This is my contribution to the Cosmic Photo Challenge: Look to the skies prompt.
I had a couple of ideas for the challenge before going in a different direction.
Rather than the camera looking to the sky I decided to go with a small selection of birds and mammals looking to the sky.
This is my contribution to the One Word Sunday: Wet prompt.
I had a few ideas for the challenge before thinking of this photo of a young male Rose-breasted Grosbeak in the rain on the South Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, Canada.
Flora and Fauna Friday this week is a portrait of a resting bull Bison (Bison bison) photographed on a Bison ranch near Kelliher, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Also known as the American Bison, American Buffalo or simply Buffalo.
My Saturday Bird this week is a male Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis).
Alternative common English names include Eurasian Kingfisher and River Kingfisher although I don’t recall ever seeing one on a river. The species is found across Europe, North Africa and Asia.
This individual was photographed on a small pool next to a canal in southern Cheshire, England in the early 1990s.
My Saturday Bird this week is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris). The only Hummingbird species that breeds in eastern North America.
This is a male photographed in mid summer. After courtship and mating the male leaves the female to raise the young. Males start heading south as soon as early August.
I selected this photo to show the worn plumage. The bird will moult its plumage when on its wintering grounds. They spend the winter in Central America, Mexico or Florida. Some birds make a 900 mile flight across the Gulf of Mexico.
I thought of a couple of photos on reading the One Word Sunday prompt Nosy.
Being watched by a Coyote near Punnichy, Saskatchewan in the winter.
Being spied on by a male American Goldfinch near Punnichy, Saskatchewan in the summer.
Throwback Thursday travels back to Cheshire in the mid 1990s.
This is a female Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens) egg laying in the inlet of Hurleston Reservoir near Nantwich in southern Cheshire, England. There’s a male Banded Demoiselle in the background, possibly the male that mated with the female.
Taken with the Olympus OM Zuiko 350mm lens, not normally an insect lens. I used it because these Demoiselle were several feet from the edge of the inlet. I used a long forgotten mix of extension tubes and teleconverter to get the magnification and close focusing I needed.
