This past couple weeks have been busy with more pictures being produced than time to post them. Our summer visitor was back, shown here above the jewel weed near the garage. The jewel weed is a favorite for them and with our hummingbird feeder out-of-commission this year, we have been fortunate they have continued to visit.
At the same time, we had several visits out to the no-name pond and besides the American bittern (note, I did mis-identify him as a “least bittern” in a previous post), we have some images of the kingfisher that has been hanging out there.
On every patrol this summer, we see deer. In a very rare instance, the sighting is made with a camera ready. In a very, very rare instance, we get an image of one when they do not even know we are around.
My radarman, the sixty plus pound Alaskan malamute named Murphy, usually detects targets well before I see them. In this case, as we were walking along the trail, we came around a corner and this is what I saw [see image below]. Just me. Murphy did not detect the deer’s presence. The deer did not detect our presence for a full minute or so.
Murphy only discovered the near miss when we passed over the spot a few minutes later.
We went out to the no-name pond this evening with tripod and 600mm telephoto lens ready to shoot wildlife. As we got to the pond, a bird flew across the pond in front of us as if on cue. After landing on the right side shore, he spent the entire time walking back and forth as shown here.
This guy has a crown that rises up for certain occasions unknown to me (as you can see at left). The raised crown gets relaxed at other times (see picture below). Looks like a different bird.