Seen while walking the dog around a nearby lake.
Two Turtles on a Log
Snapping Turtle
As we were walking up to the Washington Irving house Sunnyside during our recent visit we came across this snapping turtle in the grass next to the road and not far from a small stream.
Goat Portrait
We had visitors from the UK: old friends from university days who I hadn’t seen for over 20 years. The had said that they liked to walk so I took them on a selection of walks in the Hudson Valley. On one of the walks we went down the Old Croton Aqueduct trail to Rockwood Hall.
An area had been fenced off and a sign indicated that they are using goats and sheep to control invasive plant species and sure enough inside the enclosure were a number of goats. Either out of curiosity or because they thought we had food the entire group ambled over towards us. This particular one put his legs up on the wall surrounding our end of the enclosure thus giving me the opportunity to take this shot.
Bee
Spring is here and I have to engage in one of my least favorite activities: gardening. My wife is really the gardener of the family and I will admit that I like it when the garden’s all a-bloom. It’s the process of getting to that point that I’m not keen on. My usual role is lifting large objects (e.g. bringing out the 20+ heavy plant pots with roses in them that every year we put into the basement) and digging holes. Today was a digging hole day. We have a lot of bushes with white, bell shaped bunches of flowers (I don’t know what they’re called) along the side of the house. Bees seem to be very fond of them and there were a large number these insects buzzing around. I noticed that they would stay on a clump of flowers for quite a while. This was good because I’m not great at photographing things that move a lot.
California Gulls
These were taken on Christmas Eve, 2003 on the Pier in Santa Monica, California. The camera was a Canon Powershot S50, which I eventually gave to my grandson. I guess the gulls must have let me get quite close as the camera didn’t have a particularly long zoom – 35-105mm I believe and these were taken at the 105mm end. In the first shot I really like the pigeon. It seems so incongruous sitting there next to the gulls. Your eye follows the zig-zag of the railing and the gulls and there at the end of it is a pigeon!
