Park Places

Here are a few selected photos from the Arnold Arboretum, Mass Audubon's Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary, and one from the park otherwise known as our front yard.

This first one is taken at Arnold Arboretum. This was a *huge* tree that had a full canopy of leaves and branches which came to the ground all around.  One could "enter" between the leaves and look up, which I did for this shot.

Leaves Above

My son and I visited Mass Audubon's Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary and saw several Red-winged Blackbirds. Here's a male:

Tongue Tied

This photo below is of a female Red-winged Blackbird. They look completely different from the males; it was much easier to identify this bird after seeing all the other (male) Red-winged Blackbirds in the area.

Bird Alert

Surface Bloom

I took this next photo of a robin while sitting on our front step. We have a cherry tree in our front yard that birds totally love in June when the cherries appear. Sometimes the birds get so "drunk" on cherries they run into our windows when flying away. We're always alarmed when we hear the thud of bird against a window. Thankfully, they usually survive the encounter.

Eyeing Cherries

All photos © 2022, all rights reserved.  Contact phil@philslens.com for licensing or to order prints.

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Eye-popping Echinacea

As promised in my earlier "Spring Collection" blog post, here I present several echinacea photos (plus one bird). This red echinacea variety is new to our garden this year.

These have bloomed out with striking red (and white) color. I had a hard time deciding which views to share, so I decided to share many.

Echinacea 1

Echinacea 2

While photographing the echinacea, this robin decided to visit. Since I had my macro lens rather than my telephoto lens on my camera, I couldn't get a close-up shot in-camera, because the robin wasn't particularly close to me. However, I managed to capture this from about 20 feet away, then cropped and enhanced with LightRoom's recently introduced AI-based "super resolution". The jury is still out about whether or not robin's care about echinacea, but I think not. It was the nearby cherry tree that held interest.

Visiting Robin

Echinacea 3

Echinacea 4

This is a different bloom than shown in the previous photo; note the thinner petals.

Echinacea 5

Echinacea 6

Echinacea 7

Echinacea 8

Echinacea 9

 All photos © 2021, all rights reserved.  Contact philslens@gmail.com for licensing or to order prints.

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Spring Collection

Here's an assortment of photos, mostly taken during the colorful month of May.

This first photo is a cell phone "portrait mode" shot. This mode often works as well for flowers as for people!

These next two photos are of the arrangement Deb made that I mentioned in my prior post.

Arrangement Topside

Attack from the Space Pods

An earlier post, "Spring Happenings Continued", shows this same robin's nest with four eggs. Alas, three had since disappeared, leaving this solo egg. Sad to say, this egg didn't make it either. Evidently, it is sometimes a tough task for birds' eggs to survive "in the wild."

One Egg Left

Phlox Carpet

Birdhouse

This is a special lilac with very tiny blooms. This entire photo is about one inch of blossoms wide!

Tiny Lilac Blossoms

Predominantly Pink Peony

Here's an echinacea center with the colorful blooms not yet developed. You'll be able to see the brilliant red bloom in a later post.

Budding Echinacea

 All photos © 2021, all rights reserved.  Contact philslens@gmail.com for licensing or to order prints.

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Spring Happenings Continued

More spring color to share! Plus one bird.

Stem to Stern

Crabapple trees have wonderful spring blossoms:

Hardly Crabby

A Star is Born

Petals on Alert

A species tulip and grape hyacinth:

Standing Out

More of our purple leaf sand cherry:

Branch Alive

Rich Endings

V is for Victory

Robin's eggs:

Blue Collection

Sadly, these beautiful blue eggs (previous photo) under this robin (next photo) disappeared a few days after this photo was taken; hopefully, the robin had more baby-making success elsewhere.

Egg Warmer with Something to Say

Dive Bombers

Open for Business

Bloomin' Branch

 All photos © 2021, all rights reserved.  Contact philslens@gmail.com for licensing or to order prints.

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Wild Kingdom

This post is all about animals doing their normal daily activities. My camera captures them in their natural habitat,... perhaps they're searching for food, or perhaps just whiling away the afternoon.

This painted turtle is soaking up the sun resting on a log. Must be time for afternoon sunbathing.

Show Off

The turtle is looking directly at me where I stand on the shore. Still, it seems largely unconcerned about my presence. I'm about 20 feet away and there's water between us. Smart turtle.

The Look

All turtles come aboard! This appears to be the log to sunbathe on. It would seem that turtles are social animals. Maybe some of them are siblings?

Party Time

I was amused by the stance of this robin. Sort of looks like she's looking around something to see what new danger lurks.

Robin on Patrol

Does this duck have any idea what beautiful golden water he's gliding through?

Water Glide

Baltimore Orioles are not commonly seen in our yard, so I was delighted to see this one gracing our hawthorn tree, even for a quick visit.

Oriole Peek

Red-winged blackbirds love to stand on tall skinny objects like these cattails on Farm Pond.

Balancing Act

This one found a different perch to survey the situation on the pond.

Deciding the Next Move

All photos © 2019, all rights reserved.  Contact philslens@gmail.com for licensing or to order prints.

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