Ducking and Diving

Usually, when I try to catch a picture of a bufflehead duck, I get a ripple of waves. 

Or maybe a disappearing rump as it dives into the lake. (I do love the spray of water droplets, though.)

I got really lucky with this pair, though. They were swimming and diving close to shore and that gave me a chance to focus a little faster than I usually do. 

They are such quick, active ducks that they're almost always underwater by the time I zero in on them. 

Piper was a perfect little sweetheart, sitting patiently while I watched them dipping and diving, as I snapped picture after picture. 

They were a delightful couple and I hope they weren't just passing through. It would be nice to see tiny bufflehead ducklings bobbing along with them. 

There weren't very many good pictures, even after all that, but I was quite happy to get a few passable ones. :)

Breeding Bunny Burrow

There will soon be baby bunnies racing around the neighborhood. 

Piper and I encountered this sweet cottontail gathering dry grasses to line her nest. 

Piper wasn't the only one entranced by her efforts. We watched for a long time and Madame Cottontail finally hopped off into the underbrush to burrow in for the baby bunny birth. 

More Morel Mushroom Madness

The morel mystery had quite a few sharp eyed readers. Nice hunting!

Also, I mentioned a morel print I had made a few years ago and mushroom lovers seemed to want to see it, so I pulled it out and took a picture. 

I apologize that it's not a perfectly squared up picture. I tried to photograph it from straight on, but didn't manage to get it quite right. Anyway, it gives you a pretty good idea. I wanted to have the morels just a little bit hidden the same way they are in the wild, so they're tucked into the leaf duff, grass and twigs. It was a fun and challenging carve. :)

Feeling Fuzzy

Piper takes particular interest in furry friends. She goes on point for rabbits and squirrels and would love to follow them on a merry chase. I walk along beside her as she carefully stalks them, step by cautious step. 

Every now and then, they'll stay still long enough for me to snap a photo before they duck for cover or perch high enough in a tree to foil a curious canine. 

The rabbit looked particularly fuzzy, since it's shedding its winter coat and putting on sleeker wear for the warmer months ahead. Piper also sniffed out a couple of bunny nests lined with shed fur to keep the little buns warm. 

This black squirrel plowed through a spider's web on its dash for safety and got sticky silk and pine needles stuck to its head along the way. The pine needle just above its eye looks like an angry squirrel eyebrow. 

I thought we might have had enough feathers, flowers and fungus for a few days, so it seemed appropriate to give fur a turn. :)

A Minor Mother's Day Mystery - Mapped

Here's the clue from yesterday, if you missed it - or so you don't have to toggle back and forth to check for the mystery's subject(s). 

The subject in question at the moment is close to the middle of the picture. Not quite perfectly centered (there had to be a little photographic balance, after all). And there is more than one, but the others will be frustratingly elusive from this angle. 

Every year, our family would spend Mother's Day weekend wandering around out in the woods looking for treasure. It was a search to rival any Easter egg hunt and we children had as good a chance to make great discoveries as our parents, since our eyes were lower to the ground and provided an excellent vantage point. 

This is the one you should be able to spot in the mystery picture. I tried to get another picture at the same angle, so you can look for shape and shadow. It's the one that put me on alert. 

Once a little lower to the ground (children's eye level) in an effort to gather the first specimen, its friends were easier to locate. 

My brother and I harvested nearly two gallons of black morels in our afternoon of hunting, but a lot of crawling along on hands and knees through brambles was required to accomplish the feat. 

However, there's nothing quite like a pan of fresh morel mushrooms fried in butter for hors d'oeuvres as a reward for the effort. Yum!

I have made morel mushrooms the subject of one of my block prints, and it was fun to try to keep some of the mystery of the hunt in the final image. If anyone's interested, I can post a picture of it. :) 

A Minor Mother's Day Mystery

This little mystery is especially for BetsyLee (which, in itself, might be a dead giveaway). 

As always, you can click on the image to enlarge it. I left it as big as I possibly could. 

This is on my family's property and reminds me of the group outings we would always take on Mother's Day. The reveal will come tomorrow. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Flowers that Bloom in the Spring - Tra La!

After a long winter of gray skies, snow covering everything and the only color being dark evergreens or the occasional cardinal, it's lovely to see flowers beginning to bloom and trees starting to bud.

There's a spot I always check to see if the snowdrops are blooming yet. They often come up through the snow. This picture was taken a few weeks ago, but I hadn't posted it yet and I love these little harbingers of spring. 

Piper and I discovered these purple crocuses out in the woods and I wondered if there had been an old homestead there at some point, or if a squirrel had maybe dug them up and transported them to their new home. 

Yellow winter aconite is another early bloomer - it may be toxic, but the color is a tonic for the eyes and it can also bloom through the snow. 

I've never seen this flower bloom in the snow but its name still gives away its tendency toward early emergence in spring. It's called Glory of the Snow and it's another little beauty. 

I love walking with Piper every day to see what's new in the world. Baby bunnies, new flowers and buds emerging, birds singing territorial songs and building their nests - every day is an adventure!

Sharp-eyed, Sharp-shinned

This hawk was calling, crying, complaining and otherwise expressing discontent with the world. 

It did, however, perch overhead and allow me to take a few pictures (although the brightness of the sky behind it makes it harder to see detail). 
 

With feather markings obscured, deciding if it was a sharp-shinned or Cooper's hawk was more difficult. Cooper's hawks have a more rounded tail and head, so the squared-off tail and flatter head brings me in on the side of sharp-shinned. 

I could be wrong - identification can be tricky, especially in poor lighting, looking into the sun. In any event, it was pretty special to see it so close and still, even it it was scolding Piper and me.  

Brown is Not Boring

There has been a song sparrow nest at the harbor boat launch for several years. I always look forward to seeing Monsieur Song Sparrow perch in the treetops and sing songs about his territory and the benefits of being his mate. 

His personality is so much bigger than his size and his distinctive song brightens my morning walks, first with Baloo and now with Piper. 

In addition to his fabulous singing voice, he's also quite handsome. His markings and color variations make him nearly irresistible. He's anything but a plain little brown bird. 

Ducking and Diving

Watching all the different birds return to the area is a special treat in the springtime. My brother, sister and I send each other updates on birds we've seen. 

Diving ducks have been active in the harbor Piper and I frequently walk by in the morning. The hooded merganser above brought a tasty tidbit up to the surface. She was really busy and it was hard to get any picture at all. 

The bufflehead above sailed along in the distance, diving and then popping up in a completely different spot. 

I loved getting to see the hooded mergansers together. I was delighted to get a photo with both male and female in the frame. They're beautiful, don't you think? 

Red-breasted mergansers are much less common than the aptly named common merganser, so I was happy to see this fellow out enjoying the early morning calm.  

It's odd. Some mornings, there are ducks, geese and swans everywhere and other mornings the harbor is deserted. I don't know if it has to do with the weather or the food supply or what, but it's always an adventure to see who might be around.