Bird merge. This is a merger of 24 images shot a few seconds apart. Lots of bird activity at the feeder today. One thing that struck me when I was merging these images was how the birds seem to have favorite roosting spots. The areas that have birds in this image actually had lots of birds that would have overlapped, whereas the areas with no birds simply had no birds landing there for the whole span of time.

I was trying to grab some images of the full moon tonight and ended up with these shots of the turkey buzzards in the trees behind our house. That’s the moon rising in the background.

This is a 100% crop from the center of a much larger image.

I was outside trying to get pics of some of the old WWII planes flying around for the local airshow and I got bored waiting for the planes to fly by. This wasp was busy building a new nest under the overhang that covers our front walkway. She didn’t seemed too pleased with me taking her picture.

Caught this guy snoozing in the trees out back. Later his sibling came along and snuggled up.

Every year it’s the same story. Mama Raccoons bring the young’uns around for a peanut feast.

After thirteen years of hanging out with the tree roots, the cicadas have come out of the ground by the millions. The noise is incredible. It’s almost painful on the ears to stand outside. They make quite a mess with their discarded larva shells, too.

Well, to be honest, round two was a dud. We got another inch or two of a sleet/snow mix, but that was it. The ice really took its toll, though. The interstate was closed in a few places and the trees caught some grief. Our neighborhood thankfully has power, but everything immediately outside our neighborhood has been without power since last night. That power loss took out the local cable feed, so we have no TV, land-line phone, or cable internet. Luckily I have a Verizon Mifi hotspot, so we can still get online. Champaign got away with much less snow than expected as well. Still, it was a good choice for the university to cancel classes today as bad as the ice was.

This was the scene in my backyard just before dusk. The cat in the bird feeder is staring at the cardinal, the deer is staring at the cat, and the poor cardinal just wants some peanuts.

The second picture is just a crop from the first that was enlarged to the same size. This is known as “digital zoom.” It’s all done in editing software. This is the advantage of a really nice lens. It’s also why nice lenses cost so much.