Another Game of Spot the Birdie

I started my day yesterday with the tiring task of doing the laundry. With the summer heat enough to make one tired even without moving, hearing the birds tweet and chirp gave me the opportunity to relax and be still for a while.

Textured with A Rural Journal's "Painted Sky No. 2"

I used to wonder why the birds don't get electrocuted, but I heard (through the old TV Show, "Beakman's World") that there's something about their feet which allows them to sit on high-tension wires.


Ready for another game of spot the birdie? I heard this one call on other birds, but because the tree was too high, this was the maximum zoom I could do, because if I still zoom on it more, it would look pixelated already.

I might be facing tiring chore yesterday, but thanks to these birdies, I was able to enjoy Mother Nature's gifts. Happiness do come in small packages...

....coupled with big zooms. :)

Flowers From Aunt Julie's Garden

When I was still doing my Project 365 and I am vacationing in La Union, I would often go to my Aunt Julie's garden to take flower pictures so I won't skip taking pictures during a lax day (at times I do take a day of just staying at home instead of roaming around checking tourist spots). This practice seemed to have become a nature for me, because even if I am not doing a photo Project 365 anymore, I still take pictures from my Aunt's garden whenever I am there.


I don't know the name of this flower, but I love the little clusters of flowers forming a bouquet. Initially, I took a picture of this with the flower on the right side, but the wind kept blowing and when I hit the shutter it was already leaning towards the left side.

textured with Kim Klassen's Happy Heart at hard light 30% and Rural Journal's Laundry Day Skies at divide 65%

About a few years ago, most of the plants in her collection included different kinds of Euphorbia. These plants are very easy to take care of because it doesn't need constant watering, but they do have thorns. I don't know why Aunt Julie stopped collecting this plant, and why the very few left in her collection were placed near the very old outhouse, but because they still produce pretty flowers, I continued photographing them.


Nowadays, she's collecting all sorts of hibiscus plants. She has so many plants in her garden now, though not all produces flowers just yet. I was lucky during this visit because two plants had flowers - this and the white one (same kind). By the way, the two bottom stigma pads were touching my lens as I took this shot. Very impressive for this camera to produce great macro shots even if the lens is already way too close to the subject.

These three images above were taken January this year, before I traveled back home after my cousin's wedding.


This one was taken last 04 March before we left the house going to the cemetery. That scary, big mosquito caught my attention, so I grabbed FiFi (my Cherry Mobile Flare cell phone) and tested its ability to take macro shots. I am very impressed. :)

I am not sure when I will travel back to La Union, but hopefully when I return, Aunt Julie's garden will have lots of flowers for me to take pictures of.

Spot the Birdie

I usually walk and jog alone, so aside from my water bottle, I always carry my cell phone or my camera (or both) to be my companion. It not only allows me to sit and rest for a bit, but it also allows me to discover many things.

My focus while walking is the path ahead of me, but I am also focused on capturing images of random interesting stuff, so not only were my eyes open, my ears are very open, too! I sometimes I amaze myself by seeing little creatures on the grass, or spotting an interesting grass formation... but the one thing that amazes me the most was whenever I get to spot some very fickle birdies.


I can hear them tweet, I sometimes see them fly right in front of me, but because they're quite sensitive, photographing them can be very difficult. What's annoying was that whenever I take just the cell phone (which only has digital zoom - and we all know how awful digital zoom can be), a very big, unique bird would just be there waiting for someone to notice it, but whenever I decide to take my camera, there wasn't one single birdie to take a picture of.

On this day, I got lucky. I saw some movements in the grass, and I knew I just have to find the bird. With many tall grasses and bright sunlight, it was difficult... but there it was, and I am one happy girl. :)

Another Butterfly

Last week of February this year, my ever beloved cell phone Cysho, breathed its last breath. I have been experiencing problems with the phone since last year - battery drained pretty much instantly (especially when I turn the camera on or whenever call was made), and at times it would light up and turn off by itself. Weeks before it died, I'd always get a message saying "menu file is corrupted" whenever I go to the menu page. I knew it has been with me for more than 5 years and probably it was time for retirement, but of course, its death came unexpectedly. I was taking a picture of my cat and after two shots, it turned off by itself and turning it on, it would only show the wallpaper and no matter what buttons or keys I press, it would only show the wallpaper. Thankfully, images were saved on the memory card, so I only need a memory card reader so I could access all the images I haven't transferred on my net book yet.

As some sort of a tribute, I decided to share these two images taken using my Sony Ericsson K800i cell phone.


I took these July last year. Coming home from an afternoon walk, I saw this butterfly in a neighbor's garden. It's quite rare for me to see butterflies here in our neighborhood despite houses having gardens and flowering plants. When I saw this beauty, I knew I had to take my chances capturing pictures using my cell phone because if I walk back home to get my camera, it might not be there anymore.

Thankfully, my cell phone has a very awesome macro function, which allowed me to take these pictures. It flew after five pictures (I let my cell phone get really close), so I was super duper thankful that I captured these images worthy enough to be shared on the blog.

I don't know if I will encounter a great cell phone camera again, but for the five fruitful years,  I am thankful for having Cysho as my photography warrior.