For me, I have to use most of the tricks you guys listed, because I never know when the flowers are going to be at their best. Some are open early, some in the afternoon etc. For me the ISO is always different depending on the day (bright sunshine vs. bright overcast glare). Jan - I have used the white paper thing inside for capturing true colors, but never even thought to do that outside! Good one... Floota - I don't see anything wrong with using Photo Shop either if you are really trying to represent the flower properly and not trying to jazz it up/make it look better/whiter/bluer/brighter etc. Really, the reason I try to get things right on my camera instead of in Photo Shop, is that I can't compare the flower to the picture when using the program, but I can do that right on my camera screen. I mean, I DO have a laptop but I don't want to drag it all over the back yard! :o) Maryl - I think when talking about the "true" color, for me, it would be when the flower is at its very best (open fully, but not wilted or already faded by the sun). Kind of like when people take pictures of me... I prefer not to be photographed right after working in the garden! :o) I am a bit wilted. As for printing... whoa, that is another whole matter. Don't know anything about that, as I usually don't print my flower photos.

Thank You Naturelover. Like you, I am very much the nature lover which is why I not only totally organic garden, but encourge nature into my garden. In my tiny little 4 acres I plant not only the ornamentals and veggies that I love, but also plant or let grow what so many consider weeds to encourage wildlife to share my world and I'm so much richer for doing so. And in doing so, nature makes her own balance, what is a major pest one year, creates a over abundance of what feeds on that pest the next year and the problem is solved, I just have to wait it out. I am so glad that I have learned the ways of nature so have no fears of spiders, snakes and such. Birds are beautiful, I have a long list of those that visit my gardens, but it's the creepy crawlies that really make a garden. Of course I released the owl. First of all, I never in my wildest dreams ever thought I would live trap a owl, the wildlife department never thought it posible either, we were both shocked over this one, glad I took pics to prove it, but also it's a federal crime to harm a raptor, not like I would do so. I was expecting a coon or possum, which I would have relocated at my friends huge wooded property. I have a scare hawk in my pasture area, a few years ago a hawk took my very much beloved pet gander of 17 year and broke my heart but a scare hawk took care of that problem, but never thought a owl would cause problems since my chickens, ducks and geese are smart enough to roost in the barn. Guess this owl, a great horned, figured out how to swoop into the barn. Now I have to go out at dusk when the domestic birds and barn swallows are roosting, shut up the barn and then go out at dawn and open it up again. Good thing I wake up at 5am, my barn swallows will be happy I'm there to let them out, lol. For fun, this is my scare hawk which I put out back in the early part of May before the veggie garden got going, the veggy garden is in the pasture where my domestic barnyard fowls are, it is very full right now this is a early pic. I was a K mart employee before my store got closed in may, so I call it my K crow, it's dressed like a K Mart employee and it works very well to keep the hawks away.

I know it's not the same thing but There was a report on the Pa birdlist just today about something very similar Here it is copy and pasted PA Birders: Last weekend (October 7-9) there was a significant bird kill of at least 142 birds at Quehanna in Clearfield County. Several of the birds were sent in to the Penn State Animal Diagnostic (Veterinary) Lab for analysis. Those results are back (at least interim results) and we feel that it is appropriate to publicly announce the results. Some may be concerned about the cause of this kill (news of which is now being spread by rumor), so we are trying to clear the air before it gets murky. The interim diagnosis is that the birds died of trauma (basically, they collided with hard objects). To quote, in part, from the interim diagnostic report: There was fresh bruising evident in the subcutaneous tissues of thorax, neck, & skull of specimens. Some had hemorrhage in trachea, lung(s). A few had an indented area in the skull. The birds had abundant body fat, and otherwise were in good general body condition. The gizzards were empty. Preliminary histopathology results show no significant lesions in the major organs. The bacterial cultures that have been completed are negative. More tests will be made, but all indications are that this fairly large kill was due to collisions with buildings and perhaps wires and other objects in a compound deep in the woods of North-central PA. I inspected > 100 of these birds (but not the ones sent in to the Lab) and can give you a partial list of species that died in this event: Red-eyed Vireo 1 Gray-cheeked Thrush 2 Northern Parula 1 Magnolia Warbler 4 Cape May Warbler 1 Black-throated Blue Warbler 4 Blackburnian Warbler 2 Bay-breasted Warbler 2 Blackpoll Warbler 106 American Redstart 2 Ovenbird 2 Common Yellowthroat 1 Unknown (well-decayed) Warbler ~8 Scarlet Tanager 1 (plus additional birds we didn't see) Most specimens were very wet with matted plumage, etc., and some quite deteriorated. The weather conditions of this event are "classic" for a fall bird collision scenario: a decreasingly low cloud horizon accompanying an advancing low front (and ground fog) that followed clear skies associated with a high front. The birds probably left their day roosts with stars over their heads and encountered more clouds and then dense cover and fog toward dawn as they flew south into a rainstorm that covered the state over the first part of the weekend. This was a fairly major collision event at a remote location with a fairly "low profile." No tall buildings, some power and telephone lines, and only a fairly small tower at site. An almost residential profile in a forested area. None of the buildings were more than 2 stories tall. Lights at the facility may have attracted the birds into the compound in an otherwise unlit forested region and brought them into collision hazards that they otherwise would not encounter. I suggest that there may have been other (unobserved) collision events in Pennsylvania this week at sites not monitored by people. The low cloud ceiling today may continue conditions for avian mortality on human structures. (People at this site collected the birds and made them available to PGC for testing and identification.) As many of you are aware, this bird list is a set of southbound, long-distance, Neotropical migrant songbirds, mostly of boreal origins. The Blackpoll Warblers (the majority of specimens) were bound for South America via the United States (with a probabe ultimate origin somewhere in the conifer forests of Canada) in the longest migration of any songbird in the world, including the longest transoceanic flight of any songbird (over the Atlantic from NE USA to NW South America). Unfortunately, the trips of these birds ended here in PA. Dan Brauning and I would like to thank the staff at the PGC North Central Regional Office and the Columbia County Gamelands crew for providing assistance to this effort. Douglas A. Gross PGC Wildlife Biologist - Endangered Birds Specialist 144 Winters Road, Orangeville, PA 17859 570-458-4109 dogross@state.pa.us

To my knowledge most game cameras are capable of taking IR pictures. I have two, one is a higher end camera and the other a lower end camera. The main difference between the two cameras is the software which provides the trinkets and menus in the camera. In you case that fact that it has IR is not as important as the lens, For small animals you will need a camera that can get a good relatively close pictures. Otherwise a small animal may not be able to be identified as when the image is zoomed there may be insufficient resolution to see the identifying marks on the animal. As I said I have two, and it has been fun to learn of the variety in the wild life in our yard. It has been interesting to see what the animals actually do, ie thier interactions with each other, what they eat, etc. We have seen many different types of birds, fox, opossum, coyotes, deer, etc