Changing Seasons


The changing of the seasons is upon us. Autumn is slowly being taken over by the Winter. We actually had our first real serious rain tonight!
Nature around us is changing, too. The colors are deepening. The sun is lower in the sky, making for more interesting lighting for us photographers.

These last few days I made some excursions, coming back with photos that I actually really liked. Hope you like them, too.

Yesterday, at the fish lakes of Maayan-Tsvi, I followed the gulls as they were flying around and feeding:

Yellow-Legged Gull walking on water

    

Other water-birds joined in the fun, like this Great Grey Heron:

Great Grey Heron in flight, with a Yellow-Legged Gull in the foreground

Or this Little Egret. It's so white that it stands out from the background so beautifully:

Little Egret in flight

The Black-Winged Stilts, always so charming, are also abound. The following picture is a bit of a miss - the shutter speed was a bit too low since they were originally just standing there, but then took off unexpectedly. The end-result is still nice, in my opinion:

Black-Winged Stilts taking off

 

The Pelicans totally stole the show yesterday. They were thousands of them, feeding in the river.

Pelicans feeding

   

The Cormorans, however, did not seem so thrilled by the Pelican invasion, and made their opinion known.

Cormoran Complaining about the Pelican Invastion

The Pelicans naturally ignored the smaller birds, and roamed about the river. They're so impressive when airborne...

Pelican taking off. Doesn't he look just like a maestro?

    


This is our river, right? Pelicans discussing

This cute duck caught the corner of my eye, swimming peacefully.

Swimming Duck

The day before I was walking in the fields, and the colors are just marvelous. A couple of butterflies were mating.

A Couple of Butterflies

 

A pomegranate orchard in the fall provided some mesmerizing colors of its own.

Pomegranate in the fall

  

Vineyards provide some awesome colors for the background of this picture:


And the low-hanging sun paints even less obvious colors beautifully:

See the Light

The small birds are visiting, and enchanting to see with all the color around.

Stonechat on a Thorn



Female Bluethroat: Are you looking at me?

 

That's all for this week. More photos than I originally intended, but I had a hard time filtering some out. Hope you like them! Let me know in the comments or via email which ones are your favorites.