Lens-Artists Challenge #77 – Favorite Photos of 2019

For this week, the Lens-Artists Challenge is to look back over 2019, and post your favorite photos.

My main aim in photography is to document all the wildlife on our farm, and that does not always result in good photos.  Light conditions can be too bright or too shady, and the creatures are often too small or too quick, for me to get photos with good contrast and interesting compositions.  And this year, I did not take as many photos as I usually do.

But there was one great day in June, when all kinds of interesting animals cooperated, and I captured some nice images.

I have a little flock of sheep and goats, and almost every day I take them out of their main pasture, to let them get some exercise and browse, and my two Border Collie mixes accompany us.

On this day, a young buck came out of the woods and just stood and studied the flock for about 5 minutes.  Miraculously, the dogs never noticed him and I didn’t have to hear them bark!  The buck finally trotted off, and we continued our walk.

Juvenile Eastern Lubber grasshopper.
Zooming in on the buck.
Summer Tanager.
Skipper butterfly.
Great Horned Owl barely visible in the tree branches.
Studious owl.
White-striped Longtail butterfly.
Zooming in on the Great Horned Owl.
Whitetail buck in the pasture.

We heard one of the owls I had been seeing all summer, and followed the calls until we spotted it.  It stayed on its branch and I was able to take pictures for 20 minutes!  It looked so gentle; you would never suspect that it had been preying on Broad-winged Hawks!

My last find of the day was a juvenile Eastern Lubber grasshopper in dramatic black and red coloring.

I am excited about joining in on these Lens-Artists challenges, and I hope to push my photography to new levels by participating each week!

 

 

Category : photography, wildlife
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