Pictures Of Nature

 Over on Facebook, Marshal reposted a call for people to put their favorite pictures of nature up as a way to combat all of the negativity that we were seeing there instead. Rish reposted it too, and so did I. I really like nature, after all. I much prefer it to negativity.

Then, the other day while I was doing my daily 45 minute walk for #75Hard, I thought it would be a good idea to bring my nice camera with the long zoom lens on my walk and take some pictures of all of the beautiful songbirds that flitted around me as I made my way down the trail.

Of course, each day I forgot to bring my camera with me, and would only remember when the first bird swooped down and parked in front of me. Oh! This would be the perfect time to have that camera!

Today, I finally remembered to bring it. It's big and bulky, and kind of a pain to carry around. Worse yet, today was a very overcast day. I don't know if the clouds had something to do with it, but there seemed to be drastically reduced bird activity.

Also, every single person walking the trails had a dog at their side. I'm sure birds give dogs a wide berth. I even managed to get stuck walking my usual route just about a hundred yards behind someone with a little white dog. I never saw a bird the whole time he was in front of me. I was so glad when he finally turned right when I had to turn left.

Anyhow, I don't have very many pictures to show off from my effort. I found this cardinal very early on in my walk:

That was my best picture of the day. Almost my only picture of the day. I did get another cardinal to pose for me later, but looking at the pictures now, the leaf in front of its head is what's in focus not the bird.

I am, admittedly, not very good at this photography thing. Sometimes I think I wasted my money getting that fancy zoom lens camera.

My one other picture I managed wasn't even of a bird, but rather a squirrel.

I don't know if you can tell, but that is a winter squirrel. He (or she, don't ask me how you can tell) was feasting all autumn, and now he (or she) is ready to pass the lean winter months