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Silhouette of a grumpy robin

Was looking through the files (read: images that somehow never seem to get deleted from the camera disk) and came across this one shot from my office window.

It was a very hot  June day, and this robin, like everyone else on very hot days, seemed rather irritable. He walked to and fro, ranting as he went. He finally ran out of steam and sat in the grass, panting and with his feathers fluffed to vent heat.  In the top shot, he sat at the edge of the building’s shadow; the other shot is what he looks like in all his glorious grouchy color.

Robin in shadow.
Robin is a little edgy on a hot June day.

Robin laying in the grass.

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Nemesis

Anyone who has a hummingbird feeder is familiar with the rigidly enforced pecking order of the birds who feed, or try to feed, there. This morning it was somewhat was amusing (OK, satisfying) to see the boss bird being chased and herded away from the sweet nectar by a red wasp and another tiny black flying insect.

hummingbirds at feeder
SHOO! Red wasp ‘owns’ the feeder despite the efforts of a trio of hummingbirds.

 

 

 

 

 

On a sad note, there was a recent changing of the guard at our feeder following the death of Napoleon (We found a little hummingbird body back in July that we believe to be his.)

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Weekly photo challenge: Focus

Been a very beetle-intensive morning.  Here’s a look at a simple change of focal point to go along with this week’s challenge.

 

And other points of focus from the main page: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/category/photo-challenges/

And some of the others this week:

  1. Focus | Fotografía Incidental
  2. Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus On A Myrtle Tree | Musings&Rants
  3. Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus | Things I have learnt today
  4. Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus | wordswithnannaprawn
  5. Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus | This, that and the other thing
  6. Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus | Sue Ann’s Balcony
  7. Focus | the mmmmm family
  8. Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus | djangki | avantgarde
  9. Focus on Koko | A mom’s blog
  10. Focus 2 | the mmmmm family
  11. Weekly photo challenge: Focus | Let the great wheels spin
  12. Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus | Rois
  13. Photo Challenge: Focus | Detours by Deepali

 

 

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Sisyphus

This little scarab was on a roll this morning, speeding this just-under-golfball-sized ball o’ deer poop (from the pig Latin ooppay) across the road. His treasure safely on the south side of the road, he burrowed into the leaf litter.

GO BABY GO — Beetle races across the road with his fresh deer dung.
SPEED BALL — This beetle was rolling his one-inch ball along at about a foot per second.
SAFE — Beetle brings his prize safely across the street.
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Friday afternoon folly

It was a long, hard week at work and when I got the invitation to join folks from another department in a little Friday afternoon folly involving Mentos and Diet Coke, naturally, I grabbed a camera.  An offbeat way to end the day — by blowing off some carbon dioxide.

Loading Mentos.
LOADING — Aly fitted a copper tube onto the top of the soda bottle. The tube had two holes drilled into it and a piece of paper, rolled up tightly like a lollipop stick, was threaded through the holes to serve as a trigger. Mentos were dropped into the pipe from the top and would come to rest on the rolled up paper. Pulling the paper out would drop the mints into the soda.
8-23 RunAway-2
A split second after Kristin pulls the trigger and beats a hasty retreat, the geyser surges upward.
Diet coke geyser.
Mentos + Diet Coke = instant geyser. (Stitched still from iPhone video courtesy Erica)
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Photobombed!

After weeks of rain and cloud cover that denied us a chance to see the Perseids this year we had a run of clear days and nights, giving August’s blue moon a chance to shine. Ran out on the deck before work to capture it. As I clicked off frame after frame, the local hummingbirds swirled around in their usual aerial battles. One of them managed a little photobombing.

Moonset
Blue moon setting over the misty Ouachitas.
Full moon.
Tighter shot of our August blue moon.
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Weekly photo challenge: Carefree II

A second entry into this week’s photo challenge.

Sunset fishing at Fort Gaines.

Other carefree moments: