I've never heard of a pine marten, but clearly now that I have, I find them adorable.

Christmas Beetle waves from Australia!

How cute! I hope it is "nice" and not "naughty"!

Definitely 'nice' ...or very good at not getting caught being naughty! Really means the summer heat is here when the Christmas Beetles appear.

Always interesting when they follow the exact path from the year before.

Future lily breeder? Something tells me that he can't prevent contamination though.

Funny!

I was so admiring the nice straight stems on those aurelians that I didn't even notice the hummingbird until the third photo !!!

(And Bravo!, BTW...)

Love the hummer Dave

Rick, I suppose I shoukd have said something about the hummingbirds in the pictures. Lol. I think I will definitely buy a camera soon. But with the next higher zoom capability than the one I'm borrowing has.

I was going to say that you must have already had a hefty telephoto. Did you blow up the images or are they uncropped photos?

They are uncropped, have not been touched at all. Camera I used was a Nikon D5100 DSLR with a Nikon DX 55-200mm lens. I was fortunate enough to get about 20 feet away.

Nhra_20 said:But with the next higher zoom capability than the one I'm borrowing has.

That might mean a much larger lens, and an overall weighty camera. It may or may not be a good choice for you. So you may want to consider a micro four-thirds camera; that would be Olympus or Panasonic. They are about half the weight and much smaller, especially when you consider large lenses. All my pics posted here in the last 2 years are taken with an Olympus EM-10 M2.

Be careful not to sacrifice the ability to take close up pictures (if that is important to you) when you look at zooms or telephotos. Not that you need to take macro photos really close up like I do, but some may not even allow you to to get a full frame of a 12 inch ruler. (That is, with each end of the ruler at each edge of the photo.)

And while you have the camera, be sure to play with the articulated screen that folds out and twists, to see if that is important for you. I think I prefer the plain tilting screen over the fully articulating (the one that folds out), but for myself, I would never be without this feature.

I second that photo. They have multiplied with all of this heavy (and standing) rain. Still not ready for a frost yet....I'd rather get attacked like that photo than have winter around the corner.

Spotted this mutant bud today on 'Rosella's Dream':


Looks like it tried to produce two buds and didn't quite manage it.