Flowers

These pictures were taken on July 30th, 2009 in our back yard. The rose is a Peace Rose. I don't know the names of the other two flowers. Taking pictures of flowers is new to me and requires a different technique from bird photography, but I find that some of the techniques don't change, such as compose your picture before you shoot. What I was attempting to do here was to get a shot of a pretty flower and have a fairly dark out of focus background that wouldn't detract from the flower. To do this I used a flash with a Better Beamer to concentrate the light on the flower and under expose the background. For these, I was shooting at F7.1 but this caused parts of the flowers to be out of focus. Today I tried shots at F16 and F22. Hopefully this will achieve more in focus flowers but this made it tough to get a nice homogenious out of focus background (good boca). I'll probably post the results of that tomorrow. Double click on these photos and you'll find that they are very sharp and you can really see the detail and beauty of these flowers.

House Wren

These pictures were taken on July 21st & 22nd, 2009. This little guy was just singing his heart out. He was making a nest in a bird house we had put up and he would gather twigs and then sing, sing, sing. If you don't have a Wren bird house I suggest you get one. They have a beautiful song and it's quite loud for such a little guy.

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail

These pictures were taken on July 22nd, 2009 in our back yard. They are a large butterfly measuring almost 4 inches and are one of the most common butterflies in Canada. Have you ever noticed how butterflies fly in a zig zag pattern and wonder why? If you think about it, their main predator is birds and if you look at butterflies, many have bite marks taken out of their wings. My feeling is that the zig zag pattern is to make it more difficult for birds to catch them.

Monarch Butterfly

These pictures were taken on July 17th, 2009 in our back yard. Monarch butterflies are the best known North American butterfly. Every spring they migrate north and in the fall those born in the East return to Mexico and those in the west return to California. One generation does not do the whole trip as their normal lifespan is about two months. Therefore it takes 3 or 4 generations to complete the cycle. Those that make it to the over wintering site go into a life cycle phase called diapause. In this cycle they live for approximately 7 months and will not lay eggs until they leave the over wintering site.

Goldfinch

This picture was taken on July 18th, 2009 not far from our home.

Mourning Dove

This picture was taken on July 21st, 2009 in our back yard.