the last couple of days have been cold, very wet and windy…typical fall days…but I decided I’d rather look at something else…the beach at Fort Zachary State Park, Key West! The sand is very pebbly and hard on the feet…definitely need flip flops. All three photos were taken in the winter of 2011 with my iPhone…
I find it difficult to believe the two boards attached to the left hand corners of this building will do the job for long…
managed a few photos on my way to Barrie yesterday…Barrie is 2.5 hrs south of North Bay.
As I was looking through my photos from the Sunday trip to Sudbury I realized I took three red barns…for some reason I love barns, old or new…and three red ones is awesome! Remember these are taken while driving so one in particular is a bit blurry…
I’ve this potted Bougainvillea on my deck…my yard will have to wait for next year to be finished, but I love this particular flower so bought one to put on my deck. This photo was taken Oct. 4th…only a few tiny leaves and flowers left at the end of each stem…till next year!
My daughter and I went to Sudbury yesterday, which is about 1.5 hours west of North Bay…the colors are pretty much yellows, browns and rusts now…the beautiful reds are gone! Even at that there isn’t a great deal of color…
I was sitting on my deck last week enjoying the last bit of warm weather of the season and was treated to a serenade by this fellow for a rather long time, a good half hour or more…it wasn’t and angry sound, which is why I called it a serenade. In the beginning could hear the singing but couldn’t see the bird as he was a long way up…once I spotted him I took the photo. As you can see the leaves are falling!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND YOURS!
more fall colors, more yellow/gold in this area…this was taken on my way to Sudbury, which is about an hour and a half west of North Bay…
For those of you who don’t know North Bay is fortunate to be surrounded by two awesome lakes…Lake Nipissing and Trout Lake…the latter is the much smaller lake of the two, (7 miles long 2miles wide)approximately 4 miles east of Lake Nipissing, but beautiful none the less. Trout Lake is the source of North Bay’s drinking water…
This photo was taken of the shoreline of Trout Lake, to show the fall colors.
it is a cool dreary morning, I felt something bright and cheery was in order!
I saw this the other day during my fall color tour…don’t know what it is but thought it pretty. I started out with a cropped version of this but then changed my mind…the full view is more interesting…I’ll do a crop another time.
FYI...a friend to mine passed along the info it is a herb called Tansy…you can find out more info about it here… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tansy The tiny heads are yellow before they are dried…I did a search and found info and photos of it and realized I’m used to seeing the herb before it is dried…it looks different once dried…
stopped at Sunset Park Beach to check for changing leaves and found this fellow and a buddy scurrying around…at first neither would let me get remotely close but after about a half hour of me taking photos of the ducks this one didn’t seem to be as timid…
took these shots on Saturday at the North Bay Farmers’ Market…there is such an abundance of fresh product…the colors are awesome!
from Alcase Gardens…gourds and yellow and white pumpkins
from Springhill Farm…gotta love the purple pepper!
Leisure Farms
Saw these fellows at 6:45am Saturday morning…as I slowly tried to get close to them they turned their backs to me and began walking away from me, was rather funny actually. I was a long way from them but instinctively they knew I was heading towards them and they didn’t want to be friendly!
I was trying to take a photo of a sunrise through the trees when I spotted this fellow…the sunrise isn’t worth posting, but I thought this the bird would be. I don’t usually do this kind of thing to my photos but felt this photo was worthy…black & white and then in Picasa tried Holga-ish…
and in sepia…
Found this fellow hanging around last week, just like this…it is difficult to tell but if you look very closely you can see his web around his top legs…not sure what/where his web was connected as I couldn’t see it very well…
These three are shad flies…they don’t bite, the adult shad doesn’t have a mouth and dies a couple of days after they mate and lay eggs… but they are a stinky nuisance, we have to put up with them for two to three weeks in the July…the odd thing is a large number means the lake is healthy! They are attracted to light so most people near the lake keep their lights off as they flock to the light!
Pansies have always make me think of my childhood…
The day I stopped by Callander Bay was very hot, humid and hazy…I found some of the photos showed the haze, which is why I opted for b & w. you can see the haze in both photos. This section of the Callander dock is going to be repaired eventually…I just heard something about it this week…a section of it was removed from the dock so no one could use it right now…
this island is at the end of the section of dock above…
Last week I stopped by Callander Bay and have to say got a huge surprise! The bay was green sludge…actually it is blue-green algae. It was as far out into the bay as I could see. I knew there was an issue in Callander Bay, but didn’t realize just how bad it was! “The toxins in the algae can irritate the skin and, if ingested, cause diarrhea and vomiting. At high enough levels, the toxins may cause liver and nervous system damage. The residences of Callander Bay are advised to keep pets or livestock from drinking or swimming in the water. In addition, residents should not use the water for cooking because food may absorb toxins from the water. Also, boiling or treating the water with a disinfectant such as bleach may release more toxins”. http://www.nugget.ca/2013/08/02/blue-green-algae-bloom-in-callander-bay
Very sad really, as Callander Bay is a beautiful tourist area in the summer and in the winter the bay is full of ice huts…wouldn’t be eating any fish from the Bay!
the water looks blue/gray around this female duck but if you look close to her body you will see it is green! 
smart fellow, no fishing for him! I think this fellow is from the Bittern family…
this is a building I see on the way to and from Rosseau every Friday…couldn’t decide whether I preferred the color or the b & w…
night before last we had a full moon…I tried to take a shot of the moon before it got completely dark…I took more than I care to say but none were even passable. my first problem was I didn’t know where my tripod was, (I’ve not used it in a few years…) and there was way too much shake in my hands…all the shots were blurry! I let it go and decided to leave it until I could find my tripod…but…once it got dark I could still see the moon shining bright when I looked out my window so I went out and tried again…this is what I captured…
had to drive to Huntsville last night, approximately an hour and 15 min. drive and the sky was so unusual…it couldn’t seem to make up its mind what it wanted to do, from one mile/kilometer to the next…anyone who visits knows I love clouds…I captured over 300 shots from my moving vehicle last night, some I’ll post but most I’ll delete…certainly worth effort to have a few!
on the way there…before the skies broke into the shot below…
this was on the way there…not sure what that colored section was all about as the sun wasn’t even remotely close by? It rather looks like part of a rainbow, but that is all there was to it and it was only in a specific area during the drive? NOTE: a visitor to my blog explained to me the mini rainbow is called a “sundog”…they are formed when the sun is low on the horizon, either to the left or right of the sun…here is a good explanation…http://weather.thefuntimesguide.com/2009/11/sun_dog.php
on the return trip as the sun was setting…
the only time I might see a sunrise is for nine weeks during the summer when I travel on Friday to Rosseau…we leave North Bay at 5:00am and this year we/ve seen a number of beautiful sunrises. My problem is I’m in the passenger seat and the sunrise is on the driver’s side…for the most part I can’t shoot around my daughter’s head! This past Friday I managed to capture a couple of weak shots of the end of the sunrise around her head!
a little farther down the road was foggy and the colors were pale pink!
this one was farther down the road the sun had risen, but I liked the sky…
here are the color shots of the flowers I posted yesterday…
I’m finding myself attracted more and more to b & w…one of the blogs follow just did a b & w series, with a few flowers shots in b & w which inspired me to give it a try!
this past Friday was rather foggy on the drive to Rosseau Market..we leave North Bay at 5:00am so on a cooler morning we often see some fog, but this was more than usual…nothing serious though. fyi…the first two photos were taken from the moving vehicle!
by around 7:00am most of the fog had lifted…
we saw this fellow as we came around a curve…Mr Porcupine…he certainly wasn’t in any hurry to get across the road!
I shot this fellow last Saturday, during a walk along the waterfront…I watched him for sometime and took many shots to get this one…
this was taken last Friday, July 26th at 5:00am…I was packing my vehicle to make the trip to Rosseau Market…I’ve tried these types of shots before but never managed to get one that I liked…I like the stark black and white of this one…all that was done to this was cropping, sharpened and noise reduction…I would like to eliminate the halo but I think that has something to do with how I took the photo???
I saw three female ducks sitting on the rocks last Saturday just like this…I had to take a photo of this lady as she actually looks angry! apparently ducks do this to keep warmer…
gone fishin…
this female didn’t mind her photo being taken!
the view from end of the dock at Lake Rosseau Park
if you visit on occasion you will know clouds are a favorite of mine…I rather liked the placement of the ones below!
clouds and light…something that attracted me, nothing more!
some of the last of the season…the growing time is short!
A windy day at the beach!
these next photos were taken on the same day…it was very windy but the ducks seem to be enjoying the turbulent water…swimming about! the female below was rather nosy and came up very close…some are more skittish than others…
this next photos was take in the creek that flows into Lake Nipissing…I’ve watched this family on and off, for about a month now…babies are getting big!
Every Friday till Labor Day weekend I do the Rosseau Market…on the shores of Lake Rosseau, in the tiny community of Rosseau…it is a beautiful area. The first two photos are cottages, the second is a boat house, the cottage is hidden in the trees!
I rather like this shot, but not sure why three daisies on the right hand side are blurry??? Can you help…
I becoming a big fan of b & w…these are older shots I’ve converted as I’ve not been able to take many photos and the ones I’ve taken I’ve not done anything with yet. I’ll get to them soon I hope. The photo below is cropped as I liked the rather eery look of it this way…believe it or not there is a restaurant/bar behind me, I think I’ve shown photos of before…right on a canal that feeds into to Lake Harris, Leesburg Florida.
this is a shot I took from my vehicle window while driving through Kentucky on my way home last winter…if you are a visitor you will know I’m a huge fan of “naked” trees…
this is one side of Sunset Park point…before all the ice was gone…I thought the b & w made this shot look rather interesting…
I took some photos on Saturday that I deleted, they were awful due to user error… I was looking through my photos for something to post as I’ve not been able to get out and take any photos since Saturday…found this, it will work for now!
I hope to take more photos tomorrow, but for now these are a couple more from the other day…this one was taken looking in the opposite direction from the ducks. Off Silver Beach
I love flowers and always make sure I’ve them in the house…I usually choose purples and white, while not my usual choice, these caught my eye…
I’ve recently converted a number of color photos to black & white…when the shot works I find it very appealing.
Most of us aren’t a fan of Dandelions, myself included, but they do look pretty and delicate just before they get blown all over…
this lovely flower is one from a bush in my next door neighbors front yard…I don’t think it is as sharp as it could be due to the fact it was swaying a bit in the breeze when I was taking the photo…I couldn’t resist!
Some of you will know I’ve not been happy with my 18mm-50mm lens that came with my camera, I felt limited with it…I’ve thought about this for a few months as I wasn’t sure what I wanted or even if I needed a new lens. This one was suggested as a starting point, something I could build from…it is a Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8D, it wasn’t expensive, but I’ve read many positive reviews, it also comes highly recommended by a blogging friend…it is supposed to be a great lens in spite of the cost. I’ve only taken a few shots with it so I’m not sure what I’m doing with it yet…time will tell!
I was about 10 feet away from this mom and her chicks, she didn’t seem to be afraid of me,but she didn’t want me too close…as I inched closer she kept walking away, with one eye on me at all times…
I like the texture on tree trunks, when I saw this one with the mushrooms growing I decided to see how much detail I could pick up…
Heather Cote... 
