Yellow-shafted Northern Flicker

I thought this scene was interesting because of the many textures and bokeh.

I Brought You Some Flowers!

13 Lined Squirrel

I don't know, can anything be any cuter than this face?

Playing with HDR

HDR is short for High Dynamic Range. It is a post-processing of taking either one image or a series of images, combining them, and adjusting the contrast ratios to do things that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed.

HDR Image

I thought I would give it a try, and liked the results, although this particular scene isn't as dramatic as I would like. The best HDR's have deeper shadows, so I will be looking for more dramatic scenes in the future. I used a Photomatix's free version found here which leaves a watermark on the finished image, but I cloned it off my image.

Original Image

For Rick at Whitetail Woods

So I took a photo of a Cardinal the other day, something I just don't do often enough. The common birds get passed over, as the more uncommon birds are more my style. Anyway, Rick, as always, left a comment on one of my posts, and requested a Cardinal, as it is his favorite bird. Well, I happened by a Cardinal on one of my adventures, thought of Rick, took his photo and moved on. When I processed the image, it just was not one of those super sharp images I like to post, so I set it aside. Well I took a look at it today, thought I would add a filter to it, liked my choice, and so here it is. Thanks Rick, for the inspiration! Check out his blog here



original






altered

click to enlarge

Summer Tanager

Here's a pretty great find for my area: Summer Tanager. He didn't stay but a few days, but I luckily got word of his arrival from a friend and found him pretty tolerant of the photographer. I've only seen this species in full breeding colors and only in Costa Rica, so this find was pretty special. I find him alot more flashy in his molt!

Indigo Bunting

What more can I say than this bird is gorgeous!