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all creatures great and small

birds and bees,flowers and trees, dogs and cats and things like that...
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DSC_8056 butterfly on a cone flower
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DSC_8056 butterfly on a cone flower

  • dsc_7116 keeping a watchful eye
  • DSC_7494 birds with a feather flock together
  • The warm afternoon sun starting to ease its' way down in the sky saturated the pond in Central park, creating scene that I found pleasing.
  • dsc_7719 summer scene at the pond
  • dsc_7790 fishing
  • dsc_7792 fishing
  • DSC_8047 bumblebee on a cone flower
  • DSC_8056 butterfly on a cone flower
  • DSC_8058 butterfly on a cone flower
  • dsc_8129 birds eye view
  • boy I'd really like to know what type of bird this is...
  • I'd never say that my Sigma 17-70mm macro has replaced my 16-85mm nikkor as my favorite street lens, since the 16-85mm has a larger field of view on both ends. But as an all purpose lens this one excels at everything I ask it to do. Trading my first all purpose Sigma lens (my 18-50mm f2.8) proved to be a good move as the former was only sharp at recording macro shots. With this one my portraits and landscapes all get captured with fine detail and now I slip it my bag whenever I have need for both my 105mm micro and 16-85mm but don't have space enough in my bag for both.<br /> <br /> Today as I was walking by the rear of the Boathouse at the Lullwater pond I spotted this wonderfully colorful scene and quickly reached for my 17-70mm zoom. Even though it didn't provide me with the reach my 105mm micro would have given me, it's image quality was good enough to allow me to heavily crop down to where I wanted and still give me excellent results. It is a very good lens indeed.
  • dsc_8212 swallowtail feeding
  • dsc_8227 swallowtail feeding
  • DSC_0401 spring scene at the Botanical gardens
  • DSC_0400 spring scene at the Botanical gardens
  • DSC_0406 sparrow on a rope
  • DSC_0453 camouflage
  • DSC_0464 sunning on a rock
  • On this sunny April day I happened to be off and having spent a day off the week before at the Bronx botanical gardens taking pictures of all the spring flora, I came here to Clove Lakes hoping to capture some spring fauna instead. Indeed I did capture some shots of cormorants and painted turtles in the early morning light, though none particularly lit my fire, so I kept trekking through the woods hoping something a bit more interesting might cross my path. <br /> <br /> About 40 minutes later something did, however it was not up in the trees singing from a branch, nor in the lake hunting for it's breakfast on long slender legs that kept it's body dry above the shallows. Instead I spotted something dark and large under the bushes, too big to be a squirrel. Being careful not to spook whatever it was into flight, I carefully stalked it hoping for a better look. When it finally came out into a clearing I saw it was a turtle, but not one of the painted turtles that inhabit the lake in very large numbers. This one was easily 4 times the size of any of even the biggest of it's cousins. This one was a snapper at least 2 ft. long from head to tail minimum. I quickly took out my camera and attached my longest zoom, to give it as much distance as possible and still fill the frame up with it if I chose to. <br /> <br /> I've seen some here at the lake from time to time as big or even bigger, but always buried in muddy water and un-photographable. And I didn't want to get too close and send it scurrying into the lake before I got some good shots of it, as slow as it was it was still getting pretty close to the muddy shores of the lake, and in a minute or two I knew it was going to slip into the muddy waters of the lake and I would loose any chance to get a good shot of it.
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