Here's a neat shot of The Pier in St. Pete, Florida. I was up there this evening seeing an old friend. Whenever I shoot in St. Pete, I have a real good time, get some good pictures, and want to get back soon, but then I forget to go up there. I don't know why that is.
Here's a view you don't see every day of the common brown pelican. They're goofy looking birds when you get close to them.
How about a double shot from Hugo Winterhalter tonight? Well, a double shot from the same album. Both of the fellows you see above are representations of Hugo Winterhalter from his album 2 Sides Of Winterhalter (RCA Victor LSP-1905, 1959). I don't have a scan of it, but even the LP cover features a shot of two Mr. Winterhalters. I do have a shot of the tag from the front cover, with the line "Winterhalter Contrasts".
More fun from the South Pacific is yours for the asking when you buy this record. Entitled Dinner And Music In The Pacific Inspired By The Colorful Pages Of Holiday (Suburban Marketers L07P-2074/5, c. 1959), this LP was a custom job produced for Holiday Magazine by RCA. There is a listing on the back for other records in the series featuring such vacation hotspots as Spain, Italy, France, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Brazil & Scandinavia. It also mentions several LPs on RCA Victor with a Pacific theme. There is no artist listed for the music, but the cover art is credited to Will Dressler. The image above is the one from the front cover, the one below is from the flip side, and the collage of little images at the bottom come from the back as well as the inside of the gatefold cover. The inside is also filled with recipies that will help you achieve the 'Dinner' part of the title.
Here's another quick doodle for you from the extensive Ernie (Not Bert) archives. This fisherman is from the LP Living Strings Play Music of Hawaii (RCA Camden CAS 661, 1961). This is a pretty nice doodle to be from a budget release like this. No signature, though.
Today is the first anniversary of the blog, so I wanted to get something up to celebrate. It's been a long time since I've posted a doodle, since my doodle-scanning computer went belly-up right after Christmas and I haven't had a chance to rebuild it. So I hooked a scanner up to the laptop this evening to bring you a good old-fashioned doodle. These two pints hail from the back of Cheers-The Belafonte Folk Singers (RCA Victor LPM-1992, 1959). I guess this group was assembled to back Harry Belafonte on tour, and they released three LPs, including this collection of drinking songs. Some of you may remember that I also like the little tags they used to include on the front of these old RCA Victor LPs, and this one has the one shown below, Drinking Songs Around The World.
Just a quick note to mention that it was one year ago today I started this blog. It seems like much longer, but it's just been the one year. You've seen more than your fair share of my photos, quite a few records from my collection, various scans of various stuff, even a month worth of Christmas music. Hopefully, the next year will be just as exciting as this one. Stay tuned!
I promised you a sunset to go with the sunrise from today, the day on which the length of daylight equals the length of night. I would have hoped to be able to show you the actual sun going down, but for some reason, after a nearly cloudless day, these clouds obscured the setting sun. Oh, well, life can't be perfect all the time. Just for the sake of comparison, here are the sunsets from last night (below) and the night before that (bottom). Every night is a little bit different.
Another week, another picture. This time it's a flower I shot up in Ohio on the grounds of Stan Hywet, a mansion formerly owned by one of the founders of Goodyear. They have an amazing garden there, both in it's size, it's diversity, and the fact that it was in full bloom when I was there! I don't know the name of this flower in the foreground, or the ones in the background, either. Still a thing of beauty, though.
Happy Vernal Equinox! Today is the first day of spring, the day when the amount of daylight is exactly equal to the amount of dark. So just for kicks, here's a picture of the sunrise this morning as reflected in the side view mirror of my car. It's not art, but it's a picture.
Maybe you're getting tired of seeing all these bird pictures. How about some bird food? This little rabbit would make a nice meal for any of the raptors you've seen pictured around here.
Ever have that itch you just can't reach? That doesn't seem to be a problem for this great blue heron.
If you're like me, you never get enough of these big birds. The fellow above is a red-shoulder hawk, the same species as the one I caught last night. Only this fellow is a permanent resident at the Wildlife Education & Rehabilitation Center on Anna Maria Island. They had a booth at a small craft fair with about five birds in it. I wanted a shot of the American Kestrel, but by the time I got to the booth with my long lens, they had begun to pack up, and all I could get were the hawk above and the barn owl below.
Not only did I catch a hawk on the wing today, I got this vulture. He's not nearly so impressive, but he's cool in his own way, I suppose.
I'm getting luckier when it comes to capturing birds on the wing. I spotted this red-shoulder hawk today, and managed to catch it on the wing. Pretty awesome, if you ask me. I got some pretty good pictures of him in a more sedentary pose as well.
Believe it or not, this beautiful flower grows in the wild. I'm not sure of the name, but I think it's some sort of iris. I guess all flowers started out as wild, but they've been hybridized over the years to get larger blossoms and more intense colors. This has led to many wildflowers seeming tame by comparison, but not in this case. I was quite shocked when I saw this blossom beside a drainage canal in the Myakka River State Park.
The Myakka River was just full of these guys today. I was keeping my eye on them just as much as this guy was keeping his eye on me.
You've seen several sunrises lately that are obscured by powerlines, and they reminded me of this shot from 2002. I think this one is pretty cool, though. It's funny how I can remember a particular shot I took one morning way back then on the way to work.
Yet another license plate for you this week. I think 100 is a litle old for skiing, don't you? You might recall I tried skiing during my last visit to Ohio. I didn't take to it. Hopefully, your mileage will vary.
Update: Someone much more up on these things than I points out that the 100 refers to the elusive goal of going skiing 100 days a year. Perhaps these people should pick a hobby that doesn't require really bad weather. Or move to Antartica. Down there, the plate would read SKI 365.
Previous plates: New York, Maine, Hawaii, Washington, Ohio, Wisconsin.
I posted a single photo of this great blue heron eating a fish the other day, but a curious fan wanted to see more of the sequence. And I'm always one to try and please the fans. So here are a few more photos. The fish was actually caught by a little kid on the North Jetty in Venice, Florida. He decided it was too small to keep, but rather than throw it back in the water, he dropped it on a rock. This bird immediately pounced, grabbing the fish in his powerful beak, looking like chopsticks on a piece of uncut sushi.
The first challenge the bird faced since he didn't have to actually catch the fish was to get it down. He had to get it aimed in the right direction, but not drop it back into the water. That took all of about 2 seconds.
The fish wasn't going to give up without a fight, though. But these final convulsions didn't seem to make a hill-of-beans difference.
Not long now...
Almost done. Notice the pointy tongue that's sticking out towards the end of the beak.
There you go, all done. Well, almost. You can see that the fish hasn't quite made it down to the stomach yet, and I don't know how much longer it took to get there. The bird took off pretty quick after this picture. The total amount of time from the first picture above to the last one? 29 seconds! I can't even get the tarter sauce out of the little plastic cup that quickly.
