Saturday, October 12, 2019 - Birmingham

Today, we visited the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, took in the views from the top of the statute and Vulcan Park, and took a tour of the Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark.

At the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, we focused our time in their Japanese Garden.

The red reflection is from the traditional Japanese bridge across the pond.

I have never seen a rock garden being watered....

We then headed to Vulcan Park for some great views and to tour the Vulcan Park Museum which has some really interesting Birmingham history.

The Sloss Furnaces, which we would visit after lunch.

After lunch, we arrived at the Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark just in time to join a guided tour where we would learn about how pig iron was made in Birmingham.  Birmingham was a great location to make iron because all of the necessary materials were readily available.  Eventually, the use of plastics would all but eliminate the iron industry.  I didn't have a wide enough angle to get some great wide shots of the furnaces but enjoyed looking for more artistic angles to photograph.

Limestone Park, Alabaster, AL - Saturday, September 21, 2019

Instagram has inspired me to take better pictures.  To do so, especially the close up bird photos I especially aspire to take, require a better lens with a longer range.  So I purchased a used Tamron 150-600 mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 lens for Nikon DSLR Cameras.  So far the lens has not disappointed.

This weekend we decided to go in search of birds.  Due to the drought we are in and so very low water levels, it was a bit of a hunt but still worth the excursions.

On Saturday we headed to Limestone Park in Alabaster, AL.  It is a fairly industrial area but home to a park that is surrounded by fields and wetlands.  A local model airplane club leases some of the park and yet the birds seem to co-exist well with the model airplanes.  Here are some photos, mostly taken from their observation platform:

Killdeer

Pectoral Sandpiper (migrating through to South America)

Killdeer

Dragonfly

Northern Mockingbird

Northern Mockingbird
(My husband may have taken over the camera for these next five photos,
which were probably the highlights of the day!)

More Northern Mockingbirds - they were quite playful!

Northern Mockingbird - the bird of the day 

Model Airplane

Turkey Vulture

Butterflies

A real airplane

Another real airplane