Wednesday Potpourri

For my Wednesday Potpourri I am going to offer you three different animals. The first is a group of horses that were feeding in a snow covered field. My daughter loved the trees in the background.
Here is a horse that goes by the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. You can see the fence just above him.
I see Mallard Ducks and a few Mergansers so when I saw this duck I said something strange is migrating through. The best I can tell it is a female Bufflehead Duck that stopped at the pond for one day. It wasn't into smiling for the camera.

I had what was a small four point buck in my back yard so even though it was an ugly day I captured this head on shot. There is obviously a bigger buck in the neighborhood from the broken antler.

I did a little work on the antlers and turned him into a little 6 pointer.

I received an award from another friend.

I received an BFF Award from Kostas of foto seasons and Bee foto Blog. He is an excellent photographer and has so much to offer from Greece.

-Here are the rules for the award:

1. Only five people allowed 2. Four have to be dedicated followers of your blog. 3. One has to be someone new or recently new to your blog and live in another part of the world. 4. You must link back to whoever gave you the award

So here is who I choose:

1. Dot from Georgia for starting SWF and for the interesting posts on her site.

2. Tipper from North Carolina a fine Appalachian site and her neat stories of mountain life.

3. Becky from South Carolina for a great story site. She always has something interesting to say.

4. Klaus from Florida of Virtua Gallery - You can talk about touching your senses with a photo.

5. Ivar from Norway who is another excellent photographer.

Just Horsing Around - 2

Sky Watch Friday has a new home and a life of it's own. Please check out the new sight and link in if you wish to participate. There were 330 people last week with beautiful Sky photos. You can link in from my side bar or above

I'm a very lucky blogger to have such a diversity of subject with which to display. I have stables, ponds, lakes, rivers and a woods behind my house were I can take photos. This is from the horse stables I pass on the way to work and the horses gathered for me to take pictures. Oh, they were grazing, I was taking the pictures. If you have a lot of brown spots on your white coat you can be fancy.
If you have less brown spots you can still look good.
Sometimes you have a few spots.
Sometimes you have a black coat with a big white spot.
Then again you may have no spots but a great white coat.

You could even have a Palomino coat.
This one even had a light brown coat with a dark brown face.
There was one with a medium brown coat with black hair.
The final one has a dark brown coat.
What a great diversity of horses that all looked great.

Just Horsing Around

I was going by the stables and the colts where out playing in the pen. A roll in the dirt for one mom and one child. The colt got up and started to play around. He must not know that dust is not good for the photographer.
The dust settled and the fancy colt was eating grass. I never noticed his top rear haunch mark before. Is that front marking looking more like a fish tail and a bird front?
The mom took a final roll in the dirt.
The plain colt was getting some good eating from the edge of the pen.

They decided to graze together for a short time.
The fancy colt decided to get a drink of mom's milk.
Check the look on fancy, mom says 'what now son'.
He is a fancy horse from either side.
This is my update of some great young horses that are so photogenic.

Foal Update And Extras

The foals are doing quite well. Between the mothers' milk and the grass they are looking quite healthy. You can see him graze right beside his mother.
The other little guy was taking a nap in the pen.
He got up, got a drink and went back to grazing after the rest.
I see everyone getting great butterfly picture. The only one that I see and can capture is the Small White Butterfly. Not a real beauty but you work with what you see.

The rabbits in the back yard are multiplying. There were two eating the grass in the back yard.
The final thing I saw at a pond was a Painted Turtle. I tried to move for a better angle but it said no way and dove into the pond. It was a fun trip around the area.
I did make a first capture for me this week which I will show on Camera Critters on Sunday.

The Fields At The Horse Stables

I certainly feel very lucky to see wild animals on my drive to work but Larry's Stables has given me so many wonderful shots from the Shetland Pony, the other small pony and the foals. This is a grazing field I go by each day which always have a great variety of horses. Sometimes they are close to the fence.
Other times they are back into the field.

All the time I get a great show on a slow road and with flashers I can click away to my hearts content.

A Potpourri of Updates

The little foals are getting bigger and the owners have added leads to direct them. This link was my first post. They are filling out well, this one needs cleaned up.
The little pond I visit had 9 families of Canadian Geese on it last week. If you go to this link you will see them as babies.
I swung around to give you a feel of how many there were.
They came ashore and let me pretty close with no threats. Please note the top family has younger goslings because they laid their eggs later.
The older ones are at a less pretty stage and soon will be as large as their parents. My that grass is good.
I couldn't resist taking this picture of a mother preening her feathers.
The Pink Peonies are blooming. The white ones behind are not far from blooming. I stake and loosely tie the plants to keep them upright. It stormed last night so I have to see how they look today.

They have a beautiful flower.
What is a peony display without their symbiotic friend the ant crawling on them. If you have peonies, you have ants.
This were given to me by a gardener friend, Harold from the concerts, and all it takes is a piece of root and your in the flower business. Pruning is the only other thing I have to do to maintain them.

Camera Critter 6

Camera Critters by Misty Dawn, go here to see who's participating.

I'm very lucky to have a stables that I pass on the way to work. It is such a rich area for photos.
Click on the photos for more detail. There are two new visitors to the stables this year. This beautiful youngster with the white markings on it's body.
Mother has it out and learning to follow.

Here is its other side and you can see the markings coming over the shoulder. It has long white stockings and a cool face along with its side markings.
The other mother has a plainer colored foal. Isn't the grass always greener on the other side of the fence.
This little guy is quite handsome also.
It looks like it said please I'm in charge here. I was next to the fence when taking this and the mare didn't mind at all. He has three socks and a great face marking.