Double-click on any image to view it full size.  Click the back-button to return to your place on this page.

 

Greetings!

Many of you know that my photographic motto could be summed-up in the phrase “If it’s got wings I’ll shoot it!”.  This week’s pictures all meet that criteria, and all but one were taken within the past two weeks.

Picture #1 may not at first glance fit the theme, but our 3½ year old grandson Richard, seen here in his paternal grandfather’s backyard pool, is wearing water wings, and is pictured here just as he floated away from his mother’s arms for the very first time!

Last Sunday I took my son Andrew and daughter-in-law Emily to Great Falls Park.  It was a rather grey, overcast, afternoon, but we did see an Osprey catch a rather large fish.  Picture #2 is a rather poor shot, but was taken at the limit (or just beyond!) of my hand-held 28-300mm lens, and this highly cropped section of the original frame shows the bird struggling to gain altitude, and control of the fish, as it headed almost straight towards us.

The Black Vulture in #3 was taken just a few minutes later.

The next six pictures were all taken last Monday during my customary patrol around the Lansdowne Woods campus.  #4 shows a Checkered Skipper butterfly, whose diminutive size can be realized when you notice that the flower it is sitting on is a single clover head!

#5 is a comparatively gigantic Black Swallowtail.  The double line of pale dots along the trailing edge of its fore-wings, are distinctive.

#6 shows two male Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds – one of them hovering – at a feeder.  Since they lack the dark red throat feathers, I believe they are females.

#7 is certainly an adult male!

The pair of American Goldfinches shown in #8

(female on the left, male on the right) were just a few feet away from the hummingbird feeder, and I was sitting in the same position on the same bench for all three pictures (6-8).  The angle of the sun was such that all of the birds in those three pictures, except the female Goldfinch, has a catch-light in its eye!  I did have to get up from the bench and walk a bit further to get #9.  I offer no excuse for including yet another picture of a Hummingbird Moth, especially when it shows its semi-extended proboscis so well.

The final picture, #10, is included in order to close the circle for this set.

The photograph, which was taken very early this year, is of a drawing made by my son Rob almost thirty years ago, when he was eight years old.  He won an “Honorable Mention” ribbon in a school contest with a theme of “Proud Moments”.  He had just had the privilege of being taken for a ride in a WW2-era Pratt-Read training glider by Linn Buell, a former President of the Vintage Sailplane Association, who he and I met at a private event held at Scott Airpark in Lovettsville, VA.

Have a great week!