F/6.3, 1/500, ISO 320.
Day 53 / 365
“Did you hear something”? “I say lets bail out of here”!!!
Interesting Fact: Hooded Mergansers are extremely agile swimmers and divers but clumsy when moving on land because their legs are set far back on the body. ( http://www.withmephotographyblog.com/10-interesting-facts-about-the-hooded-merganser )
F/8.0, 1/320, ISO 100.
Song Sparrow
Day 51 / 365
“Got any food? ”
Interesting Fact: They recognizes enemies by both instinctual and learned patterns, and adjusts future behavior based on both its own experiences in encounters, and from watching other birds interact with enemies. ( http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/146/_/Song_Sparrow.aspx )
F/5.6, 1/60, ISO 100.
Tulips
Day 50 / 365
STOP! Tulips Time. 🙂
Interesting Fact: During WWII, some people in the Netherlands were forced to eat tulips because there wasn’t any other food. “Bread made from tulips is not very good … like wet sawdust” according to a Dutch man who grew up on a tulip farm during the war. (Also, part of the bulb is poisonous, apparently.) ( http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2011/05/06/20-facts-about-tulips )
F/5.3, 1/60, ISO 100.
Day 49 / 365
You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain
Too much love drives a man insane
You broke my will, oh what a thrill
Goodness gracious great balls of “ICE” ?
Interesting Fact: Presently, 10 percent of land area on Earth is covered with glacial ice, including glaciers, ice caps, and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Glacierized areas cover over 15 million square kilometers (5.8 million square miles). ( http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glaciers/quickfacts.html )
F/6.0, 1/3200, ISO 640.
Day 48 / 365
I wonder if the water froze in the water tower since it is so cold outside.
Interesting Fact: Most water towers hold 50 times more water than an average backyard pool. ( http://www.watertowers.com/facts.html )
F/8.0, 1/125, ISO 100.
Merlin
Day 47 / 365
“I see you, and after you take that photo I am out of here ”
Interesting Fact: Merlin pairs have been seen teaming up to hunt large flocks of waxwings: one Merlin flushes the flock by attacking from below; the other comes in moments later to take advantage of the confusion. ( http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/merlin/lifehistory )
F/6.3, 1/320, ISO 1600.
Gadwall Duck
Day 45 / 365
Even on a frozen ocean you can find love today.
Interesting Fact: Gadwall sometimes steal food from American Coots and from other ducks.
( http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/gadwall/lifehistory )
Bonus Valentine Facts: 2. Valentine’s Day may have a rather gory history. As one variation of a popular myth goes, Claudius II, the Emperor of Rome, forbade young men from marrying because he wanted them as soldiers in his army instead. St. Valentine defied him and married people in secret, so he was executed on Feb. 14 in the year AD 269 – or so the story goes. ( http://m.ibtimes.com/valentines-day-facts-history-fun-ideas-free-burritos-singles-awareness-other-things-1813226 )
F/6.3, 1/125, ISO 1600.
Peregrine Falcon
Day 39 / 365
Don’t Mind The Mess I Was Just Having A Snack!
Interesting Fact: Falcons are the swiftest birds of prey and are very muscular. In level flight the travel about 50 kilometers (31 miles) an hour. In a dive, called a “stoop” they reach speeds over 300 kilometers (186.33 miles) an hour! ( http://www.powayusd.com/teachers/lharvey/falcon2006/facts.htm )
F/25.0, 30.0, ISO 100.
Day 35 /365
I bet you that Washington would never arch like that…. 🙂
Interesting Fact: In 1889, a large plaster and wood memorial arch was erected over Fifth Avenue just north of Washington Square Park by local businessman and philanthropist William Rhinelander Stewart (1852-1929). Stewart lived at 17 Washington Square North and he collected $2,765 from his friends to finance the work. The temporary arch was so popular that three years later the permanent stone arch, designed by architect Stanford White, was erected.[2] ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Square_Arch )
F/14.0, 1/60, ISO 100.
Day 33 / 365
This sign had only one way to freeze..
Interesting Fact: One story of the origin of the one-way street in the United States originated in Asbury Park, New Jersey. On 9 September 1934, the on-fire SS Morro Castle[10] was towed to the shore near the Asbury Park Convention Center and the sightseeing traffic was enormous. The Asbury Park Police Chief decided to make the Ocean Avenue one-way going North and the street one block over (Kingsley) in one-way going south creating a circular route. By the Fifties this cruising the circuit became a draw to the area in itself since teens would drive around it looking to hook up with other teens. The circuit was in place until the streets went back to two way in 2007 due to new housing and retail development. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_traffic )
Through Open Lens 