Birdfeeder

So, I put up a bird feeder on my balcony two days ago.  I've already seen quite a few different species:

• Purple finch couple
• Multitudes of chickadees
• Brown-headed cowbird couple
• Titmouse of some species
• Some other finches I haven't ID'ed yet

I'm a bit amazed at how amusing watching the birds has been... I must be even older than I though.

Once the threat of rain is a little less, I'm going to set up the camera outside, and try to get some reasonable remote photos.  Shooting through the glass door isn't the greatest, although it's surprisingly better than I expected, at least when flash isn't used.

Good weekend!

So, I had a dang good weekend. The weather has been just lovely, and afforded me the opportunity to get outside a lot. On Sunday, this resulted in a hike to Laurel Falls in the Laurel-Snow Natural Area and a visit to the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge. I'll write up some details later when I'm less sleepy, but here's a quick wildlife count:

• ~1 dozen species of wildflowers
• 2 snakes
• 1 lizard
• ~6 turtles
• 2 osprey!

So, the really important part, the first pics of the osprey!  We saw these at the Wildlife Refuge.

As you can see by the final image, there might be some even cooler images coming up!  Or something.

Check him out

Such beautiful eyes!

More class portraits

Our other model from the first night of portraits in class. It was difficult to actually get any time to get shots, so these were a bit hurried. Not too pleased with the framing on this, but not a ton I can do to fix it after the fact. I normally have a dislike of vignettes, but it really seemed to help this photo out! I think maybe it helps frame her up better. One more of the little girl and her mom. I like how she seems to be up to something....

From Photo class

Class portraits

Well, I've run out of spring wildflowers already. So, here are a couple of photos I took in class. This gentleman is one of my classmates. A bunch of the models got a cold or the flu just before class, so he volunteered to stand at one of the stations for a bit. This was the best exposed. This is a former student of Tom's along with her daughter. Not a great exposure, but I love their expression. The little girl was hilarious once I got her talking. This one I think is actually a decent portrait. The little girl's face is a bit dark on one side, I could probably fix that up with the Photoshops if I knew how. The mom isn't smiling quite as much as I wanted, but we had trouble getting the little girl into that position without her choking the mom. More tomorrow.

Some more IDs

This is a very small flower, maybe 1cm in diameter:


I want to say these are violets, but for some reason my brain says I'm dumb.  Maybe it misses caffeine?

Floooooowers

First, some phlox from the River Bluffs Trail:



Proto-trillium:


Spring Beauty:

More Bloodroot

Some more bloodroot shots from the River Bluffs Trail at Norris Dam.

What is this one??

Another one I've been unable to positively ID.  It *could* be twinleaf, but I'm just unsure.  The blossom:





The stems are pretty hairy, and the leaves look like this:

What is this?

Figure it out, win a prize!  Or at least, some gratitude.  Unknown flower or something from River Bluffs Trail.

Zombiejosh returns!

So, it's been a rough 6 or 8 months, but I'm trying to get back into my photography, and getting out more in general.  So, here are some photos from a great quick hike I took today on the River Bluffs Trail at Norris Dam.  I went expecting to mostly enjoy the nice weather, and maybe see the lone wildflower.  It turns out that there were a whole bunch blooming already!  This spring is turning out to be kind of crazy, ya know?  These were all shot in my Sony S95, which I'm still figuring out.  So, I blame all flaws on the camera, not the photographer :D

A nice couple of spring beauties:

There was pretty much a ton of toothwort out as well....

And yes, even some bloodroot!