Ranuncula

Today I bought two ranunculus to plant in pots that I have outside, but I never made it outside -- I found my macro lens & started shooting. That's when I realized that it's been awhile since I've used my macro lens. Boy, am I out of practice! I did like what was going on in this one, especially after I used the Topaz simplify filter a bit on it. They are so lovely.

It's "F" week.

It's F week around here. What's fun is taking the same F and adding different textures. Here are two I'm submitting to the class.

Whale Watching Saturday

Whale watching yesterday. It was a great day on the water. We saw lots of seals, pelicans and seagulls, sunfish, small shark (I'm guessing it was a Grey Smoothhound) -- but the only whale we saw was in Shane's book ("A Whale of a Tale"). The skies, as usual, were beautiful! Thanks Carolyn & Erik for the invitation.

Lake Hodges area, San Diego North County

I went for a walk today with my neighbor, Lillian. She's been kind enough to introduce me to some great areas for walking. We actually walked around an area referred to as the overflow for Lake Hodges. It's been a dry bed for years, but lots of rain this year filled it up. Beautiful day, on the cool side for San Diego -- barely made it above 60-degrees with frost warnings overnight. Sorry for my friends who are living in areas and dealing with snow & ice, but, remember, you do have an invitation to come visit anytime. And Maureen, we have trains here too ;-)

Crested Screamers

When I visit the San Diego Zoo, the first place I like to visit is the flamingo pond (right up front). In addition to the flamingos, there are many ducks, birds, and the Crested Screamers. I noticed one of these birds last week sitting on a nest. This week there were two, the one on the nest got up, checked out the eggs, then the second one got on the nest as they circled around the eggs, both checking them out, and finally, one settled in. The male and females both take turns on the nest. It was fun to see the change of guards! I'm hoping I'll be lucky enough to see the chicks when they hatch. They incubate the eggs for up to 45 days. I'm not sure how long they've been on the nest at this point, but will try & find out.

It's "E" week.

These are two of the E's I submitted to Carol Leigh's class "26 in 26". The green E was a compilation of a couple of photos, then I used the blend modes to bring out the layers. Fun & addicting. The second E, as in East, was as shot: there's a beautiful fountain in the Little Italy section of San Diego with points of the compass. I'm sure I'll be using N, S, & W as needed.

Clyde

Meet Clyde, a 300 lb orangutan at the San Diego Zoo. He was resting in the sun, waiting for lunch (which was served about 10 minutes after the photo was taken).