wood duck

Shooting with my Canon S3 IS, ISO: 200, my colors to vivid, 1/500 sec, F4.0, focal length: 72.0 mm, on February 20, 2007, in a private water bird preserve somewhere in Washington State. We spent the day with the old folks group going to see 'the swans' which gather in great flocks in the fields at this time of year on their migration pattern. Dan was driving the bus, as he does regularly as a volunteer. It was an excellent day, despite our getting up at 4:30.
I have quite a few of these duck photos. I might add them to my PN birds folder.

Yesterday we got a new compost bin and since the sun was shining today, I got out in the garden for a couple of hours. I got the compost moved into the new bin and found I have some pretty good stuff mostly finished, so I left it out beside the new bin covered with the old bin's cover. The woodland area looks not too bad. I need to clean out the honeysuckle as it is just messy. The bluebells are taking over, but I don't care. They are easy maintenance. I need to trim back the firethorn. The pond needs its new pump and edges fixed. I want to empty the old cedar trough out and get rid of it, too. I'll add the plants to the small rock garden area. Otherwise the back and front gardens are not doing too badly. I missed the crocus show, and the tulips aren't out yet. The daffodils, hellebores, polys, and other little bulbs are putting on a fairly nice, quiet show. I lost my evergreen clematis and the grape to the garage painting last summer. Oh well. They were fairly high maintenance, so this is in keeping with my moving to lower maintenance stuff. I need a few more little hedging cedars -- maybe about 6 or 8 if I put about 3 along the front where I took out the big pine and deodora cedar. Its too wet to mow, but the grass really needs it.