Tag: fall color

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our cat Scout sleeping on the window seat beside our picture window with fall colors in the background on November 22, 2009. Original: _MG_1413.cr2

I haven’t had much time for blogging or learning the new camera with NaNoWriMo going on this month (after a slow start I’m currently at 44,195 words and barring unforeseen mishaps should cross the 50,000 word finish line before Monday). I did make sure the hot shoe worked by hooking up my flash and using it as fill-flash on one of my favorite subjects, sleeping in front of our biggest picture window with a bit of fall color behind her.

I’m reminded of two things:

  1. How much I love my black-and-white cat
  2. How much I need to clean the window

You Go Your Whole Life Without Ripping a Hole in the Fabric of Space & Time and Then …

A wood duck swims in water color yellow and green by reflections of fall color in nearby trees

I don’t even know how it happened.

I was happily photographing ducks back in the fall when I pointed my camera at the confluence of yellow and green reflections and suddenly a white spot appeared in the water and I felt the universe start to come apart at the seams. This wood duck drake swam by and its wake seemed to close the disruption and life as we know it was spared. All hail the mighty wood duck, silent guardian of all that we hold dear.

Today’s temporal disruption comes courtesy of an out-of-focus downy duck feather in the foreground

Wet Christmas

A mallard floats in a sea of yellow as a duck pond at Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden has its water colored by reflections from the nearby trees

On this rainy Christmas day here in Portland (it did snow earlier so we had a shot at a white Christmas, but alas our more typical wet Christmas won out), here’s one of my favorite wildlife shots of the year, a mallard drake resting amidst the reflected colors of the fall leaves.

The picture was taken in late October at Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden here in Portland.