Serendipity

Sometimes, getting up from the kitchen table to make your wife one of her favorite treats -- in this case, a cup of cinnamon vanilla black tea topped with a mixture of milk and maple sugar frothed into foam with an Aerolatte® -- can bring extra benefits (beyond the gratitude of said wife).

I usually sit with my back to the window outside of which is Jeannine's bird feeder, so most of the activity out there goes unnoticed by me. But today, after I had prepared the beverage described above, and was handing it to Jeannine, I noticed a flash of muted red outside the window. 

It was a female cardinal… and just as I was reaching for my camera, she flew away. But then an even brighter male cardinal flashed into view… and stayed long enough for me to snag a couple of halfway decent shots through the window. 

I like these little moments of serendipity. -- PL

Cardinal

Jeannine has the best seat at the kitchen table, at least for birdwatching. She faces south, while I face west, and to the east is her bird feeder, now stocked with seeds for the hungry wintering birds.

So it is that I often miss a lot of the colorful bird action, but occasionally Jeannine lets me know of something particularly interesting, as when this morning a cardinal appeared, briefly, to dine with his less flamboyant brethren.

I managed to snap a few shots through the window before he flew off. I think my goal this winter is to get a shot of one of these brilliantly-plumed birds on the wing, if I can. -- PL

Feed the birds

Jeannine likes to watch the birds that flock to her bird feeder in the winter, said feeder being situated just outside the windows of the "breakfast nook" in our kitchen. I help her out with refilling the feeder every so often, and I also like to see the birds, especially the occasional bright red male cardinal… or the less dramatically-hued female cardinal. Both are infrequent visitors to the feeder, but today, with my new Pentax Optio WS80 camera on its "Interval" setting (taking one photo every ten seconds) and set up on my TrekPod by a window, I managed to get two not great, but not so bad photos of the elusive female.

I also captured myself slogging through today's snowstorm (which dumped about a foot or more of snow -- our first big, annoying snowstorm of the season) doing the refilling thing. Later on, I snow-blowed a path to the feeder so it wouldn't be so much of a pain in the butt to get to.

But for all I know, we'll get more snow tonight and I'll have to do it all over again. Ah, life in New England. -- PL

It's finally here...

... the snow, that is.

It started yesterday around the time my brother Bruce had to head back home -- some light flurries which turned into heavier blowing snow. We heard the wind gusting all night, and woke up to...

... not too much snow. It looks like an accumulation of only a few inches so far, and although the wind is still blowing some of the snow around, I think it has stopped falling. I'm grateful we didn't get the twenty inches or so that fell on New York. I'm sure we'll get more before the winter is over... maybe even before this week is over... but this is enough for now.

The birds are out in full force, taking advantage of Jeannine's bird feeder, and she keeps me apprised of when any interesting birds arrive there (I sit at the breakfast table with my back to the window). A few minutes ago she pointed out this guy...

... and I managed to get a halfway decent photo of him. I wish that branch wasn't in the way, but what can you do? It's hard to get birds to pose where you want them to. -- PL

Red on the snow

During the winter, Jeannine keeps a birdfeeder outside our kitchen window, and it's fun to watch the various hungry winged critters who visit it in search of nourishment. This morning, I spied a somewhat rare visitor...



... a cardinal. Using the zoom lense on a new camera I was trying out, I managed to get a pretty decent shot of it. I like the contrast of the bird's brilliant red plumage againast the stark whiteness of the snow. -- PL