Kora, a red panda that escaped from her enclosure at the Columbus Zoo last year, and her cubs napped in a tree February 22.
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| One of the kids stirred ... |
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| and managed to get below mom. |
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| They climbed down to the next crotch ... |
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| and down to a walkway. |
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| The red panda enclosure from around the corner |
Last spring I took pictures of backyard flowers to send to the the missing gardener. I made a post out of them and included a couple shots of amaryllises. The amaryllis farm is operating again, and I have a new lens.
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| There are four pots, each with more than one bulb. Each bulb sends up one more more stalks, and each stalk usually has three or four blooms. Some stalks are still growing, and the missing gardener estimates 41 blooms in all, much to her delight. |
I now have that macro lens that eluded me earlier this year so I can get shots like these without cropping:
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As I used the lens for the first time, I wondered how the heck I was going to take pictures of bugs. The depth of field is so thin that I could not hold the camera steady enough to maintain manual focus on the flower's stamen. The borrowed tripod came to the rescue, though. (Manual focus is recommended by whichever expert's advice I read.)
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| f/8, 1/500s, ISO 560 |
The depth of field can be changed by changing the aperture. Above, the aperture is f/8, which is toward the middle of the range. Below, the aperture is f/19, which is fairly small. A larger f-number means a smaller aperture and a smaller aperture means a larger depth of field. Below, background is not in focus, but it's more in focus than in the photo above.
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| f/19, 1/90s, ISO 560 |
To maintain the same exposure when shrinking the aperture, a slower shutter is required. In this case, the shutter went from 1/500s to 1/90s.
I don't know how this will work with moving insects, tripod or handheld, manual or automatic focus, but it will be fun to try.
The Ohio Bird Sanctuary cares for raptors and has a walk-through songbird aviary.
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| The rare ring-billed gull songbird |
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| mourning dove |
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| You know how I like cedar waxwings. |
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| This is an African or a Eurasian collared dove. I'll be danged if I can tell the difference. |
Some years ago, the missing gardener and I visited the Sanctuary. We went into the aviary and learned we could buy mealworms in the office. On our way back to the aviary from the office, we learned that blue jays recognize little white cups because the jays were hanging on the inside of the mesh, waiting for us.
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| A jay is curious about the missing gardener's coat. I like jays because of their beauty and attitude. |
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| This jay takes food, and the visitor asks it if it's hiding food in her sleeve. |
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| A jay hammers a seed. |
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| I think this jay has a mealworm. |
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| A jay perches. |
The missing gardener and I toss peanuts to chipmunks through an open window in our dinette. One year, a blue jay noticed and swooped down to get a nut before the chipmunk could. We took to first tossing a peanut onto the roof of the adjacent porch for the jay and then giving a peanut to the chipmunk. A little while later, being a smart bird, it trained us: It perched on the fence outside our dining room window and stared at us until we went through the kitchen to the dinette and deposited a peanut on the roof.
The missing gardener and I visited the Ohio Bird Sanctuary February 27th. There is a songbird aviary, but the focus is raptors that have been injured or otherwise could not survive in the wild. Here are some of them.
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| Ruby, a red-tailed hawk, was a first-year in 2007 when she was shot for taking chickens. |
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| Ruby |
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| Saint Alice is a bald eagle that was hatched in 2018. She contracted West Nile virus and has impaired vision as a result. It takes five years to develop a white head and tail. |
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| Pierce, a broad-winged hawk, apparently had contact with a power line that affected his vision and thinking. |
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| A barred owl, Apollo or Barkley. Apollo imprinted on people after falling from his nest, and Barkley was tangled in a barbed-wire fence. I hear barred owls in my neighborhood, and I saw a silhouette. Once. |
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| Cairo, a barn owl, was found starving on the ground and has questionable vision. |
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| Blaze, a peregrine falcon, was hatched in 2014 atop the Rhodes Tower in Columbus. She has a shoulder injury. |
