Purple and Blue, the light makes all the difference. I have photographed this White winged dove a few times now and this is the first time I noticed the purple color of the feathers around its neck. I made it down to the bird blind just as the sun was coming up.
Amazing what we can see if we sit still long enough to really see things. Having the patience to wait until the Light shows up makes all the difference.
Purple and Blue
My Grandparents Loved to Travel, they always stopped at the welcome signs that are posted on the side of the road as you enter a new state. I have a lot of photos they took on their vacations when they were very young. I see my self in them as we travel now across the country. (video below)
I picture them getting out at every sign we see to take a picture. We don’t do that because those roads are usually so busy, you would not want to pull over especially with an RV.
Taking our trusty jeep is always a fun way to see the back roads of this country. Nice thing about the older jeeps, husband can fix anything on it and it goes just about everywhere. Dirt roads are our preferred travel in the jeep.
This video is a look at Scenic Hwy 170 in Texas, at Warp Speed. I quick ride along a mountainous road with lots of curves and hills. It follows along the Rio Grande and is a beautiful drive if you ever get down that way.
My Grandparents Loved to Travel
Spring Is Coming Soon, the left overs of last fall are still intact around the country side. But the seeds are holding strong after the long winter and soon will be drifting off into the spring winds and rain to replant and grow into new flowers and lush green grasses.
That is always a refreshing time of year, when I can smell the green grass after a rain. We have been traveling in the south all winter and everything is brown and very dry where we have been, just no snow is all. We did not go far enough south to enjoy winter flowers and green grass.
Spring Is Coming Soon
After the Rain , After rain there’s a rainbow, after a storm there’s calm, after the night there’s a morning, and after the end there’s a new beginning.
After the Rain
Artwork In Nature, this morning there is a bit of humidity outdoors and on my way back from my early morning walk, the sun started to makes its way through the trees and light up all the different cob webs hanging in the forest next to the path.
I did not even notice them until the sun touched them all and boy there is lot of them. One would not want to walk in the forest on a cloudy day. Good thing there are paths everywhere to walk on.
Nonetheless, they are very artistically made by the small creatures of the woods.
Now this little guy may look like a spider, but it is actually a crab on the beach.
Artwork In Nature
Lots of New Things to See, as you may know we have been trying to chase 70 degree weather this winter. Our first time doing this and so far it has been working pretty well. It has been into the freezing temps at night here and there and our water pump froze once on the RV, but husband is really good at fixing anything. He had it back and running in no time.
My bird count has been going up really fast, my last entry into the log book was 124 birds. But I still have more birds to look up because I just don’t know what they are. I believe I will go get a bird identification book. We have been in many places with no internet, so the book would be handy.
Below is a preview video of where we have been. I do have a You Tube channel, because I like to document all that we see with video as well as photos and share them both with all of you. What we see is just temporary, it becomes history the minute I snap a photo.
Eastern Towhee
Road Runner
Scorpion
Hawk, but I don’t know what kind yet. If any one knows let me know and I will add it to my list.
The world is changing fast, but nature is alive and well, we must not trade it for the things of man. Humans tend to destroy but nature will rebuild when it is left alone, nature teaches us how to survive in our creators world.
The Last Hour before sunset is referred to the Golden Hour. The golden hour is known for producing beautiful natural light that is easy to work with. “It’s hard to overexpose or underexpose parts of an image, because the light is very even and has a beautiful golden hue,”
The Last Hour
The Wings of a Dove
You are like the wings of a dove covered with silver,
And its pinions with glistening gold.
The Wings of a Dove
Birds Used the Most as State Birds The Cardinal is #1 as the bird used the most for state birds. It is the state bird for 7 states.
In second place is the Meadowlark; which is used by 6 states as the state birds. But I do not have a photo of this one yet. I am looking for it as we travel west.
And #3 on the list is the Mockingbird; which I just found the other day and was able to get a photo. This bird is used by 5 states.
Birds Used the Most as State Birds
Oh What a Beautiful Morning, some of my favorite dock photos.
This first one is on the gulf coast.
This little dock on the left is on the Mississippi River
And these last two are at one of my favorite lakes in Iowa. Great places to sit and dangle your feet over the edge and watch the sun come up.
Oh What a Beautiful Morning
Still Off the Beaten Path, hello all. We just made it to the top of a mountain here and I checked my phone and there is internet service, so I made a quick post to let you know we are still off grid where we are camping.
1000’s of acres of land where hardly no one lives still exist. We will be leaving here this coming weekend and I look forward to catching up with you all. Have a great rest of your week.
Still Off the Beaten Path
Rocky Shoreline and Rainbow, I was photographing the sunrise on this day facing east and when I turned around to look at what was behind me I found a different kind of light. It was an off white hue and I actually did not even see the rainbow until I looked at the photo later.
I love that about photography, the little surprises you see in your own photos.
Rocky Shoreline and Rainbow
Dramatic Sunrise Colors, The best sunrises and sunsets seem to be associated with middle to high clouds rather than lower level clouds.
The more clouds the better chance of seeing some vibrant colors of orange and yellow at sunrise like these photos below.
Have a Great Weekend
I may not have internet yet, I scheduled this post a couple of weeks ago just in case. If I have not responded to any comments that is why. I will be moving from this area on the 12th and will have internet again by then. 🙂 thank you
Dramatic Sunrise Colors
New Tree to Photograph, this is a new tree for me to photograph. They are Cyprus trees and are very easy to identify because of how they start growing and the base of the trunk.
It can reach 130 feet tall, developing prominent roots or “knees” above the ground. The bald cypress is usually found in swampy areas and along riverbanks. These locations provide the trees with the plentiful water they need to thrive and with the wet conditions necessary for reproduction.
All the little stumps you see are what they call knees.
In the wild, cypress trees play a very important role in soaking up floodwaters and preventing soil erosion. Environmentalist love them for their ability to trap pollutants. Frogs, toads, and salamanders prefer cypress swamps for breeding grounds. Wood ducks nest in hollow trunks and catfish spawn in submerged hollow logs, while bees, wood ducks, barrel owls and raptors nest in the treetops.
Bald cypresses are slow-growing trees that can live to be 600 years old.
New Tree to Photograph
Royal Tern Is Holding its Ground, Mr. Pelican is coming in with the intention of taking the pole the Royal Tern is on. But Tern is not budging and appears to be yelling at the big boy coming in for a landing to get his own pole. But, , ,
Mr. Pelican takes what ever pole he wants, as you can tell in the photo the lighter colored pole is where the Tern was standing and now the Pelican has it. He did take the pole and Tern had to move up to the next one. there is a stern look from the Tern towards the Pelican.
Then they both relax and quit staring at each other and just enjoy the sunshine together.
Royal Tern Is Holding its Ground
The Road Less Travelled, Taking the road less travelled can lead you back to creation, back to where the Light shines on forever.
A few weeks ago I mentioned we are camping at a place where there might not be any internet. If you are reading this post we are at that spot. I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago. If I don’t answer any comments that is why and I will be back with you all in 12 days. I truly appreciate all the comments and love hearing from you. Thank you
The Road Less Travelled
Star Gazing in Dark Sky Areas, we have stopped in a little town that actually has some internet. So I am able to make a post of what I have been doing the last few nights. Most of you may know I like to be up early in the morning and I have mentioned I hardly ever see a sunset. (video below)
But, when you are in dark sky country, I have to make sure I have the energy to go outside at night so as not to miss seeing the beauty of the night skies.
This photo is the milky way over our camper. I love trying to photograph the milky way, my camera settings for these types of shots are. 15 sec ss, 17 mm lens, f 2.8, and Iso 6400. I find that Iso 6400 is a good start to bring out the most detail, it picks up more stars on this setting.
Next, I love to photograph stars and create star trails as in the photos below. The more photos you take the more trails you create when you stack your photos on top of each other.
This photo below has 38 photos stacked on top each other, which is not quite enough to make a complete circle. Each shot is with a 15 sec shutter speed.
This photo below has 109 photos stacked on top each other to create more of a circle.
This photo below is the milky way, but if you look to the right of the photo, you will see Elon Musk satellites passing by as well. The 9 lights in a row are satellites.
We are only in this little town for the weekend and we are heading back into darker sky country with no cell phone or internet for the next 11 days. So I will see you on the other side when we travel back out. Have a wonderful week.
Star Gazing in Dark Sky Areas
Life by the Sea, there is just so much to see. 🙂
Well, I did collect a few shells this time on the beaches and cleaned them and put them in a nice glass jar so I could see them any time. I had to look up information on how shells are even formed. Fascinating information, they are created by something called mollusks.
As mollusks live their daily lives in the sea, they take in salts and chemicals from the water around them. As they process these materials, they secrete calcium carbonate, which hardens on the outside of their bodies and begins to form a hard outer shell.
The drone happened to catch these big boys swimming around not far from the beach. Another amazing creature of the sea. These are called Cownose Sting Rays
This is what they look like from underneath, I just got this image off of the internet. They look like they are smiling.
Of course I have to put in a photo of my favorite bird down here, just because they are everywhere and so unique looking in their own rights.
Life by the Sea
We have moved on from Alabama, but I still have some photos from that area that I will be sharing. We are headed west and here are a couple of photo of what will be coming up after I get done posting Alabama photos.
We came across a huge flock of Ibis birds. This is a new one to my list. I am now up to 110 birds photographed.
This duck is a Northern Shoveler, he was pretty far away so I did not get a clean photo of it. But very colorful.
Thank you again for all of you who view my photos and leave comments. I really appreciate it. If I don’t reply in the next 2 weeks, please accept my apologies. There are obviously area’s in the states with no internet here, even in the twentieth century.
We Have Moved On
LCS 26 Mobile Alabama, The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is a fast, agile, mission-focused platform designed to operate in near-shore environments, winning against 21st-century coastal threats. The LCS is capable of supporting forward presence, maritime security, sea control, and deterrence.
We drove down to the bay area in Mobile and found a spot right across from where they were building these massive ships for the Navy. Again continuing with my theme of engineering marvels this week.
They were actually building two of these ships when we were there.
This ship in the photo below was being built also, but I have no idea what it is. Can’t even imagine how they build something with so much technology. I have enough issues with my computer sometimes.
LCS 26 Mobile Alabama
Living With Oil and Gas Platforms along the Gulf Coast. If you have ever been to Dauphin Island south of Alabama, you will see quite a few of these rigs out in the gulf. We went out on a ferry ride to cross the gulf and we went by one of these so I took a few photos.
So I had to look up some information on these, to learn more about them. Following are some quotes from an interview with Mr. Conklin who is an engineer and knows about these wells. I will put the link to the complete interview that was given in 2008 here.
Mr. CONKLIN: Well, what we operate with one portion of our company is what’s called a shore base. All those platforms that anybody sees offshore, everything they get that the people need out there, from spare motors, replacement valves to their groceries and their drinking water, comes to them by a vessel, a boat, and that boat has to go to some central location to pick everything up. Those are called shore bases,
Mr. CONKLIN: You’ve got two main kinds of what we call fixed platforms. You’ve got manned and unmanned. Your unmanneds typically could just be as small as a stem, just one pipe sticking out of the ground with nothing on it, and it can be serviced by a vessel that comes up to it as a ladder so a guy can get to the top and that would be about as small as they can get.
But your typical platform will have anywhere from three to six caisson legs driven into the ground, and it will be a large, steel superstructure supported on top, and it will look, to a lot of people, a lot like a drilling rig.
Mr. CONKLIN: The largest platform in our area is owned and operated by Exxon Mobil and they can have upwards of 45 people out at there at a time with a typical number probably in the thirties. The smallest has two.
CONAN: So what advice would you have for people in California or Florida or in North Carolina if they were given the power to make their decision by the Congress and decide whether to start offshore drilling?
Mr. MCGRATH: If they’re asking me, I would tell them, you do not want those contraptions off your shoreline. For matters of safety, for matters of health, aesthetics, of course, they are ugly. I mean, there are people on the island who’ve grown up with them and some of my neighbors say they’ve gotten used to them and they find kind of a comfort in them, but I’m thinking – and of course, I’ve only lived on the island for three years,
It is quite the controversy on whether to have these or not. On tomorrow post I will be showing you some Container ships that passed by these rigs and by us when we were on the ferry boat. Along with a video of both. I thought the Container ship I saw on the Gulf was huge, but after doing some research it isn’t even close to the largest container ship built.
Living With Oil and Gas Platforms
The Night Sky, Hello all, I went outside last night and took this photo where we are camping now. This is the Milky Way over our camper in the middle of no where.
The internet service is poor to say the least. I don’t know how internet connection works, but for a few seconds every hour the internet pops on and I was able to send this post.
Have a great week ahead.
The Night Sky
For the Love of Birding, one never knows exactly what one will see when out enjoying nature. When it comes to birding, the range of different compositions is unlimited.
Like this egret who is holding its own on a windy day, as the wind keeps ruffling its feathers. Looks like it has black stockings and yellow boots.
Pelicans in a row, but what I like most is the bokeh lights in the background. Bokeh is one of the most popular subjects in photography. The reason why it is so popular, is because Bokeh makes photographs visually appealing, forcing us to focus our attention on a particular area of the image. The word comes from Japanese language, which literally translates as “blur”.
On a humid day here in this photo, natural fog is surrounding this Cormorant bird giving it a natural vignette look to the photo.
I just love the brown pelicans, the photos always speak for themselves with these birds.
For the Love of Birding
Portrait of the Reddish Egret, such a beautiful bird I think. When I photograph birds I take a lot of photos at one time when I can. I put my camera on burst and hold the shutter button when the bird looks like it is in the right light and position. On average 1 or 2 photos out of 20 will be sharp, but the photos that excite me the most is when I come across one like below that looks like it is posing for the camera.
This is what I find most enjoyable about wildlife photography.
When I find just the right photo I will often turn it into a digital oil painting as well. My artistic side 🙂
Portrait of the Reddish Egret
Alligator and Turtles, here at this small lake on Dauphin Island. There are lots of turtles who seem to not mind this alligator swimming right next to them. The folks that live here mention that there is just one alligator in this lake. I don’t know a lot about them, but maybe they are territorial so he wants the lake all to himself.
I placed a video below of this beautiful animal. We were standing on a dock above him and took these photos with a video on the one day he came out of hiding from the tall grass. It has been pretty cold here lately so he doesn’t come out unless it is warm outside.
Alligator and Turtles
Off the Grid for a Month, Hello all, todays post is an update on where we are at the moment. We are traveling west and will be camping in an area with very limited or no internet until mid March.
We will be camping at places that are like boon docking they call it. No water hookups or electricity at the camp sites. We will be breaking out the solar panels for sure. I scheduled post until mid March and hope you enjoy my photos. They are the last of my photos from the gulf coast.
I will interact with comments if internet allows and I just want to say thank you for all your compliments and comments that you write to me on this blog. I really appreciate it.
Todays photos are a little bit of what will be coming up after we get back on the grid.
Off the Grid for a Month
Hanging Out at the Beach with the birds. I love watching birds just doing their thing – Living Life
Life is not a race, but a Journey.
Hanging Out at the Beach
My Day Begins at Sunrise for me, actually before sunrise. I am always up before the sunrises in anticipation for what is coming as the sun begins to warm the earth.
I watch the horizon, as if I am watching a movie in slow motion. The gorgeous colors of light dancing across the heavens. When you actually stop to see it, I mean really see it. You see its worth, its purpose and its power as the Light of the World.
Have a Great Weekend.
Days Begin at Sunrise
