Justfolk's photos

It was a dark and rainy day today. There are a half-dozen goldfinches that are apparently resident in our backyard and this is one of them.

One of the goldfinches, sitting for his portrait.

It's a dark morning outside our kitchen door.

Today the matched pair of Downy woodpeckers, Mr and Ms, spent a half hour investigating the little crannies of this European white poplar, just three or four metres from the rail of our back deck. So, leaning over, I got some nice close-ish close-ups of each of them. I kept hoping they'd both be in the frame together but I had no such luck. So here is the prettier of the two, Mr Downy -- prettier only for that splash of red on his head.

He came to the telephone wire and looked at me. So I got him some peanuts. And he came down for them.

This afternoon, my walking companions stayed on the other side of the pond while I walked out to say hello to this man and his friend who were trouting by the river's escape to the sea. (You can see my three companions in the distance, politely waiting for me.) It was only two degrees with a stiff NE breeze but the trouters were well wrapt in wind-proof gear and sitting in the lee of the barasway. It's a good spot for the trout running in or out Manuels River. I wondered if they'd caught anything yet. It turned out they were Ukrainian, speaking so little English that it matched my Ukrainian. None. We gestured. No fish either. I gestured wondering if I could take his picture; he smiled and nodded. I gestured good luck and he said thanks. And I walked back to the other side of the pond.

I lived most of my childhood about 200 metres to the left of this picture. That street, straight ahead, was thought to be a wide, modern avenue. And perhaps it still is.

This is the loading door for what used to be an important "little theatre" on the university campus I spent most of my adult life on. But about ten years ago they closed the theatre and it is just air-filled space in there now. And the loading door is no longer used.

I shot this on International Commie Cam Day, 1 May 2024. I used my Praktica L camera (with a Pentax 105mm lens). And I used Fuji 200 film that expired in July 2002, twenty-two years ago.

It's not all elegance and patience at the peanuts. The whole world's in an uproar, the crows' lives upside down....

Well, really, it is one of the two neigbourhood robins.

Mr Downy is around today. And, like Ms Downy yesterday, he's not particularly spooked by me. He was taking sunflower seeds to the tree, just as she was yesterday.

Mr Purple Finch outside my kitchen door this grey morning.

This Downy woodpecker has been visiting us for a few minutes at a time the past couple of days. She keeps checking out the sunflower seeds on offer, taking one off to a tree, and then coming back. Until she gets bored with the offering.

It was a wet and dark day today as I drove around the usual places looking for Maybushes. I found only two though I later heard there were a couple more.

This big loss for a robin was a small gain for a crow. Bigger gain, I suppose, if it was a starling that ate this egg. This was by the sidewalk, fifty metres down the street from our door ths afternoon.

I should not have been trying to get a picture while driving. But we were going pretty slowly. And I do like trucks' arses.

Dull day, rough pigeon.