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Monday, September 30, 2013

Nature Notes: Up down and all around

Looking through my nature shots for the past seven days I noticed I was pointing my camera in a lot of directions.
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I spend a lot of time looking up at the sky and trees.
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The quality of the light this time of the year is very beautiful.
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In addition to looking up, I was looking down quite a bit.
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In the case of the feather below I spotted it in the air but it landed before I got the shot.
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I tend to get my best sunset shots when there are clouds.
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There have only been a few times of the day when we haven't had a lot of clouds.
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I like pine cones and soon they will be falling to the ground.
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The catbirds spend a lot of time hidden in my deck vines eating berries but I caught a recent shot of one bathing.
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I like furry looking seeds.
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We've been having great temperatures. Chilly at night and warming up to a pleasant day time temperature.
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I don't like hot weather so I always look forward to the fall.
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I think the male cardinal looks like he's talking.
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This summer was much better temperature wise than most years. It never got super hot.
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The mourning dove above is almost the same color as my deck.
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The female cardinal above was enjoying a bath.
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The male cardinal above was turning up his nose at me.
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I love textured clouds.
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Almost every day I notice more trees beginning to change colors.
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I enjoy tall plumes on grass.
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Saturday, September 28, 2013

Today's Flowers and Weekend Flowers: September ending


At the end of the summer and during early fall, chrysanthemums show up at grocery stores for sale.
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I photographed these outside the Food Lion this week.
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I'm continuing to photograph my hydrangea blossoms as they slowly change and die.
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I like the many phases they go through as I've mentioned many times.
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Soon they'll all be completely brown and shriveled until the new blossoms form in the spring.
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Friday, September 27, 2013

Photohunters: A global shot from my hip


The only way I could think of to combine the two photohunter themes (global and a shot from your hip) was to take a picture of my globe with my camera on my hip. Believe me that's easier said than done. My living room has textiles, a screen and furniture from different parts of the world that added to the global part. I had to take a bunch of shots from my hip to get it to work and ended up with a cramp.
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Monday, September 23, 2013

Nature Notes: Cooling down and daily changes

It's beginning to cool down a lot and feels more and more like fall.
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There aren't many trees that have fall colors.
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Every time I see autumn leaves I'm photographing them because the novelty hasn't worn out yet.
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We won't reach peak colors for quite a while.
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I always like to see seeds this time of the year.
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Seeds and berries are as much of a welcome part of fall for me as the colorful leaves are.
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It interests me how some trees change colors almost a month ahead of other trees in the same location.
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We've had a few sunny days for a change.
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We've also had some hard rains.
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 My yard is such a jungle at this point I'm going to try to do fall cleanup this year.
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The porcelain vines (shown below) are very invasive and have popped up everywhere. I planted them to grow on my deck wall with other vines, not realizing how prolific they were.
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Saturday, September 21, 2013

Today's Flowers and Weekend Flowers: late flowers and going to seed


I love flowers at all of their stages.
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There's something beautiful to me about flowers that have gone to seed. They provide food for the birds and the promise of new flowers for the next summer.
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There are still a few roses in bloom.
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The first first four shots were taken at Grace Garden in a Durham, NC park.
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The rest of the shots were taken in my yard and driveway.
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The rose of sharon (Hybiscus syriacus) above was wet from the rain. The fairy asters are late bloomers in my backyard.
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The last shot is of fairy asters growing through the cracks in my driveway.
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