Duck, Duck, Turkey

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone. Gobble till you wobble.. or in moderation, whatever suits you.

Teri 📷

Male Wood Duck

Blue Wing Teal

Gobbler

Dawn of the Duck

Doesn’t quite sound like a scary movie title; unless of course you think of Monday’s as a bit scary. This is just one little mallard greeting the dawn of a new day. I hope your day goes swimmingly as well.

Teri 📷

Duck, Duck, Goose

Since starting bird photography in earnest when the world was in lock down, I’ve developed a new photography skill set. Let me rephrase that, I am continuously working on improving my bird photography skills. That’s a bit more accurate…

The app E-bird is my best friend for bird photography. I have progressed from barely noticing birds (let alone what species) to being able to tell some just from their call. That’s mostly for a Bluejay or an Osprey but let’s just say I’ve gotten better at being able to identify birds without pulling out the app.

Mentioning the app, it has a cool feature where if you hear the bird but can’t see it, you let the phone listen and providing there isn’t a lot of other noise around, it will identify the bird for you. I’ve also learned that the color of a bird changes depending on not just being male or female but also if they are mature or juvenile and if it’s breeding season or not.

Nature is so amazing.

Teri 📷

Mr. and Mrs. Ring billed

Pintails

Greylag Geese

Lunar Eclipse

We interrupt the previous post for this breaking news image. Was that dramatic enough? Anyway, this morning was the longest lunar eclipse this century. Actually, according to moon.nasa.gov…

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth, and Moon align so that the Moon passes into Earth’s shadow. In a total lunar eclipse, the entire Moon falls within the darkest part of Earth’s shadow, called the umbra. In this eclipse, up to 99.1% of the Moon’s disk will be within Earth’s umbra.

It was touch and go there for a moment as the clouds covered the sky completely by bedtime but when the alarm went off at 3am this morning I bundled up and went outside in the backyard to see if all was well. Big Dipper? Check! Other stars? Check! Oh look, the moon is eclipsing! The sky was absolutely clear.

Really bundled up (it was 28F out there) set the camera on the tripod, lens zoomed to 560mm and auto timer ready to go. It was pretty amazing to watch and I learned that the moon moves faster than one thinks when you are trying to photograph it especially when one hand is going numb from the cold even with gloves on. Either I need to invest in some hand warmers or get different gloves.

Anyway, here it is, taken at 4:05am.

Teri 📷

Hey!

It’s hay! Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Teri 📷

Duck, Duck, Goose

Teri 📷

Male Mallard

Male Northern Shoveler

Canadian Geese

Autumn leaves have fallen down

Autumn leaves have fallen down, fallen down on the ground. Autumn leaves have fallen down, my fair foliage.

Teri 🍁

The seasonal colors of maple leaves.

An oak amongst the maples… and green at that too!

An entire ecosystem going on here.

Selfie?

Autumn is sailing away

Teri ⛵

Entertainment at the Ohio Renaissance Festival

This weekend is the last for the festival; where did the time go? As it is Halloween this weekend who knows what kinds of costumes/creatures may come out to celebrate. But for this post I want to share with you that there was even more to experience at the festival like the entertainers and their shows.

These two are the Kamikaze Fireflies. A variety show team that received a standing ovation on America’s got talent and holds four Guinness World Records; one being for having the most flaming hula hoops on the body at once.

More entertainers….

There were sing along shows in the pubs (some got a bit bawdy) and then there was this at the Muditorium. They were putting on a morality play about Dante’s trip through hell. Here, his tour guideVirgil (disguised as a devil) was “curing” him of the sin of lust. Brrrrrrr……

There were magic shows, belly dancers, minstrels, the barbarian battles (of course) and the wonderful jousters. The jousting knights did both acts of skill where they aimed to knock down targets while in full gallop and then, of course, go at each other with their lances.

Fare thee well, Renaissance Festival. Until we meet again next year.

Teri

Food and Drink at the Renaissance Festival

This is just a wee sampling of all the goodies they have at the festival; this upcoming weekend being the final weekend of it until next year. I’m already contemplating what to wear for next year! There were wandering vendors that sold pretzels, pickles and kettle corn. Oh yes! That kettle corn.

Of course there were stationary shoppes where one could get things like scotched eggs, mushrooms, mac n cheese in a bowl, fish and chips, ice cream, steak on a stick, steak and ale pies, pizza (that’s not very medieval is it?) and of course…..

This place sold the best legges in my opinion. Very tasty and meaty.

One cannot eat without drink so there were many options to quench your thirst. Soda pop, bottled water, flavored teas (that mango green tea was delightful), cider, wine and mead. With many places you had the option of filling your flagon with your drink of choice or you could go for samples. I went for the mead sampling.

Aye! Tis a fine festival to attend. Eat, drink and be merry….

Fare thee well – Teri