Category — Nature

Last week, I finally finished this painting of some flowers I photographed at the Duke Gardens. It has yet to be named.

Final Version of Flowers Painting

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Earlier this summer, I was on vacation in Kure Beach and we went to a nature center. I shot this photo of a frog behind glass. I kinda like the composition and the little guy’s expression, but there is nothing too exciting about the noisiness, muted color or lack of sharpness. The noise in the background might be a little hard to see at this size, but it’s there. You can click the photos so see them a bit bigger.

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I recently visited Alaska for one week. Flew into Anchorage, drove to Homer and spent most of my time there except for two days I spent in Seldovia.

Alaska can at times be a very rainy and foggy place. This made a lot of the days difficult to catch clear photos of the incredible mountains without a lot of noise. But I did my best. [Read more →]

I am currently in Homer Alaska on vacation. I had a quick moment before breakfast so I wanted to post a photo from a kayaking trip yesterday of an otter. I saw four of them. They are very cute and I wish I could take one home.

I finally snapped a couple mediocre photos of one of my residential hummies. These two are of the same female who I have named HummyBuddy Part2. The male is the first one I saw this year, and I named him HummyBuddy. I actually don’t name things that much on my own, but Robert always asks me what things are named, so I just make something up, and that’s what came out first. HummyBuddy Part2 is simply because I saw her second and she used to be more shy than the male. However, since then she is easier to get photos of because she will come around more when I’m outside. [Read more →]

A couple mornings ago I awoke to the dog excitedly looking out the patio door and half barking. I assumed there was another squirrel peering in…but I went and looked anyway. Unfortunately it was an injured looking white-breasted nuthatch instead. He (or she) was sitting on the step looking traumatized and had possibly had a broken wing, but I was hoping not.

I’m sure the poor nuthatch ran into our big glass patio windows. This hasn’t happened in quite some time. It used to be that we had about one casualty a week, which was upsetting for me as I don’t want to be the cause of any death no matter how small (save for mosquitoes and ticks, I will gladly cause their deaths)…

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I enjoy having hummingbirds in my yard immensely. Although there are plenty of natural flowers in my beautiful yard, I still like to entice hummingbirds to be closer and more consistently to my work desk as much of the day as I can.

Over the last year I have learned a few things about choosing and maintaining hummingbird feeders that I thought I would share for anyone who is interested. [Read more →]

When my dad came to visit last October he bought and put up a bluebird house on an old light pole in my backyard. This turned out to be a great choice as the bluebirds love it and I hear that black snakes and coons have a harder time getting up a wide pole if they are in search of eggs or babies. I have no problem with nature being nature, but I would also appreciate my bluebirds having some babies that make it to have little families of their own.

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