Friday's Hunt v 2.26

Well, here it is, the final Friday's Hunt post for this round of the alphabet.  I am really pleased to have made it through the entire round, and I had a lot of fun doing my posts.  I'm looking forward to the next round!

Our host, Eden Hills, has given us these prompts for this week:  Starts with Z, Week's Favourite, and Holiday.

Starts with Z
This letter can be tricky, but I'm sharing a picture from a special guest blog photographer - my Dad! The first photograph for the letter Z is from the Metro Toronto Zoo.  It's a picture my Dad took in the late 1970s when we lived in Scarborough, Ontario.  Visiting the zoo was a favourite event for me in those days, and these adorable fennec foxes were always a treat to see!  This picture has a lovely composition, with the matching ear positions of the two front foxes, and the inquisitive little face of the one in the back.

Now that I'm older, I still adore animals, but I have mixed feelings about zoos.  The Metro Toronto Zoo is one of the ones that, in my opinion, does a really good job of providing proper enclosures for animals.  There are a lot of really awful zoos in the world these days, where animals are neglected and in very small enclosures with poor care.  I am strongly opposed to any kind of zoo that cannot properly care for and house the animals, and I'm not a big fan of "petting zoos" either, because those animals are often very stressed by all the handling and are subject to tremendous pressure on their immune systems from the constant moving around and the handling by hundreds of people every day. I believe that some well-run zoos provide a very valuable role in educating the public about animals and also do excellent work helping with the breeding and renewal of endangered species.  Biologists and other animal scientists have an excellent opportunity in zoos to study and learn more about animals, their habitats, their needs, and their illnesses.  It can help us to help them, and I believe that is ultimately a benefit to the animals and the human race as well.

Week's Favourite
It was a busy week, so I didn't take a lot of pictures this week.  My favourite of those that I did take is this one of a black-capped chickadee taking off from its perch on my bird feeder.  Wheeeee!

Holiday
It's been very busy for work and with a variety of projects around here, so I didn't do any holiday decorating.  The one thing I did was get out one of my favourite holiday decor items, which is this metal reindeer.  It is supposed to have little round candles in its antler "cups" but I can't find any the right size at the moment.  One of these days!  Wishing everybody a happy holiday!

Friday's Hunt v 2.21

Friday has come around once again and we are starting to get close to the end of the alphabet!

Today's prompts from Eden Hills are: Starts with "U," week's favourite, and nature.

Starts with U
I recently installed a suet feeder in my bird feeding area.  I love to watch the chickadees using it because they often eat upside down or at least underneath the feeder!  It's fun to see their different poses and positions.  I'm getting a number of woodpecker visitors as well, which are also great to watch.

Week's Favourite
I was excited this week to have the opportunity to photograph a shrew in my yard.  I was watching the chickadees through my office window when I saw the movement under the bird feeder.  At first, I thought it was a mole, but upon closer inspection, I realized it was a shrew.  It's fairly rare to see shrews, at least for me, unless they are ones that my cat has dispatched.  I believe this one is a short-tailed shrew, which is the most common species in my area.  It has a little tunnel under some leaves and it comes out to get seeds and takes them back inside.  The fur looks so velvety-soft, and although I'm sure many would disagree with me, I think this shrew is really cute!

These are not great photographs in a technical sense, especially since they were taken through a window, but the subject matter was the exciting part for me!

You can see how tiny the eyes are - like little pin-heads!  Shrews can eat up to twice their body weight each day.  Remarkable little creatures.

Nature
I think the majority of the photographs I put on this blog are nature shots!  All of today's pictures are nature photographs.  Here's another one I took that I like - a fall leaf on the grass covered in water droplets.  Nature has so much beauty for us if we slow down and look for it.

Busy Day: Work, Chickadees, Quiche, and Hay Delivery

It was a busy Monday.  Marc went back to work after having taken his vacation week last week, and my work task list has picked up a few items lately, so I was ready for a busy day.  I started about 9 am and ended my work day with a one-hour conference call at 7 pm.  The good thing about working from home is that I'm able to take breaks during my day to do other things, and I can take breaks according to the time I have available - not limited to a 15-minute break imposed by an employer!

Today I took a break to feed the chickadees, as I usually do.  They were very active today, and I had them eating seeds from my hand, but the "line-up" of waiting birds was taking advantage of all available space, including waiting spots along my arm, on the top of my head, and even on the top of my camera lens.  Unfortunately I can't take pictures of this phenomenon - someone else would have to take the picture of me with birds on my head and arm! When I ran out of seeds, one kept coming back and gripping the front of my sweater and pecking one of my buttons.  Persistent little birds!   Here are a few shots of the chickadees today.

They gave up when I ran out of seeds and reverted to pinecones.

I do love my little feathered friends.

I needed something quick for supper, so I made a variation on the quiche recipe I found at the Broken Teepee blog.  I had done a smoked picnic ham in the slow cooker last week and there were still a few leftovers, so I thought it would be a good recipe to try.  I would like to try the crust recipe from the Broken Teepee blog too sometime, but with my busy day, I opted to use a frozen pie shell.  I pre-baked that, and then cut up some ham.  I don't have fresh corn, but I do have nice frozen corn niblets, so I ran those under hot water for a couple of minutes and used that instead.  I decided to add a few sliced cherry tomatoes.

Quiche recipes are usually fairly flexible and forgiving, so the tomatoes seemed like a good addition. I didn't have cheddar cheese, but I had a blend of edam and mozzarella, so I used that, and poured on the eggs and milk mixture.

I baked it at 375F for 40 minutes.

It came out very nicely and I enjoyed a slice of it before my conference call.  It was very tasty. The sweetness of the corn paired well with the smoky ham, and the tomatoes added extra vitamins!


Just after my piece of quiche and just before my conference call, I had 10 bales of hay delivered.  The goats and sheep really love the hay that I'm getting locally.  It's hay taken off the Tantramar Marsh area and has a great variety of grasses, clover, and other plants as well.  Goats and sheep aren't as finicky as horses when it comes to their hay, but I'm glad my gang really like this stuff!

They still like to eat bark, too.  Crazy critters!

Flight Blur

The photographs I'm sharing today are, essentially, "rejects" from the camera.  But, there is something I find captivating about them.  These are flight photographs, mostly of the chickadees, and they show a blur of feathers and movement that gives a sense of how quickly these little birds move. I try to catch them seated on my hand, but more often than not, I get a blur.  I was throwing out the blurs, but then I began to realize they had a certain charm.

Today, I share with you some of my favourite blurry chickadees and nuthatches!

Here's just a wing blur, to start.

Most of the pictures are "take off" blurs from the point when the bird leaves my hand.

This one has a real curve to it in the bottom part of the picture, adding to the sense of movement. Swoop!

I believe this one is a "landing blur" as opposed to a "take off blur."

Another landing!

This one is one of my favourites - I just think of it as a dancing bird blur!  It's a nuthatch.

Here's a nuthatch blur as the bird was going from upright to upside-down on the branch.  Really just a wing blur, but I love the way the individual feathers are visible, and yet the leaves are seen through the feathers too.

They just move so fast! 

Off they go!

Sharing with The Bird D'Pot!

Feeding Chickadees

Almost every day I go out at the same time to feed my little chickadee friends.  I'm getting better at taking pictures of them on my hand.  They are bold and inquisitive, and today, one of them flew right at me when I was in another part of the yard, as if it was expecting me to magically produce seeds.  I just adore them!  I also had a nuthatch take a seed from my hand last week.  I haven't had it happen again, but I keep hoping.

Sometimes they take more than one seed, but I haven't managed to get a picture of that yet.

Look at those cute little birdie toes!

Some of the seeds are already out of their shells, making easier work for the birds.  This chickadee was smart and chose an unshelled seed!

I have about 5 that regularly land on my hand now.  Then I have this little one.  He is trying to be brave enough, but he's not quite there yet.  Every day, I am very patient and keep hoping that he will figure out that I'm not going to hurt him.  In the meantime, I sometimes raise my hand a bit so he hangs upside-down from the branch and grabs a seed, rather than landing on my hand.

I bought a "Pampered Chef" stoneware dish last week from a thrift store with the intent of creating a mosaic inside it to make it into a pretty birdbath.  I haven't managed to get around to that project yet, so I decided to put the birdbath dish outside for the time being until I could get to my mosaic project.  I set it into a wire chair-shaped form that Marc had in his shed and which he wasn't using.  I think the device is supposed to hold a flower basket, but I thought it would make a good birdbath holder.  It was out for several days and I wasn't getting any visitors, so I felt like my efforts were for naught.

Today, I was very pleased to see I had a bather!  Forgive the fact that these pictures aren't great - they were taken through the glass of my office window.

What a cute little bird - I'm not even sure what it is.  It might be a junco or a sparrow.  It's a bit wet and bedraggled so it's hard to ID the species.

I'm so happy to see that the birds will use the bath.  Stay tuned for my mosaic project, one of these days!  I leave you with a shot of a red-breasted nuthatch enjoying a seed from my feeder.