Sunday, January 18

Pretty slow week. Thursday we went to Port Huron for a project Lise is working on along the St. Clair River. What do an outdoor classroom area, train ferry, some pilings, native plant plantings, a sturgeon statue, a horse statue, the river rats club house and a retired navy boat have in common? I don’t know either but Lise has to tie them together in a brochure. That’s why she’s paid the big bucks.

The outdoor classroom area.

The train ferry.

The pilings.

The native plantings.

Sturgeon statue.

Horse statue.

River Rats clubhouse.

USS Grayfox.

It was pretty cold and windy along the river but there was open water. On the river we got common goldeneye, canvas back, and common merganser. Driving there and back we got turkeys and ring-neck pheasant. That brings us up to 69 species for me and 68 for Lise.

Long-tailed duck without much of  long tail.

Aptly named common goldeneye.

The weekend was pretty typical for winter here in Mid-Michigan. Gray and gloomy. Temperatures got above freezing which is nice, but the snow and ice has turned to massive amounts of slush. Quite sloppy.

So instead of doing outdoors things, Lise and I went to the Detroit Zoo for a photography exhibit. It was the finalists for the British Natural History Museum’s 50^th Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards. Three of the finalists were National Geo photographers. The contest seems to have drifted from solely wildlife to broader natural history categories but still some pretty stunning images. When you hear the term wildlife photographer you think “his wife let him buy a big lens.” I don’t think any of the finalists used a big lens. Creative use of flash seemed more important than lens size. One of them did use the 80 – 400 mm lens that I drag around. The old line, “it’s not what you got but how you use it” comes right to mind. These people make me look bad. I may have to quit whining about my lack of a big lens.

If you want to check out the finalists the link is http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/wpy/gallery/2014/index.html. There are youth and adult awards. The web site is a bit confusing. To see all the images in either category you have to mouse over any of the images. A little white slider bar comes up to the right that will allow you to scroll to more images.