Because you’d have to be a cold-hearted crank not to smile at the sight of a fuzzy pair of donkey ears.
Courting croakers
Last month we had chorus frogs. This month we have courting frogs. These two croakers were too distracted by each other to care about me and my camera lens peering down at them from an arm’s length away at the edge of a pond.
At the intersection of nature and mass transit
On a recent weekday morning, I used an audio recorder to capture the sound of a woodpecker in my backyard. Listening to the recording, I heard the bird steadfastly boring into a nearby pine tree, but I also picked up a multitude of other sounds — a Metra train heading into Chicago, a jet flying to or from O’Hare, cars making their way up and down Highway 43, a barking dog, chirping birds, a creature of some kind scampering across my deck. It quickly became evident to me why my wife and I typically wake up at 5:30 each morning. The combination of nature and mass transit does not make for good slumber. It does, however, make for an aurally rich way to start the day.
Chorus frogs at Techny Prairie Park
A harbinger of spring, the chorus frogs have emerged from their mud-encased slumber and broken into constant song. I captured this audio on a recent unseasonably warm evening, positioning myself — and my Zoom digital recorder — near the marsh at Techny Prairie Park. I’m hoping to sell the audio to HoMedics for use in the company’s SoundSpa products.
Cosley Zoo
I don’t think of myself as being overly nostalgic, and I’m not a big fan of caged animals, but I nonetheless enjoyed spending a recent afternoon at Cosley Zoo, a place I visited countless times as a child growing up in Wheaton, IL. Looking at the smile below, it’s obvious my daughter also enjoyed our trip to the zoo.
Bizarre love triangle
For Christmas we bought our daughter a giant stuffed tiger, which she absolutely adores.
What we didn’t anticipate is that our 14-year-old hound, Emerson, would compete with our daughter for the tiger’s affection, often napping alongside it with his paw touching — and dwarfed by — the faux feline’s mitt.
Is it sweet to see him express love for the tiger? Yes. But it also instills guilt, as we wonder why we didn’t get him a stuffed friend years ago.
