Jan's new toy

I have hinted at something that has come up in our lives unexpectedly and I was going to explain it, but have decided not to get into any kind of detail.  I'm not being catty, it's just more personal than I want to share in this venue.  I will say this much, it is something that scared me a little and I had it checked out.  It isn't serious evidently, but will require more investigation to get to the bottom of it.  Perhaps down the line when all is said and done, I will offer more explanation.

Now on to Jan.  She has been wanting a new telephoto lens for some time.  She has been talking to everyone she runs into, and trying to pick their brains for info on lenses.  I mentioned in Yellowstone that many of the distances involved are not obtainable with a telephoto lens, even ones costing many thousands of dollars.  So it came down to what can you reasonably carry and will get out to a respectable distance?  Being a Nikon person, sorry Sandy, she zeroed in on the 80-400mm Nikkor lens with VR, that's vibration reduction.  The vibration reduction system allows you to hand hold the lenses to take a picture, where without it there would be no way you could keep a 400mm from moving and blurring your picture.  It is much happier on a tripod though.  It is fairly heavy, so you wouldn't want to do a 5 mile hike holding it in your hand, but in a back pack it would be fine.  Even this lens is expensive, so we were waiting until this time next year ideally, but Nikon, and B&H Photo surprised us.  They popped up a short sale offering the lens for $350 off!  Well, it didn't take much persuading, we bought it immediately.  So Jan has been working with it over the last two days with some interesting results.

There is a bird rookery about 5 miles from the campground in Venice that draws bird fans from all around.  It is a little island in a little pond and there are many, many pairs of different birds, tending their nests and young.  It is a wonderful place to observe as you can get quite close while the birds feel secure on their island.

A Snowy Egret coming in for a landing

The baby birds are all different sizes from just newly hatched to much larger but still unable to fly.  They rely on their parents to feed them regurgitated food, and man, are they hungry!

Mom arriving!

Come on Mom, we're hungry!

Come ON!  We can't wait!

These couple photos show why Jan is so happy with her new lens.  In fact right now she is over at an eagle's nest checking out the baby, that will very soon be flying.  I'm sure I will have more pictures to add to these as time goes by.