The Flying Blossom

The night before this we had some rain or snow, or wind maybe - whatever it was, it caused this little blossom to fall. However, though it lost its petals, it didn't fall to the ground, but instead caught on the string of a spider web. It was swinging about in the wind when I found it and here is me attempting to capture it. (Most of the photos I took look just like the fourth picture down.)

Evil seagull

Inverness, Scotland

I know I've told this story before, but probably not to everyone reading this. So, as you can see, the seagulls are pretty large in the UK. Well, what we have in Colorado are technically just "gulls" because they don't see the sea and maybe that is why they're smaller. Anyway...

One day at work, in London, I noticed this seagull rising in flight to our window, hovering for a bit, and then continually plunging down below (we were on the 3rd floor, or 2nd to the Brits). I distinctly remember thinking it looked very evil too, something about it's eyes... Well, my supervisor went out to lunch and when she returned she told us there was a dead pigeon outside the door on the sidewalk below. Apparently the seagull was preying on the pigeon. Eww. Click on that picture above and look at the eyes of the seagull. They all have this evil look to them (or at least, I think they do).

swimming rat?

I regularly walk around the lake by our house and I like to observe the weather, plants, animals, etc. in the area. Well, this fine evening I was sitting on the rocks of the lake trying to get a nice photo of the lone Double-crested Cormorant that is still frequenting the lake, when this woman and her kids walk past looking at something swimming on the surface of the lake. I got up from my spot to go further down the lake and they stopped me to see if I knew what the strange thing was that was swimming on the surface. The mom described it as sort of something with a rodent's head, like a rat. I slightly doubted what they were saying and went over to sit and see if I could figure out what it was...

Well, she was right! It looked very much like a rodent, a rat even, that was swimming! And it would dive every so often and stay under water for a considerable amount of time. It's head looks like a rat/beaver mix, maybe too different a nose to be a rat, though. I still have no clue what it was and because the light was going out, I wasn't able to get a better picture. Alas, it will have to do - here is the odd creature:

Click on it and see if you can figure out what it is for me.

EDIT: Scratch that! I figured it out. It is a muskrat!! How thrilling... my first sighting of a muskrat (that I'm aware of) at our lake. !

My Book Ent

One day after watching Lord of the Rings, Katie came up with the idea that we should someday make ourselves "Book Ents". So, this last month (or two) in my pottery class I decided to work on my Book Ent. I do like how it turned out, though the clear glaze went on a little too thick (and I probably should have scraped some of it off)... I'm just calling it "frost" for now. If you look closely on that trunk, you can kind of see the Ent's face. I also made a little Red Squirrel to rest in the tree. And I believe you can see the head of the Hobbit on top of the tree, peeking out some...

rooftops

London, England

I had to lean out the third floor window while it was storming, so that I could get some good photos of the clouds (it was even thundering!)... while I was focusing on the clouds, somehow the rim of my camera lens fell off and nearly met its end in the "garden" below. I had to go ask the landlord to let me out into the back to look for it! Thankfully, I found it and was able to still enjoy the pictures.