and down the hills and explored lots more and mom says she was very happy with my ‘progress,’ whatever that means.
I even stopped to take a peaceful little breather on a big hill.
Then over the weekend my friend Lance and his sister Payton came to visit me! They brought their folks too and we all sat out on my deck.
Lance and I discussing our photo/treat ratio requirements.
I guess if I was honest there wasn’t a whole lot of sitting for me and Lance. We mostly chased each other around the deck. We had sooooo much fun! I’m as big as he is now and I can play just as hard!
We raced around and around that deck!
I tried to play with Payton (she’s my angel sister Katie’s half sister) but she told me off, so I went back to jump on Lance. The folks had to make us stop and rest cause we were all about the game.
Payton wasn’t in the mood.
I had so much fun with them that I had to sleep for an entire day after they went home. I think Lance and Payton probably slept too. Mom calls that recharging. I wonder what she’s talking about?
Aren’t we all just adorable?
Anyway, I know you like to hear what’s going on in my world, so I thought I’d stop by and give you an update. My Aunt is here right now, and I’m pretty busy entertaining her.
What’s your favorite toy today Aunt B?
Play, play, play, a sheltie-girl’s got to keep the fun coming all the time. It’s such a big responsibility, but I’m up for the task!
I get lots of hugs cause I’m so cute.
Talk later, people, I have to go get a toy for my Aunt so she doesn’t get bored!
Oh, and thanks to Lance’s parents for driving so Lance and Payton could come and play! We had so much fun.
Hmmmmm…I seem to have gotten off blog topic. I was supposed to show you the rest of my two nights of camping up in the Upper Peninsula. The intent of that trip was to take another crack at capturing the Milky Way. But as you know, there are only a few hours a night, and a few nights every month, when the Milky Way is best photographed and weather doesn’t always cooperate.
Don’t worry, it got better later on in my stay.
When I left you last I was setting up camp during a torrential rain storm. There was so much water surrounding my tent, and a huge bubble of water under the tent that I decided to just drive away and go exploring. I figured I’d sleep in the car the first night and let things dry out.
It’s a beautiful part of my state!
I drove down the Garden Peninsula toward my planned destination of Fayette State Park which houses historical buildings.
You know I can’t resist an old barn.
The Garden Peninsula is beautiful in it’s own right, full of scenic pastures and barns. Truthfully if this was all I saw over the weekend I’d be happy enough.
Red barns and wheat are good too.
But I was curious about the historical buildings. Would they make a fantastic foreground for a Milky Way shot?
The light was wonderful.
I arrived at Fayette State Park late in the afternoon when the sun was lowering and making the cliffs glow.
The buildings looked beautiful in the golden light. I tried to figure out which way was south, knowing that the Milky Way would rise from that direction later in the evening.
The building in front wasn’t square, it was so interesting.
Mostly I just enjoyed shooting the buildings in the soft light and imagining what life was like back in the day.
One of the buildings that had smelted metal.
And then I began to wait in my car in the parking lot for it to get dark. Gradually the other visitors left. And as they left clouds began to roll in. Soon enough it was clear that there would be no stars that night. Plus I was beginning to feel creepy about being there alone.
Is someone watching me?
So I drove back to my damp camp and worked at getting the puddle out from under my tent, then I went to sleep to dream about stars for the rest of the night.
The next day I visited Seney Wildlife Refuge, not as early as I’d hoped, but still morning. Almost immediately I saw this loon family snoozing.
Expand this image to see the sleeping family.
They were a long way from me and even my zoom lens didn’t get them really close enough, but it was cool to see all four of them, mom, dad and the two little ones resting after breakfast.
Then I realized that the milkweed, which was growing everywhere, was covered in monarch butterflies.
You can almost smell the sweet milkweed.
I had so much fun stalking butterflies, trying to get that iconic monarch image. They moved a lot, but at least they were closer to me than the loon family!
Mama duck and her baby.
Eventually I moved on and found a couple of swans…
Notice the clear skies. Will there be stars tonight?
…and a Canadian goose family with teenagers.
Mom, Dad and four teens.
Still, I wished I could have gotten a good photo of the loons. And then I rounded a corner and there was another family of loons, focused on breakfast, much closer to the road.
Num, num, num.
I parked so fast and quietly got out of the car. I didn’t even close the door. The car was parked in the middle of the road with the door open and I didn’t even care.
The happy couple.
I was so happy to get some closeups of this beautiful couple. Their youngster, an independent singleton, was swimming and eating on his own quite a ways from mom and dad. He was not so easily photographed.
The teen, maintaining his distance.
But I got quite a few nice images of the adults. They made my day. I felt that regardless of what the weather did to my star hopes I was happy with the trip just because I’d been able to watch the loons.
Isn’t he beautiful?
Then, not to far from the end of the refuge road I came across a dead tree. I could see something hoping around in the branches so I stopped, once again in the middle of the road with the door open.
Turns out there was a single elusive cedar waxwing, who managed to always have his head turned away from me…
Hey there, the camera’s over here.
…and a king bird who never sat still long enough to get a clear photo.
Too busy hunting lunch to wait around for me.
I stayed there a long time but never did get any better images of either of them. And then I headed back to camp to wait for it to get dark again. I took a nap and considered where I was going to go if there were stars.
It turned out to be a nice site, wider than others and with shade.
I couldn’t talk myself into driving the 14 miles back down the Garden Peninsula, I felt like I needed someone to go with me if I was going to hang around historic buildings in the middle of the night. So I just went out to the boardwalk a couple miles away and shot straight out over Lake Michigan.
There was lake fog and a few clouds near the horizon.
Nothing exciting in the foreground, and a stupid big ole streetlight behind me (but that did light up the grass in a kind of cool way) and not anything like what I’d hoped for. But the lake was gently lapping the shore and the air was warm and the stars were shining.
So I was happy.
Letting a little bit of the lighthouse beam into the shot.
And I have a couple of people that are interested in going back there sometime to shoot at Fayette State Park. I’ll contact the park rangers first and make sure we’ll be allowed to be there after hours, and we’ll scope out just where to stand to get the sky and a building in the shot.
I’m supposed to be sharing with you images of my short camping trip to Michigan’s UP. And I will…really. But this morning as I was busy washing dishes I happened to look out the window and, surprise, this guy was standing on our deck railing.
This is a green heron. They fish in the pond across the street, and they used to nest every summer in the vacant land behind us. But there’s houses back there now.
I haven’t seen the green herons all summer, nor last summer either that I remember. So this was really special and I just had to share him (or her) with you!
I’m up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a couple nights, hoping for a clear sky to practice Milky Way photography. On my drive up I stopped for a break at Otsego State Park.
I had just made it through a driving rainstorm, the kind where everyone slows down and turns on their emergency blinkers because you can’t see anything. It was stressful, so I figured I’d look at a state park I have never camped at and get a little walk in too.
Though it wasn’t raining, the sky didn’t look promising for night sky photography. I didn’t stay long, wanting to get to the UP and my destination camp site.
But once over the bridge, the sky turned even more ominous.
It was sprinkling when I got to my camp site, so I waited in the car for the sun to come out. And it did.
But then, halfway through my tent set up, the sky suddenly and with no warning let loose with a downpour. I managed to get the rainfly up over the exposed tent and then I dashed for the car.
And hoped.
Would the rainfly keep the inside of my tent dry?
Would I ever get a clear night to try to find the Milky Way?
So when I left you last I had backed away from a crane scuffle and had resigned myself to photographing plants. But I really wanted to get great shots of birds.
I was feeling discouraged.
Bee balm and…well…bee.
I moved slowly through the wetlands, enjoying the wildflowers but keeping my ears open for bird calls. Eventually I made my way back into the woods where the light was dim but a few birds were happily fliting around.
The light was gentle under the old trees.
I felt a bit of hope. I decided that every trip out to this park taught me more about photography and even if I didn’t get my dream shot, the experience of just being in the woods was worth all the blurry bird images I was likely to capture.
Robins aren’t interested in oilers or peanuts but they are curious about what you’re doing in their woods.
I walked slowly, and didn’t offer any birds seed from my hand unless they were obviously asking for something. It was late morning and most of them would have finished their breakfasts long before I showed up.
In fact everything seemed pretty quiet.
Cleaning up after breakfast.
I used the Merlin app on my phone to listen for any interesting birds. I wasn’t hearing very much.
Hey! You’re not going to put that on Facebook, are you?
Then I remembered that I was going to try and stand still and wait while I was out in the woods. That moving around, even slowly, made most of the animals and birds skitter away.
A camouflaged titmouse asks for a treat.
So I stood.
And very soon, flying fast up the path at the level of my head, was a male red-bellied woodpecker.
Just toss me a peanut and nobody gets hurt.
I offered him something from my hand, but he wasn’t having it. He was, however, obviously wanting something to eat. So I tossed a peanut onto the trail behind me and immediately, even before the peanut hit the ground, he was on it.
Nom, nom, nom. Thanks dad!
And so was his youngster, waiting to be fed. They were in the shadows so the image of him feeding the young one is grainy. But it was so cool I wanted you to see it anyway.
Then they both flew up into the tree, dad on the front to ask for more food, and junior on the backside waiting for his free meal.
Come on dad, pour on the angst, she’ll give us a suet ball if you act pathetic!
Poor dad worked so hard. He’d grab something from the trail where I tossed it and fly to a tree where two young woodpeckers noisily followed him. I don’t think he got anything to eat himself.
Here you go, son. But pretty soon you’re going to have to do this for yourself!
The trio followed me for a good quarter mile. He’d zoom past my head and land on a tree trunk, and I’d toss him something that he’d take to his two freeloading kids.
The two youngsters were tag teaming dad.
Meanwhile other birds were gathering to watch. There was a young nuthatch who would have enjoyed an oiler, but was afraid to enter the fray.
Hey buddy! Some of the rest of us would like some attention (and food) too!
And a disgruntled blue jay.
This is ridiculous. Some birds just think they are all that.
And overseeing it all, strangely quiet, was the neighborhood blackbird.
So much ruckus. It’s not seemly at all.
Eventually I got away from the family of woodpeckers and started seeing other little birds.
Thanks lady! It’s always good to have a snack before our morning nap!
It was getting toward noon, the sun directly overhead, and most of the birds were settling down.
Nope, don’t want anything more to eat, lady. Time to rest.
They weren’t hungry, but if I was still I could see them tucked in among the branches.
A fluffy titmouse settles in for a snooze.
I figured it was time to head back to car. I could use a snack myself.
Everybody seemed ready for a nap.
But on my way back to the car my Merlin app said there was a common yellowthroat nearby. And guess what? I found him!
Way back in the shadows, such a cool looking bird!
And just up the trail, hopping around in a cedar tree was a female common yellowthroat! I’ve never seen one before, it was so exciting!
Everybody overlooks me, but I’m just as pretty and I don’t need to wear a mask to be cool!
But what about the yawning cardinal, you ask? Oh yes, he was settling down for a nap in a bush when I walked by.
Not singing, no sound at all, just a big yawn.
I guess I was boring. Or maybe he was just too sleepy to be polite.
Oh, and on the drive out of the park I stopped to watch the osprey and her 3 young.
There was much wing flapping, they’ll be out of the house soon.
It turned out to be a spectacular day. And I learned more about photographing birds. I can’t wait to get out there to try again.
One morning last week I gave in to my itchy shutter finger and went out to Kensington to try to photograph birds who aren’t the regular suspects.
A flicker hides from me.
I’ve been watching, on a Facebook group, nature photographers capturing some stunning images of birds from my favorite park. I asked one of the photographers if he was finding these birds on the nature trails there.
I stalked this yellow ‘bird’ until I realized it wasn’t one.
He said he was wandering around other areas of the park, and that made sense to me. Sure the titmice and chickadees and nuthatches were hanging around looking for a treat, making them easier to photograph. But what about other birds, those that aren’t into landing on hands or snacking on oilers?
While I was waiting for a bird to show up I noticed this pretty pink flower.
So I went out to the park and stopped at a picnic area quite a ways from the nature center. It had a picnic pavilion and a swing set and quite a large open area, surrounded by large, mature woods. I was the only person there. I used my Merlin app to find out what birds were near.
A very fluffy robin was preening.
The place was overrun with robins. But there was also a flicker singing right at the tree line. I followed him for quite awhile…but didn’t have the right settings when he flew up from a branch.
He was in decent light, but I needed to up the shutter speed.
Still, I sort of like the image. It would have been stunning if the wings were sharp.
I adjusted my settings.
I found a bluebird who agreed to sit still for me, though he was a long way away and cropping the image shows the noise. Still, he’s cute, and everyone loves a bluebird.
Hey lady! Get your shot quick, I’ve got to go pick up lunch for the Mrs.
Mostly I chased the flicker around, and never got a better shot of him. Eventually I gave up and drove over to the nature trails where I found myself walking behind this couple.
Just going for a walk.
They were in no hurry, so neither was I.
But then there arose a loud screeching of another crane pair coming in for a landing.
What’s that noise over there?
The original cranes were less than happy and much squawking and wing flapping ensured. The woman at the other end of the trail and I stood still, not wanting to get involved.
I was busy backing away so I missed the most exciting parts of the greeting between the two couples.
Eventually I backed up and headed down another trail where I found beautiful things to photograph that don’t move around so much.
The last of the spring irises.
It’s so much easier to photograph plants.
Joe Pye is just beginning to bloom.
And they make me smile too.
I don’t know what this is, but it sure was pretty!
So I wonder….did I ever find any more birds to photograph? Was I successful at getting any good shots?
Cherry picking is a long standing tradition in my family.
As far back as I can remember the six of us would drive to an orchard and pick tart pie cherries, buckets and buckets of them, then schlep them all home and sit around the kitchen table pitting them and measuring them into freezer bags for future pies.
Now that I’m the only one still living in Michigan it’s mostly my job to go get the family cherries. It’s not a bad job. Last weekend the weather was perfect and I went out early Sunday morning to the orchard we used to visit as a family more than fifty years ago.
Lots has changed since then. What was once a simple fruit orchard now has a gift store and a winery and farm animals and a wagon ride out to the picking locations.
For many years when I’d visit I’d consciously look for families that looked like mine. Sometimes I’d see someone that looked like my dad, or like the four little blond kids that used to fill their buckets with the shiny red fruit.
Sunday I was there pretty early and the picking was outstanding. I was able to pick fourteen pounds in less than an hour, so I was back in my car before things got really busy.
But I got to watch a few families as they picked. One little boy kept exclaiming how beautiful the cherries were. (He was right.)
Another child was focused on finding the perfect tree. And another child in a different family was having deep conversations about tractors and cars with his dad, all the time picking away.
These are adventures they’ll remember forever. And maybe someday when they’re senior citizens they’ll pick cherries in this orchard and watch a new crop of families and smile just like I did.
Margo, over at her blog, That Little Voice, posted a black and white photo for a challenge. It reminded me how much I enjoy black and white photography, and I said as much. We both mentioned that we don’t do many these days, and I suggested this week we each try to post one black and white image.
So I went out with Penny looking for an opportunity.
For me the thing about black and white is finding simplicity. I like images that aren’t busy, trending toward modern art.
I didn’t exactly find that on this search. But as soon as I took this shot I knew it could be interesting in black and white.
This is Penny exploring a boat ramp at a local lake when the lake was mirror smooth. I was letting her decide if she wanted to get her feet wet. She wasn’t excited about the chance, the only one with wet feet at the end of the day was me. She was curious about the water, hence the ripples around her nose.
I think I’ll keep an eye out for another black and white image when Penny and I are exploring. You never know when you’ll spot something cool. Thanks to Margo for inspiring me to go out and look for black and white!
Change Is Hard 