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This squirrel cleaned itself on a telephone pole, then lolled
luxuriously across the top. A little later it oozed down the side
of the pole and ate some food while upside down. It seems that gravity
is only a minor inconvenience to squirrels.
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As the summer
glides slowly by, the ducks do the same in a quiet stream on the edge of the
park. The colors of summer are reflected in the water, and the ducks
soon blend into the green shadows.
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The courting
of pigeons is not all that limited by season, any more than that of humans,
so it is not just Spring that finds a young pigeon's fancy turning to thoughts
of love.
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And that sort
of thing leads to this sort of thing in the course of time: somewhat
scraggly pigeon babies are being raised on a ledge above the water. In
a short time, they will sprout a full set of feathers, and begin to walk about
the world, looking a bit surprised by it all, as pigeons do...
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This handsome
youngster was probably a baby in the nest shown in the previous image. It
is in no hurry to leave the parental environs as safety and food and companionship
are associated with them. Its superb eyesight sees much, and its brain
calculates much, but maybe some little part of it yearns for the simplicity
of life in the nest.
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Walking around
the park, on the qui vive for photo possibilities, I stop and study the
restroom ventilator structures. Mankind makes a lot of stuff, and
can make it well or poorly. I suppose market forces tend to the quick
'n cheap in general, but there is no actual law that things should be done
badly. This structure seems to be fairly good -- it is utilitarian,
but made to last, and the way it is painted is both revealing of the basic structure and pleasing in itself.
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I liked the contrasts
in this scene. This green against red seems to push the fruit-laden
bough forward to give added dimensionality. Also, the familiar curves
and irregularities of the natural world play against the machine-imposed
regularity of the modern works of man.
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Some plants have
plainly grown evolutionarily tired of being eaten and trampled. What
a sincere expression of this point of view we have here. Of course
some hungry something might eat the plant anyway, but there would be a price
to pay. Some of us have felt the way this plant looks, a time or two.
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On one of the
retired pages, I wrote about the difficulty of adequately photographing
houses. I am often dissatisfied with the results for several reasons,
the chief being the problem of separating the building from irrelevant and
distracting elements in its immediate area. Perhaps you can guess why
I smiled as I took this shot...
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Here begins a
section on the ubiquitous House Sparrow -- the little fellows so common and
quick they are not really seen by people hurrying by on people business. Here
is a fledgling that waits with what patience it can muster for a parent to
stuff some food into it. Life already seems to have offered less than
perfect satisfaction to the little one.
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Yet conditions
may well be worse than that. A different fledgling complains on the
edge of an abyss...
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Elsewhere the
business of ongoingness proceeds. This male is a busy boy, but he wastes
as little time as possible by stuffing as much nesting material as he can
into his beak. Not far away, an impatient spouse awaits.
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One fine afternoon,
this male and I were sitting on a stone wall. I noticed him as I finished
shooting a photo, but he was too busy looking for food possibilities to
pay me any attention. He was looking here, there, and everywhere but
in my direction, so I had time to set up the shot for a change. I
took one photo of him looking away from me, then he turned and noticed the
big eye of the camera staring at him. I don't think he was particularly
pleased at the attention -- do you?
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Many species
of birds engage in taking dust baths, but few do it with more flair than
the House Sparrow. They tend to do this in groups, I suppose the conditions
must be just right as judged by the Bath Expert. I have seen them
crowd each other out of favored dusty recesses while the bathing frenzy
is upon them. Here, a male is doing the best he can in an obviously
second-rate bathing site. When the ground dries more, bathing site
quality will improve.
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Summer finds
some Mallard drakes somewhat drab compared to their finery of most of the
year. This drake has as heavy a case of the drabs as I have seen,
yet still handsome in its way.
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If someone had
asked me in speculation if it would be possible for a living tree to pass
through a heavy wire mesh fence, I would have said I don't see how it could.
Above what this photo shows is the trunk rising on the opposite side
of the fence from the roots of the tree, and the branches of that trunk
laden with green leaves. It is not any kind of exaggeration to say
life astonishes with its persistence against dead matter.
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Crossing on the
train bridge, I looked around the river for camera quarry, and almost missed
this bird about thirty feet from me. Fortunately it broke into a sweet
song and continued its aria while I took its picture. The second shot
would have been of an empty branch.
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On the other
side of the bridge were a family of Canada geese. I had been following
the progress of the goslings over a number of weeks, but the geese left
during a noisy weekend, and were missing for about 2 weeks. How the
goslings had grown during that time! Now, a couple of weeks later
still, the goslings are goslings no longer, but sedate young geese, as you
see here.
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Sometimes the
people are as interesting as the animals and plants. Here in the cool
shade, friends are talking in the park.
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This last photo
shows a watcher watching. Assessing the changing scene and calculating
actions, even as ducks and photographers do, the rabbit is here seen from
behind. This is the first such shot I've had, because usually the
rabbit is reacting to one's presence with cautious scrutiny or rapid retreat.
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