Tufted Titmouse

This tufted titmouse is taking a break between trips to a nearby bird feeder.  Titmice are quite gregarious and are often found with chickadees.  They are always one of the first birds to notice when my feeders have been refilled.

Downy Woodpecker on Feeder

This female downy woodpecker, and some of her friends, frequent my backyard feeder.

Quiet Place Among the Boulders

A friend and I hiked a 6.6 mile loop in Shenandoah National Park, specifically to get photos of waterfalls.  Our hike passed three significant falls but this little cascade at the top of one of them yielded my favorite photo of the day.   It isn’t very dramatic and I think that’s what I like about it.  The image makes me think of a quiet, little, almost secret spot, you could visit to get away from the world for a little while.

Carolina Wren

This Carolina Wren was singing in a tree near the south bank of the James River.  It remained perched on the same branch long enough for me to get several shots of it.  This was my favorite.

Tree Fallen in Water

This tree once stood tall and provided shelter and possibly food to many of its forest companions.  Seeing it laying, lifelessly in the water reminded me of the simple truth of mortality.  Not in a morbid or depressing way, just as an immutable law of nature.  Keeping that in mind, we should all live each moment to its fullest.

Doyles River Upper Falls

When I reached the upper falls on the Doyles River in Shenandoah National Park, the lighting was horrible.  The foreground and most of the photo above and to the left of the falls were bathed in bright, direct sunlight.  The falls and most of the photo to the right of them were in dark shadow.  So I bracketed like crazy and combined two of the resulting photos to produce this HDR image of the scene.

Resting On One Foot

This Canada Goose stands on one foot with beak tucked under its wings, while it rests in the shallow water.

Mistflower After the Rain

I came upon these mistflowers in a meadow, after a rain storm in early September.  The rain drops weighed down the flowers and made them difficult to identify.  Regardless, these wildflowers provided the meadow with a pop of purple color.

Gold and Red

These wildflowers already lost most of their pedals before I took this photograph.  I wanted to capture the bright yellow of the flowers against the backdrop of the red vine leaves climbing the tree in the background.

Great Blue Heron in a Tree

While photographing a tree on an island in the James River, I realized there was a Great Blue Heron perched on one of the branches.  Pleased the heron was close enough for some zoomed in shots, I took several pictures before it flew away.  This was my favorite picture of the bunch.

Like all the other pictures on my blog, you can click on this one to see a larger version of the image.