31 days. What I have learned, for a start, is that I like documenting events.

I have a poor long term memory, but also one easily triggered by a smell or a particular photograph. Words allow me that too. So I appreciate that I am cementing the memories with this process.

And, too, I now feel confident to record the summer trip. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

This month, I wanted to challenge myself and learn some things. I did both. Among the things I learned is one sure way to combat writer’s block is to write everyday, whatever the output. The value is the discipline, not the product.

I am having more of a challenge with photography. I want to produce more satisfying images but that necessitates more attention to the process. I have paid attention to composition and learned the basics about manual mode, but I have been more excited to capture the animal than to capture him well. At least, I think that’s true.  I believe that needs to change. I must evolve there as well.

 

(As an aside: could this poorly-captured bird above be the American Pipit? It has a splash of yellow-green underneath its tail, so that seems a bit inconsistent. Otherwise there are similarities).

 

I am going to take a break from a daily commitment to a once per week commitment. I do value the daily writing, but if it interferes too much, I won’t push through as I’ve done. For three weeks, the plan is to ensure I have my materials from the trip organized. Photos and such. After that I will be using the succeeding month and a half to document each week’s excursion as much as I want.

I am relegating each of the weeks of travel to one week of recording to ensure that I keep a good pace but not overtax my levels of interest in the project.

I expect the backyard to still feature here as I work offline to organize the material. Starting now, actually. To yesterday’s backyard observations, as promised.

It started out slowly, but with the beautiful painterly sky above.   BlackCat and I explored the yard, meeting an ibis unusually wading near the shore. These birds are commonly on land and not exploring the water, in my experience. A tricolored heron, and an anhinga dropped by.

More excitingly, though, was the appearance of a pair of cardinals. I do so love the color of these birds. And they’re less fluttery than the eastern bluebird or the eastern phoebe so I get a chance to capture them. I didn’t have a consistently clear shot, so I used video.

Beautiful, yes? The dull female was better camouflaged, but it is actually a beautiful range of hues – just subtler.

 

 

And the most exciting backyard appearance is this creature.

I have not talked about this animal before, I don’t think. About three days ago, it first showed up, barely visible against the black water. It is very very small, compared to every other water or wading bird around here. It is about twice the size of the eastern phoebe, above.

It was very duck-like. Except it had the most peculiar behavior of traveling a few feet and then submerging itself completely underwater. It’s beak also didn’t seem like a duck. I couldn’t get a good enough view of it though to try to gauge what it was before it was gone.

 

The internet didn’t seem able to help with that sharp beak and strange behavior. I thought it must be a snake bird or a relative thereof because of the disappearing under water. That proved fruitless.

Finally, I happened up the term pied-billed grebe. I didn’t even know there was such a bird called a grebe, and yet it appears there are varieties of them. I think this is a juvenile of that species.

This is a very amusing animal, who’s been fun to watch. He has shown up in the backyard at least three days in a row, and he gets up to some crazy stunts.  He persuaded a snowy egret to hunt with him (which turned out to be very beneficial for the egret today!)

You can read more about the grebe’s adventures here.

• Aperture: ƒ/8
• Camera: Canon PowerShot SX510 HS
• Taken: 31 January, 2016
• Focal length: 8.138mm
• ISO: 200
• Shutter speed: 1/1.3s