Bees

May 24th, 2012

Not a totally sharp photo of the honey bee drinking water at the bird bath, but I loved how the light made its body glow, so I’m sharing!

Honey Bee

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I confess to not knowing about the purple inner portion of these milkweed blooms.  This bee appeared to be oblivious to my intrusion.  In fact, it was downright manic as it went in and out and around and down, but I finally managed to capture a decent photo.  I also admit I’m not sure what kind of bee this is.  Do you know?

Honey Bee

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Hooty “Our” Screech Owl is Still Here

May 23rd, 2012

I took the photo below on May 20th, I took the first one of him March 24th.  I’m thinking those babies of his should have been long hatched and long left the nest by this time, but really, what do I know?  He has become such a part of our daily lives, I’m going to be very sad if the day comes we can’t spot him resting/sleeping in his tree.

Screech Owl

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Prom Cuties

May 22nd, 2012

This beautiful, young couple were so excited and I was too to see them all dressed up and happy.  I only spent about 20 minutes shooting their photos and there are more than these, but these are my favorites.  It was also crowded, very windy and hard to find a spot without people at all the best locations cause everyone else had the same ideas in mind!

 

Enlightening the Kids

May 21st, 2012

And this is not a pleasant story…..

As we made our daily rounds the other day, we could see the buzzards were eating something in the distance and I took it as an opportunity to teach the little kids about life and death.  Well, to my surprise, they weren’t eating something dead, it was still alive, but barely.

I didn’t get photos of the whole scene, now I wish I had.  Anyway, I digress, when we drove up, the buzzards flew away and a poor armadillo ran under the John Deere Gator we were riding in.

I jumped off to get a look at it and could see where it had been injured, more than likely it had been hit by a car with wounds to its armor on the side and its tail was broken looking.  The kids wanted to see too so they got off to have a look with me.

Now I know vultures or buzzards have a purpose in this life, but eating something alive just didn’t sit well with me.  Fortunately, there was a towel in the back of the gator for me to grab him with and show the kids up close and personal what an armadillo looks like and to also show them where the buzzards were already chewing on its ears and face.

I know, it was disgusting, but I knew I couldn’t let it suffer its injuries as well as being chewed on and I knew too it didn’t have long to live.  The kids Dad had big round bales of hay already stacked, so we put the poor thing in between and behind bales to hide.  I took a couple of photos then and off we went to check their cattle and Zack Brown the donkey.

I explained to both we would check on the dillo on our return trip and I expected to find him dead, but at least it wouldn’t be suffering any longer.  They handled this news very well, in fact, I think it is a whole lot easier to understand and accept an animal’s death and is somewhat preparation of life’s ways, right? I think so, hope their parents didn’t mind the life lesson and unfortunately, these little kids have already lost a great-grandfather, a great-aunt and great-uncle as well as a pet to death.

And yes, when we checked on it again, it had died.

I haven’t heard differently, so I’ll take that as a good sign I’m doing an okay job allowing them to witness nature first hand while their parents work.

Challenge #502

May 20th, 2012

This past week’s challenge was to take the first object and do something with it, so, I did! The rose inspiration came from this fantastic tutorial, the rest from my imagination and Paint Shop Photo Pro X3.

© 2010-2012 Donna Boykin All Rights Reserved