These are pictures of nature that I've taken. May take a little while to load if you have a slow connection.
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| A squirrel at Anderson Park, Carrboro. He was kind enough to pose for me without jumping on me, which would have really freaked me out. |
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| The trees in my backyard soak up the first direct sunlight of the day, just after heavy rainclouds drifted away. I like how the shadows appear to go in different directions, although the sun's rays should be parallel. This is due to slight variations in the angle at which the trees are growing relative to the ground and the upward slope of the ground in the backyard. |
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| A curious-looking meerkat at the Memphis Zoo. |
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| Our national bird, the bald eagle, at the Memphis Zoo. |
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| Two trees, one dark and one light, growing near the river in Memphis. I thought the closeness and interconnectedness of the two trees was a good metaphor for the interracial harmony toward which the city of Memphis struggles to this day |
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| Trees lit by the fierce amber glow of the setting sun on Mud Island. This color, and others in the same range of late afternoon sun tones, are my favorite light colors. |
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| A small songbird on the fence at the lions' enclosure at the Memphis Zoo. Don't worry. He knows what he's doing. |
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| I took this one at the exact moment this leopard looked directly at me. He had just woken up, as I recall, and was looking for someone tasty to kill and eat. Fortunately, although they are out of focus in this picture, there are strong cables keeping him away from me. |
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| Pilot Mountain State Park, looking toward the extruded summit. This is a place I go, whether in person or in my mind, to feel happy. |
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| A sandpiper flying off after I got a little too close. |
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| An extreme close-up of a laughing gull in flight. I was amazed that my photo came out so well. You can rest assured that most of the photographs in this set aren't nearly as impressive. |
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| My dad says this is a laughing gull, too, only a juvenile. |
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| An egret in flight at Eagle Lake, MS. The striking yellow eyes are something I'd not noticed in actual egrets; it's a bit frightening, actually. |
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| This is a horsefly I found at Fairntosh farm. It was just chilling on the tailgate of a Ford pickup truck. I loved the eyes, so I whipped out the camera and tried to capture them. As pretty as this is, it was even cooler in real life. |
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| This is a Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) on the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia. |
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| This is a tree that fell many years ago and then decided it would try its hand growing in the direction that was once sideways but is now up. Above the bottom, it seems to be a perfectly healthy tree, bearing leaves and fruit just like any other. At the bottom, though, it looks extraordinarily bizarre. |
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| This is a young, but very grouchy, gnatcatcher who fell out of the nest prematurely. His parents nursed him back to health, though, and he may have actually survived. After a few days, he disappeared. Whether he got eaten, died, or flew isn't well known. |
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| This is a wasp on a window at the Maple View Ice Cream store on Dairyland Rd. |
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| This is Bolin Creek. It's beautiful. |
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| This is a lightning bolt outside Maple View Ice Cream store on Dairyland Rd. |
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| This is a cute little toad who was hanging out on the side of the driveway as we were getting ready to leave. I took about ninety pictures of him, but this is, I think, the best. It was my desktop background for awhile. |
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| This looks to be a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis--on the edge of a trash can. This particular trash can is outside the entrance to the Catherine Burrow Refectory (or "the Rat") and gets a lot of use. I don't know how a chrysalis survived unnoticed for so long. Oh, and check out the antennae on that mother. |
