Your Monday Photo Shoot: On The Wing

John Scalzi set a photo task this week to photograph a bird. I groaned when I read that. Birds and I just don't get along photographically. To top it off, it's rained or been mostly overcast here all week, and we start a new cycle of heavy rains tomorrow. The exception was yesterday afternoon and today. It was sunny and pleasant, so, SWMBO¹ and I took a ride yesterday afternoon over to the City of Old Town where they make Old Town Canoes and got some photos of the runoff coming over the hydroelectric dam.

Looking at the power station on the Milford side of the river.

Looking at the Old Town end of the dam. It's still ice covered above the dam, but if the water rose another foot the ice would flow OVER the dam and create a nasty ice jam downstream.

I didn't see a bird anywhere, so I took the picture of the birdhouse in hopes that something, a squirrel even, would poke out it's head. No joy in Mudville.

We slowly drove down the other side of the river, crossing back over at Bangor.

Looking upriver from the City Dock in Bangor, next to the SeaDog Brewery. The ice is entering from the Kenduskeag Stream. They'll be running the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race in a week or two... Brrrr! (Carly, take note - it was just after sunset and that caused the predominance of the blue color - just like your overcast skies and low light photo of the lighthouse.)

I swung by the parking lot of the city dock, only to discover that the river has nearly destroyed the quay with action of ice and runoff. It was getting dark and I wasn't too hopeful about the lighting. Finally, I gave up and went back to the car. My wife brought my attention to this bird in the tree over the car. Slowly I turned, opening the flash, took aim and fired!
Looked at shot in the viewer on the back of the camera but didn't see the bird, figured he'd flown off. Uploaded from the camera this evening and imagine my surprise -- there's a 5 o'clock Morning Dove shadow!

Also, in the way of the birdies, I got a better shot of the bird that is driving me nuts attacking the house. Here he is, red beak and all.

Guess I got the shots I needed after all...

¹SWMBO = "She Who Must Be Obeyed" i.e. my wife. Go watch an episode of "Rumpole of the Bailey" on PBS. That's how he refers to his wife. I simply stole it from him...