As we were driving on a country road near the Dells we saw a "Historical Marker" sign.  We let our eyes follow the arrow, but couldn't read the marker from the road.  So we pulled over and walked up to the fence. Never let it be said that Wisconsinites don't have a sense of humor.

See the small words at the bottom, Trinacria Hist. Society?  No such thing exists.  Apparently, Trinacria means literally triangle, check out the Sicilian Folklore.  Now I'm just a little more than curious why that word was chosen.  This sign was moved from a place in NW Wisconsin a few years ago.  Will it's next placement create a triangle? 

So, the next morning I woke up to the sound of Bluebirds. I was so excited that they were still here! I had to grab the camera and run out to see if “she” was still showing interest in my birdhouse.

Isn’t he beautiful! The males are SO bright right now.

I sat with my lens trained on the opening to the birdhouse waiting to see her peek out. There was no peeking this time, as she came out, he came down and I was so excited thinking I must have caught them terrifically. . .

Then so disappointed when I saw this on the computer. The focus remained on the opening, not the quickly moving birds. I’m thinking, if I had allowed the flash to go off I might have been able to freeze their wings, but then again I think they moved out of the area I had in focus so this is just it.

When she went back in, I tried again and she came out a little slower this time.

She’s doing a little house cleaning, but once again she moved out of my area of focus. Her little feet sure look good though, don’t they?

See, these last three photos all happened so fast I didn’t have the chance to move the camera.

She looks so sweetly curious, I just had to see what she was looking at. So, I moved the lens down, below her, and. . .

At this point I decided to go buy some nesting material to help encourage them to stay.

But this little Nuthatch caught my eye. I still thrill over the zany Nuthatches. I’ve only seen the white-breasted ones lately though and am kinda missing the itty bitty red-breasted ones. If you’re not familiar with Nuthatches, they are really fun to watch as the walk down trees eating insects from the bark. This guy had been digging around in some leaves prior to walking along the driveway.

This is a female Brown-headed Cowbird. These birds are new to me, but according to my bird book they are the only parasitic bird in the state, laying their eggs in host birds’ nests, leaving others to raise their young. So I guess they’re footloose and fancy free.

I was probably 20-30 feet away from the birds in these photos. That’s typically about as close as they’ll let me get. That’s my set-up there for birding. The 100-400mm on the Canon 40D, they are pretty much married, it’s rare for me to change the lens on that camera.

That’s the zoomiest lens we have and it can be used on any of our cameras. That being said, if it is put on the 5D, it would not be as zoomy. The 5D has a full frame sensor and the other cameras (Xti, 20D, 40D) have smaller sensors. Think of them like widescreen and full frame movies. When we bought the 5D, I almost got a 5D too, but I knew that I like to bird and the smaller sensor gives me more zoom. So I went with the 40D.

The 40D has a fast processor and many sports photographers choose it. It reacts quicker than the other cameras. It can shoot 5 frames per second compared with their 3 frames per second. This matters in birds. And when I saw the bird guy speak a couple of weeks ago, he says he uses the Canon 40D too, and he’s a pro.

I’m sorry that I forget sometimes that not everyone has the same birds around their own neck of the woods. The Chickadees are in my yard every single day and will zip and flit around you unafraid. It is not unusual to have one land on a feeder while I’m trying to refill it. But, it has come to my attention that I really don’t photograph them often. I guess I take them for granted since I see them everyday.

I took this one a few days ago and I kinda like it.

These were taken last fall and are two of my favorite Chickadee photos.  If you would like to hear the Chickadee, click here.

The yellow bird posted a couple of days ago is an American Goldfinch. And he was still around the next day.

They’re very bright right now, but in the fall they look more faded, like the one below.

I hope to eventually get a decent shot of these colorful birds.  You can hear his song here.

I’m really not sure why some evenings our yard is extremely full of birds and other evenings I only see my Chickadees. One evening last week as I sat on the porch, I was excited to see my normal folks (3 Downy Woodpeckers, 1 Hairy Woodpecker, Umpteen Chickadees, 3 White-breasted Nuthatches, a couple of Blue Jays and several Dark-eyed Juncos),and a pair of Brown headed Cowbirds, 2 pair of Cardinals, 3 Goldfinches, a couple of House Finches, a sweet little Sparrow and 5, yes 5 bluebirds. The Bluebirds excited me the most because one little female seemed extremely interested in my birdhouse.

Happy Fun Monday! Kitten wants to know about our heroes. I have told you about my hero many times before and I am on the verge of death. No? I hope in a couple of days I will be back up to my chipper self but for today, me and my fever are snuggled in bed.

1. express a feeling, maybe even let us guess what feeling you were trying to express.
2. show me the view from your shoe
3. unique mailboxes
4. cemetery tour
5. something that brought a smile to your face this week

With the weather's teeter-totter ways I now successfully have a cold!  Ugh!  I think there is an 18 ton truck sitting on my chest!  And about 10 pillows cocooning my head.  And if only they could muffle the whining in my ears.

So, have you seen Blogtations?  It reminds me a little of Post Secret.  Blogtations features blogger quotes.  One particular one has really struck a chord with me and has me boo-hooing amidst the a-chooing.

I shared these photos with you on Monday and while searching through my flickr for them I discovered that I had taken them on April 28th, 2007. So, one year plus one day later I decided to go back over.

Hubby had barely walked in the door from work when I asked him to come to the park with me. I grabbed my macro lens and tossed the honkin’ lens to him. The honkin’ lens gets very heavy. Imagine carrying your laptop on the trails, yeah it’s 3-5 lbs, at least. So, I really call it my honkin’ lens, or sometimes huge honkin’, you might know it better as the 100-400mm, my birding lens. And since my left arm is aching, I assume from carrying it too much, I was happy to give it to him in case we saw the owl again.

On the way to the area I needed I saw this cute little snowman left over from our snow a couple of days ago. He looks pretty out of place now.

What I found was that I was a little late for the skunk cabbage; it looks very sad now. That center bulb thing starts out kind of a creamy white.

There was plenty around but it’s past its prime.

Do you recognize this? It will be prettier soon.

Who do I see?

Who sees me?

Those were taken with my macro lens (100mm). But Dennis managed to make his arm ache and get a crick in his neck while taking the following, with the camera pointed nearly straight up. And he says he’s not a birder, ha!

Pooping owl.

Shake, shake. . .

Shake.

Yawn?

Sneeze?

So, the whole trip wasn’t a bust. I really enjoyed watching him and I think he enjoyed seeing us again. We weren’t totally surprised to see him because we own a cache (GC12FTW) nearby and often people say they have seen him. I’m just amazed that he stays in this area. I guess he must find plenty to eat or he wouldn’t stay. Maybe he helps keep the nearby golf course clean.

You probably thought I’d show you some Crayola Crayons,

Or Colorful Candy or Confections,

Or even a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store.

Maybe you thought I’d show a Church or a CD,

Or a Colorado Catalog,

Or even a Casino. (If I had waited a couple of seconds the lower portions said “Craps”.)

But instead I wanted to share with you Charlie the Constipated Cow and his Cornrows.

Charlie used the Crème de la Crème to make Cream style Corn.

Charlie’s Captive friends, Callie the Communicative Collie, Carina the Conscience Cat, Charlotte the Complex Chicken and Capri the Cranky Cub lived as a Commune in a Crumbling Cracker Castle.

Capri was Constantly Complaining.

So Charlie Crushed a Column so they could escape.

As they Cavorted a Cross-eyed Cobra Crept into the Clearing.

Soon, they were doing the Complicated Conga. But poor Charlotte was so Creeped out that she Crapped.

The Cobra Casually Consumed each Chunk.

Caution: Cattle Crossing!

Carl the Creative Cockatoo was busy using Cookie Cutters to make Costly Cookies on a Coaster. Cautiously, Colton the Catapulting Colt, came out of his Collapsible Coach Container Cave. He wanted some Chocolate Coffee, Combined with Coke, in a Cup.

Carl Called a Crazy Creature Celebrity on the Cell phone. (all photos taken with a Canon Camera and loaded onto a Computer)

Clarence the Crocodile was happy his Chemo was over and he could leave his Crock and enjoy his Cheese by the Crowned Cactus.

Chubby Cows Craving Cranberries.

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Old photos for “C”

Christmas Ornament

Child in a Cemetery

Caching (and Compass and wooden Coin)

Chicago or City

As you can see, I had a lot of fun with "C", if you are interested in joining in our A-Z photo challenge pop over and say, "Hey!" to Martha.