Wordpress weekly photo challenge

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Adventure

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Today I’m participating in the WordPress weekly photo challenge and this week’s theme is “adventure”. Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view.

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Our adventures this summer kept us close to home. The most adventurous we were was probably the week we spent in the small mountain town of Idyllwild, California. During our visit, we tried a hiking trail new to us called the Ernie Maxwell scenic trail. Scenic is the word because it gave us beautiful views of the mountains and the valleys all around, while hiking mostly in the shade.

View of Mount Jacinto while hiking on the Ernie Maxwell scenic trail

Of course we had a lot of other hiking adventures, mostly in the woods so we could hide from the baking hot Southern California summer sun.

And we enjoyed small adventures by the water, such as this lovely pond where we got to see a lot of birds and some fish.

Talking about birds, we spotted this beautiful violet-green swallow (Tachycineta thalassina) outside our cabin window. It had built a nest right underneath so we got to see it fly back and forth a lot over our week’s stay.

And you can’t hike without meeting cottontail rabbits. This one wasn’t too scared of us, as long as we stayed on the other side of the fence.

Cottontail rabbit hiding behind a wooden fence

Finally, our biggest adventure probably happened at home this summer, when this red coachwhip snake visited our backyard for the third year in a row. Its babies may come visit us next year, but this guy won’t, as it met its end getting tangling in our netting (I guess it didn’t learn its lesson from the first two times…). That was enough adventure for one day!

Brown mallard female duck swimming in a pond with tree reflections

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

Today I’m participating in the WordPress weekly photo challenge and this week’s theme is “reflections”. Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view. If you like what you see, feel free to subscribe and receive nature photography updates a few times a week.

I love photographing reflections as they can be quite a challenge, since a little movement by fish or birds swimming in the water, or even a slight breeze, can affect the reflection. Here are a few of my favorite reflections in the water I got the chance to photograph in the past few months.

In this first photo, the water was very still, so the reflection of these two white ducks was almost perfect.

Wordpress Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections of two white ducks swimming in the water — WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections of two white ducks swimming in the water

In this next picture, you can see a little breeze can distort the reflection of the tall trunks of palm trees in the water. The swimming path of the mallard duck creates even more ripples in the water.

Wood duck swimming on pond with the reflections of three palm trees

I had a hard time photographing this mallard duck couple but I really like the reflections of the trees and plants into the rippled water in the foreground

I love the way the blue sky reflects into this pond water with its smooth ripples. It looks like the water is made out of liquid metal, like mercury.

Reflections of light and tree leaves in pond water

Water ripples can make the reflection of a fancy white great egret look a little silly, don’t you think?

White great egret with his reflection in the water

This last picture is one of my favorite photos featuring reflections. I love the white circles all over the water behind the white great egret. The gray lines are the reflection of a bridge’s fence that goes above the pond.

White great egret with interesting water reflections

March 21, 2014February 6, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: Animal Photos, Bird photos, Landscape Photos, Plant Photos, Tree Photos, Water photosTags: duck reflections in water, mallard ducks, nature photography, reflections in the water, rippled water reflections, ripples in the water, white ducks, white great egret, Wordpress weekly photo challenge, WordPress weekly photo challenge: Reflections 8 Comments

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

Today I’m participating in the WordPress weekly photo challenge and this week’s theme is “inside”. Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view. If you like what you see, feel free to subscribe and receive nature photography updates a few times a week.

Can you guess how many lemurs are sleeping in this pile of fur? Hint: count the tails for the answer…

Look, that grasshopper is trying hard to get inside my house. Unfortunately it’s standing at the wrong end of the sliding window for that to happen, which is a good thing for me.

Green grasshopper trying to get inside the house

I guess this pitcher plant can’t wait for a fly to wander inside of it for a tasty snack.

Finally a sign of spring is the colorful blooms, but you have to watch out for the bees that may hide inside them, as in this beautiful pink powder puff bloom. Happy Friday!

Bees collecting nectar inside a pink powder puff bloom

March 14, 2014February 6, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: Animal Photos, Bloom Photos, Flower Photos, Plant PhotosTags: grasshopper close-up, green grasshopper, nature photography, photos of blooms, photos of flowers, pink powder puff bloom, pink powder puff flower, pitcher plant, ring tailed lemur, ring tailed lemurs sleeping in a pile, Wordpress weekly photo challenge, Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Inside 10 Comments

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Perspective

Today I’m participating in the WordPress weekly photo challenge and this week’s theme is “perspective”. Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view.

If you like what you see, feel free to subscribe and receive nature photography updates a few times a week.

I want to apologize to my regular blog followers because you just saw some of these photos earlier this week, but I think they fit this theme perfectly and I feel compelled to share them again.

Can you guess what this is?

Wordpress Weekly Photo Challenge: Perspective - guess what this is? — WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Perspective – guess what this is?

Here’s the same subject, taken from a bit further up: it’s wet sand! Mother Nature can draw trees in wet sand on the beach.

Mother Nature makes sand art: tree drawing in the wet sand

Here’s your chance at another guessing game: do you know what this is?

Here’s a picture from further away. It’s amazing what you can see when you kneel down and get closer to your subject, in this case raindrops on a grass spider web.

To finish with the same theme, here are more raindrops on a different type of spider web, this one over smooth river rocks.

Stones covered with raindrops on spiderweb — Stones covered with raindrops on spider web

And this is what the raindrops look like from further up.

Rain drops on a spider web over river rocks

March 7, 2014February 6, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: Landscape Photos, Ocean photos, Photos of San Diego, Plant Photos, Rock photos, Water photosTags: nature photography, rain drops on spider web, rain drops over river rocks, raindrops on spider web, raindrops on spiderweb, raindrops over river rocks, sand art, wet sand art, Wordpress weekly photo challenge, Wordpress Weekly Photo Challenge: Perspective 18 Comments

WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Threes

Today I’m participating in the WordPress weekly photo challenge and this week’s theme is “threes”. Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view.

If you like what you see, feel free to subscribe and receive nature photography updates a few times a week.

I’m not sure how many ring-tailed lemurs are actually piled up together for a nap in this time, but I can count three full-length ring tails (and a very small part of a fourth one on the left).

Wordpress Weekly Photo Challenge: Three ring tailed lemurs sleeping together — WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Three ring tailed lemurs sleeping together

I photographed this wood duck swimming on a pond because I liked the wavy reflections in the water, in this case the reflections of the trunks of three palm trees.

How about these three wood ducks, who seemed very hungry for bird seeds?

Finally these two baby lions (brother and sister) were cuddling with a stuffed blue monkey at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park on the weekend morning we visited.