T.G.'s Photography Blog

 With a forest behind my house, I see quite a bit of wildlife from time to time . In addition to the wildlife there are a couple of cats in the neighborhood that like to sit at the edge of my backyard and the forest, and hunt for food. Earlier this month I looked out my kitchen window and saw one of the two regular cats sitting on a tree stump watching the forest, presumably for lunch. A cat sitting on a tree stump at the edge of the forest. Photograph taken on January 13, 2022, near Syracuse, New York.

 Earlier this month the area got some lake effect snow, off of Lake Ontario to the north of us. The snow came down fast, and by the time it stopped there was four to five inches of snow on the ground. This photograph was taken early, during the first wave of snow fall, and was the view from my kitchen window. When the first wave of snow fall slowed, I headed out to catch Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited in the snow . By the time I got to the location where I photographed it, the snow had picked up again. Photograph taken on January 7, 2022, at Syracuse, New York.

One day last month I was sitting in my dining room helping one of my kids with schoolwork, when I happened to hear what sounded like a woodpecker pecking. I glanced out the window of the dining room and saw a pileated woodpecker couple perched on opposite sides of an ash tree at the edge of the forest behind my house.  A male (left) and female (right) pileated woodpecker pair, perched on a dying ash tree. According to Cornell University's All About Birds website , pileated woodpecker pairs stay together year-round, and are territorial, except for in the winter. During the winter they will share their territory with other woodpeckers. I've seen these two flying around at the edge of my forest but didn't realize that I was most likely seeing the same two birds each time. A female pileated woodpecker pecking on a dying ash tree. The male and female pileated woodpeckers are similar in size. The easiest way to differentiate between a male and female pileated woodpecker is the re...

Since the leaves have started falling from the trees, I've had a better view of the bird activity in the forest behind my house. The other day, I was looking out my dinning room window and I saw a blue jay flying from tree to tree. I quickly grabbed my camera and the blue jay perched itself long enough for me to snap a couple of quick photographs of it.  A blue jay sits perched on a tree branch in my backyard. In addition to this blue jay, I was able to capture photographs of a juvenile red tailed hawk  last week. Thanks to the lack of leaves on the trees, I had a clear view of the hawk. Photograph taken on October 18, 2021, near Syracuse, New York.

 While looking out of my dining room window this past week, I spotted a hawk flying above the forest behind my house . It soon quickly swooped down and landed on a branch of a dying ash tree at the forest's edge.  Juvenile red-tailed hawk After researching what type of hawk this one was on Cornell University's All About Birds website , I believe this is to be a juvenile red-tailed hawk. Juvenile red-tailed hawks don't have red tails yet, but some do have dark bands across their tails like the one seen here has. I also believe this is a red-tailed hawk due to the dark patagial marks on the front edge of its wings (you can see those better in the last photograph below), as well as its other colorations.  A juvenile red-tailed hawk perched on a tree branch. The Central New York area is at the northern edge of the red-tailed hawks year-round habitat. This time of year the red-tailed hawks that spend the warmer months further north in Canada are starting to migrate a little fu...

 The other day I spotted this male northern cardinal wandering around my back yard, near the edge of the forest. He appeared to be looking for food, as he would peck down toward the ground every so often. Male northern cardinal I've seen quite a few northern cardinals in my yard over the last few months. The cardinals really stand out well, so they are easy to spot among the forest.  Photograph taken on October 4, 2021, near Syracuse, New York.

      While looking out of a window during a rain storm, I had an H.P. Lovecraft vision flash through my head. It seemed that the following quote fit well for this photograph. “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” - H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature.