The variety--amazing!!!

 

Just a random Saturday looking out the backdoor and birds are everywhere. Such a variety at the three Davern feeder's today. A record for me. Never got 10 cardinals visiting at one time. They were everywhere. I rarely get any American Tree Sparrows and I got 6 visiting at the same time this morning (you count them all at once so you know you are not double counting). Dark-eye Junco's are here every day. Got 6 of them this morning (my record is 10). Got a visit from a somewhat, but not totally rare Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Blue Jay, who is also an infrequent visitor. However, I have a new flat top feeder and the Blue Jay's like them. Especially when you put unsalted peanuts out. The swallow them whole. (No teeth.) We got our daily allotment of American Goldfinches (10), House Sparrows (just 5 this morning), House Finches (2), Mourning Doves (6) and European Starlings (5) also made their appearances. Can't forget my 4 fat backyard squirrels that catch all of the seeds tossed to the ground by the birds. 

Quite the backyard party going on out there, eating me out of seed. Another trip to the bird store is on order for later today. The only rare visitor I didn't get was a White-throated Sparrow. Saw a couple a few weeks ago and now gone again. Maybe they will be back. Anyway, great morning of activity. Now I have to get some work done....

I missed this one from last year

 

While cleaning up some files from last year, I came across this beauty, which I somehow missed in looking for my best shots of last year. I have to put this one up near the top and maybe it should have won my internal contest for shot of the year. I love the foreground, mid-ground and background views in this shot. The only detractor is that it is a famous shot from a famous location and I have seen this shot many times in guidebooks and on the web as it is the famous Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park and this is the location to take that shot as shooting straight at it doesn't have as nice a background. Plus, there were about 20 or 30 other people taking shots, most straight at it with someone standing in the center of the Arch. You have to work quickly to get a shot without anyone standing in the way. Anyway, despite being a famous shot, the only thing that would make it better would have been a more interesting sky, something you have no control over, unless you want to fake it (which is very easy to do in Photoshop, by the way). Anyway, love this shot and may have to print it out for the wall!!!

Snow Day

 

Great packing snow but melting quickly. 

A shot 20+ years in the making

 

This month I completed a quest that was 20 years in the making. The quest started innocently enough, as quests sometimes do, to acquire all of 26 pens in the Beatles Acme pen collection, which I completed this month with the acquisition of a rare Let It Be pen found on eBay. The quest actually didn't start with the Beatles but with Michelangelo, NASA and Elvis. 

A long time ago, in a lifetime far away, Cheryl bought me a Michelangelo pen produced by the Acme pen company as a birthday present. I really liked the pen as a writing instrument and she later bought me a NASA designed pen, also produced by Acme. A few years later, she got me an Elvis pen with a neat design. 

Those three pens, located on the left side of the picture, started a nice little collection-as they had quite a bit meaning for me. Prior to the Beatles, Elvis was the big thing. His last appearance on the Ed Sullivan show happened a few months after I was born in 1957. I remember watching Elvis movies on Saturday mornings when I was a kid. The NASA pen represents my extreme fondness for all things NASA, space and astronomy and the Michelangelo pen represents my love of learning so Cheryl started out very strongly with these three choices.  

Little did she (or I) know what an obsession that would eventually create!!! Across from the Nuveen office  in downtown Chicago is an office supply store, Atlas Stationers, still there after all these years and they started carrying Acme Beatles pens. I don't remember which pen, but despite the high price of $60 for a pen of all things, I bought one. Now, over 20 years later, I have collected all of the Beatles pens, although I don't think I had a conscious plan of doing that until maybe 8 or 10 years ago and quite frankly I didn't really think it would happen as a number of them are quite rare as I had never seen several of them for sale. I wish I had thought of getting the full collection earlier while they were still being produced as it would have been a lot cheaper to buy back then!!! 

The Beatles have an important historical connection for me as my first solid memory of both a time and a place was when the family gathered in my grandpa Sam's living room on 55th and Ashland Ave, on February 9th, 1964 to watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, with my mom and dad there, my baby sis, Julie, my grandfather and my Aunt Bunny and Uncle Jerry. I was 7 years old. I remember John F. Kennedy's death and funeral a year earlier but can't put any place to where I was when I first heard the news. I also remember seeing many rocket launches on grainy black and white TVs when I was very young, with the missiles often blowing up, but can't remember any specific place or time for those either.

So, I have always had a Beatles connection although it wax'ed and waned over the years. The Acme pen collection contains 26 pens, 8 of them representing the years that the Beatles were a band from 1962-1969 (the 9th, 1970 pen I have to describe in a moment as it does not exist to my knowledge), 13 pens representing the 13 UK albums, a British Invasion pen and the 4 individual pens, one for each Beatle, sold as a group, shown in the upper left hand corner of the shot. The 1970 pen, designed by Acme, was never produced to my knowledge as Yoko didn't like the design. The artist developed it with a theme of the final year for the band but the pictures on the stem was sort of like what you would see at funerals for the deceased, with a picture of a person in an oval window. Too close to reality for her. So, that pen doesn't exist, as far as I know. 

Anyway, that is my story and obsession although it also extends to books about the Beatles, of which I have an embarrassing number as well. Now, I can stop collecting things as having exhausted the opportunity---although my son-in-law unhelpfully mentioned a $3,500 Mon Blanc Beatles pen this past weekend but there is no way I am going to pay that much for a pen, I don't care how rare it is and since I have it here in writing, it must be true. 

Thanks for reading and remember, the love you make is equal to the love you take so rock on!!! 

  

 

Just wanting some sun

 

I can't remember when the sun last shown in Chicago but it has been a while. Every day seems like grey clouds after grey clouds. So, I pulled this shot from last winter to prove that the sun does sometimes shine in Chicago in the wintertime. Also, we haven't had much snow this winter. Just one round of any consequence. On the plus side, only one super cold snap so there are some trade offs. Sunny days are nice but they tend to come with cold temps. Very odd winter so far for sure. So, here is to some sunshine and maybe a touch of snow just so we can get the grandkids out sledding. Too much to ask? 

Oxeye Daisy

 

I need some summer green and bright flowers to brighten up a blah January day. How about you?

Common Grackle

The Common Grackle isn't a particularly pretty bird. It does have a blue-iridescent shin in certain light and a yellow eye so that makes it interesting. But not one of my favorite birds. Plus, they are a bit of a bully, pushing other birds off the feeder when they show up. However, with a cartoon filter, I get a bit of an interesting and fun view from this Spring visit to my feeder last year. 

River Street, Savannah, Georgia

 

An interesting tourist experience on River Street in downtown Savannah but the area seems a bit run down and well, touristy. The day I visited back in June it was typically muggy and overcast, having rained earlier in the afternoon. I would say it was an ok visit. Glad I got to see it. I enjoyed the food but overall wasn't that impressed. Perhaps I need to give it another try. There is always something enjoyable to experience in a new city. 

Denver Mountain Sunset

 

Caught a mountain sunset out of my hotel window in Denver last April. No mountain trips planned at present but starting to get an itch to go....

Four Cuties

 

It is tough getting siblings together, especially when they are so young. I just had about 30 seconds for this shoot and it was just enough time to get the four of them together. Baby Effie did a good job of staying focused on camera. That is very rare. But we got it done!!!

Shot of the Year: Hiker at the Great Sand Dunes National Park

This is my favorite shot of the year as I love the image of that tiny spec of a human hiking up those huge sand dunes. I also love the darker shadows up on the top of the dunes which also works to give depth to the image. Plus, I know how hard it was to hike up those dunes. So, this shot wins as my shot of the year. Hope you enjoyed the series as much as I enjoyed taking the shots. 

Shots of the Year 2022: The Capitol Dome at Capitol Reef NP

A couple of blog posts ago, I posted the "reef" part of Capitol Reef NP, one of our least visited National Parks in Utah. Today I wanted to repost the "Capitol Dome" looking feature where the park gets the first part of its name. Great trip last year and to me, this pictures is one of my favorites taken from that trip. 

Shots of the Year: La Jolla Sunset

 

There are people who probably get to see this everyday. I hope it never gets boring. When in the midwest we can see a sunrise over Lake Michigan on the Chicago side or a sunset on the Michigan side but with the palm trees? No, we don't have that. Anyway, a good sunset always is a candidate for a shot of the year. I feel like I need a Pina Colada and I don't even drink those.  

Shots of the Year: Reef Wall

 

Capitol Reef National Park contains an area 60 miles long out of a total of around 100 miles of this huge ridge which travelers going across country had to avoid, calling it a "reef wall" as it was so hard to traverse. We just drive up to it like it is nothing but it was a major barrier heading from east to west on the way to California. Wonderful views in the very remote park in Utah. 

Shots of the Year: Mount Rainier

 

Another candidate for shot of the year is this shot of Mount Rainier, taken on a hike inside the park. Most of the time, you know the peak is there but you can only rarely see it as Mount Rainier is so high, it creates its own weather patterns. Other shots during the day mostly looked like the two shots below or had no view of the mountain at all, or I was hiking and walking through dense, tree packed forest trails. However, the mountain gave me one excellent view at an excellent time with a nice lenticular cloud being whipped over the peak. Beautiful. 

Best Selfie of the Year (not my shot)

 

This is a fascinating shot from NASA and I have to say the most amazing shot that I have seen since that Christmas shot taken by Apollo 8 with the Earth rising over the rim of the moon. For me, this is on that scale. What a beautiful shot and tells us that more than likely, a human will be back on the moon in 2024. What a great year we have coming up next year, if the schedule holds. Even if it falls back, a moon landing once again, is coming. The Orion spacecraft, the Moon and the distant Earth all in one shot. Amazing. Looking forward to many more shots in the coming years. 

Shots of the Year: Just Look Up

 

While we haven't seen the sun here in Chicagoland for some time, back in Houston, Texas in February, the sun was up and shining through the trees, making for an excellent abstract shot.  

Shots of the Year: Yosemite Sunrise at el Capitan

 

During the fall of 2022 I did a weekend trip to Yosemite and got to see a late morning sunrise hitting El Capitan, a vertical cliff famous for its exposed granite face which attracts climbers from all over the world. I didn't see any climbers that early in the morning, but I could see many groups gathering gear and heading for the trail to the base of the cliff. I think I would pass on that attempt. Hard enough to walk the trails in the National Park. I don't have any interest in getting "technical" and climbing straight up them. 

Family Shot of the Year

Getting the family together for one shot gets increasingly difficult with travel, various illness and nap times but we pulled it off--although a bit late this XMas season. The shot itself only takes a minute or so, once everyone is ready. The family knows how to pull it together quickly as the little ones have no interest in posing for a shot. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and wishing everyone a Happy New Year.