Sunday was a great day for unusual sights. While out on a bike ride I was able to capture this cool bird. This is a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher and I actually captured it a moment after it had caught an insect. You can see it in it's beak especially if you view large by clicking on the image. They are part of the Kingbird family.
It's Wildflower Wednesday here on the Blog! The wildflowers here are beginning to bloom as of this past week. I captured this Blue Mustard in bloom on Sunday afternoon. The flowers are more purple or pink than blue in my opinion but still a nice looking flower.
I captured my first butterfly of the year and it was quite the surprise. On Sunday I was out looking for what was in bloom and observed this Tiger Swallowtail enjoying the newly blossoming Ornamental Pear tree. I have never seen a large butterfly so early, usually my first is a Buckeye. It was very neat to see and capture it as it flitted around the blooms.
Happy Monday! I thought I would start off the week with a group of blooming Daffodils from my yard. I was gifted a few Daffodils one year from my Sister-in-Law and every year they keep expanding into an ever larger group. A nice bright group to start the week.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! I see that train a coming! 😁 This is Norfolk & Western Queen of Steam 611 coming down the track on it's way back to Strasburg Pennsylvania from Paradise on a summer day last July.
I am rather happy with today's image even though it didn't work out quite like I wanted. I went out last week to try an Orion Nebula image. I wanted to get several images to stack which allows you to reduce the grain. It was a windy evening and I only got 2 shots out of the 8 I took to come out fairly well, the others had a bit of elongation in the stars due to slight wind movement even though I was using a really heavy duty overkill tripod. This image is actually the very first one I took and I ended up not stacking it with the other, I just processed this one and was pleased with the results. The nebula can be, sort of, seen by eye, it's why Orion's belt looks somewhat fuzzy. I was really pleased and amazed by what I could capture with my camera. I shot this at f13, 500mm, for 40 seconds at ISO 400. As I have mentioned, my camera has had an update which allows it to track the movement of the stars by computation from the sensor to not get star trailing in long exposures required to get images like this. I hope to try again for more images to stack to get more detail and less grain and a closer image but may have to wait for this one until next winter when Orion is back in the sky in a better position.
It's Friday, TGIF! This is a capture I was able to get late this winter of a pair of one of my favorite birds. These are a couple of Titmouse (Titmice?) birds that were sitting in the Mulberry tree in-between hitting the feeder for seed. I chose this image for the lovely bubbly bokeh behind because Friday's Are Bokehlicious as well!
