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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_1200 scenes from Butterfly Gardens
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DSC_1200 scenes from Butterfly Gardens

Butterfly Gardenspringmonarch butterflybutterfliesBronx ZoonaturezooNYCinsectssld3

  • When I came here to the Butterfly Gardens the month before, it was my first visit to the Bronx Zoo since I moved to Staten Island over 20 years ago. I didn't even realize this exhibit existed, and I didn't bring any of my closeup lenses with me. So on this visit with my bag full of Micro lenses in toe, I came loaded for bear.
  • DSC_1200 scenes from Butterfly Gardens
  • DSC_1259 scenes from Butterfly Gardens
  • Another beautiful and interesting inhabitant of the Bronx zoo's butterfly garden. This is one of the most unusually colored butterfly I've seen live. Does anyone know the species?
  • My old manual focus 200mm Micro lens has captured several of the sharp shots in this gallery, but in this case it accidentally created art, for as the shutter speed I chose was high enough to freeze most of the butterflies moving as they flittered about, this one trying to balance itself on it's precarious footing, beat its' wings at a rate that out paced my shutter. When I looked at the shot later I rather liked the effect.
  • DSC_3739 Bell flower
  • DSC_3879 little darlings
  • A nice little late day scene at the Koi pond at Rockefeller park.
  • DSC_ 4212 families convene at the watering hole
  • I kept saying all that practice at the back of the ferry shooting gulls was going to pay off eventually. It's no jaw dropper but I'm improving.
  • DSC_4565 great white egret
  • DSC_4592 great white egret
  • The chase
  • After seeing this heron here for a couple of days it moved on, and I haven't seen it here since. I believe the larger fishing birds cycle through the numerous lakes that dot the Tri-state area. Guessing it was going to leave any day now I devoted this day to tracking it down, and after much effort succeeded. Eventually it or one of it's friends will take its' turn hunting here for a few days, and our chase will begin anew.
  • This shot has long been one of my most popular photo's. Many times have I tried to capture a shot of a bird taking off from it's perch or stream. And every last one of them resulted in half a fuzzy bird, or just as often no bird at all - till now. The only thing that kept this shot from being a home run was the heavy back lighting that resulted I the cardinals face coming out almost black. But for the last year and a half I've been going over all my shots here on Smugmug now that I finally own some top flight editing software, giving my photo's often a dazzling redo. <br /> <br /> My scenic gallery was first on my list, and now with that finished it was on to this gallery of which I'm about a third of the way through. This old favorite was the latest shot to get retouched, and thanks to the Nik software suite as well as Imagenomic's 'Noiseware professional' it turned out I hit that home run after all.
  • After taking his bath, that cardinal flew off into this tree to dry off, and give me another chance to photograph him.
  • DSC_6340 robin's nest (TF)_DxO
  • DSC_6345 robin's nest
  • I came here to the Botanical Gardens on this warm summer day, to capture shots of birds bathing at the waterfall that runs over rocks not more than a few yards from this tree. But just like the month before at Snug Harbor in Staten Island, my eye caught a glimpse of movement in a tree in front of me and instead of capturing birds bathing, I ended up getting shots of birds feeding instead.
  • Back in May, I encountered another robin's nest at Snug Harbor in Staten Island that was very well hidden inside the branches of a pine tree. I was there for more than an hour trying to get one clear shot of the nest. Despite the offerings of the grounds keeper there to cut back some of the branches for me, I felt the birds wishes to remain obscure should have been respected.<br /> <br /> Now a month later the karma that flows through God's universe rewarded me for my understanding by giving me yet another family of robin's to discover, and this time I had a clear shot of the nest.
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