So embarrassing! Kind Ian Valentine (who has many posts in my Friends of Miles section) has lent me his professional quality Nikon D800 camera. I was very excited and took many photos at the Guild today on this 8 degree, sun / cloud mix morning.

Unfortunately my lack of experience with this camera meant that most of my shots were vastly overexposed like this one:

I’ll surely do better tomorrow.

Here are the only usable photos that I got:

After this morning’s walk, I drove to Keele & Steeles West to a Canon camera repair outlet and have left the Canon Rebel camera there for evaluation. I wasn’t thrilled to hear the technician say “If we can fix it we will” This camera, which I borrowed and which started to misfunction shortly afterward, is only 5 years old.

Species list: horned grebe, Canada goose, mallard, red-tailed hawk, turkey vulture, ring-billed gull, hairy woodpecker, eastern phoebe, blue jay, American crow, common raven, black-capped chickadee, American robin, European starling, house sparrow, northern cardinal, American goldfinch, white-throated sparrow, song sparrow.  (18 species)

Here are some photos (from previous walks) of some of the birds we saw this morning:

NATURE POETRY

Just before the death of flowers,
And before they are buried in snow,
There comes a festival season,
When nature is all aglow.         – Emeline B. Smith

Miles Hearn