Tag Archives: birds

Long-legged Birds for NPC #9

Click on photos to enlarge.

From Lake Chapala to La Manzanilla to Alabama to Wyoming to the rainforests of Peru, I never met a bird I didn’t have to photograph.  Here are a few of the long-legged ones, as directed by the prompt!  Yes, I got carried away a bit.

For Nature Photo Challenge #9–Long-legged Birds

Black is Beautiful, March 10, 2023

Click on photos to enlarge.

Oops.. I got mixed up and thought “Paint it Black” was a photo prompt. When I tried to link it, I found it was a short short writing prompt. I couldn’t find a comments section to link it to anyway, and since it is clear I was not meant to complete the link,  here is my response to “Paint it Black” in pictures.

Nature’s Alarm Clock: Morning Matins

Click on photos to enlarge.

Morning Matins

Birds of diverse attitudes
join voice to sing beatitudes.
The stodgiest cannot refrain
from joining every day again—
unrepentant in their choices,
upon awakening, to join voices.
This reunion stirs the world.

Squirrels in their burrows tightly curled,
unwind to greet the light of day

as inch by inch it lifts its ray.
The donkey lifts its voice to bray
and chickens, as they strain to lay,
raise their clucks to join the chorus,
the world’s alarm clock sounding for us.

The whole world wakening, bit by bit,
prompting us all to wake with it.

 

Prompts today are: stodgy, beatitude, inch and reunion. And yes, I know that’s a rooster, not a chicken, but although they didn’t make the poem, roosters are the best alarm of all.

Aloe Vera with Hummingbird: FOTD Jan 10

Aloe Bloom with Diner

i took dozens of blurry photos before this tiny hummingbird decided to just sit down to dine.  This aloe vera on the patio outside the room where my desk is has afforded me so many wonderful views of hummingbirds. Better than having an inside bouquet any day.

For Cee’s FOTD

Men in Trees

Men in Trees

If you took an expedition to my favorite tree,
you’d find it’s convoluted as a tree can be.
It’s encrusted with lichen, but I’ve found that for a fee
an ornamental arborist can scrape it lichen-free.
They’ll do artful jobs of trimming off the deadwood if they’re hired
   by removing extra branches that look too dried-out and tired.

And if those earmarked branches contain nests of birds, perchance,
I’ve heard the trimmers merely move them to another branch.
In defense of ecology, no single squirrel has died
in this trimming of the branches, for they are safe inside,
nestled most securely with their babies and their kin,
thankful for the tree hollows that they take shelter in.

Prompt words today are lichen, convoluted, expedition, defense, and tired.

“Fleeting Moments” For Sunday Stills

 

Fleeting Moments are built into nature as they are into our lives. Be they beautiful memories, unbelievable experiences or disastrous events, they come and they go–often too quickly. Many would be forgotten were it not for the click of a lens. Here are some of mine.

For Sunday Stills “Fleeting Moments.”