Greetings!

Thank you everyone who gave me feedback on last week’s pictures!  (If you missed them, look for the “Pre-Blog Essay” heading in the sidebar on the right, and click on 2017-09-25.)  And apologies for the triple transmission last week – I still don’t know exactly what caused the long delay in delivery of the first attempt, which is what led me to send the second and third!  Anyway, that event was the final straw that pushed me over the hump of starting to use a website/blog instead of individual e-mails.  The big advantage to you, my friends, is that you will have easy access to my older essays.  The benefit to me is that I will not have to maintain my e-mail distribution list in the same way.  Also, since I can upload uncompressed (bigger) image files, I can omit the re-sizing step in the preparation process, and you will get better quality images.  (If you click on any thumbnail in an essay, it will bring up the larger image.  Click your back button to resume reading once you are done looking at the picture.)  The downside is that feels a little more impersonal.

Taking last week’s feedback into consideration, this week’s images come back to my more familiar territory of living things – more specifically birds – but with a thought towards pictures that tell a bit more of a story than an extreme close-up, however “good” that image might be.

It would be hard to think of anything more endearing than an Eastern Bluebird, except two Eastern Bluebirds!

This pair built a nest in a bird box attached to the perimeter fence of Lansdowne Woods in the spring of 2014.  Mrs. Bluebird has just arrived with a load of home furnishings, while Mr. B. beings home the bacon – or at least the grub!  And in the image below, she arrives home after another trip to the store.

These images were not necessarily taken in this exact sequence, but in the picture below, Mr. B. seems to be anxious to check the progress inside their home.

Here they both are again!

Now if two Bluebirds are better than one, how about three?

That trio was part of a larger flock I saw in North Carolina in January of 2014.  I used to associate Bluebirds with summer, and assumed they migrated south in the winter, but this is not the case – at least not in North Carolina or Virginia.

As I spent more time watching these beautiful birds, I was surprised at how much time they spend just sitting on a branch watching – presumably on the lookout for insects to catch.  Furthermore, I was interested in how well their bright colors can blend in with the environment, especially if the bird is in broken light, and keeps still.

That image needed a lot of light added to the shadow areas in Lightroom!  Any overall increase in exposure would have completely blown-out the highlights of the redbud flowers.  The female shown below sat perfectly still near her nest for several minutes with this beetle (I think) in her beak, waiting for the right moment to descend.

This next picture goes back to the bird box shown in the first few images in this set, but was taken a year earlier.  It shows Mrs. B. (now obviously Mother B.) bringing a snack for the kid(s).

Same bird box but jumping forward again to 2014, Mr. B, peers out carefully before heading off work.

Here is another example of a Bluebird sitting patiently – this time in the rain!  It just shows that Bluebirds are not all about sunshine and summer!

By the way, did you know that the ” . . . Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover . . . ” in the famous WW2 era song are not our avian friends at all, but rather refer to the blue uniforms of the Royal Air Force (and Royal Canadian Air Force) fighter pilots who were defending England’s shores in the dark early days of WW2 before the US came on board.

I end this set with one of my favorite pictures I have ever taken.

It reminds me of an Oriental embroidery or silk painting.  I have tried cropping it in different ways, but this – to my eye – is the optimum aspect ratio.  In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that it is one of the rare images where I have actually removed a distracting twig from the lower left-hand corner.  Thus it would not be eligible for Nat Geo, or any other entity which has very strict rules about “altering” images!

Have  great week!