Hey Hcarl Great light , and look . I especially like the mossy branch. Your "Stellar" photography is outstanding.
Randall

This is a picture of a Glaucous-Winged Gull taken early in the morning on the pier at Ocean View, California. This picture was taken with a Nikon D300 with the 70 to 200MM VR lens.

I mistakingly mis-identified the gull shown above. It is a WESTERN GULL. It IS NOT a Glaucus-Winged Gull. Sorry!

Peter: Interesting image of the gull. The whites seem a bit blown out but like most white birds they are hard to control. I have posted a few shots of some of the last spring backyard birds. The robins are back here on Vancouver Island in good numbers. These shots are all with the D300 and 500 AFS II with 1.7 TC ISO 200 and all about the same exposures. 1/50 -1/100 sec and F/8 F/11. hcarl

Hcarl,loved all of your bird pictures, especially the wind-blown male robbin. Did you get to see any of the olympic games? I wish the other team won the hockey game; but, at leasst, the world got to see a great game.

Peter: I did not to get to see any of the games in person but did take in some events on T.V. With all that is going on in this world right now I find it hard to place much importance on this type of excessive spending on what really is a party for a few. What is happening in Haiti, Chile and the conflict in the East occupies my mind much more than the excess of sports. I was happy that Canada came out on top in the Men's hockey and also the curling but if the outcome had been different it wouldn't have made much difference to me. hcarl

This Hairy Woodpecker was squaking for something to eat at lunch time today so along with putting some suet in the feeder I took along my Canon G9 and snapped a shot of him at 2 1/2 ft. Supposed to be a elusive forest dweller but not this guy. He has been around our place for 5 years. Food must be to his liking. hcarl

The Rufus Hummers have been back since Apr 20th. here in Port Alberni and today they started working the Flowering Currect bushes. Hope for some good shots in the next while. For now a couple of quick ones from the deck today. hcarl

hcarl--Looks like you're in for a good hummer season!

Here are a couple of a male Rufus at the Flowering Currents. Taken with a D300 and 500mm AFS 11 at 1/1600 sec F/5.6 Iso 400 and 1 SB 800 with Better Beamer. These were processed from Raw with Lightroom 3 Beta 2 and in PS3 for the web. Looks like LR3 will be an improvement over LR2. Will be interesting to see if PS5 is enough of an improvement over PS3 to make the upgrade. hcarl