My good (no, great!) dear friend of 100 years, Sarah, loaned her fancy camera (SLR Nikon Coolpix 1000) to me in February. It sat in the corner of my room under a shroud of intimidation. I may have a technical background, but cameras are complicated with all those settings, switches, and dials. Then it snowed. All-white things and dirty snow aren’t fun to photograph. And then I traveled. There is always travel.

(Do you sense the excuses piling up?)

Spring came and nature started waking up. I went for walks, saw incredible things, and took crappy iPhone photos that never did them justice. Then the owlets started to poke their fluffy chick heads out of the nest with mom and dad owl in clear view. It was time to try the camera. I told myself to just use it as a point-and-shoot. Don’t overthink it. Everybody knows thinking too much extinguishes creative sparks.

So I turned the little dial to bird mode, played around, and sent the results to Sarah because we share a deep love of the winged ones.

Half the time, I pressed the wrong thing and hit the on-off button instead of taking a snap. But sometimes I luck out, the timing lines up, and VOILA! Something nice to look at. So- with some encouragement from a friend- I built this space to share them.

With this fancy-zoomy lens, impossible levels of details are revealed. And when I look at the photos later on a bigger screen, there are hidden gems to be found! Mating ducks. Great Horned Owl fledglings branching. A bald eagle feeding it’s young. And on and on.

I hope you enjoy them as much as Sarah and I do!