House Wren

Lovely little bird; never seen them before.

Marvelous series!

Thanks for sharing and also for the note, Ron!

tout mignon

Adorable oiseau.On dirait qu'il pose specialement pour vous..!

Sehr schön!

Very beautiful !

ein wunderbares Vogelportrait.

Oh Ron, this trio of shots is marvelous. Gorgeous bokeh too, which beautifully enhances this darling hen! (*giggle* omg how I love to call female birds hens--which they are of course--because I think of chickens every time...our darling Chicken...she's a hen too! BWAH HAHAHAHAH!!!) FOCUS, JANET! Oh yeah...heh...anyway, I really love these shots...the jaundiced, extremely unimpressed eyeing of you and your camera is pretty hilarious, I must say! *snicker* I remember you telling me about the birds in the nest boxes last spring, how nice to see your photography of one resident now! Wonderful. A fine example of a "drab" bird which is gorgeous because of the fine photography! Nice.

I see you've dropped another comment on a different waterfall picture, thank you! :) And I agree with you whole-heartedly about HDR. Not A Fan. You are looking at a few of the only ones that I've bothered with officially using dedicated software. I can't stand overdone HDR and so if I do it, it's as subtle as possible...and STILL, I think the pictures I've done are mostly kind of icky and overprocessed. In the end, not worth the bother. However, my Topaz Labs filter plugins include some HDR choices which I quite like. A HUGE number of my pictures have this filter applied, but only rarely is it at 100% opacity. I usually knock the effect down to about 50%, and the result is more like a nice filter, not HDR. Ups the color, sharpness, contrast and so forth but isn't disgustingly in your face, neon puke. Heh. I aim for tastefully applied enhancement, not Vegas Show Girl Glow In The Dark Barf! :D :D

I'm really happy you discovered the Red Blanket Hike folder--that really was a pretty spectacular array of waterfalls. We've never been back but due to the extreme remoteness of the trail, I'm going to guess that it's not been repaired. Who knows though? I would love to revisit the place, it was a trove for super cool nature shots of all sorts and how nice it would be to retake the pictures I have with my Canon. Ah well...like you say, too many locations we want to visit, not enough time! :D

Hope you guys are doing ok in this story weather--a total bummer that you couldn't get yourselves stocked up beforehand, but perhaps you're supposed to be creative with your meals to get through some of your older foodstuffs? Steve will be heading out in the next hour or so before it really gets nasty out.

Good luck on your meeting. Your dedication is awesome. Wow, Nancy is certainly getting the dental work done--I know she's been in and out for appointments over the past 6 months or so. Steve too, needs a lot of work done and is planning to set up some appointments now that we have insurance again, hurray! (I have great teeth, even the dentists are amazed how well they are doing at this time. No where perfect but not bad. Receded gumlines, some fillings but I do something Steve doesn't. I have a dental tool which I'll use to clean the tarter off my teeth while we're watching a show. That bit of scraping every week or so has kept my teeth in good shape!

Now more comments from the other post you left...where was I...ah yes!

...more notions than a sewing basket..." ROFLMAO *rolls around giggling* That's so funny, Ron, you punk! :D :D I do try to follow up on interests and try not to pile up too much, but sort of failing lately. Heh...so sue me...can't help dabbling a bit. CAN'T STAND being a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None, so I'm carefully directing my laser-pointer of focus to do my best to get a proper grasp of my new metal detecting and now rockhounding hobbies. I absolutely REFUSE to dabble like the "normal" folk who won't even TRY to learn rudimentary information about a hobby they're in. So, I have a new Rockhounding book I downloaded which will teach me geology and basic stuff, and some id books of rocks and minerals in the area/pnw...I know the priceless rewards that come from getting at least a good foundation of knowledge in your back pocket on an interest, so I'll get that! :)

Oh wow, sorry to hear about the hernia. Yeah, you need to keep a careful eye on that, no bones about it. Back when I was about 19 I got one on the left side of my groin, just below my hip bone. I never had it operated on and to this day I'm extremely careful of it. Once in a while it "pops out"...a sort of quarter-sized bulge which I will flat-handedly push back into place. Doesn't hurt and I do not strain-EVER-in that spot, for fear of nasty repercussions. It makes itself known sometimes when I'm "bloaty", but otherwise it's good. I'm lucky that it doesn't cause me problems but still, it's Always On My Mind if exercise might make it an issue.

Glad you enjoyed revisiting the picture of my rock opal necklace. Tried to find the picture of the one Steve has but no dice. They are priceless, unique beauties and so different than the normally finished stones. I am not surprised Nancy loves her ring--I would love to see a picture please! I also love the ring I got; both of these are the perfect keepsakes from AU!

Isn't that something that you have been to Cairns too. Do you remember all of the freakin' fruit bats?! OMG they filled the trees and...who knew that bats can direct their poop? EWWWW!!! And, OMG GTFOut of here, we've gotten too close!! And the NOISE! We learned to walk wide berths around the trees we could hear were filled with poop-filled bats just waiting to aim and fire! :D OMG ROFLMAO I'm such a fool! :D But seriously, that was an experience. On top of the fact that I simply ADORE fruit bats. They are like big puppy dogs and I just want to cuddle them and cover each with kisses...those darling faces!! And adorable wingies! How I wish I could hold and love one, I just love them so much. Even the fact that they only wanted to cover me with poo could not take away my adoration of these marvelous, noisy bats!

Ok, you just HAVE to see this video...I nearly explode from overexposure to CUTE!
youtu.be/H41_2fCrnI4

And if that's not enough for you, look at this search on YouTube...and this is just on the babies.https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=baby+fruit+bat
I am in love. That is all. :)

Anyway, AU is amazing. So glad you have been there and understand what I'm talking about. Have not been up to Port Douglas but sure would love to go. Steve and I did a 10-day live-aboard dive trip on the GBR but the weather was bad and the fish were hiding and bad visability too...it was a bummer but still nice. Have you been scuba diving before? Snorkeling is a very nice substitute but man...there is NOTHING like being a visitor to a fishy nursery in a gorgeous coral reef!

Ok, that's it from my end! Have a great day!!

That video of the bat is not good.

Excellent Ron...bravo mon ami

Tout beau l'oiseau....bien présenté !

Oh! What a pretty little bird! Excellent plumage detail you captured here, Ron!
Gorgeous main photo and PiPs!

Admired in:
www.ipernity.com/group/tolerance

Wonderful shots!

Admired in:
www.ipernity.com/group/tolerance

qu'il est mignon

She is just so cute. I pity the sparrows. ;-)

So tiny! Lovely images, Ron.

Winterkoninkje ?

It's very similar, Fred.