Halloween Greetings to all, with the assistance of a cobweb-and-leaf “Owl” in a tree hollow!

The spooky holiday is just too tempting an occasion to resist re-posting this delightfully faux fowl I found on a hike in the fall woods of Cape Cod a few years ago. (photo A.Shock)

No one said all artists are good business people!  Frinstance, I just noticed that I hadn’t updated the Three Star Owl events page in like, all year…

¡Fail!

But now it’s current.  So, if you’re wondering where to find Three Star Owl this holiday season, click here (or the Events tab across the top of the page).  And remember, Three Star Owl items can be found all day every day at On The Edge Gallery in Old Town Scottsdale.

…so I walked up to it and took its picture.

It’s an immature Costa’s hummingbird sitting on a thorny throne below the deep dark of our Texas Ebony’s canopy.  Imperfectly sharp as it is, it was a lucky shot in the shade — with no flash, trying to hold the telephoto lens still.  There are thirty other perfectly un-sharp images to prove it.

Costa’s hummingbird (photo A.Shock) >>

It did not care in the least that I was stealing its soul with my camera — probably a soul would just weigh a hummer down anyway, and this one had gnats to nab and intruders to chase.  I was happy to catch it in its late afternoon moment of calm.

Here’s some eye-candy to bring in the new month: a Photoshop-edited photo of the Cooper’s hawk (who may have eaten Hoover) I posted about a few days ago >>

Sometimes what begins as a technically sub-standard photographic capture — like this image taken in difficult light through grimy double-paned glass, a bug screen, and security bars — can be salvaged with a little (or a lot!) of editing.  Don’t think of it as photography at all, because that’s only the starting point.  You can argue either way whether it’s art or not, but it is good illustration, because it clearly shows the tough-guy attitude these fierce smallish hawks emit: “Just keep stuffing down there below the feeders, you lot!  I will eat you, fat happy doves….  now or later, you are mine… and I will eat you.”