Bald Eagles in Iowa

Well, I am definitely behind in posting. Between Christmas and the New Year, we were in south central Iowa. One of the days we were there, my mother-in-law suggested we take a drive to Ottumwa, IA. She told us there was an outside chance we would see some Bald Eagles.
In downtown Ottumwa is a hydro power plant. As is the norm for temperatures in the midwest at this time of the year, It was frigid, before adding the wind chill. Due to these temps, the northern lakes and waterways freeze over creating a deficit in feeding grounds for the eagles. Therefore, they needed to find open water to feed.
In my life time, living it mostly in south central Pennsylvania near the Susquehanna River, I have probably seen less than five Bald Eagles in the wild. With in the last year or so, our local paper had an article about the growing numbers of Bald Eagles along the Susquehanna and the Eastern waterways. But even with the growing numbers I find, even in my travels, the large bird gliding around in the air is generally a buzzard.
So, you can imagine my surprise to see along the Des Moines River, downtown Ottumwa, nearly twenty or more flying up and down the river, feeding in the warm waters, and or perching on the branches of nearby trees. At first I went out without gloves and in ten minutes the function of my fingers was nearly lost. Being cold to that point, even with image stabilization renders camera shake. I managed to get some shots. I'm guessing that a cold, fridged auto focus motor in the lense barrel of the 70-300mm caused some of the missed shots from slow focusing.
The opportunity to see what I've always understood as an endangered bird, in such numbers,
was a fantastic treat. I'm sure this will be on the calender again next year!

OK! Back Again! - Market Place Pictures

I'm trying to keep up here but I'm running into a lot of squeaky wheels. This post is the framed pieces that have been and will remain hanging in the "Market Place" gallery at Perry County Council of the Arts(PCCA). Every year the PCCA and Harrisburg Area Community College(HACC) put out a call to new artists and current PCCA members to fill the gallery with there 2 and 3-d art. It generally begins around the 1st weekend in Nov. with an open house then finishes up at the end of Jan. It gives the new artist some exposure and the community a venue for holiday shopping while allowing currrent members to continue displaying their works with the added traffic through the gallery. The Lion fish was taken in the Cayman Islands and the other to shots earlier at the Hershey Gardens Butterfly House.
Here is a wish for everyone to have a
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I'm Back!

I could offer many excuses where I've been for the last couple of months but won't. For those that kept checking back to see if I had returned, Thank You! To many projects running and that's a good thing. One of the weeks, we were gone for vacation on the Cayman Aggressor, a dive yacht in the Cayman Islands. And for those that aren't familar with these islands, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, and Cayman Brac, they are in the Carribean right below Cuba and set northwest of Jamaica.
The following shots are from a night dive during the trip. Those not familiar with octopus, they can change color and texure in a moment which by looking at the pictures you can begin to see what I'm talking about. These following pictures taken in a few minutes are from a series of about 15 to 20 shots of the same octopus. Enjoy!

Hershey Butterfly House - Some Residents

Some time ago, my mother won some tickets to the Butterfly House at the Hershey Gardens, Hershey, PA. A couple of weeks ago, she invited me to go with her to make use of them before the end of the season.
We had wonderful weather, and not just because it didn't rain. Butterflies are cold blooded so it takes the heat of the day to warm their bodies so they become active. And since we've had a mild and cooler than normal summer, it was great that it was in the 80's. The woman that was monitoring the facility and answering questions was telling us that on some of the cooler days the butterflies didn't move from the plants and in some cases remained hidden. That would have been disappointing, but in God's providence, that wasn' t the case for us. More to follow in the next posts.

Hamlet Portraits from San Salvador,Bahamas

These images were taken while on the liveaboard boat Explorer Ventures I, both in 2005 and 2006. Hamlets are in the Bass-like family of fishes. They are colorful with interesting markings.
I think the Indigo Hamlet below expresses an attitude in its appearance. There are a few more species of Hamlets whose images I hope to capture.

Indigo Hamlet

Barred Hamlet

Shy Hamlet

Juvenile Drums - From My Dive Archives!

I was looking for some images to post. Not that I don't have any, since my catalog has grown to nearly 40,000, but its been nearly a week since my last post. I've been busy, most of my images are now stored on external HD's and I wanted something easy. Opening up some files looking for some dive images, I ran across some prepared shots of juvenile drums. These are some unique fish and express God's unique creativity. The drum has an interesting metamorphosis with a variety of changes thoughout its life span.
A few years ago while on a boat in the Casa Banks, an area about 30 miles north of Cuba in the Bahamas, I was able to get some great pics of the youngest form of this fish I've yet to see. I was returning from a dive doing my safety stop while heading back to the boat in about 15-20 ft. of water and hugging the sea floor in order to see any macro creatures that were out and about. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some really small creatures in the mouth of an opening in the coral shelf(sea floor). I stopped like a curious kid to investigate, a surprise and a treat. These juvenile drums were like little Star Wars space ships. So, I began trying to take their picture. Because they were so small and moving around the opening, it made it extremely difficult to get what looked to be, in the LCD, a useable image. With some cropping to get them to a size that can be viewed, you'll be able to see the resemblence to space ships. As for the rest of the intermediate forms of the fish you'll also get a chance to see why I think it expresses God's creativity. In the adult form a fish that starts with black and white strips, grows a streamer, then sheds it, ends up in what the icons of fashion would consider a no-no, wearing strips and poka dots together. You can compare these next images with the already posted image from February 25th, actually the kick-off post for this blog. It will be the center image of those posted on that Wednesday.

Portraits of the Week

Here are some of the shots that I took this week. It's amazing to see just how much a person can miss and how much is going on around us when we pick a small area and focus on the creatures in it. When beginning divers get to a reef, its not uncommon that they try to cover as much of the reef as fast as they can. This results in a great deal of missed reef life. In time, some find that you can settle on a small section and just hang out. Instead of you covering the reef, you stay put and let the creatures come to you or at least reveil themselves. Now, I wasn't diving this week, unfortunately, but I had been at a marsh area shooting small dragonflies. They were sitting on the leaves of plants when out of the weeds climbed a praying mantis. It basically came to me saying take my picture for your blog. I was very happy to do so. So, I know we are all busy, but the phrase,"Stop to smell the roses" can provide a nice respite during the day and remind us that there is so much we miss as we speed around.