Hot Friday

 It was forecast to be 96F (35.55C) on Friday so I went for a walk up on the South Ridge where it's always a few degrees cooler. I started off hoping to photograph some butterflies and although there were plenty of flowers there were very few butterfly's or hawkmoth's. Instead I took a wander around some of the trails instead.

Sunday Non Avian Critters

A warm Sunday afternoon and some free time so I popped up to the South ridge to see if the butterfly numbers had improved. They hadn't.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Great Spangled Fritillary

Hummingbird Clearwing

Wood and Lake

As it was only about 30C mid morning yesterday and not too humid I went up the hill to the South Ridge and had a little walk around to try out my new lens. In the afternoon, I went the opposite direction up to the lake but by then it was 33C and much more humid so I didn't stay long.

Pawpaw

Pawpaw

Woodland

Memorial Lake

Memorial Lake

Memorial Lake

Bumblebee, Butterflies and a Moth

My first real butterfly session of the year showed I'm a little bit early I think as there's not many butterflies about just yet. I'll give it another week at least compared to last year.

Brown-belted Bumblebee

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Great-spangled Fritillary

Hummingbird Clearwing

Hummingbird Clearwing

Hummingbird Clearwing

Which Nikon Camera?

 Heat, Humidity and crappy Air Quality has kept me inside mostly for the last couple of weeks. I've been harassing the cats when I have been photographing but most of my time has been taken up with re-arranging my computer setup and populating a new Synology NAS (Network Attached Storage). In the process I've arranged much faster access to my Nikon image archive going back to 2005. As I've loaded up each successive year since then I've come across lots of forgotten images. Here's a few of them with a bit of a quiz for your viewing pleasure. They're all cropped to 1600-1200 pixels as always.

Can you guess the Nikon Camera and the year. A little clue, there's one for every Nikon DSLR and Mirrorless I've owned except the little used Z6ii which I can't find. Answers at the end. I think that will surprise at least one of my two avid readers.

Chipmunk 

Willet

Ravens Nest

Brown Creeper

Middle Creek Dawn

Sandhill Crane

Scarlet Tanager

Derelict Boats

Red-headed Woodpecker

Bald Eagle

Myrtle Warbler

Eastern Bluebird

Answers:-

Chipmunk - Nikon D70s + Sigma 50-500 f/4-6.3. November 12th 2005. Backyard.

Willet - Nikon D800 + Nikkor 200-400 f/4. April 22nd 2013. Captiva Island, Florida.

Ravens Nest - Nikon D850 + Nikkor 20 f/1.8. October 8th 2017. Ravens Nest, Maine. 

Brown Creeper - Nikon D200 + Nikkor 300 f/4. March 11th 2006. Backyard.

Middle Creek Dawn - Nikon D3 + Nikkor 18-35 f/3.5-4.5. Middle Creek, Pennsylvania.

Sandhill Crane - Nikon D300 + Nikkor 200-400 f/4. January 2nd 2010. Lake Duffy, Pennsylvania.

Scarlet Tanager - Nikon Z7ii + Nikkor 500PF f/5.6. May 12th 2021. Backyard.

Derelict Boats - Nikon Z7 + Nikkor Z 24-70 f/2.8 S. May 20th 2019. Isle of Mull, UK.

Red-headed Woodpecker - Nikon Z9 + Nikkor 500PF f/5.6.April 24th 2023. Backyard.

Bald Eagle - Nikon D500 + Nikkor 300PF f/4 + 1.4 TC. November 15th 2016. Conowingo Dam, Maryland.

Myrtle Warbler - Nikon D810 + Nikkor 300PF. May 7th 2015. Backyard.

Eastern Bluebird - Nikon Z6 + Nikkor 500PF f/5.6. March 6th 2020. Backyard.

Snow? In July?

 Nah! When I was archiving years of photographs to my new NAS I came across these Infra Red shots I took back in 2018. I thought they looked a bit like snow.

Independence Day

Fourth of July, Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Heat, Humidity and Fireworks. It's been a while since I've photographed fireworks but I was eager to have a go. Hershey Park always put on a good show so that's where I headed along with many thousands of others celebrating Independence Day.

Hershey Park, PA