Shakin in the Shell!

Shell Knob, Missouri that is! We stopped to visit our very good friends, Mike and Mel for a few days on our cross-country drive from our summer home in Colorado to sunny Florida. Over the weekend we went to a real down-home country festival in "downtown" Shell Knob.

Great music! Check out the special seats for the audience.

There was even a car show. This was one of my favorites - lots of potential.

Young and old alike had a great day. There were stands with crafts, lots of food and beer, an "Ugly Dog Contest" and an extremely messy pie eating contest for the kids.

Back at Mike and Mel's, I spend my days on their beautiful porch overlooking their own nature preserve bordering on Table Rock Lake. The hummingbirds were thick at the many feeders.

Most of the hummingbirds were Ruby-throated. This one looks different with tuffs of white - but maybe it is a juvenile that hasn't lost all his baby fuzz yet.

We watched a huge variety of birds, including this White-breasted Nuthatch. The weather was perfect and we had a wonderful visit. Neighbor Tom took me fishing one afternoon and I caught a Kentucky Bass. Tom is an accomplished fisherman and caught a dozen fish to my one. I'll do better next time.

Back at our winter home in Ocala, one of our first jobs was to put out the feeders. After seeing this beautiful Cardinal, we went out and bought a humongous feeder with seating for a dozen birds and a 20 pound bag of that expensive bird seed that is supposed to attract colorful songbirds. We haven't seen a bird since. This shot was taken from the Florida room - through the screens - so it's a little fuzzy.

We went for an early morning walk in the park where this Great Blue Heron posed in the pines.

I have no idea what these beautiful berries are - but the birds liked them.

I'm still learning how to use my new camera - especially the manual focus. Many times, when a bird is sitting in a tree, the auto-focus will focus on a branch or leaf closer to me than the bird I want to photograph - so I'm hoping I can learn to get clearer images. This is a Mockingbird - the State Bird of Florida.

Here's a great example of a picture I would never have gotten with auto-focus. This cute little Tufted Titmouse was hiding in the leaves.

Another picture I tried in vain to get in the past - a spider in his web. I won't tell you how many pictures I missed - or how many I took to get a couple of good ones - but I'm learning.

Last week, we bought Bill a new gas stove with five top burners and a convection oven and a new propane grill with a searing unit. The food is always good at the Cruff house (Bill is the cook NOT me!) but this should make it even more fun. Yesterday, we started an exercise class to work off those extra pounds from all his new delicious recipes. I am one lucky lady! There is so much to do here at OTOW - Bill is out at the RC Flying Field and we are looking into continuing our line dancing classes. I will probably join the birding and camera clubs, take some classes at the "Master the Possibilities Center," and Bill is joining the wood shop.

Fall Colors in the High Country

Fall comes early to Colorado. By mid-September, the Aspens are in full color - yellow. When I lived back East, the trees displayed every color in the rainbow - but here in Colorado, the main color is yellow with a little orange and a few reds thrown in to keep it interesting. The yellows are beautiful against the greens of the ever-present Pine trees. Sometimes the ground cover is as colorful as the trees.

We decided this was a cute fixer-upper. I wonder when it was built or who lived there - on the high plains between mountain ranges.

Way down behind the cabin, we saw a lake with lots of ducks. It was private property, so I had to take my pictures from the side of the road.

Several of the ducks flew overhead - and I assume they are Teal - but that's only a guess.

Looking over at the side of the lake, we spotted a large white bird (the one on the right in the picture). I thought it was an American Avocet, but I could not confirm that until I got home and looked closely at my pictures; I did and it is. He has his winter plumage. Last time I saw an Avocet (April, 2009) he had a rust-colored head, typical of Spring breeding colors.

But the bird on the left, which I never saw until I cropped the image, is still a mystery - Dowitcher? Yellowlegs? Godwit?

Further up the road by Cottonwood Lake, we could see the full splendor of the colors. We drove past the lake and up, up, up.

This shot was taken just past the campground - near where we stopped for a delightful picnic lunch.

It was somewhat smoggy from the wildfires burning near Boulder - so our pictures are not as crisp and clear as we would have liked.



The air was clearer the further up we climbed.

Timberline! We couldn't drive much further because the dirt road we were traveling on became too dangerous, so we turned around and drove back down the mountain, past the lake and into the town of Buena Vista.

The deer in town are practically tame and we see them munching on lawns, shrubs and fruit trees almost every time we visit.

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep

Yesterday, Bill and I took a beautiful drive up into the mountains to see the Fall colors. On the way home we drove through Bighorn Sheep Canyon (Route 50 between Salida and Canon City) and Bill spotted a herd of sheep on the other side of the Arkansas River.

There were about a dozen sheep in the group: one large male ram, several breeding female ewes and younger offspring that were probably born last Spring.

We parked the car and I climbed up on some rocks to watch them and take pictures. They were quite a distance away, but we both got some decent shots.

While we watched, they headed west along the train tracks.

Every once in a while, they would stop, look over to the road and check out the traffic.

After awhile, they turned and headed up the hill. I have lots of pictures of their backsides. Seeing these majestic animals was a real treat!

Another Day, Another 500 Pictures

This morning, Bill and I were out of the house by 6:15 am - heading for Palmer Park to watch the sunrise. It was beautiful.



Later in the day we headed down to Fountain Valley Nature Center.

The nature trails wind around a meadow and a couple of lakes with beautiful views of Pikes Peak.

We usually see some interesting ducks by the island in the middle of the lake.

Mature Cattails are a sure indication that Fall is almost here.

A large flock of geese flew over while we were strolling around, enjoying the beautiful day. I, of course, had my new camera - so I was busy taking hundreds of pictures, trying many of the settings. This picture (and about 30 more just like it) was taken on the sports setting - the camera just clicks away taking 3-4 shots per second. I only took about 25 pictures - but came home with almost 500!!!

The new camera has 18 megapixels so I am able to crop images quite a bit. Here I cropped out a single goose from the flock as they flew by.

But this was the real reason I wanted to go to the Nature Center - baby Barn Swallows. These four little cuties are just about ready to fledge.

This is one of the babies trying out his wings. I was hoping to see him on his maiden voyage - but he wanted to stick around a little longer and wait for mom to bring some goodies.

As soon as mom is near - they all open wide and yell "feed ME, ME, ME!"

While I was taking pictures, a group of children stopped to see what I was looking at. They were every bit as cute as the birds.

The children watched while momma swallow fed her babies.

I'm sure it was delicious.

As she turned to find more bugs to feed the baby birds, the children got on their school bus and headed back to class.

I love my new camera!!!

New Camera!

I finally did it - I broke down and bought the camera that I have been looking at for months - a Canon Rebel T2i digital SLR. It came in a bundle with an 18-55 mm IS (image stabilizer) lens and a 70-300 mm IS lens. I took my first pictures today.

My first decent picture - one of our hummingbirds. Please click on the image and check out the detail - many, many times better than my old Nikon.

I was even able to catch her in mid-flight - something I've never been able to do before. Check out those tiny feet. She is able to stand but cannot walk.

During our early morning hike today, I took about a hundred pictures of chickadees. This one is a Black-capped Chickadee.

And this one, with a white stripe over his eye, is a Mountain Chickadee.


Even the common Grackle looks better! I have a lot to learn about my new toy, but already I wonder why it took me so long to make the change from a point-and-shoot to an SLR.