THIRTY DAY CHALLENGE--SURPRISE--Day Twelve

A big surprise made it worth looking for something to photograph this morning.

I put the star filter on my camera so I could catch rainbow flares off the rising sun.

When I got it back home I added some artsy Photoshop effects to this one for fun.

While I was still taking pictures of the sunrise I saw an osprey fly over the pond.

Almost before I could react it dove straight into the water.

There was a moment of struggle and then it rose with a fish in its claws.

It happened so fast that I didn’t have the sense to zoom in to catch a more focused picture.

The big bird circled around catching the sunlight as it adjusted its prey for a better angle for flight.

Before the poor fish could recover from the shock of being snatched from the water it was on its way to becoming breakfast.

THIRTY DAY CHALLENGE--Day Eleven

Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting wabbits.

And if you go chasing rabbits

And you know you're going to fall

Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar

Has given you the call

Call Alice

When she was just small

There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind,

and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a comer,

"Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!" She was close behind it when she turned the comer, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen:

I had nuffin',

No, I hadn't got nuffin',

So I didn't go down

To the market square;

But I walked on the common,

The old-gold common...

And I saw little rabbits

'Most everywhere!

So I'm sorry for the people who sell fine saucepans,

I'm sorry for the people who sell fresh mackerel,

I'm sorry for the people who sell sweet lavender,

'Cos they haven't got a rabbit, not anywhere there!

THIRTY DAY CHALLENGE--Day Ten

A photo a day for thirty days

Tall Men Riding

Oh, the high hawk knows where the rabbit goes,

and the buzzard marks the kill

But few there be with eyes to see the tall men riding still

We hark in vain on the speeding train

for an echo of hoof beat thunder

And the yellow wheat is a winding sheet

for cattle trails plowed under.

Barry Taylor