Hummingbird Visit!

I glanced out our window today and saw something moving quickly in our honeyberry bushes, then saw a flash of red-orange. I thought the bees were in our bushes. When it flew out of the bushes and into our apple tree I realized it was a hummingbird!
We get them sometimes in May and August on their way through to warmer places.
Last summer I put out the hummingbird feeder and never saw one, so I was pretty excited to see this ruby-throated hummingbird!

Here he is cleaning his bill, moving it back and forth over the branch.
He sat there for quite awhile.
I took pictures through the window and between the railings on our deck,
so the focusing was a little tricky.
His throat was sometimes bright red, at other times, like in the picture below it was dark.

I hope it doesn't get too cold tonight because at about 7 degrees they go torpid and can't move until they warm up. As soon as I saw him I got out the feeder and started boiling sugar water.

According to my bird book, hummingbirds weigh about as much as a quarter.
They are capable of speeds up to about 100 km/hr!
They beat their wings 75 times a second. How is that possible?
Their migration across the Gulf of Mexico is a non-stop journey of 1030 kilometers!

I marvel more and more at the incredible variety in God's creation!
I find it more and more amazing that some people can study nature
and still not believe in a Creator.

Fun with Raindrops

This morning I noticed the trees were budding nicely so went out to take some spring pictures.
I got sidetracked on raindrop reflections.

Some of the drops showed reflections, others didn't.

I had to crop some of the pictures rather severely.
I guess I need a macro lense!

I love macro because you can see things that you can't see with the naked eye.

This was one that I cropped severely, but its fun to see a clear refection close up!

Butterfly House

This is a Blue Morpho Butterfly and it is huge - about 5 inches across when open.

When the wings are closed it is brown, but when it is open it is bright blue,

as in the picture below.

It was beautiful when flying because the blue showed,

and because it was so large.

Definately the one we enjoyed the most!

Here is the Blue Morpho with its wings open.

It was hard to photograph the blue side because usually as soon as it rested it closed its wings, but I managed to catch this one in a corner resting with open wings.

Gorgeous color!

I don't know the names of the other butterflies.

Pretty, but much smaller.

Most of the butterflies were a different variety
than I saw last summer at the Butterfly house, but this one was a repeat.
Its wings were longer and narrower than most others.


This butterfly was very busy, its wings going quickly and constantly,
so I set my camera to sports and took a bunch of pictures in a row,
and they came out not too badly considering how quickly the wings were going.

I loved its long tails!

Enjoying the Birds Again!

I took my slr camera with my new telephoto lense to the marsh

yesterday and got some nice red-winged blackbird shots.

Here's a kildeer doing its broken-wing act to detract me from a nest.

I've seen a couple of geese lying like this on a mound.

I'd say she has morning sickness!