Spring Has Sprung!

Yes! Finally! The cherries, pears, and redbuds are turning their appropriate colors, the Pine Siskins and Dark-eyed Juncos are packing for their journey north, and the ground is blanketed with bluets and violets and the like. But it's been cold for spring here. The temperature is usually up into the seventies in March, but today the high was 58.

Cherry blossoms--one of my favorite things to photograph.

Cardinalis cardinalis--a bird so nice, they named it twice.

So...you're probably wondering where I've been all this time. Well, I'm still alive; I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth or anything like that. I've merely been busy. That and inspiration has been somewhat lacking. I haven't been out birding in awhile, and I lost the battery charger for the camera. I found it when making Irish soda bread on St. Patrick's Day--it was in one of the loaf pans in the cabinet. We find all sorts of things in the cabinets, since my 2-year-old brother is rather fond of playing in them.

Also, we got 31 chicks a few weeks ago. Well, we were supposed to get 35, but 4 died on the way here from the hatchery in Ohio. The survivors are currently happy and healthy and living in a brooder in our garage.

And...(this is my favorite part) just this past Sunday the winners of the ABA's Young Birder of the Year Contest were announced! Congrats to the two grand-prize winners!! I was pleasantly surprised to discover I get third place in the writing module.

Once again, I promise I'll try to post more. Except my mom's going to have a baby in about a week and a half...But I'll do my best! Thanks for reading, and I hope your spring is full of birds and flowers and all those great things spring brings.

Happy Earth Day!

It's Earth Day! And it's also my brother's 9th birthday. We like to call it his "Earth Day Birthday". :) He's in an extremely good mood, as he received about a million Legos.
You may be wondering why I haven't posted my Migrant of the Week post yet. Well, it's because I haven't written it yet. I will, however, try to get around to writing it sometime soon.
In the meantime, here are some photos:

Yesterday my brothers found a snake (it turned out to be a Speckled King Snake) in our yard. We watched as it drank out of our overturned sandbox.

Great Crested Flycatcher. This isn't a very good photo, but I was excited about the bird. It's the first one in our yard I've seen.

Turkey Vulture.

Brown Thrasher. They're back! :D


I don't have anything planned for Earth Day, so I'm just doing my best to conserve power. Which means I should probably get off the computer now. What are you doing for Earth Day?

Happy Easter!

He is risen!

Have a blessed Easter!

Spring Challenge Day 7

Today is the last day of our Spring Photography Challenge. It has been so much fun for me and I hope you have enjoyed seeing my photos! Here are my last:

 Some more azaleas. I like the lighting in this photo.

The Northern Cardinal, one of my favorite photographic subjects. :)

The last one for the Spring Photography Challenge is.....a frost aster in the sunset. I love the lighting in this one as well.


Okay, so that's it for today. Also I'll be posting a lot more birding posts soon, so look out for them. ;)

Bye for now!

Spring Challnege Day 6

I almost forgot AGAIN! :) Here are my photos:

Tiger swallowtail. Taken with my mom's phone, actually.

A really pretty azalea. The azaleas started blooming unusually early this year. Pretty much everything did.

And that's all for now. Thanks for reading (and looking)!

Spring Challenge Day 5

We're already almost done with the spring photography challenge! It has been so much fun. Here are my photos for day 5:

A cherry tree.

My 8-year-old brother actually took this photo. (I know--I'm surprised too :)

This one I took. It's some azaleas in our backyard.


And I wanted to tell y'all about an amazing nest cam I found at Cornell. It's of a Great Blue Heron nest and it's streaming live 24/7 at http://www.allaboutbirds.org/page.aspx?pid=2433. Go there. It's amazing. There's also a live chat that goes along with the cam. While I was there, Laura Erickson was answering questions on it. It's really cool.

Spring Challenge Day 4

I almost forgot to post today! I've got to do this quick. Here are my photos:

These crocuses are actually blooming right now. I planted them in late December, which was probably a little late.

This is a flower on one of our honey locust trees. The trees are thorny, but the flowers smell like lilac.

Happy spring, everybody!

Spring Challenge Day 3

It's hot outside! Well, as hot as 83 degrees can get, I guess. Maybe I'm just used to the winter. Here are my photos for day 3:

Some of our azaleas in a place in our yard we call 'Azalea Garden'.

A wildflower in our field. Anyone know what it is? Sorry it's upside down... I was trying to be creative. :)

And one more... a cherry blossom. I took a bunch of photos of these. I just can't help it.

Spring Challenge Day 2

It's Monday and it's beautiful outside! We went to see some Indian mounds built by a Mississipian Tribe down by Tupelo, MS today. And we're going to my brother's baseball practice tonight. But in between, I thought I'd post some more photos:

A dogwood bud at sunrise.

One of my dad's cherry trees at a cool angle.

A junco in an unknown kind of bush. Anyone know what kind of bush it is??


Thanks for checking this out!


Happy Trails!

Spring Challenge Day 1

...or two. The Spring Challenge has officially begun! Here are my photos:

Bluets in our field.

A cardinal singing in an unknown species of tree.


More coming tomorrow!

Butterflies and Sunrises

I know, the title does sound a little sentimental. But I couldn't think of anything else, so I'll just stick with that. Now the main attraction of my post. The photos.

A pearl crescent butterfly. A little early for butterflies, though.

The sunrise sometime last week. I wish the power line wasn't in the way.

A grackle flock during the same sunrise.

Some neat sunrise clouds. :) I used the 'boost' effect in iPhoto to make it look more colorful.

And that's all for now. To see some great photography, go see my friend Scottish Gal's blog, especially during the week of March 25-31. That's the week of her spring challenge. :)

Happy trails, everybody!

Getting into Spring with Photography

Spring is definitely my favorite season for photography. It brings more of my favorite subjects--birds and flowers! I recently got two new photography books: Nature Photography Workshop by Nat Coalson and The Bird-watcher's Guide to Digital Photography  by David Tipling. Both have been helpful to me, except they expect you to have a DSLR, which I, unfortunately, do not own. But, like I said, both have been helpful and I've taken some pretty good photos with my advanced compact camera. Here are some:

 A peach blossom.

A Cedar Waxwing.

Another Cedar Waxwing.

Flowers on the bush outside my window. Does anyone know what it is?

Pear blossoms.

A male robin.

A male house sparrow.


And that's all for now. I'm saving up photos for Scottish Gal's Spring Challenge, which lasts from March 25--31. It should be fun!