Jewel in Greenville

While My Mr Mallory and I explored Greenville, South Carolina (Thanks, Papa Charlie!) we came upon a museum devoted to the history of the South, particularly the late 1880s. This museum seemed to me to want to burst at the seams because of its numerous items on exhibit, and the friendly, passionate volunteer said they had even more items in storage. Of note is its pre-1770s piano. They restored the piano and now play it once per year at their fundraiser, "Christmas in Dixie." It seems worth visiting there just to hear the piano!
Passionate though he seemed about the museum, the volunteer did not allow me to take pictures except those of My Mr Mallory; so, to see pictures of the piano, do visit the museum's web site at http://www.confederatemuseum.org/Christmas.html
And here are the only pictures I took of the jewel in Greenville:

Friends of Wild Bird Rescue

"Grackle," BirdManBob, and "Duckie" posed for me after their show at the Kemp Center for the Arts. Cherie and Glen McBride donated ten percent of their sales to Wild Bird Rescue, Inc. In the photo, they hold the original water color painting of four owls donated, too, for auction at WBR's next fundraising event in March.

State Representative David Farabee is WBR's guest of honor, March 26th. In the meantime, Missi's mom, below, left, donated three bird watching kits to the school district. Two students from one of the local schools built and donated boxes for WBR to transport large predator birds to other facilities. And Missi's mom visits her every day at the center to feed her and train her as avian ambassador.

Pretty Bad Pictures

I show below some pretty, but bad pictures I took today. I'd like to exemplify the difficulty in taking good photographs and in this small way show my great respect for the photographers out there who do a great job at their task.

Loggerhead Shrike.

Northern Shovelers.

A flock of Pintail ducks. 

Pintail ducks taking flight.

Prairie dog town.

Panorama of prairie dog town.

Turtle peaking through the surface. 

Post Processing in the Digital Darkroom

Another Emil Hermann painted appeared from nowhere, found in someone's bathroom. It's condition seemed dismal, for it had cracks and a deep gash across the center. I am not skilled in the digital darkroom, but finished a passable rendering of what the painting must have looked like approximately one hundred years ago, when Hermann finished painting the ship scene. Below I show the original. 

Into Greenville Airport

It was a perfect day for flying with clear skies. That's Papa Charlie in his truck approaching the plane.

Another airplane takes off. 

Right seat view. I stopped the propellers at f2.8.

If you squint, you can perceive the Red River meandering across the middle of the picture. 

I took this picture at f11 to show movement in the propellers. 

The Smokies begin to appear over the nose of the King Air, with scattered puffy clouds to embellish the picture.

Greenville Airport, in South Carolina, in sight.

View before landing. 

I Am Ready for Spring

Mid-February and I feel excited about seeing springtime finally arrive in a couple of months. We have had more snow this winter than we see in years, no, decades, and it's been cold, windy, and damp. I fired up the old Mac to look for photographs from the past, and I found, delightedly, pictures I took on a hike through the Wichita Mountains Wildife Refuge. Above, two Eastern Collarded Lizards soak up some sun's rays -- an activity I'm SO ready to do after all our cloudy days.

Canada Goose.

Dragonfly.

Sometimes when we take macro pictures, we do not see the number of insects on a flower. Here, I count six; you probably cannot see them well in this resolution. 

Great Backyard Bird Count

Among the usual gang in the cove at Wild Bird Rescue Center, Penny, Terry, June, and I spotted a Cooper's hawk, Pintails, Cedar Waxwings, Buffleheads, a Winter wren, and a Yellow-throated vireo. The usual gang consisted of hundreds of pelicans and cormorants, coots, or mudhens, Canada geese, Redwing blackbirds, robins, and starlings. Oh, and we saw three Great Blue herons. We also saw a large hawk that we could not identify right away, so books lay open on my table, and I'm sure Penny's at home with her own books, attempting to discover which variation of hawk we saw hovering overhead.

Goose prints in the mud.

Racoon pawprints.

In the Cove

Pelicans and cormorants took flight when they caught me 

approaching the cove at Wild Bird Rescue Center.

A cormorant in flight.

I wish the birds, such as the Red-tailed Hawk pictured above,

would fly at me and above me, and not away from me. 

Makes better pictures. Do tell them if you ever have a chance.

The Great Blue Heron in the cove finally caught by my lens. 

Great Blue Heron flying away. 

A cormorant taking off. I'm paying attention to how they land. Maybe I'll learn a few things.

A pelican takes off. I wish I could say they are landing, but that takes more dedication 

from the part of a photographer than I am willing to undertake, i.e. rising 

at four o'clock in the morning to arrive in the cove before sunrise 

and before the birds discover my presence. 

Nearby, the Red-tailed Hawk returned to his tree and watched us. 

Just outside BirdManBob's window, two meadowlarks 

and two white-winged doves sat on a cold wire, roosting for the evening,

and, I'm sure, hoping for him to bring seed to the feeders in the morning. 

Third Five Inches Plus Snow

We've had fifteen inches of snow this winter, which is unusual for this part of the country.

Hodge seems to enjoy walking around (and running) in the snow.

Winter Lion.

 

Kodiak Bear belly-deep in snow.

My Mr Mallory's third time this winter shoveling snow.