You lookin’ at me?

American Tree Sparrow feeding on Brown-eyed Susan seeds.

If you can, plant a bird-friendly garden, and don’t prune back the seedheads until spring – your feathered friends will much appreciate it on these cold winter days!

 

In my neighbour’s yard 2

While the roses are long gone, there is still much to appreciate in a fall garden.

It was really hard to meter this correctly, ensuring the frost sparkled, but didn’t get washed out, and trying not to get the leaves to show up as black. Every leaf was on a different plane, too, so I had to tweak the depth of field to get certain leaves but not others in focus. While this image captures the essence of the glittered rose leaves that morning, it can probably be improved on. No matter, I definitely learned a lot in the process of composing this image. And I can always head back down the road to my neighbour’s yard to try again some day.

In my neighbour’s yard 1

I have the best neighbours. And they have the best backyard. I took the liberty of wandering through their space with my camera on a crisp sunny morning this fall, to see what I could see, and capture what I could. I got a serious crick in my neck trying to line up the sun with a hole in the leaves just the way I wanted, but it turned out pretty good, so it was worth it.

FYI – a nifty trick taught to me by Harry Nowell in one of his photography workshops, is to set the aperture at f/16 or smaller to get a starburst effect at your points of light. A simple technique that has been lots of fun to play with (thanks Harry!).

Alien monks

These monkshoods are slowly morphing into blooms, showing tinges of the purple flowers they will become.

In the meantime, they are looking a bit too much like aliens for my liking…

Shimmer

Look at how shiny! I have no idea what they are (some kind of a hoverfly maybe?), but I loved watching them do their little mating dance in the garden.

So far I’ve seen a few different versions, all metallic –  green, orangey-yellow, and fiery red.

I’m slowly learning the patience needed for macro photography; hopefully the skill will follow.

Although I think what I need more is to build up my hand strength – good grief that lens is heavy, for real!

 

 

 

 

Just a-walkin’

Nothing to look at here.

Carry on.

Lamb’s Ears*

The bees like to drink from the flowers, and I like to pet the leaves.

Win-win situation, I say.

*Best name ever!

Eat me…or not

Looks so mouth-wateringly luscious, so tender and delicious.

In fact, the leaves are all bitter. >insert grumpy face here<

Anyone know what I may have done wrong?