I broke my camera yesterday. Not on purpose, of course. I was taking pics at a major structure fire at 3:45 AM, and my tripod broke, and the camera went down lens-first. The lens housing is now jammed into the camera at an angle. It doesn’t go in or out. It is dead. :(

Everything I’ve read online has suggested repair is in the neighborhood of $250. Ouch!! For that much money I could nearly buy a new (and better) camera.

So, I am trying to decide whether I should pick up a cheapish point-and-shoot easy-shmeasy digital camera for the meantime, or if I should just pony up and pop for a new good cam and be done with it. I’m short of cash no matter which route I go, so that’s really no help either way.

All I know is that this is like having an arm cut off. My camera is an extension of my mind. My soul. My view on life. It captures those perfect moments, beautiful shapes, bits of beauty and hope. Without it, I feel like I have nothing.

This was a wonderful year for ospreys in northern Door County.

I previously reported the was one nest atop a tower in Fish Creek. Well, there was a second nest I wasn’t talking about ;) and a 3rd that I discovered after young had hatched. Wow!!!

The Fish Creek ospreys quickly grew accustomed to the thousands of cars roaring up the hill directly below them. They also grew accustomed to human presence at Gibraltar School. The last time I visited, they couldn’t have cared less that I was there.

The Fish Creek pair successfully raised two beautiful young fledglings.

The second osprey nest was just south of Ellison Bay, on the cell tower on Old Stage Ct. This pair is not pleased at all about human intrusion, so the closest viewing spot that didn’t upset the birds was at Tower Storage. This pair also successfully raised two young.

The third osprey nest was atop the cell tower on Sawmill Road (just off Isle View Rd) in Gills Rock. This nest is in a very remote location, so the adult ospreys are very sensitive about activity around their nest as well. The best viewing that didn’t upset the birds was on the north end of Sawmill Rd., just off Highway 42. I parked my car at the top of the farthest hill and used 16×50 binoculars to get an amazing view.

Best I was able to see, this pair successfully fledged one offspring.

I have a number of pictures of all 3 nests and will post them later this week. :)

Went for a quick birdwatching stint at Weborg Point this evening. I was dying to give my new 16×50 Bushnells a workout. :-P What can I say!!!

Saw a Spotted Sandpiper perched on a rock on the north side of Weborg Point. I had accidentally flushed it from the rocky shoreline near the pier. The sandpipers are very late migrants, and this was the first sandpiper-type bird I’ve seen this season. I patiently watched him preen, his nondescript brown back toward me, for better than 10 minutes. Then, I lucked out! He turned around and ta-da! there was his very clearly spotted chest. :D What a rewarding ID! After a few seconds he hopped off the rock and flitted over toward shore, out of sight. Way, way neat.

There was a flock of Cedar Waxwings feeding on some kind of buds or seeds in the soft-wooded trees on Weborg Point.

A beautiful male Yellow Warbler was pointed out by a very nice couple also birding on the point. (Thank you!!) The warbler appeared like he could not have cared less about the 3 cedar waxwings sharing his branch. :D

A screaming Killdeer flew along the north shore of Weborg Point… in both directions, as if once wasn’t enough. LOL :-P

American Redstarts were present in force, flying around energetically, once again re-proving my theory “if it’s in a tree and making a lot of noise, it’s a Redstart” … doggone, those birds yammer a lot.

A fisherman came by and told me that he had seen a Great Blue Heron off the point this morning. I don’t mean to sound insulting by saying this, but I have to assume he knows the difference between a Great Blue Heron and a Sandhill Crane. The only reason I mention that is because I’ve been watching for the herons and haven’t seen them yet. I’ve seen Sandhills off Weborg Point all spring — but no Great Blue Herons yet.

And of course, there were the obligatory Red-Winged Blackbirds. Not just males, but the females have just arrived!!! So now the males actually have someone to show off to… no more posturing amongst themselves! The territories have been set… now the boys have to win the girls’ hearts. As I drove through the marsh, I wondered which ones will have the biggest harems?? (Red-winged blackbirds are notoriously polygamous… a flashy male with a primo territory may have up to 15 females in his harem!) Well. Good luck to them all. ;)

I currently use a Nikon Coolpix 5700. It actually takes very nice pictures compared to the little instant/pocket Olympus I used to use (before I killed it on a fire scene)………

As you review my pics here, you will likely be thinking, dang, her picture quality sucks!!! Well, yes but no. Here’s the thing……. most of my critter pictures are taken using super-duper zoom. The reason I went with the 5700 is because it has 10x digital zoom. I needed a super-zoom camera like that, because I can’t get on top of a 2500° structure fire, or crawl in an osprey nest, to get pictures of these things. The mega-zoom is what gets me on top of subjects from quite a long distance.

So consider that what you’re actually seeing, is a small little critter photographed at a LONG distance. With a point-and-shoot automatic digital camera, no less. :) Not half bad, all things considered. And sometimes I over-expand and over-crop my pics on this site, so you can see some of the important details that aid in positive identification.

My next camera is another story. :)

A big Nikon fan :) I have my eye basically glued to the Nikon D80 10.2MP Digital SLR:

What I like about the kit is that I am not floundering around trying to hen-peck the right pieces and parts to be fully operational. It even has the 18-135mm AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens, which of course is a necessity for zoom-freak here. LOL!!!!!

The Nikon Coolpix 5700 has been a great in-between camera… and I’ll continue to have some sort of workhorse camera like the 5700 for most high-stress photography (structure fires, accidents, storm chasing, etc.) and save the D80 for “safer” and more controlled scenes. It would break my heart to fry (or crush) a $1k SLR at a fire scene when a $400 point-and-shoot would have done the job just fine…