Well, it has been a while (a long while). For those of you who didn't know, Anya and I bought a new house and moved up north a month or so ago. We've bought a property with over ten acres and a nice 2.5 acre pond.

Normally, when you move into a new property, you're not thrilled when there are very large rodents living there, but in this case, we're cool with it...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM at 500mm, 1/640 sec at f/6.3. OS Mode 1. ISO 1250. RAW conversion and cropped (mouseover for original) in Adobe Camera Raw.

We have some work to do on the house (no - this will not be turning into a house restoration blog), so it might be longer between posts - and I'm usually slower in the winter anyway - but I definitely am looking forward to all the wildlife opportunities I'll be having here. Of the notable stuff we've seen already... tons of cool spiders and bugs, herons (green and blue), king fisher, wood ducks, deer, huge flocks (I'm talking in the thousands!) of red-winged blackbirds, the list goes on and on.

We took the kayaks out on the pond yesterday and I was getting somewhat close to the kingfisher, so I'm hoping I can get an opportunity to get some photos of him soon, and if I can get decent lighting to capture the blackbirds I am hoping to do that too. Stay tuned!

- Bill