I’ve been working every weekend since I returned from Maine, and I need to start making time to get back out with my camera.  I’m hearing warblers chip-chip in the treetops in the evenings, and the sunrises this week have been gorgeous!  In the meantime, I took a page from Herman‘s book and played with more macro photography around the backyard.  This ladybug was crawling around in my coral porter weed.  There were tons of bees nectaring on the blooms, too.

We’ve gradually been getting more squirrels in the neighborhood.  It might sound strange, but we really don’t have squirrels around our house.  Our neighborhood was a citrus grove, and when they put in houses, they planted lots of little oak trees.  Those are gradually growing, as as they do, the squirrels are starting to come back.  I’m also hearing more “normal” birds this fall, like the Blue Jay that yelled at me while I trimmed our hedges the other day, or the Tufted Titmouse that called “Peter, Peter” at my neighbor while he mowed.

I just upgraded my feeders to a Wild Birds Unlimited Advanced Pole System, which includes a raccoon baffle.  I’m pleasantly surprised at how well made the pole is.  It’s tall!  The baffle will keep the squirrels and our nightly raccoon visitor from eating all my bird seed.

All my hummingbird plants are in full bloom – lots of Mexican sunflowers, my Coral Honeysuckle, Lion’s Ear, various salvias, Turk’s Cap, hummingbird bush, red pentas, and cross vine.  But I haven’t seen any hummingbirds.  At least the flowers are good for photographing, too!  For the image above I used my 5D Mark III to do an in-camera multiple exposure.  It’s tricky to hand-hold, as you need to keep the middle of the flower in the center or the exposures don’t line up right.  It’s a fun effect. :)