Pics And Gifs

Happy New Year!! 2015 is a brand new year as the lily bud above who will be opened soon. Make the 2015 a good one!!

Meet the wild Finches! This is the first one who got my attention! The Finches are year round song birds here at the house! The fledgeling ( baby ), is the one in the background.

I want to introduce you to a new bird, for me as well! Meet the Harris's Sparrow! Sometimes we have visitors show up here who are different! This pretty bird showed up with the White Crowed Sparrows, obviously not a white crowned sparrow!

Meet the biggest eagle we have in North America, the Golden Eagle!

Meet the Tadpoles of our pond! We have had the frogs / toads here at the house for some time. Mostly the common species Pacific Tree Frogs. Though when we put in prefabricated ponds to help with the water issue in our area, we found out we have toads here as well!

Meet the Hoverfly. This is one of the species of Hoverflys we have here at home. The flower in which the Hoverfly is working on is the Bachelor Button Flower or the Cornflower I notice in Europe (or my European friends call them the Cornflower).

Meet this rather large Bumble Bee! I have spoken before of the bee's who spend time with us here at home, this is one pollinator who helps us in our garden. This series of photographs was captured on the soft pink multi peddled hollyhock flowers.

Hope your weekend was a good one?! Meet the Honey Bee. Many people know the Honey Bee!! The flower of this series is the Poppy Flower. The Honey Bee's do like the Poppy, specially the red Poppy!! Or the salt and pepper shaker flower! The Honey Bee for being the size it is, does the work of several humans just buzzing around doing their thing! If it were not for the Honey Bee in part (pollinators in general), I would not have the seeds nor the food we grow here!

Meet the Cosmos Flower. Many colors to choose from! Here in the high desert, with good soil and lots of water the Cosmos do great!! Actually, I think they would do ok if I did not water so much?

Meet one of the most hated birds in our area, the European Starling, or just plain old Common Starling.

The cold weather is upon us and I need some color!! Being avid gardeners I thought I would share some color of the Sunflowers from our 2014 garden. Along with all the plants we grow we have many visitors show up on our small plot of land to share the bounty, thank goodness for the honey bee and all the other pollinators! Without them hand pollinating would be the other choice and well, that is a lot of work! These photographs were taken on Sept. 8 of 2014. Not so long ago however looking outside it is like this was a life time ago!

Most folks know of the Monarch Butterfly? If not meet the Monarch Butterfly! Here in our part of the high desert of Oregon we do not get many Monarch's here at the house, but when we do I try my best to get some photographs! These photographs were taken in October of 2014.

Meet Mount. Jefferson on the Cascade Mountain range here in Oregon! Mount Jefferson just happens to also be our counties name sake, Jefferson County Oregon.

One of my walks here in our town takes me along the canal where water for the farmers gets carried from point to point. This is also where many insects (and other wildlife), get their water and spend time. One such insect I stopped , watched and photographed for some time is this darner or better known as the dragonfly.

Meet the Black and yellow mud dauber wasp who comes around every year for the mud at our ponds. Never have I had a issue with these wasps! This is a shot I took as I was hovering over this one. These wasps look much more aggressive then they truly are! All of them that show up here for mud fly off to the south, so I can only assume that is where they nest? In fact I watched a little boy harassing some form of bee in which he ran inside his home crying. Some folks do have to learn the hard way.

Meet Dufus , not his real name of course but some of the nicer nick names that he has haha! Dufus is a English Mastiff we drove what 12 hours to another state to pick up him and his litter mate brother. Dufus we did not pick out per say, he picked ME out. Would not leave me alone so Guy perked up and told the owners we will take that pup too!

The Dipper is a great bird to find around unpolluted fast moving waters. I happened to catch this one along the Metolius River. When these dippers blink their eyes it looks funky with the white feathers, turns their eyes white!

Meet the Robber Fly or Assassin Fly. This one was following me around in a part of the High Desert we were at.

Meet the Sphinx Moth or if you prefer the Hawk Moth or as I call it the "Hummingbird Moth", wrong or not that is just what I call it. This is just one of 1,450 species and this is the species that tend to visit our garden as well as at times comes inside the house to get put back outside. The moth above is in flight, hovering as hummingbirds do! Why I call them the "hummingbird moth", for it is easy for me to remember.....

Meet the protected Pygmy Short-Horned Lizard who lives here with us in Jefferson County Oregon! Like other species of wildlife I have photographed these Pygmy Horned Lizard came from east of Madras Oregon. These little guys blended in so well I was afraid the dogs were going to step on them!! Though do not worry along with blending in they are quick!!