The ground is covered with bluets, or quaker ladies this mothers day weekend. A perfect tribute  to all moms!

This eastern pine elfin came out of the woods to feast on the mass of dandelions in our backyard this year. The grass is quite tall, and full of bees, butterflies, and tiny Savannah Sparrows.

I have never been sure if these are really wild, or if they escaped a garden that used to be here. However they got here, I love them and look forward to the first blossoms each year.

One of the many bees working the flowers this week. A few bumblebees were so large that the dandelions bent to the ground when they landed. More photos coming  later.

I am still trying to get a good shot of a red winged blackbird. So, late Sunday afternoon I took a walk down to the marsh at the far edge of the woods. The red wings were there, but too far away to get a good photo. While I was standing there just enjoying the sound of the blackbirds, a couple of tiny chickadees flew in and began to do acrobatics in the reeds in front of me. A little further away, this eastern phoebe hunted.

In a tree high above the marsh some sort of hawk watched over the water. Thank goodness, it did not catch anything while I was watching. It finally moved to the other side of the water away from a flock of crows, making their usual noise in the trees near me. I don’t usually see this much activity in the morning when I go. Guess I need to change my walking schedule. Spring turkey season is going on now, so I will be staying out of the woods for the next couple of weeks.

I saw a moose in the field behind the house this week, too. Sure don’t want to run into it in the woods, no matter how good the photos might be.

I snapped this photo out the van window last week, while we were driving along the back road between the Freeport dock, and the town of Freeport, Maine. The scenery was wonderful, and the day was beautiful and bright. It was a great day to be out with a camera. Sometimes I get good shots shooting  this way, and sometimes, not. But what the heck, may as  well try.
Although this shot was blurry, I loved the colors and the reflection in the water, so I decided to see if I could do something with it. Using GIMP, I was able to salvage a good enough photo to use for a greeting card. First, I tried the oil painting filter, but lost a lot of tree detail, and the direction of the grass with that. After trying a fw more filters, I  settled with cartoon  which gave this look, one that I am happy with.

The photos from my Nikon d200 are so large that I have to keep the number stored in my iPhoto under 300 or it runs really slow. While I was getting ready to save 150 of this month’s shots on a CD, I decided to gather some of the bird photos and make them into one post. The individual photos do not click open.

April is a great for photographing birds since the trees are still bare of leaves up here in Maine. Lots of spring birds have arrived, and even more are passing through. All of these shots were taken in the yard.

Sisah, here are the names: top row, American Robin, Northern Flicker, European Starling, second row, White  Throated Sparrow, Chickadee, Chipping Sparrow, third row, Northern Mockingbird, Mourning Dove, and another shot of a mockingbird.

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Thanks to Karen at An Artist’s Garden for awarding me the Arte Pico Award. Please check out her site to read more about the award, and look at the other blogs she chose.