Tag: Peregrine Falcon

Beyond the Backyard

Peregrine Falcon at the Circle B Bar Reserve

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Peregrine Falcon in Flight

On a cloudy day over Christmas break, I started the morning at Lake Morton and then made a stop to look for the Peregrine Falcon at the  Circle B Bar Reserve.  The Peregrine Falcon had been hanging around for several weeks, and I wanted to get some non-captive shots of this pretty species. It was a gray, cloudy day.  I walked up the Heron Hideout trail, pausing to say hello to the Hooded Mergansers who have been hanging out in the water there.  They didn’t want to pose for the Beast.  So I put the Beast to work doing something different for him: landscape photography!  I love the marshy landscape at Circle B, and I’m trying to get good images of it throughout the seasons.  I used the Beast to take a series of portrait images, which I stitched together in Photoshop. I headed down the Marsh Rabbit Run trail, where the Peregrine has been seen frequently, sitting in a  cypress tree.  It’s actually the tree on the far right in the image above.  That’s a very active tree these days – a Great Blue Heron nest is in it, the Anhingas and Double-Crested Cormorants use it to roost, and […]

Beyond the Backyard

Callaway Gardens Trip – Spring 2010

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Rich and I decided to take a week off this spring to go to Callaway Gardens to see the azaleas.  With the cold winter and early spring rain, the bloom was supposed to be spectacular.  It’s also very late – so the Callaway Azalea Watch was very helpful in planning our trip. The Mountain Creek Inn was full, so we ended up renting a cottage.  It was really nice.  We were right inside the gardens, and we woke every morning to bird song. One of my favorite things about Callaway is seeing flowers and plants that like colder weather, so I can’t grow them in Florida.  The flower beds were accented with pansies and tulips and daffodils. I took this picture in Mr. Cason’s Vegetable Garden in the morning while the gardeners were watering the flowers.  The water droplets add a fun effect. Rich asked me to take a tulip picture for his mom, and once I started trying to get good close-ups, I had trouble stopping.  Squirt says I should have gotten more close-ups of pansies while I was at it. Of course, the real reason we went this week was to see the azaleas.  Callaway has several azalea […]

Beyond the Backyard

Winter Birding at Callaway Gardens

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We went to Callaway Gardens to see the Fantasy in Lights display, but during the day, we had a great time walking around the gardens. There are so many birds at Callaway! The Callaway Birds of Prey show is fun. They pick three of about ten of their birds to display during each show, and they let the birds fly (sometimes right over the spectators’ heads!). It’s interesting to hear about the different birds. The chapel looked pretty surrounded in the fall colored leaves. We were surprised to stick see colored leaves on the trees. Being Floridians, it doesn’t take much color on trees to get us excited! They had also decorated the Sibley Horticultural Center for Christmas. Some of the garden-inspired decorations were very clever.