Front yard photos

On my morning walk with Meg the dog yesterday and spied a bumblebee visiting some of the fireweed along the driveway. When I looked closer I found all his buddies - which resulted in spending a good chunk of time spent trying to get one in focus and in flight, none of which I was entirely happy with. I think I'd have to get out there in brighter light and use a faster shutter. This one came out nicely though, despite the lack of flying insects. I cropped this a bit in Picasa, nothing else, shot with the 70-300mm.

And one from over Spring break in March....

An adult female sharpshinned hawk that was very successful at hunting my (very dumb and slow) roller pigeons that I had let out for the first couple times this year. This was taken with the D200, she hung around and wasn't too scared of me so I got some very nice shots. My limitations on shutter speed because of the grainy ISO with that camera kept me from getting very much for action shots, but not for lack of trying. I think I stalked around after that bird for at least 2 hours, occasionally chasing her off yet another pigeon and returning it to the safety of the loft. She hung around for several days so I couldn't let the pigeons out again until a mink or weasel got into the the coop and killed them all. Nothing much to draw the hawks in around here anymore.