Bookmarque’s Padded Cell 2023 - It’s a kind of madness (1)

~~ Once more welcome to the Undisciplined Reading Room ~~

2023! Jeez, we’ve been doing this for a long time. Now that we have a better charts and graphs page, you can click this link to have an idea of what I am into for listening and reading -

https://www.librarything.com/stats/Bookmarque/overview

You can find my previous threads here if you want to catch up on past insanity.

2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015

I still participate in the Books Read In lists so here they are (a list of lists!) -

Books read 2022
Books read 2021
Books read 2020
Books read 2019
Books read 2018
Books read 2017
Books read 2016
Books read 2015
Books read 2014

My thread tends to be photo heavy since I am a photographer and am usually out in all seasons. This Christmas I received a battery-powered heated jacket and some great photography winter gloves so as soon as Covid gives me a break, I’ll be out and about in all the wintery goodness.



So here goes another year in the pub!

I’m looking forward to all your pictures this year! Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and happy photo taking! Feel better soon :)

Happy New Year! I look forward to seeing your book lists and your photos.

Welcome to the new year!

Happy New Thread! It's a kind of magic! magic, magic...

Happy New Year; happy new thread!

Happy new year, fresh, free, and undisciplined as it may be. Still starred.

Wishing you a wonderful new year, beginning with getting healthy!

Happy photographing in 2023!

Thanks everyone! It's snowing lightly now and I'm so tempted to go out in it. We'll see if this cough lets up at all. That's the lingering symptom I have, but it's really annoying.

Anyway, seems like the beginning of my years feature comic books, at least lately. This year I'm trying to read these -

. ...

At least that's what I've managed so far. I find the expository prose a bit much to get through and the dialog, well, it's ok. The artwork started off cartoony, but reasonable. Now everyone male is absolutely hulking and everyone female looks like a 5' nothing Barbie doll. Still there are glimmers of the author's fabled humor sprinkled in now and then so I'll probably finish them, but I'm not giving any high ratings. I'd hoped for better, and the 1st volume of the second omnibus just wouldn't load from Amazon. They're part of the Kindle Unlimited collection and it's just maddening when that happens. Oh well, the rest have downloaded fine and they pass the time in a fun-ish kind of way.

Happy New Year and Happy new Thread! I'm looking forward to more of your photographs and musings this year!

>11 Bookmarque: I have only read Welcome to the Jungle. I didn't enjoy it as much as the books, but I thought that was just me and graphic novels.

I am ok with them so far, but I've read better graphic novel series.

Just parking this here since I really enjoy Glenn and the guests he has on his show as well as his regular conversations with John McWhorter. I'm a paid subscriber to his Substack platform and have three one month subscriptions I can give away. There is a newsletter, various essays and other written stuff he does as well as the podcast and YouTube channel. A lot of it is free, but some isn't and thus the subscription. If you'd like one, PM me your email address and I'll use the form on the site to get it out to you. First come, first served! Here are a couple cover shots of recent conversations -





Duh, the link to Glenn's substack - https://glennloury.substack.com/

>15 Bookmarque: I have a huge crush on John McWhorter, but I don't think I'd have time for that webiste. I'm glad you are enjoying it, though!

Oh so do I...total fangirl. Do you listen to his Lexicon Valley podcast? Full of nerdly language info. He also does every other week with Glenn Loury and they play off each other quite well. Most of what Glenn does is podcast oriented, so let me know if that changes anything.

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Am going to try to get my stats for the year together. I have always done it separately with Google docs, but this year I think I'll try to get everything I can out of our new stats and charts data. See where that takes me. Lots of audio, that much I can tell you already! Like five physical books or something crazy.

Stats! Stats! Get your juicy stats!



And the breakdown per month -



You can definitely see where I started listening to the backlog of a podcast since the numbers for October & November are so low. And although I don't count them as part of my "reading" I do audio dramas so I really can't say I read a lot of "books" per se. More I got through a lot of media or programming. It's just how it went this year. Although I know Radio Drama and Graphic Novel aren't genres either, I didn't know how else to categorize them so I could see how many of each I consumed this year. Kind of a lot!



No surprise here -



Year-over-year trend for format -

And more. Not a lot of non-fiction this year, numbers and percentage-wise -



Year-over-year in yearly comparison and as a trendline -

And a breakdown of what I bought - new and used, borrowed and from where -





Borrowing venues have expanded!

>18 Bookmarque:, >19 Bookmarque:, >20 Bookmarque: Your stats are so sexy! What a fun way to look at the year of reading. Did you find the LT stat charts helpful this year, or did you go back and use your former method?

Thanks MrsL! I tried to use the LT charts, but they're of such limited utility that I gave up. For example -



Ok so you know the date range and collections and you get to see a huge amount of screen space that means nothing, but where are the data labels? Drives me batty. It's not the only thing that does about the "improved" stats and charts, but it will do for now.

>18 Bookmarque: >19 Bookmarque: >20 Bookmarque: Ooooh, stats, very nice! I'm super impressed and thanks for posting them. Did you put everything in a spreadsheet?

Thanks Karlstar - I do use a spreadsheet in Google docs, both for the year's reading and a separate one that does the year by year comparisons. It's a strange, but oddly satisfying thing to fool with at the end of each year. I had high hopes for the LT charts update, but alas, not useful enough unless you're on the page itself.

I've made a couple of tweaks to this year's spreadsheet to separate radio drama and graphic novel which are merely ways of telling a story not genres. So far I have -

Graphic novel
Radio drama
Narrative (for linear stories like novels, short stories, narrative non-fiction, essays, etc.)

I could add podcast or streaming to that, but I haven't done that. No doubt things will change as I go on, but at least now I can have a radio drama that is a mystery and a graphic novel that is horror, etc.

Format is still -
Physical
ebook
audio

And I've attempted to make sure I group genre correctly I've started using drop-down menu items instead of free-form text.

OK so a new chart for last year - my most read authors/creators. I put the cut off at 4 books or more so -



Scott Snyder, Raphael S and Terry Moore are all comic book authors.

>24 Bookmarque: I used to use the Book Collector software, which does a great export to a spreadsheet. Have you tried the LT export?

Hm, that's an idea. I'll try it with the '22 data and see if it helps any.

I always find other people's stats to be interesting to look at; in part, it tends to make me pause and think about my own habits in reading choices. I think your item up there in #20 about where you borrow your titles from offers an interesting view of behaviors shifting.

I usually don’t submit my photos to contests, but this year I did and this one of the Prairie River is a finalist for the People’s Choice award.



So you know what that means...gotta get out the vote! If you'd like to help me out, click here to choose my photo -

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2022PhotoContest

Thanks everyone!

Congrats! That's awesome, and it's a beautiful photo. I love how vividly green the moss is.

I love the spider photo as well. Spiders are so rad.

Fingers crossed for you! :)

>29 Bookmarque: Done with pleasure! It's beautiful, like all your pictures.

>29 Bookmarque: Done! I don’t usually comment on your pictures, but this time is different.

>29 Bookmarque: Voted with fingers crossed!

>29 Bookmarque:
Lovely photograph. Voted!

Good luck!

>29 Bookmarque: All of your photographs should win! I voted.

>29 Bookmarque: Very nice! As were all of the candidates, but yours had a certain je ne sais quoi, so I voted for it.

Thanks everyone for the support and votes. I appreciate it!

Yep, I did not have to violate my sense of rightness to vote for yours. It is lovely. A path into a mythical golden world.

I voted! You take such amazing photos!

I voted for you too. Your photos are wonderful.

Thanks again peeps. I'm crossing my fingers and will know in February.

>41 Bookmarque: Best of luck!

Gorgeous! I've voted too! Your photos make me want to visit Wisconsin one day.

>29 Bookmarque: I voted. Good luck!

Thanks to everyone who voted. Clear your cookies and do it again!!!

Ahem. Yeah, that would take cheating to a whole new level wouldn't it? Eek.

So anyway, here are a couple eagles in trees for you -





Two different eagles, trees and days. Now whenever I drive anywhere for a photography session, I leave the camera on the passenger seat with the long telephoto zoom on it so I'll be ready. The second one was taken while sitting in the car, but I got out for the first one and it's a good example of why staying in the car is the preferred method. It got fed up with me. As soon as I got into a better position on the other side of the road, it flew. Not when I had the camera ready or anything though, just before. To be annoying. But winter eagles are eagles at leisure - no kids, no nest, no pair bonding rituals. Just lots of free time. The delinquents! I encourage them to hang out on street corners more often!

>45 Bookmarque: such beautiful birds. The other day we had two flying over our playground at work. I had to explain to my younger coworker how rare it was to see one when I was a kid. She had no idea they used to be endangered.

Yeah I remember when they were wicked scarce, too. When I lived in NH I don't think I saw any until I was in my 20s and a pair nested by the once intensely polluted Merrimack river. It was flying way up there, but you could tell what it was. The local news outlets went bananas and the pair stayed put for a long time. A huge highway offramp was delayed for a couple of years because of the proximity of the nest. Eventually it went through, but the eagles didn't go far.

I've already seen one today while sitting on the couch that faces the windows looking out over the river. We have a local pair and there is some open water so no doubt it's looking for breakfast. The other day a juvenile landed on the ice where we could watch it devour a fish between the branches of some trees. So glad they are back and I think I'll always be captivated by them no matter how often I see one.

Beautiful photos! One flew by my dad's window a few weeks ago. They're so majestic. I found a large feather I think was shed by it a few days later.

I was a kid when they were endangered. I can remember the depressing news reports. So wonderful that they've been restored, and I saw a video of dolphins fishing in the restored Bronx River a couple of days ago.

>45 Bookmarque: Lovely photos! Thank you for sharing. Because I too remember when they were put on the endangered list.

Thanks everyone. It's hard to get a bad shot of a baldie in a tree.

Can you believe a reader can live to be over 50 without reading Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Funny, it took Michael C. Hall to put me over the top. I recently listened to him narrate Pet Sematary and he did such a great job that I searched audible for anything else he might have done and Breakfast is one of them. I liked it, but was surprised by it in a good way. I haven’t even seen the movie all the way through, but my impressions based on stills and posters was of a rom-com basically. I mean, Audrey Hepburn was that kind of actress, right? Played sort of quirky characters and was irrepressibly cute, but unpredictable. Plus Blake Edwards?! Come on!

Count me surprised by the husband and her child bride status, the drug ring arrest and her subsequent flight to Brazil. I liked the lingering sense of mystery about her fate and the equally mysterious African carving. I’m glad it wasn’t longer as it could have been drawn out and needlessly filled out with yet more eccentric characters and situations a la Armistead Maupin. Still can’t bring myself to slog through Cold Blood though. That was too creepy to get past about 100 pages.

>50 Bookmarque: I enjoyed the novela, but I'd never seen the film so I had no idea what to expect. I picked it up after reading In Cold Blood. Talk about horse of a different color...

>50 Bookmarque: Me, I haven't read it. I watched the movie so long ago I remember very little of the story. I look at it now and again and think about reading it, but don't.

>50 Bookmarque: I didn’t even know it was a book! I watched the movie forever ago and don’t remember anything about it. I don’t even remember if I liked it.

>50 Bookmarque: I haven't read it either, and I can barely remember 50. But now maybe I will.

>50 Bookmarque: The movie is basically a rom-com compared to the book. Both are great but in very different ways.

Well I knew some of you would relate! Woo hoo! Interesting that the movie hits the rom-com thing so hard, that's probably why I thought the book would be the same, but it isn't. Darker and more mysterious and opaque; we never really get to know Holly or her motivations. If anyone has an audible subscription you can get the book as part of the Audible Plus catalog and Michael C. Hall does a terrific job. I wish he would do more audio work, but he probably gets enough screen work to satisfy.

So here's a completely unrelated thing. Last summer I took a crap ton of video of the hummingbirds visiting flowers on my deck, but I'd never gotten around editing any of it to be usable. Partly it was the sheer complicated nature of any robust video editor and the learning curve, and partly it was laziness. So yesterday I dove back in and made this little 54 second video from cuts out of a very long single take of a hummingbird on the flowers. It's still pretty amateur, but I love how bendy and graceful she is and that you can see the movement of her tongue and throat as she drinks. It's entirely shot at 180 frames per second which is very slo-motion and thus there is no autofocus, only manual focus and that was another challenge, but technology tweaks let it work better than it would have without them. So I'll shut up and give you the link now -

https://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Video/Video/i-sBrKSvC/A

I'll work on putting more together later this week. Isn't she the cutest thing?

>56 Bookmarque: Just when I thought your photos couldn't get more amazing, you hit us with a video like that. Truly wonderful, thank you.

>56 Bookmarque: Wow! I really enjoyed the baby deer video too.

>56 Bookmarque: that's lovely!

Thanks guys I'm glad you liked it. Right now that's the only one I have done for the hummies, but more coming and I have some other stuff I can work with, too. I'm SO NOT a videographer, but I do try. Witness the fawns playing clip (thanks ScoLgo). But I will get better over time. I think I have some of the porcupine I met last fall.

Absolutely gorgeous. And even at 180 frames per second the wings are still blurred.

>56 Bookmarque: That's incredible! So beautiful, and the little details like being able to see it swallow the nectar are amazing.

Thanks peeps. Yeah, those wings really do move, don't they? The swallowing and tongue movement is something I noticed as well. Once you spot the shape of the throat it's easy to pick out in stills, but until I looked at the slo-mo clips, I didn't see it for what it is.

>56 Bookmarque: I like how she brings her own music.

Fantastic video, thank you! Really impressive how the tiny hummingbird makes even petunia flowers look big.

>56 Bookmarque:
Amazing video.

Thanks guys. I can't wait for them to come back...only 4 months to go!

>56 Bookmarque: That was so cool! They are such amazing creatures.

>67 Bookmarque: Four months! I start putting out my feeders in April, but I rarely see one before June.

Yeah, we don't get them back until almost June. If we get a cold May and not many plants have set flowers yet it's tough on them if they get fooled into coming up early. Same with flycatchers like phoebes. We don't get full leaf-out until June. Then they all fall off in October.

>56 Bookmarque: Great little video! Hummingbirds are fantastic.

Have another hummingbird video almost done. Just have to edit the music.

In the meantime, the western shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota during some sunsets -







It was so warm there is very little ice, but there was some luckily because it's really hard to shoot this lake without it. The foregrounds are blank and the water is vast - very unbalanced photos that are pretty boring as well. That middle one, for example, would never have worked without the odd green-blue reflection of the sky. Sunset does weird stuff to clouds - it really was that startling color.

Anyway...processing more from other times as well.

>72 Bookmarque: Great pictures, thank you! I just read that Lake Erie has the smallest amount of ice cover in many years, normally it is frozen over by now.

Thanks much. It has been crazy warm up this way so I'm not surprised. Normally nearly all the liquid water you see in the photos would be frozen.

>72 Bookmarque: Wow. Just wow. I'm not sure I could live in that part of the world, given the winters, but your photography is wonderful.

>72 Bookmarque: Super photographs.

>72 Bookmarque: "so warm there is very little ice"

I can only agree with >75 jillmwo:; when I saw your comment I was moved to be grateful that around here ice is only ever seen in the fridge or in some drinks!

Thanks guys. I've always lived where it's cold and so it doesn't bother me at all. Since moving to an even colder place, I've become less heat tolerant than ever and anything over 75 is hot. Actually this winter has been very mild indeed. There is open water on the river right now and that's highly unusual for this time of year.

>72 Bookmarque: These photos are so beautiful! Part of me would love to live in that cabin in the 3rd pic, even though I know it would be freezing! But that view ...

It would certainly toughen you up! That's a fish shack used about 100 years ago to clean fish and has no insulation or stove! At least I don't think it does anymore. I have a close shot of it that I have to get to and I'll put it up when I do.

Hmm. So cold and stinky? Maybe not!

Here it is - no chimney!



And now that I think of it, I'm not sure it was for cleaning. It's awfully small for any kind of commercial operation. Hmm...will have to check and see if I can figure anything out.

>72 Bookmarque: Gorgeous to look at. (And perhaps visit... briefly! LOL)

Unlike you, my blood had thinned.

>82 Bookmarque: That's great! I love the camera angle you chose, and the sunlight.

Thanks peeps. Sorry for the absence here. Have been working through the tasks needed to go from Windows to Mac and have a new laptop. So much better for the graphics heavy stuff I do with photos and video. Light years faster than my old Lenovo, which although still functioning, just didn't have enough horsepower so to speak.

So now things have mostly settled down. Here are a few more photos from the trip to Lake Superior. More ice!







That last one is a view of a crack in what was an ice shelf cantilevered over the water. Another person on my workshop walked out on it and broke it off, making the crack that took advantage of to make a really effective leading line. Lucky for me and for him since he didn't fall and didn't drop any gear into the water. Totally stuck the landing!

>85 Bookmarque: Gorgeous work! Ice really makes for some interesting formations!

>85 Bookmarque: Congrats on joining us on the dark side …

>85 Bookmarque: That top photo is surreal! I thought it was an abstract painting at first. Love it.

Thanks peeps. The ice is quite extraordinary - especially with the cliffs. I think the different colors are from mineral deposits. The earth around Superior is heavy with iron and copper which are still mined there today, although not as much as in the past.

>85 Bookmarque: Amazing photos.

>85 Bookmarque: Incredible photos. I have to get a closer (larger) look on my PC screen at some point.

>85 Bookmarque:
Great pictures. The first one is outstanding.

Gorgeous photos!

Thanks everyone. I'll find a few more to post for you.

In the meantime, I've started this -



And have gotten through The Warden and Barchester Towers. Fairly delightful. The performances are very good and the story fun. Funny character names like Mr & Mrs Quiverful with their 14 children. I'm not sure how much of the small nuances aren't picked up in a dramatization like this, but it's fun and I'm not sure I have the attention span for the full audiobook. Am in the middle of Dr. Thorn and hope it heads where I think it will. Thanks to Pete and the other folks who have been discussing Trollope in their threads for the impetus to try him out.

>94 Bookmarque:
I am delighted you are enjoying it. My book club meeting has just finished and I recommended The Warden as our next read and everyone was eager to read it.

It's a bit more romantic than I thought it might be and some of the plots are almost identical to some of Austen's, especially in the last segment I read where a penniless titled guy is hounded by his mother to marry rich, not for love. Of course the love ends up rich so we're good all around, but the mother's hectoring reminded me of Lady Catherine De Bourgh's in P&P. And they both went to browbeat the love interest as well.

>85 Bookmarque: Great pictures, for an instant I thought the water was moving in the middle one, it is so clear and life-like.

>96 Bookmarque: Doctor Thorne is indeed more of a love story than the preceding two novels. But Mary is a lovely heroine. And I picked up the same parallel to Austen's humor. Mr. Bennett would have thoroughly appreciated Trollope, given how he loved to make sport of his own neighbors.

The water was moving a bit in that one Karlstar - but a fast shutter speed keeps it frozen. Plus the water is very clear so you can see to the bottom where it's shallow.

Agreed that Mary works well as a heroine. Am now in the middle of The Small House at Allington and it's about love and marriage, inheritance and class again. Clearly this was the overarching factor in everyone's lives at the time so consumes the narrative. Still enjoyable although now characters are starting to run together. Audible ran a sale and so I picked up a couple of straight up audiobooks and another radio drama that I used a promo $10 coupon to get. Makes those 5 hour items a bit more worth it.

Oh and here's a photo from a recent rural ramble --

Am watching an adaptation of Dr. Thorne by Julian Fellows on Amazon Prime. Not far into it, but it is beautifully shot.

>101 Bookmarque: I enjoyed that one quite a bit.
>100 Bookmarque: Very pristine!

>99 Bookmarque: Super clear, quite amazing. Lake Superior is still on my bucket list to get to someday.

>101 Bookmarque: That adaptation was really quite well done and like you, I enjoyed it. One of the things that struck me in watching it was the similarity in how Trollope and Julian Fellowes approached story telling. Downton Abbey was in many ways very shallow because it skipped quickly across scenes to deliver the narrative. That's frequently how Trollop handles things in his delivery as well.

The other thing I liked about that adaptation was that Mary Thorne comes across as a woman of both humor as well as spirit. Trollope gets flack for how he renders his female characters but some of them were quite fun (Mary being one such heroine).

I can't put it up directly here, but if you click the link you'll get to watch a 2 1/2 minute video of hummingbirds in my backyard. It was all shot in slow motion video in camera.

https://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Video/Video/i-Qpx9Zhn/A

It's still a bit rough, but I've been working on it long enough.

>105 Bookmarque: Awesome! I love it when the flower gets stuck on its beak!

Glad you liked it. Funny, people usually mention the stuck flower, but not the pooping!

>105 Bookmarque: Love this!

>107 Bookmarque: Yeah, I caught that too. :)

>105 Bookmarque: Wonderful video! I really ejoyed it.

>105 Bookmarque: Nice! Such amazing little birds.

Thanks peeps! I can't wait for them to return this year. Hope I can set up a bathing/drinking station for them in addition to the flowers.

Finally got to return to an eagle's nest on a small island in a lake I paddle once or twice a year. Unlike all the other eagle nests I photograph, this one can be seen from the shore. I wasn't sure it was an active nest since after the kids fledge, the adults don't use it. In winter the road to the campsites and boat launch is not plowed so earlier attempts to check it out were thwarted. Good thing too, since a tree came down across the road and was luckily cut apart when I arrived yesterday. After about an hour wait the pair showed up and I got this shot of a stick delivery! Am planning many return visits to see how their breeding season fares. Judging from the backside in this shot, if I can get the kayak into a good spot I might have a more open view of the nest.

>113 Bookmarque: Great picture, really nice to see one coming in to land like that.

>113 Bookmarque: Great photo, and exciting news to come based on the signs!

Thanks guys. I hope this year proves interesting and with some lively youngsters.

>116 Bookmarque: I can't wait to see the pics of the babies.

>113 Bookmarque: Great pic as always. ::like::

Thanks peeps - not sure how much of the nestlings will show above the rim at first. When they're bigger and more mobile, they'll walk all over and then the fledging antics will start. Should be a lot of fun.

I’m catching up on threads. Seeing that hummingbird video made my day! I loved when the flower got stuck on its beak! So cute!

And your pictures are awesome, as always! :)

>113 Bookmarque: That nest is huge! I can't wait to see photos of the babies :)

I'm so glad catzteach! Everyone needs more hummingbirds being silly.

Eagle nests are continuously being added to and refurbished so they just grow and grow and grow. I suspect this one has been in use for 10 years, but it's not the largest one I've seen. Without them sitting in it, it can be difficult to see the size, but unless you know how big an adult bald eagle is relative to a human, even that can be strange. An eagle foot is as big as your hand (unless you have catcher's mitts!) and they are about 2 1/2 feet high. Females are noticeably larger than males and individuals from northern populations are noticeably larger than southern. Hope to get back to the nest sometime next week to check on them. In the meantime, here's a funny shot -

So going to the extreme other end of the bird scale, here is a shot of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet foraging on the edge of the lawn in some hornbeam trees.







They are migrants here and I have never seen them before - this is a male. The females are identical except for that ruby crown. It was a minor miracle I got anything due to 20mph wind and that these guys are very small and very fast. They never stop moving! Quite a challenge for me and the autofocus system in my camera. All in all I have a handful that worked despite the branches blowing around in front and behind the wee birds. Threw away 100 photos or so that were unusable. Pretty standard for any wildlife work. If they are still around I'll see if a female makes an appearance.

He is adorable! Looks like our Firecrest, which is tiny.

>123 Bookmarque: Respect. I can hardly find birds with the binoculars in that situation, let alone get a picture of them! Wonderful shots and well worth the sorting.

>123 Bookmarque: Such a cute little bird :D

Thanks peeps! They are adorable and tiny and I think are gone now, but maybe next year they will be back. Here are a few more shots for you to fill your cute requirement for the day.







They are classified as tree-gleaners and is that ever true.

Thank you for these. What a delightful bird.

You're welcome. They are cutie patooties.

More backyard birds. This time a pair of yellow-bellied sapsuckers on a tree in the backyard. Here is the Mrs and the Mr -





And a 3-minute video of the male doing his thing - https://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Video/Video/i-b882Gtn/A

All shot handheld while sitting on the ground. I bring a butt pad out with me and it's amazing what will come close if you're quiet and unobtrusive. Have a crap ton of photos and video of chipmunks that I'm working on.

Oooh, videos of chipmunks!?! Quite possibly my spirit-animal -- skittering about, cheeks bulging w/ food that may not be healthy, easily distracted.

Precisely, how is one able to tell which is male, which is female when it comes to yellow-bellied sapsuckers?

Boys have red chins, girls have yellow ones. Otherwise, they're pretty identical.

Here's a chippie just for you!



Most of my video is of this little guy.

>132 Bookmarque: Now see this is real kindness. Factual information about the sapsuckers and a photo of a chipmunk just for fun. You are wonderful!!

Adorable birds! Cute chipmunk!

>127 Bookmarque: >130 Bookmarque: Great pictures and educational! Thank you.

Thanks guys. Bird activity has been cranking up lately, especially as the cavity-nesting ducks are house hunting. Today it's mostly Hooded Mergansers flapping around in the trees, but the other morning it was this pair -



Wood ducks having a discussion about whether they should go for the abandoned Pileated woodpecker nest or the new housing development (a duck box built by me and put up last fall).

I shot this straight out an open window into the backyard. Lucky for me they didn't have any branches in front of their faces, were close enough together for both to be in focus and that the leaves were still small enough to frame them well without being too overwhelming.

Great shots, all of them.

>136 Bookmarque: I for one will be interested in hearing which housing arrangement the Wood ducks finally settle on. (I hope it's your duck box.)

Beautiful photos! I love the wood ducks especially.

>136 Bookmarque: That should be on a magazine cover.

Thanks guys. I have no idea who gets the nest in any given year. It's too hard to keep watching and then the leaves grow in and I can't see the hole in the tree anymore. I really need to go check the nest box and see if anyone claimed it. In the meantime, here's a nuthatch -

If you squint your eyes and imagine a little, you can see that the foliage clear space around them is sort of heart shaped. Sweet photo. Also love nuthatches.

Nuthatches are fun to watch as they bounce up and down trees :)

>141 Bookmarque: They are such perky-looking little birds!

They are super cute. And fun to watch. And they make the funniest little honks.

For a change of pace, a Trumpeter Swan -





I think it's a male, but I'm not sure. I was in the kayak and he appeared coming out from behind a beaver lodge and kept pace with me, just slightly ahead, until I was an acceptable distance from what was probably his mate on the nest. He wasn't overly concerned as I drifted closer, eventually wedging the kayak on a dead tree for some stability. He would feed and preen occasionally while making sure I wasn't coming any nearer. I know better having been charged by a male before as he was defending his territory and I didn't see him until it was too late. This time I did and played it safe. They are really big when they're up close and angry, LOL. This guy though, was chill.

>145 Bookmarque: I'm glad you are not one of those people who thinks all critters in nature are benevolent. We want you around for a good long time.

Oh no, not me. Plenty of stuff will mess with you and when they have wingspans of about 8 feet, I bow to their superiority. I may head back in a day or two and see if there are any cygnets yet.

>145 Bookmarque: Great pictures, thanks. A wise choice, wouldn't want that to be your swan song.

>145 Bookmarque:
Great pictures.

I have known swans to break arms and snap oars when defending their territory. Definitely not to be messed with.

>145 Bookmarque: I love this one.

>148 Karlstar: *groan* :D

>145 Bookmarque: I've always thought of geese as being big and a bit vicious. Hadn't really considered that I should be equally as wary of a trumpeter swan.

Thanks peeps. I've had a lot more experience on the water since my first encounter with swans (mute swans, not trumpeters, but basically the same size). With a decade of kayaking behind me now, I understand so much more and I'm much more aware of the life around me.

This is why I love T.C. Boyle so much -

"They were like jewelry, living jewelry, and she could see herself wearing one wrapped around her shoulders to Bobo's or the Cornerstone and sitting at a sidewalk table while people strolled by and pretended not to notice."

Opening sentence!! OMG. He has such style. It's from his newest novel Blue Skies which I got yesterday, but won't have time to get to until next week.

In the meantime, here are some of our very smallest birds, just to shake things up.



Isn't she gorgeous? And now for mister -



Both taken a few days ago after I finally got the flowers they like planted. We also got the couch back up there so I just hang out there with the camera and wait. Luckily I don't usually have to wait long.

Great photos. What kind of plant is that?

I'm also a Boyle fan, but have not read anything of his for quite a while.

>153 Bookmarque: Lovely pictures.

I forget the name of the plant, Clam. They are slightly different variations of the same thing, I think, and go under different trade names. I'll see if I can find the tags when I get home. The hummies love them.

>156 Bookmarque: I saw the plant at a conservatory earlier in the week but I already forgot the name, I'd be interested when you look it up, thank you!

>153 Bookmarque: So beautiful!

Blue skies is already on my wishlist otherwise you'd have hit me with a BB based on that quote!

I hope it turns out to be a good one for us, Sakerfalcon, he has some duds in his catalog for me. But he can write the walls down, can't he?

Am still in the southern part of the state and am going to tour Frank Lloyd Wright's original campus Taliesin later today before heading home. It was a nice little break with great roads for taking the 911 out on, plus meeting a bunch of other Porsche owners and seeing all their amazing cars. Not much time for photography though so here's a couple of our pair I took last month -



and the mister -

>159 Bookmarque: Is that maybe 'Cigar plant', aka 'firecracker' plant, Cuphea ignea?? It would be an annual in the north.

Well, the tags got thrown out, but the name Cuphea sounds familiar. I've seen them under the trade name Vermillions or something like that as well. I mean the red version, not the pink. The male is on the pinker ones that have smaller flowers.

>161 Bookmarque: Thanks, I should have written down a note when I saw them instead of hoping I'd remember. Haven't seen one in a nursery yet this year but I'll keep looking.

Hope you find some. The little guys like them.

Speaking of little guys. I was doing some video of another spider with a big June bug in her web, but on one of her breaks I did some practice video on a firefly crawling on the window ledge. Little did we know the drama that would ensue -

https://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Video/Video/i-srWFsCR/A

Click to view the video (it's less than a minute long).

>163 Bookmarque: Very cool! I was not entirely sure what I was seeing, at first I thought the spider was tickling the firefly. ;)

Thanks! It happened so fast, but I was filming at 30 frames per second which is just fast enough to be slowed down without too much jiggle showing up. If I'd been shooting in 60fps it could be slowed down more with better smoothness.

I had the same thought that it looked like a tickle attack, but no, it was a failed lunch grab.

OK! Finally done with the chipmunk video. It's the kind of thing you can tinker with endlessly, but I stuck a fork in it today after sorting out some audio issues -

https://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Video/Video/i-zHt9WS8/A

Follow the link for these guys -

Chipmunks are so much fun to watch :) I always enjoyed when they came to my bird feeder.

Thanks - glad you liked it! I'm rather happy with how it came out.

Am watching the early 2000s Masterpiece Theater series since I loved it 20 years ago when I first watched it. Couldn't get through the books at all, but this I can deal with. Superb acting and cinematography.

>166 Bookmarque: I enjoyed your video. Until I saw it, I didn't realize that there were different species of chipmunks. I think the ones here must be least chipmunks.

We have Least chippies here, too, but I don't know that I've ever seen one. The ones in the film are Eastern I think given that they are the same size as the ones I saw in NH. Leasts are supposed to be noticeably smaller and reportedly less vocal. Glad you liked the video. Am remixing it because I think the music track is too loud.

Kind of funny. I just started a 5-book dramatization of the first Falco books by Lindsay Davis. They are BBC productions and star Anton Lesser as Falco. So I'm listening and hear a familiar voice. My brain gets a little confused. A bit of research and - bingo - now I know why. Another character, Gordianus, is played by Christian Rodska, narrator of the later Falco audiobooks. OMG, two Falco voices in my head!!

>166 Bookmarque: That's great! I kind of miss those little guys. They might be here, but I have not seen one yet. Just lots of mice, voles and squirrels.

>170 Bookmarque: I always think of chipmunks as tiny compared to other squirrel-types. I don't think I've seen any of the bigger ones. I think the stripes are a bit different too. Still very cute, though!

Thanks guys. I changed the link up there to this one - https://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Video/Video/i-zHt9WS8/A

It has remixed audio that is better.

A hard-working Red-winged blackbird dad just in time for Father's Day!



I was in the kayak and could get quite close to them since they were so busy hunting to feed their broods. Came away with 10 or 12 good shots of both males and females hard at work.

>159 Bookmarque: and >175 Bookmarque: These are incredible photos! I've just found your thread - following it now if it means I get to see more amazing images like this. :) (We also share more than 300 books in common, so there's that too. 😊)

Thanks PW - I've been a photographer for all of my adult life and now I'm retired I have a lot of time to devote to it. If you find my old threads, you'll see another crap ton of photos.

>176 PlatinumWarlock: And every one is a winner! Strongly recommend that you go through Bookmarque's old threads, but you'll need time to appreciate all the pictures.

>176 PlatinumWarlock: Seconding >178 hfglen:  — I don't comment on Bookmarque's pictures because I've basically run out of superlatives.

>179 haydninvienna:
Same here. I just enjoy them in silence.

>175 Bookmarque: I love Red-winged blackbirds! That's a great shot.

>161 Bookmarque: I did find cuphea in the stores this weekend under the name Vermillionaire, I think it is that plant, there's also a pure white variety. Some annual salvias (not the usual red bedding ones) and Agastache also have very similar shaped flowers, though none quite so perfectly cylindrical.

Thanks everyone! I'm glad you enjoy them as much as I do taking them. Have a red-bellied woodpecker, my treat -



Yes! Vermillionaire is one of the trade names I've bought it under. I tried the white with purple rim variety a couple years ago and it proved not as popular, so this year I got a pink version. I hope you get frequent visitors!

But, but, but... The red-bellied woodpecker has a white tummy. In your photo, the only red visible sits on the crown of its head.

You can see a little of it here just under his feet between the breast and the coverts. Trouble with woodies is that so many of them have red heads that when you've named one that, you have to come up with other things for the rest!

Here is one of the female Red-winged blackbirds that I photographed the other day when I was out paddling a local lake -





The ladies of many species get overlooked by photographers because they don't have the same flashy feathers, but I really like taking time with them if they are cooperative, which these were. So preoccupied with foraging for the babies that they let me get quite close in the boat.

>186 Bookmarque: I know nothing about birds, I would have never guessed that was a Red-winged blackbird! Great pictures and thanks as always for the education.

>186 Bookmarque: She's quite pretty in her own way.

We get a good few blackbirds here. The boys are solid glossy black with yellow beaks. And they sing! But the girls are dull brown. I like them all the same.

Thanks folks! I am no bird expert, but I did observe a few things while watching several pairs try to keep up with the demands of the offspring. One is that they and the kids send communication calls to each other as the parents approach the nest with food. The other is that both males and females take breaks to feed themselves, groom or, in the case of males, yell a territorial call -



This boy was very close to the female above and may very well have been her mate.

>186 Bookmarque: Oh she's pretty!

Thanks Sakerfalcon - I think so, too. Many females have subtle markings and coloration that photographs very well as it does keeping them camouflaged while nesting.

>190 Bookmarque: Handsome bird!

Amazing photos and now videos! That chipmunk was super cute!

Another video link for you, this time of a flicker hunting for ants on the lawn, probably the mate of this girl -



And the video is here - https://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Video/Video/i-Jc4sNbK/A

It's just under 3 minutes.

That's lovely!

>195 Bookmarque: Great shot of one of my favorites birds. They love the suet I put out.

>195 Bookmarque: Very interesting, thank you.

Thanks guys. Flickers are so skittish that these are basically the only images I have of any. Meanwhile these girls keep showing up!





She looks like all sweetness and light, but she and the other females fight like crazy - not just chasing, but actually hitting each other. If you're close enough you can hear it. Crabby little birds.

>199 Bookmarque:
Great pictures. Thank you!

>199 Bookmarque: That bottom shot is AMAZING. Fantastic. (And as pgmcc said just above, thank you for sharing!)

>199 Bookmarque: Great pictures.

>199 Bookmarque: Oh, I just love these! Thank you so much for sharing them. :)

Thanks peeps. Looks like all the babies have fledged and there are more hummingbird spats as a result and about twice the population. Maybe if the weather improves I'll get more photos, but in the mean time a quick video of a dragonfly warming up -

https://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Video/Video/i-fBSc3g5/A

It's only about 1 minute long, but has some slow motion to really show what's happening.

>204 Bookmarque: Love that, and you have a lovely recorded voice.

>204 Bookmarque: Awesome, thank you, I've definitely never watched a dragonfly that up close and slow!

Thanks guys. Back in the day, I was told I give good phone so VO is no problem for me. Dragonflies are so cool and macro video is a new form for me so stay tuned for a tiny beetle having a bath.

>199 Bookmarque: those photos are stunning! The detail of the plumage is so clear!

>204 Bookmarque: And I love the dragonfly! Whenever I see them they are all warmed up and darting around way too fast for me to photograph.

>204 Bookmarque: What a cool video! Thanks for sharing this - it was fun to learn a little about dragonflies too. :)

Thanks guys. The girls are still busy at the flowers, but the males have all disappeared except for new fledglings. Too hot to sit on the deck today, but maybe next week I'll get another chance.

The dragonfly was cool to have the opportunity to film - something I can only do when they're too cold to fly. Even though I do exploit that condition, I always put them in the sun or a place of safety when I'm done. This little beetle though was pretty relaxed and could have flown away any time as you can see when it opens the elytra to spread its wings.



Video is here - https://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Video/Video/i-CLxpfsH/A

What a cool video!

Thanks. Bugs aren't everyone's cuppa, but I thought this one was rather pretty and doing a cute thing helps, too. My current project involves a spider with a June bug in her web and all the work it was to get it trapped, wrapped and prepped for lunch. I filmed her over about an hour as she took many breaks. The beetle was so much bigger than she that it was no wonder.

In the mean time, here's a turtle I hung out with for a while yesterday -



I believe it to be a female and she is shedding scutes because she's growing. Scutes are the individual plates that make up a turtle's carapace. Snakes and lizards skin sheds as a single piece (or close to it), but turtle shells are different and so they break off in bits. I filmed her, too, and she did the cutest scratching when she had an itch. Painted turtles are WAY less skittish than snappers, oddly.

>213 Bookmarque: I love turtles/terrapins/tortoises! This is a beautiful photo, with the pink buds and the reflection.

I love them, too, so I can't resist them when they're so beautiful posed and perched. The flowers are actually bunches of very tiny ones that are all blooming, some well past their prime. It's called Water smartweed and is one of a large family of smart weed flowers and attracts a lot of pollinators. Here's a close up with a hornet having a feast -

>213 Bookmarque: Great picture and thanks for the turtle information. More stuff I didn't know.

>215 Bookmarque: Water smartweed. What an interesting botanical. I am intrigued.

Awesome photos, as usual, especially that turtle. Like >214 Sakerfalcon: I have such a soft spot for them.

>213 Bookmarque: How many people can make a turtle look elegant and lovely in their photos? As much as I like turtles, I've not seen many as lovely shot as yours.

>213 Bookmarque: I love the composition of the turtle photo. All the blooms are so pretty! His little pond is turtle paradise :)

Thanks peeps. Smartweed has many species I believe - Lady's Thumb is one of them and is considered basically a ditch weed.

Today I have a story with some pictures so I hope you will indulge me -

The other day I noticed a bee preparing to roost for the night on a black eyed susan in the yard. I love it when they do this and so I took the opportunity to photograph her. She’s about 1/2 an inch long and is an Orange-belted bumblebee, a species I see often. If she’d picked a flower slightly to the left, she’d have been more protected by the rain we had overnight, but she didn’t so ended up pretty wet. It was cool and overcast the next day, so I breathed on her a bit to warm her up and she moved around and fed for a while.

Hoping that more warmth would get her to fly once she dried off, I put her on my hand for a bit and she perked up. So much so that she became agitated and fearful, putting her middle legs up in a defensive posture. Feeling bad, I moved her to a more sheltered flower and visited her during the day to photograph and film her. She fed on nectar periodically the whole time, but didn’t fly. So she spent another night on the flower. By this time I was a little worried that it was her time to die even though I know only some live longer than a few weeks and none over winter at all. Bumblebee colonies only produce queens for over wintering and all workers and drones die in the fall. I’ve found and photographed dead bees on flowers in the autumn so it isn’t a new thing for me, but always makes me sad.

Sorry so long, but I felt a connection with this little one and was surprised to find an empty flower the next morning. A little examination proved she was under the petals and, relieved, I moved her to a clover blossom in the sun. She perked up and clung onto it and when I checked her later she was gone. Back to her family.

Sunday -


Monday-


Bumblebees nest underground and take over burrows already dug by chipmunks or other creatures if possible. The queen lays her eggs and provisions the larvae cells with food before sealing them over. When they hatch they are almost all female and immediately begin gathering food for themselves, the queen and the eggs the queen lays. Eventually a few males hatch as well and will mate with one of the daughters that is fed and nurtured to make her a fertile female (queen) or one from another colony. I don’t believe the original queen over winters again, but she may since I don’t think the new queen uses the same nest. I really should look this stuff up. They fascinate me and I love them.

Tuesday-

>221 Bookmarque: I am sure you hear people say this all the time, but your work is amazing. That you took the time to care for this bee as well as photograph her says so much! (Also, how did you know about the defensive position that she adopted? Is this something you picked up from reading or from observation?)

>221 Bookmarque: What a pretty little bee! I appreciate the story to go with the photos. You could almost make a children's story of it. Instead of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, it could be the Very Tired Bee.

>221 Bookmarque: Spectacular photos. Good for you. It's the least we can do, right? I also feel protective of some bugs, especially bees and other pollinators, lady bugs and praying mantises.

Thanks ladies! She was so cute and vulnerable that I had to keep a watch on her. Luckily for both of us the crab spiders that lurk on these flowers are microscopic compared to her so posed no threat. A big one could easily have subdued her.

I've petted and watched bumbles closely for years and have seen them do the keep away gesture many times. It's always the middle set of legs and each tucked its head down while doing it. I haven't had it confirmed by any experts, but to my eyes it's a defensive move as they don't have anything else except the stinger and deploying that is only done as a last resort because it kills them.

The rough cut of the film I'm putting together of her is done. Just gotta keep working on it to the end. Then I'll post a link. Mostly she was only feeding with occasional antennae and leg grooming in between.

>221 Bookmarque: That's a great story to go with the amazing pictures, thank you.

I love the photostory! Bees are precious.

Thanks Karlstar & Sakerfalcon - she was a great model for me.

Here is the finished video - https://wickeddark.smugmug.com/Video/Video/i-Jvk3Szm/A

It's just under 5 minutes with yours truly narrating.

What a wonderful story! The pictures are amazing as well. A couple of friends and I noticed very few bees this spring. :(

>228 Bookmarque: Great video!

Is it time for a new thread?

Is it getting tough to load? I don't have wonky internet anymore so haven't noticed.

Thanks catzteach - I love my little girls and always try for pictures of them, even the tiny sweat bees that are barely 5mm long. Sorry about the lack of bees in your area; they are so sensitive to environmental changes that we don't know what causes a lot of their population fluctuations. This year the honeybees that were around briefly seem to be gone again, but there are plenty of others luckily.

>231 Bookmarque: My browser jumps to the end of the thread for a split second, then bounces in stages about 2/3 way back to the start as it loads pictures, which I find annoying.