Botanizing

I remember why I like this time of the year so much! The flowers are amazing!
And as great as bird photos are...
Nothing beats taking pictures of flowers and fiddling around with them and with editing them.

As much as birds have become a passion, botany is still my love. Flowers and trees and sedges and grasses are just too much fun!

I've seen all of these flowers within the last week laying in strategic places photosynthesizing their little leaves as best as they can while they bring us a fantastic sight and reward pollinators with sweets that could only match the delicious wonders of life like chocolate, ice cream, and cookies.

These are attractive droplets of a negatively impressive reward.

Plants never cease to amaze me. They have so many little things unique about them that make me jealous. I mean - I wish I could make my own food just by chilling in the sunlight! I wish I could trap insects with little goo-drops, or with jaws of death contraptions. I wish I could propagate in many formats... ok maybe that's a streatch.

Regardless, plants are amazing. And its times like today roaming around outside that I'm reminded of how amazing they really are.

Photography

While I may not be as good at it as my former roomate, I love photography.

I love taking the photo. I love having a relationship with my shot. Just like getting an autograph from a baseball player, it means more when you are the one who meets the player and gets it yourself (over buying it on ebay).

Mike Lowell and Gabe Kapler's Autograph

Photography is the same way - when you hike 5 miles and then see a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak drop down, or travel to Florida and see a Limpking 5 feet away, or are ambling around a garden and spot an Oriole and manage to grab your camera, focus it, play with the settings, and get a shot... it means more.

Limpkin

Recently I've been getting better, if I may say so myself - I even know how to use the manual settings! And now I almost always do!

This morning and afternoon I devoted most of my time to uploading more photos onto the internet so I can share them. Facebook friends don't seem to enjoy thumbing through hundreds of bird photos in search of a photo of themselves hanging around. Besides... I have a few too many albums there! Hopefully in time I can replace the travel ones permanently to picasa and eliminate their existance on facebook. We'll see though!

My photo albums can be found here. If you're interested! Most of them are in slideshow format on the right hand bar anyway.