Colorful Shale and Rocks

While at Helen Hazen Wyman Park in the Lake Metroparks this past weekend, I decided to turn the camera downward to photograph some of the shale and rocks. While it was mostly a mix of brown/red and blue/gray, the patterns in the rocks brought the colors to life. Here are a few photos.

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A Male Downy Woodpecker Poses For The Camera

Over the last week, a very industrious male downy woodpecker has been hanging around our bird feeder and a lower branch of one of our oak trees. He was kind enough to pose for a few photos, and here they are!

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A Nice Day at the Beach – Or Was It?

It’s getting close to 70 degrees here in Northeast Ohio today, and considering it’s early March, the warmth is welcome. On a day like today, what better thing to do than head to the local beach? Despite the wind – which always makes things interesting at Mentor Headlands State Park – I packed up the camera and took a short drive to the beach. Lake Erie did not freeze over this winter and we got very little snow, which is unusual here in the “snow belt.” There was only a handful of people walking in the park, and the beach itself was deserted, so I felt as if I had the place to myself.

The sky was mostly blue with some scattered light cirrus clouds, and the winds were brisk, just enough to get the sand going and make me feel like I was being sandblasted. I took some photos and didn’t stick around too long.

But, when I got home and looked at the photos, I was surprised to find that somehow I switched the camera over to manual and almost all of the photos were overexposed! With a little help from my friendly photo editing software, I brought the photos back to life. I was surprised to find that the photos looked better when converted to black and white, although they do look somewhat ominous.  Here are a few photos, some in color and some black and white, of Mentor Headlands State Park on this unusually warm early March day.

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The Great Backyard Bird Count – Red Shouldered Hawks Visit

A pair of red shouldered hawks decided to make an appearance in my back yard as I was doing my observations for the annual Great Backyard Bird Count. Here’s a photo of one of the pair!

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A Fox Squirrel Meditates

With a heavy lake effect snow hitting northeast Ohio last weekend, it was hard to find any color in the landscape. But one fox squirrel braved the bad weather, sitting quietly in a low branch in our oak tree and seemed to  meditate over the whiteness all around. The squirrel’s coloring looked warm in contrast to the white snow and the grayness of the tree. Here’s a photo.

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Northern Cardinal Blurred by Snow

During a heavy snow over the holiday weekend, a male northern cardinal was taking shelter on a tree branch. I managed to get a picture before he flew away, but sadly the snow was so heavy at the time, the bird looked a little fuzzy in the photo. Still, with a little help from Photoshop, a blurry bird looks much better as a colored sketch-like image. The color of the bird was not altered in any way – he was certainly as bright red as he looks in the photo.

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Advancing Snow Brings Halo Around Moon

A small  snow storm (with possible lake effect) is approaching northeast Ohio, and the leading clouds from the front began to obscure the moon. The clouds were thin enough to create a huge, pale colored halo around the moon. Here are photos taken of the moon, only minutes apart.   The sky went from clear to high clouds quickly.

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