Almost weightless
More weightless
Weightless for the time being.
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Weightless
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Category Archives: Birds
I Heard the Owl Call Your Name: Serendipity Photo Prompt Chai (Life)
Looking through my photos to try to find something appropriate for the Chai (Life) prompt, and yet also thinking I wanted to find something for Nan, I came upon these pictures of Aztec dancers who were dancing in the Ajiic plaza right outside the cultural center where we had the dance performance for the second Camp Estrella group. At the end of their performance, I heard the loud drumming and went out to find what I judged to be a thunderbird dance. Certainly, this dancer looked like a thunderbird. Growing up in South Dakota, I was very familiar with this Sioux symbol of thunder and lightning and rain, but I was a bit confused about why they would be executing a North American indigenous dance.
It was only later, while editing, that I realized that it was not in fact a thunderbird, but rather a white owl, which can be seen very clearly from this front view.
I then remembered how I was kept awake last night by the very loud hooting of an owl, which reminded me of the white owl who had swooped down over my yard on three different occasions the last time my friend Patty visited me. She had seen it twice at night and was afraid I wouldn’t believe her until finally, one night, he appeared while I was outside as well. Then, the entire theme finally came together for me. Legend has it that when you hear an owl call, someone near to you will be leaving this plane.
I also love it that in the above picture, one of our camp participants is standing above the dancers in his own mask, made in the camp. It is on top of his head.
And so Marilyn and Garry, here for you is the white owl that called Nan’s name. I hope you soon find peace in remembering what a wonderful life you shared with each other and in remembering what the owl teaches us: that death is just a part of life and that without it there could in fact be no life. Somehow the only way we ever seem to be able to try to comfort each other is in stating the obvious.
http://teepee12.com/2015/08/12/serendipity-photo-prompt-2015-18-chai-081215/
Tulip Tree with Kiskadee : Cee’s Flower of the Day, August 5, 2015
Tulip Tree with Kiskadee
This fellow was at the opposite end of the lot at the top of a giant African Tulip Tree. Thanks to the wonderful zoom on my new Canon camera, I captured him! Thanks, Canon.
He was catching bugs as they went by. You can see one in his beak in this photo.
Here you can see him going after yet another fly. It was an almost constant repetition of a theme. A great hunting ground! My shutter speed wasn’t fast enough to freeze his movement, but at least the flowers were in focus!
And then he flew away! He always returned, but my mind turned to other things, and two days later I had this nice surprise on my camera when I finally got around to downloading the pictures from my camera. Another day’s challenge met!!!
(In Mexico, the name for the African Tulip Tree is Tulipan. It is also sometimes called a Fountain Tree.)
http://ceenphotography.com/2015/08/05/flower-of-the-day-august-5-2015-delphinium/
Twins: DailyPost Half and Half Challenge
Twins
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/half-and-half/ This week, share an image that has two clear halves, literally or figuratively. You could focus on composition, like me, and take a photo with an explicit dividing line (either vertical, horizontal, or diagonal). Or take the theme in other directions: zoom in on a pair of objects that together form a whole. Show two people whose demeanor or personality complement each other. Or bring into balance two opposing visual elements — light and dark, color and its absence, sharp focus juxtaposed with blurriness.
Islas Ballestras of Peru: Cee’s Travel Theme Land Meets Water
Islas Ballestras: Peru’s Galapagos
Sometimes where land comes together with water, that land is an island; and in Peru’s Ballestras Islands, it furnishes a wonderful preserve where millions of penguins, boobies, gulls, seals and other animals are able to live in a protected environment.
To see Cee’s incredible panoramic coastline view and other photographers’ work, go HERE.
Re-tired
“That” bird raps down the scale hysterically–not appropriate music for 6 a.m. Just three hours ago, I was listening to Janis, who needed a Mercedez Benz, a man to love and fast transport out of Baton Rouge, in that order according to my play list. Now, when I’ve finally rid her angst from my dreams and I’m on a smooth course, here is nature’s alarm clock trying to convince me that 6 a.m.is a sane hour to rise. No, I answer silently, tucking one hand under the pillow my head is resting upon and using the other to pull the spare pillow over my exposed ear.
By isolating myself from this cheerful world of morning, I choose delay. The puppy, who has snubbed the comfortable new bed I have bought for him in favor of being two feet closer to me, jumps up next to me from his resting place beneath my bed and burrows against my spine, complicit in my choice of the best way to spend a morning.
To read more about night owl activities that lead to sleeping in in the morning, go HERE.
And HERE is another poem about what happens when I do wake up and decide to stay that way–usually closer to 8 o’clock.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Golden Hour.” 6:00AM: the best hour of the day, or too close to your 3:00AM bedtime?
THREE: Cee’s Fun FotoChallenge
Baby Bird Saga IV
Well, a few updates. When my friend went down to check on Lenny, he had flown the nest! It was almost impossible to find him as he was in a fenced-in area full of plants and vines and there was no room to enter–just to try to look. We couldn’t even reach past the chicken wire that held up the vines that obscured the heating unit. Nonetheless, we both looked for what added up to an hour, I would imagine. Finally, we just had to give up, but I stayed down in the hammock, hoping the parents would fly over and Lenny would somehow extricate himself.
When my friend came home, she took my place in the hammock and a half hour or so later I heard her call out that she needed help. She had spied Lenny and was able to reach in and extract him from his jungle prison. Back to the big rock, where lo and behold, his parents spotted him and his mother came and fed him one more time. Then it was into his cage and into the house before a COLOSSAL rainstorm hit. Buckets of water, crashing lightning and thunder that sounded like it was cracking the world open. So glad our baby bird was not out in that!
Later I discovered two interesting facts on the internet. #1. that just because we share a common last name, Lenny Dykstra does not serve as a good role model to name anyone after, even a bird. So, I’m up for suggestions about what to rename him. #2. that baby bird is most probably not a vermillion flycatcher but rather a house finch. He looks exactly like the image online and male house finches do get rosy coloring around the head and chest, which accounts for the rosier birds we’ve seen accompanying the dull females.
So, very early Monday morning, my house guest departs leaving my family two creatures larger. Hopefully the parent finches will continue to feed their baby and I’ll take over at night. I’ve done some reading about the diet of finches and will provide sunflower and thistle seeds to attract the parents and give them a close by place to feed so hopefully they’ll continue to feed him. Looks like I’ll be spending a lot of time in my hammock in the lower garden, since the rock is a familiar feeding spot for both baby and birth parents.
Morrie, in the meantime, is leaving a pathway of chaos in the front garden: pots tipped over, plants ripped out by the roots, little round stones from a mocajete spread over the terrace. Diego is complicit in the chasing games that created some of this disorder, but with the baby bird feeding in back, I dare not put the dogs there. I fear they don’t understand about inter-species family fealty.
Now it is 11:22 PM. Morrie is curled up beside me in bed, I can hear strains of banda music from the town down below. It is the festival for the town’s namesake, St. John the Baptist, who has done a good job of baptizing us all this day and for the week preceding it. The bird formerly known as Lenny is literally asleep with his head tucked under his wing and I am about to do the same. Your mission, if you should choose to accept it, is to help me think up a new name for baby bird. Sweet dreams to all, or, more likely, good morning.
The Day After
Today the gifts have all be opened, the pizza is gone, the cake is half-eaten, but the decorations are still hanging, something I noticed when returning from a swift walk to the beach to watch a wonderful sight.
I gave up first, Peggy followed soon after, but Sabina is still trying to catch a last look. Of what?
You can perhaps guess.
Three whales who frolicked right off coast for ten minutes or so. There were better photo opportunities, but I missed out on them.
When I returned, I was able to capture this shot of Sharon through the glass of the dining room window.
And we returned to making beads and other elements of fimo and fashioning them into necklaces, bracelets, earrings,
Sabina worked on her wonderful mirror fashioned of fimo, stamps and paint.
And Peggy worked on her quilt . . .
Until the fog rolled in and suddenly through that fog, I spied it:
Incredible, the Great Blue Heron stayed, standing silent, moving slowly as we stood silent, walking one way and another until we approached too close. Unprepared, I caught only a ghost shot, like a watercolor, as it flew away:
Which could not help but remind me of one of my favorite poems “The Great Blue Heron,” by Carolyn Kizer, which you may read HERE.
Here is one more view of the heron:
This one looks more like a painting but is in fact a photo I took today with more saturated color–the way it would have looked if the fog had not entered our lives for the rest of the afternoon.
Mr. Crow
Mr. Crow
A flash of shadow in morning’s glow–
interrupts the daylight’s flow.
That sleek black coat I seem to know.
Why have you come here, Mr. Crow?
I heard that here the water’s fine.
The garden lush. The fruit divine.
I saw it falling from the vine
and swooped right in to make it mine.
You bow at us as though in jest,
then bend your wing and dip your chest.
You have not come at our behest.
We know you rob the songbird’s nest.
But I just stand here, staunch and tall.
I make no movement, sound no call.
I threaten no one. None at all.
Your garden holds me in its thrall.
The mourning doves and chickadees
do not bathe here as they please.
Black bird, you splash there, as though to tease,
then dry your feathers in the breeze.
I watch to see what you may do.
Through kitchen window, you’re in full view.
One beaded eye of turquoise hue
watches no songbirds. It watches you.
Mr. Crow, with feathers fine,
take care where you might choose to dine.
The grapes you eat were meant for wine.
Please stick to seeds. The grapes are mine!
To those of you behind the drapes,
it is a myth I dine on grapes
In garden grass, I watch for shapes.
No skittering snake or mouse escapes.
Small birds won’t deign to linger near
or take a bath while you are here.
Their fluttering movements display their fear.
They find your visit very queer.
I haven’t been here very long.
I’ve robbed no grapes, I’ve stilled no song.
Though your suspicions are grossly wrong,
since I’m not welcome, I’ll move along.
The blackbird lifts from saucer’s edge,
skirts the treetops, lands on the hedge.
A warbler lifts from stalks of sedge
and takes his place on the birdbath’s ledge.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/new-internet-order/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 