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Sparrow Birds Working For Their Meal . I admit, it is ridiculous the money we spend on the wildlife here. The gardens and such to attract the wildlife so I can photograph them. I justify this expense as entertainment, for really Guy and I can sit for hours just talking and watching all the wildlife we work so hard to attract to our place. We stopped in at the Madras Livestock Auction where they opened up a feed store. We need bird seed in big time bulk. The sparrows are the main birds we feed here, but without the sparrows the other birds would not be attracted. As soon as we walked into the feed store we saw this seedblock. We thought this would slow down the birds a little, making them work for their meal. It has, and offered me a great photography opportunity! We are more than happy to try out such products if, and I mean if, it is cost affective!

Quail were out a little earlier, until a hawk came out of know where and they all took off.

I found this Mountain Chickadee watching the horses and I from one of the trees. Several chickadee species are out, this one has the stripes. They eat bugs and seeds and I find they are often with other birds. Cute little guys!! If you would like to hear what this bird sounds like there is a great voice capture at the " allaboutbirds.org " site.

Mushroom Fungus Of Oregon Video I have not made it any secrete that I have many photographs of mushroom or fungus of Oregon. From wikipedia, "A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. Mushrooms are not plants: they are a fungus. They eat organic matter, they do not photosynthesize like plants do." Mushrooms are unique. They grow most everywhere, if one just looks. Some can be eaten, though really I do not have this kind of experience to put such things in my mouth. Though many do!! This is some of my photographs of mushrooms I just happen to come across. I do not go looking for them, they just happen to be where I am. Be it on trees, growing on the ground, or like one species it was hanging within the trees! Like that species just fell from the sky! Now some have been eaten by wildlife, some have wildlife in the photo! Some mushrooms are very big. Bigger then Guy's hand! Some species are very little. Some species do not even look like it should be a living thing! Nature is pretty neat!

Our day yesterday was a lot of fun! The weather was ok , the highs in the 40's the lows in the 20's. According to our trucks outside weather gauge. It rained, it hailed and it snowed. So you can imagine blue skies were hard to find. Wildlife was not hard to find, like most days. They still need to eat regardless of the weather. We climbed down into the canyon to watch three bald eagles fish and do what they do. We climbed out back onto the road and seen a golden eagle in a tree. He took off as we watched him go further up into the canyon another pair of bald eagle came out of no where and started attacking the golden eagle in mid flight. It is said the Bald Eagle soars at 35-43 mph. We watched this and got in the truck to go where the action was. We seen the bald eagles attacking for a little bit when the golden eagle went up high, and started attacking the bald eagles one at a time!

Just a few hours ago Guy took me around the block. Oh probably ten miles or so?? It was nice to get out of the house! I do not know about other places, but here this species of falcon are not real..... they take off as soon as attention is directed at them. In other words I have tried to get some shots of the sparrow hawk and finally I did. This American Kestrel is the smallest falcon in North America. Used in falconry so they must be pretty smart! I think they are pretty little birds! Eating grasshoppers, other small birds, and rodents so they are good to have around. Oh I believe they eat the lizards we have here too. It looks like we are in for more bad weather here in central oregon but the wildlife need to eat and I was happy we seen what we did on our short drive.

The border Canary is a common canary found in many homes. I am pleased to now own a pair of these canaries, or do they own me?? Their song is just delightful!! Here are photographs of the male, which is brighter yellow, and his female. They both sing their little hearts out!!

First thing we seen last Saturday is this herd of Elk. They were pretty close to our little town! They were laying down in this farmers field. But when they noticed someone giving them attention they started getting up and getting nervous. The morning was very nasty weather wise. Snow was falling, it was foggy and I really did not want to see the elk running in this weather. These all look like bulls. These elk we have here are very..... shy? Paranoid? In the field they had nothing to hide behind.

We went down to a boat ramp parking area, which was empty due to the snow and just the weather conditions I am sure. Started hiking down to the cold canyon water in the snow. The dogs and I were first on the little, slippery, snow covered path. I heard the loudest splash and first thing I thought was the dogs jumped in the icy water! Why would they? They are dogs! More......

A group of photos taken in two places that Chicagoans find convenient, when they escape from the winter: largish domed gardens, a little big to just be called "greenhouses"; these places have full grown trees living inside of them. Emphasis, chosen by those submitting, seems to have been on shots taken very close in - "macros".

More stop action pictures of fluid in motion. These are a little more delicately and less dramatically done than the last batch, with more exploration of color

I pay a lot of attention to Ravens. Some of my best photographs came to be because of the ravens. Ravens are really just a big crow. They are a very intelligent bird, which I guess some can argue with. They work as a team. As a family unit and are very bold creature. More than one raven is called "An unkindness of ravens", I can see why because wow can they drive off the biggest of creatures! There are ten species of the Raven with two more that are said to be extinct. The Magpie appears to be tolerated by the Raven, though they too are finally ran off by the bigger Raven. The Magpie we have here are very smart birds, though I really do not "listen" to them as I do the Raven. After seeing the all the Ravens in a small clearing it did not take Guy long to stop the truck and off I went into the brush. Guy seen a little of what the Ravens were doing, this was running off the eagles. There were two eagles. One was a big Golden Eagle, the other was a young smaller Bald Eagle. Many of these two species of eagles are showing up together these days. I have not noticed this in years past, but this year WOW has this been obvious! The Golden Eagle standing on the prey is the first thing we noticed after the Ravens. The prey I could not identify. Did I want to identify it, not really!! It was white and it appeared to have died some time ago. One thing people do not understand about Eagles, the Golden Eagle and the Bald Eagle is, they will take a meal whether they themselves hunted it down, or if it died by some other means. Eagles will do their best to steal prey as well. The species of eagles are opportunists. They can be scavengers. The Raven were doing the best they could to run off the Eagles, but the Golden Eagle was having no part of being ran off by Ravens! The young Bald Eagle was trying to grab some of the meal when I was getting close, but took off up into a tree to watch. These are the photographs of this event.

Many people come here in good weather to camp, boat, fish on and on. Many people do not get to see what we get to see in the winter. We chose where we wanted to go, and headed out. We were told of some snow but the weather channel is not real pacific here. A little snow mixed in with rain. Ok whatever what is new?? Than we got down into the canyon..... Saturday it just dumped on us! Snow is no big deal, it is the black ice we worry about!! More about my getting wildlife photography here in Oregon at my web site..... What we wont do to get that photo!!

Our adventures start out usually early in the morning. I woke up late, yes I admit! I got up gosh at 4 am or something. Guy was already up and drinking his coffee. I only have to get myself and my camera ready. Guy has the truck, the dogs, our lunch and extra truck supplies to get ready. We left here a little before 5am, before the sun came up and hopefully before to much wildlife movement gets started.......

We stopped off at a spot and I noticed these bright blue birds darting here and there. Quick little things!! They seam to be very acquisitive as to what we were doing too! I read where these birds survive our cold, however yesterday it got up to 68 degrees!!

I was down in the canyon, see the hawk photographs, when something caught my eye. The little guy made it obvious that I was being followed.

For a couple days now this little girl has been showing up. When I first saw her I thought what a funny looking bird. Now that I have watched her for two days now, I feel rather sorry for her. It is our fault these birds are being altered like this, or this is the way I see it. Chemicals are more likely to blame.

It is that time of the year! The little pacific tree frogs are showing themselves.

From my science blog, you didn't think all did was take pretty pictures, did you? Numeric models not live ones... B.E. or Bullshit in the vernacular, has a close association with numeric models. I have clearly demonstrated this in many essays. The literature in this field of research is rich. It is highly odoriferous too. I know, not a very scientific thing to say. I think I can justify this language from the philosophical side. Instead however I will start by telling a little story. read lots more

Japanese photographer Masashi Wakui captures Tokyo's streets at night, and especially neon lights and the atmosphere that comes from the little back alleys behind the stores. He accentuates the lights and the haze to add a bit of depth to his pictures similar to Blade Runner by Ridley Scott's aesthetic. More pictures in the gallery below and on his Flickr.