After about a half-dozen pictures, the heron grew tired of watching me watching him and took off flying lazily to the north following the bends in the stream between its heavily wooded banks. The wingspan on these birds is about six feet and watching one in flight is quite a sight - so graceful for a bird that looks so ungainly standing in the water on its stilt-like legs.

Finally found a Great Blue Heron, although I had to go a few miles farther afield than usual. This photo was taken from the Greenawalt's Bridge over the Maiden Creek in Albany Township. It was handheld from about a half a city block away.

Definitely the strangest looking flying insect I have ever seen. I have no idea what it is.

Carpenter bees have taken up residence by the dozen in that red corn crib you often see in my photos of sunsets.

A blackbird bathing in the Furnace Creek where it runs through the pasture.

I finally shot a deer - with my camera. This was handheld at dusk shooting through tall grass across a pond. I didn't dare back up to a better vantage point or get out of the vehicle for fear of missing the shot altogether.

The younger of our two male cats caught in mid-leap as he joins his mother for a meal.

Ewes and lambs laying in the pasture on a farm in Windsor Township on a recent afternoon.

I liked this attempt of the late afternoon sun to break though holes in the clouds so much that I have made it the wallpaper for my HP laptop.

Two turkey vultures take flight when disturbed while dining on a roadkill deer. You don't see their heads in this shot, but you're not mising much since this vulture's head is not its best feature.

A rather extreme close-up view of one of the miniature hereford bulls.

A northern mockingbird in flight as it begins a 180-degree turn, Note that the bird holds its head almost upright while its body has rotated nearly 90 degrees.

That same stream where my hopes of finding a heron were replaced by surprise at finding a wading blackbird on another day disclosed this mallard swimming upstream with the sun dappling his wake.

Northern mockingbird coming in for a landing showing its distinctive white wing patches.

I had stopped where this little stream flows under Monument Rd. in hopes of seeing a great blue heron. Instead I found a blackbird daintily wading in the stream.