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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Downtown Cleveland Christmas Holiday Lights

With decent weather on Saturday night (meaning no rain or snow), we decided to head to downtown Cleveland to check out the Christmas holiday lights at Public Square, in Tower City (at Terminal Tower) and at The Arcade. Here are a few photos plus a short video. Enjoy! (Sorry for the windy noise in the video – it was a little breezy that night.)

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This Smiling Horse Is Not Camera Shy

My husband took a short cut to avoid the heavy (shopping) traffic on Mentor Avenue, and we drove past a home with a large open field. There were two horses grazing so we decided to stop so I could take a photo. One of the horses looked at me indifferently, but the other was clearly accustomed to being photographed. It walked to the fence, posed while I took a few photos, and once the camera stopped clicking, it turned away and went back to grazing. 

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Beaty Landing – Painesville, Ohio

Here are a few photos I took on Sunday while visiting Beaty Landing in Painesville, Ohio, which is part of the Lake Metroparks system. Most of the trees had lost their leaves so the color of the area was rather dull. I was still able to find some interesting colors and patterns in small puddles and in the shale-like rock on one side of the trail. The area makes for an invigorating walk.  There were also quite a few fly fisherman in the Grand River, but no one was catching anything! (Click on any image for a larger view.)

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