"There's a Place"

 There's a place I love to take photographs, it is my yard at my home for 40 years (on June 1) in Melbourne Florida. Between the plants and the wildlife, there is always something to admire and try to capture on film. Here are a few of my recent shots, all taken with my feet firmly set in my yard.

The bottlebrush tree which is native to Australia, is actually a shrub. This one was on my property when I bought the house, and is now used to hold my bird feeders. There were about a 100 honey bees om the flowers but I caught mostly there butts so did not share.

Mt birdfeeder attracts a large variety of birds but these pictures are from the last month only. There is a cardinal pair that frequent my yard. I liked this photo because the male was showing off his top. Probably happy because I had just filled the feeder.

While the male cardinal was enjoying the feeder, I started to put down a board that the mourning doves like. They are too clumsy to land on the feeder. Of course there are the hated squirrels, and on this day, a pair of juvenile ibis were enjoying the seeds. Usually a large flock of white ibis eat the bugs from my lawn, but I guess they two guys like the simplicity of the seeds. They were juveniles, identified because of the darker plumage they have. They will be all white when mature.

Closeup of one of the juvenile ibis.

One of my newer orchids was in full bloom with two full stems of flowers.

The female cardinal likes to hang out in my bougainvillea. I have actually seen the male bring her seeds from the feeder. She does like using the ground board.

I already mentioned the squirrels I have, but I also have a few red bellied woodpeckers. Recently, I think they have a nest in the neighbor's tree, and it will fill up with seeds and flu across the street. A few seconds it will fly back for a refill. I have seen it do this for an hour. Maybe they have little ones in the nest, I am not sure.

I had mentioned the mourning doves, they are adept at landing on powerlines and other wires, and can manage to sit in my bougainvillea, but they have not figured out the tiny feeders I have.

Sometimes the woofpecker uses the board on the ground for seeds.

All the previous photos were taken in mu front yard, here are a few from my backyard. My property has access to Elbow Creek. We have many ospreys who like to fish behind my house. Once you learn the distinctive cry of an osprey, I usually get the cameras out when I hear them.

The previous osprey was watching the mullet jump, like this one I was able to capture in mid-flight.

Recently I have started growing milkweed which attracts the monarch butterflies. My plant was completely eaten by three monarch caterpillars including this guy. It took about four or five days. It solved the aphid problem.

I do have blue hays who like to use both the feeder and the ground board.

I also see these house finches. The male has a beautiful red tint.

Once in a while I get invaded by certain mammals of the Kabran Clan. They try to hide behind the orchids and bananas, but if you have some patience, you can capture this unique creature.

I have named some of the more regular ones who show up. They seem to be very seasonal. The one on the right I call Dennis and the one in the white shirt is Chris. The one in the blue shirt, who pretends to be the leader with barking calls, I call Cousin Jim. I usually try not to scare them away.

The last three photos are the manatees who like to come up behind my house in Elbow Creek. I think they may have been enjoying themselves a little too much. Whatever they were doing, most of it was done under water. All I can say is there was a lot of grunting.

These are less than 10 feet away from me; no zoom lens needed.

There was no smoking that I saw afterwards.

I hope you have enjoyed my post about a place I like to take photographs.

Title of Post

"There's a Place" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their debut album, Please Please Me, released in March 1963. It was written primarily by John Lennon and credited to McCartney–Lennon. In the United States, the song was released in July 1963 on the group's first US LP, Introducing... The Beatles, later reissued in January 1964 as Beatlemania surged there. It was also issued as a non-album single in the US, in March 1964, as the B-side to "Twist and Shout", reaching number 74 in the Billboard Hot 100.