More Excitement

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida

We’ve had some excitement around here, and no, it’s not another park model being moved.  This is real excitement!

A few days ago, Al and I walked down to where the otters have been hanging out.  They weren’t there, but this little turtle was.

I didn’t pay any attention to her until Al mentioned that she was laying eggs.

Sure enough, when I zoomed my camera in, she was definitely laying eggs.  Unfortunately, she laid them on the bank of the pond, and in an area that is mowed regularly.

We took a few pictures, then left her to finish her work.  Our intention was to go back later and put up some stakes warning people away, like they do for sea turtles at the beach.

Unfortunately, by the time we got back, the eggs were gone and the otters were back.  We’re pretty sure the otters ate the eggs.   We felt bad, but not as bad as if they had been incubating for a while and were ready to hatch.

 

Thursday was spent getting paperwork ready for Al to sell his business.  He has already found a buyer, so we just have to get some facts and figures ready for him.   I sure will be glad not to be tied down with that.   He doesn’t have many accounts left, just enough to tie us down even more than we already are with my Mom.

 

Last night, we were sitting outside on our back patio, having happy hour and reading.  I happened to look up and not 15 feet away from me was a little fox, looking right at me.

I wanted to alert Al, but not scare the fox away, so All I said was “fox”…..as I was slowly grabbing for my camera. 

I had my little Canon (LC) unfortunately.   I had it on the sports setting trying it out and I wasn’t happy with my photos, but I did manage to get a few decent ones.

The fox was right under our bird feeder, eating the spilled bird seed.  I believe he is a gray fox.   He doesn’t look nearly as red as the ones that used to play in the pasture at our place in Georgia.

He even went and had a drink of water from the little orange birdbath you see in the foreground of the picture.

You can see that he was panting.  It was warm with that thick fur coat.

Isn't he a beauty?

You can bet that tonight, I’ll be sitting out there with my Big Canon (BC).

Speaking, of big Canon.   I got my 500 mm zoom lens on Wednesday.

It’s a big thing and when attached to the camera, which is already quite a bit heavier than LC, it’s quite a challenge. 

It will not be my “camera of choice,”   but I really like it.  It takes good pictures, but is so bulky that I will probably miss more shots than I get.  My main goal, was to have it in places where the wildlife is abundant and nearby, like Kissimmee Prairie, or sitting by my campsite.  It will be great for our daily drives on the campground road at Kissimmee Prairie.   It will probably not go on a lot of hikes….unless of course Al  (he calls himself the pack mule) wants to carry it.

Anyway, I like the Canon Rebel and the new lens.  I’ll have to get some pictures to show you what a huge beast it is.  The lens is supposed to weigh 4 pounds, but it feels like 20. The funny thing is, it’s less than half as powerful as my “stalker” lens on LC.

Here are a few photos I took with the Canon Rebel (BC) and the  new 150-500 mm lens.

I noticed after I uploaded the photos that they had a blue tint to them.  I must have something set wrong.  I played around with adjusting them with Picasa and got a few interesting shots.

This Tufted Titmouse, I changed to black and white and put a soft focus on him.  These are all modifications right there in Picasa. I figured since the color wasn’t right, I’d just see what it looked like in black and white, and  kind of liked it.

I tried the “warmify” on Picasa and it did help to warm up my bluish tinted photos.

Here is the before picture.  (terrible shot, I know)

Here is the after shot, with warmify added.   Better?

Picasa has a lot of tools to help you fix some less than perfect shots.

This next shot was “warmified” as well.

Here is one that I took that didn’t need to be warmified.

By the way, these are all a family of baby Cardinal’s that have been frequenting our feeders.  You can always tell the babies, because they are so clumsy!

This could be Mama Cardinal

These pictures are all taken with BC.  I shot this Bluebird, but he was still too far away so I had to seriously crop it to bring him into view.  This was zoomed to 439 mm. 

I did some experimenting with the editing in Picasa and got some interesting results.  (That’s what you do when your pictures are crummy)

 

I plan to spend some time today, learning how to use BC and hopefully tonight I’ll get some more fox photos!