A New Lease on Life!

I usually don't post about my personal life but the hip surgery I had on Jan. 11 was monumental for me and hopefully will mark a new lease on life. 

As project in one of my SC State University classes I'm asking the students to also post and speak about an important day in their lives. 

It will be interesting to see what the young people choose to feature.  They are to talk about the experience using their cell phone's voice memo app.  I did so to talk about my surgery. Here is why this day this week was so important to the rest of my life! 

Click here to listen to my two-minute talk about my surgery. 
(Music selection "Morning" is courtesy of the free music site Incompetech).

Note: To get this audio file on Blogger I first uploaded it to Soundcloud. This involved starting a new, free account with the service. 

Hawk Twofer and Finally the Kingfisher Capture

 Having a small pond really close to our house is a great value added feature of where we have lived for (hard to believe) 25 years now. I was not a bird enthusiast when we moved here and the bug didn’t bite until 2008 at Magnolia Cemetery when a pair of Wood Storks captured my fancy and camera. I tell that story in my 2011 book, “The Birds of Magnolia Cemetery: Charleston’s Secret Bird Sanctuary.” One of my Wood Stork pictures graces the cover of that coffee table book published in 2011. 

Anyway back to the backyard pond. It was helped expand my bird identification count, as this ecosystem attracts and perpetuates its own food chain. 

Just yesterday while I was raking leaves I saw a hawk fly by in the direction of the pond. When I walked over for a better view I could see the bird had landed in a nearby tree.