Image of the day

Cooper's Hawk

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]]> Young Cooper's Hawk aka Chicken Hawk outside the front window. That bunch of leaves in it's talons is just the flaky out side on the inside is a juicy mouse.

Bluebird

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]]> It's a bird, thats blue...

Minke Whale

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]]> In the background is the power plant on Cousins Island looking between Long Island to the left and Chebeaque Island on the right in Casco bay.

Sanderlings

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]]> The only place your going to see these guys is at the beach or far northern Canada. They just started to show up on the beach as they head south for the winter. When a wave comes up on the beach they chase it eating the tiny little shrimp and other Crustaceans that are left hopping around on the sand. Sanderlings

Ontario Sunset

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]]> Our annual trip to Lake Ontario often has more than a few really cool sunsets. This was one of them from this years trip.

Pileated Woodpecker

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]]> Sorry about the low quality of the photograph but the subject was too good to not post. These guys are hard to get a good picture of.

Spring Point Light

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]]> Another View of Spring Point Light House. This time with Portland Head in the background.

Storm Over Lake Ontario

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]]> We went to Southwick Beach State park, on the eastern shore of lake Ontario, over the weekend for our annual rendezvous with family and friends. Most nights we had strong thunder storms this one hung out over the middle of the lake and didn't seem to move for hours. Even so it took about 50 tries to get these two shots only about 5 minutes apart. Each try means I point the camera towards the storm and take a 15 second exposure. If the lightning strikes in that time it's like a flash bulb going off and only represents a fraction of a second even though the camera is taking a picture for 15 seconds. Then it takes about 10 more seconds to save the picture before you can take another picture. If you study them closely you'll see that each picture has at least two or three lightning flashes hiding in the clouds. This storm was about 20 miles out on the lake so the pictures have been cropped down by about 50%. They have also been filtered to remove "noise" associated with low light that makes them look snowy.

Young Harbor Seals

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]]> Over the 4th of July weekend we managed to sail every day. Sunday the sea was foggy just off shore. Cold water combined with warm humid air off the land makes it foggy just over the water. A few hundred yards off shore you could only see a few hundred feet. It would change some times we could sail out to some of the outer channel markers but then it would thicken up and we would head back up the river a bit. If we went up river past the adjacent beach it was clear and sunny. So we stayed close to the opening of the Saco river that is bounded by two long jetties and just sailed up and down along the jetties in kind of a holding pattern because it was easy to keep them in sight. After a few hours the fog thinned out and the visibility went out a few miles so we left the channel and went north past a small island and went in toward the beach just north of the jetty and sailed parallel to the beach for a bout a quarter mile them turned out toward another small island just north of the island just outside of the jetty. The whole time we were able to keep a visual baring on a land mark. When we got to the second little island we saw a small group of seals sunning themselves on a little rock just off the island so we drifted over and got a few pictures.

Storm at sea

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]]> Looking south from Pool Beach, Biddeford Maine, last August.

Mother and Daughters

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]]> About 6 or 7 deer showed up the day after thanksgiving looking for leftovers. My sisters neighbor puts out cracked corn and every critter, including a flock of turkeys, for miles around stops by for lunch. These girls look ready for winter.

Two Waves

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]]> Two different waves hitting the same rock, so different so much alike. I didn't think to get something in the shot for scale but I was about 6 feet away and the water is splashing straight up about 4 feet above the edge of the rock. The flash stops it so that it looks like it's frozen.
(located at 43 deg. 09' 53.64"N / 70 deg. 53' 34.56"W)

1 pound and 2 ounces

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]]> I found this in my garden with my tomatoes. There was a bigger one 1lb 5.7oz but I ate it and the picture wasn't as good as this one.

Owl's Head Lighthouse

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]]> We were sailing back to Rockland when all of the sudden this 100ft. plus long sailboat / ship appeared out of nowhere pretty much from behind us. We never even saw it coming. A half an hour later we caught up to it on it's mooring and sailed around it for a good look. You could park our boat on the deck and it wouldn't even have been in the way. On the main sail boom it said Isladia but I think that's a place and not the name. Even without the sailboat this would have been a nice shot of the Owl's Head lighthouse.

8:33 P.M. Biddeford Maine

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]]> One of the clock towers in downtown Biddeford Maine.