Another bird from our local zoo, this is a Lilac Breasted Roller. I am always looking for these cute colorful birds when I visit the zoo, they’re stunning to look at. I rarely get a good photo of them since they’re kept behind plexiglass and their lighting is so blech, every time they move even slightly, the shot is a blur. They’ve recently relocated the Rollers to a better area near a door that has natural light filtering through it, so I’ve got a couple of decent shots now. You’ll definitely be seeing this bird become an oil painting!

In an effort to return the pretty to my blog, here. Here’s a pretty parrot. This is a Blue Fronted Amazon, and wow what a pose. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. (Since she’s so pretty, she’s a girl. Only in bird world, it’s probably a boy.) I met her at the zoo last weekend along with a few other beautiful feathered critters that I’ll share this week, as I finalize some projects and move into a very special, very big project. Yes, there will be polls involved. I love polls. More than two of you better show up, too. There may be prizes. Or not. I could just be saying that. Unless you like pickles.

heh.

This weekend brought me a couple of unique photo ops, for sure. I wanted to try my hand at photographing goldfish, since I was “goldfish sitting”, and the goldfish I sat on (heh!) was actually gold. He’s a squirmy little sucker, and it took a while to figure out exposure settings. While I was scanning through the photos I managed to get that weren’t an orange blur, this one stuck out.

I asked Chickeymonkey this morning how many fish are in the photo. She said “one” – and upon prodding, finally counted three. Did you see them all when you first looked?

We spent our Labor Day at the zoo. It was SO hot, and the critters were really lazing around. The Giraffe’s seemed to be in their element, though, these three struck a pose for me that I couldn’t resist. The tallest did the splits and grabbed up a nice big chunk of grass, and the other two saw an opportunity for a free meal they didn’t have to work for so they stuck their necks out to eat off of the grasses that were trailing down into their reach.

It was a three day weekend, for sure.

How was yours?

Catybug planted our sunflowers this year, this is one from a variety blend of seeds. When I looked up at it (it’s about 10 foot tall) it was just glowing from the sun behind it.

I planted Lantana again this year because last year it grew into nice sized bushes that the swallowtails really loved. It’s a little measly thing this year, but still has pretty blooms that are definitely worth a view through the lens.

A friend of ours brought over a bird yesterday not knowing what it was, just that it seemed pretty friendly and that maybe it was a domestic bird. I opened up the box to find this fledgling robin. We immediately set to digging in the backyard to find some fresh worms, and Catybug enjoyed mothering this little fella until dark, when we sent him on his way (with a very full belly). Robins stay with their babies until they can fly, which he can, but he wasn’t doing so well in the hunting for food department.

Pretty calm around us, he just made himself comfortable on the concrete and demanded his dinner.

In anything other than news, I’ve been enjoying a week “off”. Off meaning I’m not working on things for other people, but I’m also not really going anywhere or doing anything spectacular. The girls and I had a nice day of shopping, another day of cleaning and organizing their room, and basically lounging, taking walks, and playing games. This is my summer “vacation”. heh! I’ll be painting next week, so you’ll see a sketch soon.

How have you been?