Polygonia interrogationis, AKA Question Mark Butterfly

Most of these were taken at the Ivy Creek Nature Area earlier this summer. I almost got a shot of a deer but it was too fast for me. The rabbit was kind enough to sit and let me snap a few shots of it, though.

Eastern Tailed-Blue

See that squirrel? He is a master people manipulator. He’s also totally fearless. He’s the only squirrel I’ve ever seen that didn’t run away when I came close. Whenever he sees me in the kitchen, he comes up to the sliding glass door and stares at me. Just like in the photo. One time he even climbed up the screen door so he could look me in the eye. Crazy!

I always throw out some birdseed for him. I mean, really, could you resist that face?

I promise I’m almost done with these snow photos. I just have few more that I may post tomorrow if I decide I don’t hate them. Next week it’s back to happy Springtime photos!

I couldn’t tell you why, but I’ve always wanted to take pictures of chickens. I mostly just like taking pictures of animals in general, but chickens have always seemed…more fun, maybe? I don’t know, I’m weird. Anyway, we came upon these on the last day of my birthday trip when we were hiking back from the river. They were just standing there in the middle of the hiking trail. When I got a little closer, I saw they had come from under a not very effective fence. I guess they know that’s where all the good food is. We eventually spooked them back to their yard, but they stood around for a while and let me take some pictures first. How nice of them! It was harder to get photos of the actual chickens since they didn’t seem to want to stay in one place, but the roosters didn’t seem to mind having their pictures taken.

I made Brandon pull off the side of the road to take pictures of this field. I was hoping to get closer to the horses, but I didn’t want to, you know, trespass. Oh well!

Red-bellied Woodpecker

'Slate-colored' Junco

White-throated Sparrow

Apparently snow days are really good days to get shots of birds. Go and stake out a bird feeder when it’s snowing and you’ll see tons of them.

I was elated to be able to get a shot of a Woodpecker with my new 270mm lens. I wish I could have gotten in closer for a better shot, but it flew higher when I tried to move closer to the tree.

Also? All those ducks and geese sounded pissed off. That lake is pretty large, and normally they stay very far away from each so I don’t think they were happy being fenced in together. Plus, can you imagine flying thousands of miles to get away from this weather and then still having to deal with ice and snow. Poor birds.