Sue Thomas

I'm always trying to think of different ways to do anything. Not that I watch much telly, but when I do I look for interesting material that I can recreate and use, especially in adverts.

This is one of my seasonal resident male Meadow Larks. They nest in the horses field.

Good thinking Julie! I often use that technique, especially for something which has straight edges. There is always more than one alternative way of doing anything in PSP, to get the desired result.

Is this a brand new Workshop? I'm intrigued!

Well done, your persitence has paid off. I see you have mastered that technique. I bet you are now looking back and thinking what was all the frustration about. 🙂 lol

I should have also mentioned that I used Carole's banner 2 special font, which I bought. I'm hooked on creating banners at the moment, especially after watching the more recent master class on banners and pennants. Also used one of her punches, which I love. For the circle photo I used the technique I have demonstrated before. Personally, I prefer to use it on oval and circles rather than square or rectangle shapes. I did give instructions on how to create that effect, using vector shapes, to maintain clean sharp edges. As using the selction tool creates very jaggy edges on anything that isn't square or rectangle.

It really pains me to reduce an image to 600 pixels and under 200kb. lol Saying that I understand completely why it is nescesary to do so. Although I did reduce the imgae for facebook from 6mb to 1.5mb. As you say facebook is a handy alternative on occassions. When the wild fires started last year, there were two hundered and so, this year when they started there were over 300 fires. Unfortunately, the wild fires have to be controlled due to more and more people wanting to live in rural areas. Wild fires play an important part in renewing and recycling ecosytems. Many of the trees planted today for commercial use, are quick growing, and are unable to withstand the fires like so many of the native plants and trees, which depend on the fires for their survial. Fires open up the forests canopy to sunlight, to encourage new growth, including tree saplings.

I'm having to change the birds bath water several times a day. I also have 2 small solar fountains which I have in what were shallow animal mineral tubs. The birds love a shower. I even have bowls of water out for the ground squirrels, rabbits and other 4 legged mammals. The corvids are social birds, also highly intelligent. They willingly interact with others as you have witnessed. I have to clean out the horses watering bowl daily, as the birds not only use it to drink from, but as a bath. Then there are the birds that use bird baths to dispose of their young droppings. Taking attention far away from the nest. We really don't need to provide food or water for birds, we do it purely to attract them for our own enjoyment. It's a huge lucrative industry.

Here is my page for the Tut /tech challenge. I create the page a week or so ago. I added, by creating the date banner, lifting some of the pennants, also I added a ribbon, and lifted one edge. I replaced the date stamp with the banner. Head on over to the facebook page, if you want to see a much less compressed layout, to see the details and colours in the photos. I rarely edit my photos. If I find there is a need to, all I tend to do is use the brightness and contrast, and crop tools. In this case the photos weren't edited. Also, for those that may be interested, birds are like dog, they don't perspire, instead they pant like dogs. For the past fortnight the temps have been in the high thirties, again today it is 37c, and hazy, due to smoke blowing in.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/441451292922964/user/1421371617 There has been a few posts since I posted the Mourning Doves, you can either scroll down as Corrie suggested, or click on the link above. I too have been taking pics of Thistles. Your page showcasing this one is awesome. It would pass for a macro shot. Tremendous contrasting depth of field too.

I will eventually get around to showcasing many of this season's photos. At present I'm taking a break, ejoying the summer, kayaking, cycling, riding, and of course photographing wildlife, of all kind. Head over to the facebook page, as I have posted some images of the Mouring Doves, which although I sized them down, not as much as I would have to on here, in the campus. I have never had so many Mourning Dove pairs as this year. I have six nesting pairs that I have found. THis family, although high up in a tree, it was fairly accessible, to take photos off.

Week twenty nine. There aren't many nestlings now. To my knowledge I have this family and the last of the Robins. A newly fledged Robin came to the dinner table this morning. This was the only easily accessible Mourning Dove nest I could find. Mind you I still had to get the ladder out, prop it up against an ajoining tree to take shots, without distubing the dove family.

As am I. Many of the birds have such vibrantly colourful colours. Would you believe it, if I was tell you that they are incredibly difficult to spot, as even with their bright colours they blend into their habitat perfectly. Usually, especially with the orioles, as they are always very vocal. I listen from where the song is coming from, and then look hard for them.

week 28 Cheeky handsome male Baltimore Oriole. They are such little amusing characters. My week almost always starts on a Friday. I'm a day early.

What a delightful photo. It has so much going for it, colour and movement