Have you ever had a dream where you are standing in a field that is totally empty except for you and some regal animal? Yeah, me either but if I did, I think it would look a lot like this real-life encounter.

Squirrels are usually reluctant models. This one, however, had a card that read, "I'm Ready for my close-up!"

I have been taking photos of the deer in Tom Sawyer State Park for years, yet I have never seen, let alone photographed, a Buck with a set of antlers. I have heard them snort before but never actually saw one. Earlier in the day today I played hide-n-seek with this one and got several photos with various branches and sticks in the way but I was happy with them because you could clearly see that it was a buck. Then, as I was leaving, he came right out in the open and seemed to actually want to be photographed. I started out about 100 yards away and slowly made my way toward him, stopping every several yards to get closer and closer photos. Then he just walked away.

Just look at the neck on this guy!

The next time I'm at Cave Hill Cemetery, I will have to endeavor to get the name of this family who I thought made a great subject in black and white.

Just a vigilant squirrel I saw at Bernheim Forest..

Whenever I hear someone talking about going to "their happy place" I always wonder what it looks like. I'm sure that there must be several that look like this.

When this guy flew past my head, I thought it was a flying barrel. I really thought it was an owl because it was so large.

A look across Bernheim Forest's "Big Prairie".

Way in the distance is a weathered bronze statue called, "Let There Be Light" by George Grey Barnard, at the gravesite of Isaac W. Bernheim, his wife, daughter and son-in-law. I have always thought the name of the statue makes for a good "Photographer's Prayer". I make sure I get at least one shot of the statue every time I visit...

A resident of the "Edible Garden" at Bernheim Forest. Word has it that these taste like lemon.. :-)

This week I went to Tom Sawyer State Park and found more deer there than usual... I think there were actually more deer in the park than squirrels that day. (For some reason, posthaven [the host] is stripping the color info out of my photos! It doesn't happen immediately, but seems to happen if I come back in to edit the post. This will mark the third time that I've deleted and reuploaded the photos. This might be a good reason to look elsewhere for hosting...) Figured it out.. Apparently something in the process doesn't like the ProPhoto RGB colorspace.

It was really hot in the park this day. Hot enough that the local deer all knew to stay in the shade.

A bee of some sort eating a piece of a weed.

Spotted at Parklands of Floyds Fork

The other day I went for a quick walk in Tom Sawyer Park with my camera. It was the first time in the park, with my camera, since winter. I was concerned that, with the vegetation as thick as it was, I was going to have to stay on the main paths. Typically, all of the animal activity happens off of the beaten paths so I figured there wouldn't be many photo ops this day. Turns out I was wrong as I kept running into unsuspecting deer and even a small group of turkeys.

The frozen scene outside of the UPS Air Group headquarters in Louisville, KY. The ice-coated trees only lasted one more day after this shot. Shot through a dirty window with an iPhone 4S and edited on an iPad with Handy Photo.

I saw this while walking in Tom Sawyer Park, Louisville, KY yesterday. It reminds me of a bird combined with music notation's G-clef.

A bright male cardinal.

The other day I was walking, as I quite frequently do, in Tom Sawyer park. One big difference this walk had with almost all of my others was the fact that the ground was covered in fresh snow and it was sleeting as I started my walk. From a distance, I could see that someone had thrown some corn on the ground for the birds and five or six cardinals were making good use of it. I kneeled in the snow to get a lower vantage point and stayed far enough away that the cardinals probably didn't even know I was there. I grabbed some photos of the feeding cardinals but, when my knees were wet and cold enough to make me want to move, I decided to continue on to see what else I might find in the park. Passing by the corn, the bashful cardinals all took off for nearby branches until I could pass. But I didn't pass. As I walked by the corn on the side of the trail, a strangely colored "thing" was back in the woods and walking toward me. That "thing" is pictured below. That is one fancy-looking chicken!