Little Blue Heron – A new bird for the year. Someone had told me they saw this blue heron and today I went for a walk, and their it was high up in the tree. I wasn’t sure what it was until I got home and looked at the photos.
Adult Little Blue Herons are very dark all over. At close range or in good light, they have a rich purple-maroon head and neck and dark slaty-blue body.
Little Blue Heron
Good Morning March 1st, Hello all, how was everyone’s month of February? I had a wonderful couple weeks off, visiting with friends and family. I look forward to catching up with all of your blogs over the next few weeks.
Spring is in the air, flowers are starting to bloom down here in the south. I have been so busy photographing pets the last couple of weeks. Word got out from folks sharing their pet portraits and I have them calling me everyday to do more. Which I love to do, I will be sharing some of those in the coming weeks.
We only have a few more weeks down here in the south, and then it is time to start traveling again. Heading north for the summer months. Have a great weekend. 🙂
Good Morning March 1st
Stay well, RJ. Blessings to you, may our Lord guide you in all your days. 🙂 thank you.
What’s Up – How you doin?
These two birds were following each other the entire time we were on the beach. One would pick up piece of food or shell and then the other would run right over to check out what he had.
Friendships on the beach
What’s Up
Sepia Toned – Sepia is a reddish-brown color, named after the rich brown pigment derived from the ink sac of the common cuttlefish Sepia.
I like to use the sepia finish on some of my flower or insect photos, so I had to look up what the word actually means and surprised myself finding the answer.
Fun Facts
What is a cuttlefish you might ask 🙂 – Cuttlefish ink was formerly an important dye, called sepia. That is where the name of this color comes from. I did not know that myself.
I like how the white on the tip of the wings of this butterfly did not change much when changing this photo to sepia tones.
Sepia Toned
Swan Dive – Look at the size of those flippers. I took these photos in Iowa a couple of years ago. I just had to bring them back up being I have been posting about swans.
We were walking along the edge of a small lake surrounded by tall vegetation and we could here this loud noise and the sound of water splashing. We walked over to a clearing and looked across the water and found the source of all this commotion.
Seeing a swan taking a bath is quite something. They have a wing span of 6 to 10 feet long. The longest wingspan recorded is 10 feet 2 inches.
The trumpeter swan is the largest extant species of waterfowl, and both the heaviest and longest native bird of North America. They come in at 15 to 30 lbs.
These swans need at least a 100 meter-long “runway” of open water: running hard across the surface, they almost sound like galloping horses as they generate speed for take off. About as long as a soccer field.
Hopefully I will photograph that one day, landing and taking off.
Swan Dive
Taking the Back Roads – Sometimes life takes us down back roads, for me, back roads are my way of life. They can take us on adventures we may have missed if we only take the roads everyone else travels on.
When we’re traveling down those back roads we can experience some of life’s greatest lessons and blessings.
See things that God intended for us to see. Things we might not have seen otherwise. Sure the Interstate that everyone else is taking looks much easier. It is faster and predictable. But those on the Interstate will experience the same thing that everyone else is.
They will not see the beauty that you see. They will not have a story to tell.
The excitement of taking the road less travelled resembles taking that narrow path that will lead us home.
Taking the Back Roads
All That is Light – He himself is Light
With whom there is no variation or shifting shadows
Reflections of Light video with Poem by Daryl Madden
Video link here; Reflections and Light by Sandra J’s Photography
All That is Light
Autumn and Thanksgiving – this first photo I made for all the young children in our family for them to try and find all the animals in the photo. This makes for a great puzzle as well. You can make a puzzle out of any photo you take these days.
This years fall colors were so different I think, they had a softer, almost pastel color to the leaves.
Like that old cereal called Captain Crunch, these colors remind me of that.
Autumn and Thanksgiving
Old Grist Mills – A Gristmill is a facility where grain is ground into
animal feed or flour. Gristmills were vital to the
development of the Midwest. Without them the early
settlers would not have been able to feed themselves
or their livestock. Since every settler had to journey to
the mill, they were a hub of many activities where
families exchanged news and socialized. At one time
Iowa had 500 gristmills.
We found this mill in Iowa in a town named Lime Springs. I took this photo last week when I was visiting my sister. We went for a drive, which I love to do. Never know what one might find in the small towns of Iowa.
Grist is grain that has been ground or is in the process
of being ground. It may or not be bolted (sifted) into flour
or ground further. Grist is any material that is being
processed by a mill.
Below is Pine Creek Mill in Muscatine Iowa, I photographed this one years ago. They were such an important part of life back in the day. I find the history of how things were made so interesting now, amazing the innovative ideas people have come up with to make life easier in some ways.
Old Grist Mills
Transition to Autumn from the lush green and blue to the warm colors of autumn.
Tree Tops in Full Color
Autumn Colors
Transition to Autumn
