Lunch interrupted

We were having lunch when Molly said that she thought there was a bald eagle over the woods behind the house. We had a flock of turkey vultures flying near the house in the morning so we wanted to be sure on the ID.

Sure enough, there was a mature and an immature flying around the woods. I went and got the big lens (600 + 1.4 extender) and ripped off several images to make sure. Yep, eagles. Molly went and got the tripod/gimbal so I would not have to hand-hold while trying to locate the eagles in the viewfinder. They were small in the frame with a bright blue sky and sunshine which made finding them again difficult. I looked up and away and saw three birds circling. Before they got into the sun, I watched the two mature eagles and the immature doing a high altitude patrol.

Molly’s eyesight is phenomenal, not only can she ID ducks on the wing while riding in a pickup truck at 40 miles an hour but she can spot distant eagles and know they are not turkey vultures while making lunch.

These snapshots are by no means what I would call great photography but not everyone has their Sunday lunch interrupted by eagles LOL.

One Down,One To Go and By The Way

As many of you know, we have been working on a couple of home improvement projects. One of them was finally completed. Thanks to SK Contractors, we now have new ceramic tile in the Kitchen and Upstairs Bath. While we having that done, they also installed some very nice thick and soothing to the feet carpet.

Next project is a gas fireplace/mantle dealio. Commencement date is still unknown even though we have the order and paid the deposit.

By the way, Molly and I each had one image accepted in the Annual Framations Photography contest. The contest is Beyond the Lens XII: A Photography Exhibit.

Link to exhibit: Beyond the Lens XII: A Photography Exhibition

There is an opening reception this Friday night and the exhibition runs January 26 through March 1, 2018. Unfortunately, we will not be in attendance. Molly is under the weather and we are playing it safe and staying in the warm confines of home base.

Here are the images that were accepted: (Click for larger image)

“Shoe Horn Trip” and New Year’s Resolutions

Last Wednesday, we had ‘bidness’ ( as my Texan friends would say) in St. Louis. We also had a time limit due to an appointment with the flooring contractor in Washington at 1 pm.

First stop was to DiSalvo’s office to drop off a special edition duck calendar and a hand blown glass bowl custom-made by Astral Glass in New Haven. Enjoyed our post-Christmas visit with Mr Tony.

Then off to the best feed store in Missouri– El Mel in North St. Louis County. Missed seeing Mr. John but we picked up the 50 lb bag of peanuts in the shell, a blue bird house and pole guard for a house gift for one of our New Haven neighbors. We hope to drop in soon and catch John at work and have some confab time.

We had a short window for a visit to Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary. Molly wanted to see if we could find the Snowy Owl that everyone has sent us pictures of and was featured in the Post-Dispatch recently. Alas, not a feather of the Snowy Owl was found, much less the actual bird. We knew from our many years of photographing the Trumpeter swans that they would most likely fly late in the morning and so we were able to set up for an abbreviated shoot. Molly had limited success that she attributed to being ‘rusty’ but we found out later that her camera was set on One Shot instead of AI Servo.

That leads us to the resolution #1—

check the dang camera before you leave the house

After a client asked for some Northern Shoveler images, I went through various external hard drives and saw that we need to do some ‘cut throat editing’– way too many images that need to hit the Recycle Bin. Memory may be cheap but you never know when you might need it.

Resolution #2

Edit–Edit–Edit

Resolution #3

Photograph more– get off the couch and get with the program LOL

3 Swan images from our ‘Shoe horn trip’