(+3 insets!) (this image really shines at full size!)

Here's another picture from San Anselmo! On our second hike into the hills, we walked back through the residential streets to get home. Along the way was an endless stream of cool things to take pictures of. I was on a forced march though because Steve and Nathalie rarely stopped to wait for me, so I had to take pictures quickly and move on. I did manage to get some really cool shots though…many hundreds of pictures actually! :D

As I trailed behind Steve and Nathalie, I got a really cute picture of a sparrow in a tree, and later a darling hummingbird! At one point we all saw a bird that was hovering on the wind and I got several pictures that turned out! And Steve and Nathalie never noticed that an American Kestral was sitting in a tree nearby, but I did! :)

As we emerged into the residential neighborhood, I nearly began hyperventilating with all the sights in front of me. There was a lovely garden with wonderful landscaping and they used many kinds of ornamental grass species to dress it up. One group that caught my eye had some peculiar grass I'd not seen before. I saw that a pair of feathery stems had become intertwined and I couldn't resist trying to capture the beautiful tangle. I usually have very little luck with this sort of thing because my depth of field is usually too shallow or there's too much stuff behind that detract from the delicate grass. However, I will always continue to try improving on my failures because at some point I just HAVE to succeed. And so I did on this day! I don't know what kind of grass this is but it's lovely and this pair reminds me of a delicate sculpture. Kind of like a pair of hands clinging to one another.

I am also including insets of the birds that I saw on our walk!

Pam, I did a search on your photo stream for birds and my! You've gotten very lucky with some wonderful pictures! I am so envious--even CARDINALS!! Sensational! This collage you presented has me bouncing with joy, you lucky lady! There are so many wonderful bird pictures that wasn't able to look at even a fraction of them, but I also loved your Papa Bluebird collage too, the splishy-splashy bird bath images are just so much fun! I hope that you get the chance to take more pictures sometime soon, I love your photography so much. Sending my love on this cold and brisk day!

Explored on 1/23/19, highest placement, #1.