Whoops! Would You Believe FOUR?!!!

You would think three little bandits would be plenty, but a fourth baby/teenage raccoon has joined the others.  I don't know what is in our yard that's so attractive to them, but they spend hours every day under the pecan trees with their noses to the ground eating something.  I'm hoping it's grubs or other  pests in the worm stage and it would be perfect if they're taking care of all the Japanese beetle grubs as those are such pests!

This photo was taken with my new camera which arrived last Saturday.  I got tired of waiting for Nikon to bring out their latest camera so I bought a Canon Power Shot SX60 with a 65X zoom lens.  Wow!  What an improvement over what I can capture now than what my old camera could do.

As a matter of fact, most of the wildlife we see is in the fields behind the barn, about 200 yards or so from the house.  The kitchen window looks out in that direction and I often glimpse something there but it's usually too far for a decent photo.  Not with this camera!  It's also not supposed to do well in low light but I happened to see a turkey out back yesterday as I was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and I got the following photo.

The color looks a bit weird but otherwise, the photo is very decent for low light and a subject that I could barely see with my naked eye.  And did you happen to see the 'happy surprise' in the lower left corner (click on the photo to enlarge it)?  Imagine how thrilled I was when I downloaded the photos to find not only the turkey, but 4 little turkey chicks with her!  I could barely make out the turkey and had no idea there were chicks too!

I'm very blessed with this camera and would have missed both the raccoons and the turkey chicks had I not bought the Canon camera.  Maybe the Nikon B700 is a better camera but I've waited for it long enough.  First it was supposed to be out in the spring of this year, then they moved it to July 1st and now they say it will be the middle of October.  Not any baby animals around at that time of the year around here at least.

Will keep you posted with other photos that I'm able to take with it.  Well, if I have enough time since I now have enough reference photos to keep me painting for quite a while!  Maybe you should watch this blog for both photos and paintings!