Rising Eagle, photo of eagle.

For Valentine's Day, we went out on a photo shoot. It's our favorite thing to do, and you never know what you might find! As it happens, we saw this eagle on a knoll, sitting on a post. As I walked toward him, he shot me dirty looks, and when I was invading his personal space to closely, he stretched his wings for flight. Here he is, tippy talons on the post, one second before he flew away. These birds are incredibly huge when they stretch out like this. It was an awesome sight.
Donna Ridgway

Sketch book project.

I finished the sketch book project and got the book in the mail today! I'm feeling glad about that. I was afraid I wasn't going to get the job done.

This little foal, trying to reach the grass is one of the quick sketches I did. Ended up having about 5 minutes a sketch to finish the book. I always push a deadline to the max, makes life more exciting that way!
Donna

Ordinary Horse?

Looking at this photo, you might think this is an ordinary horse...but if you thought that, you'd be thinking wrong. This is John Henry at the Kentucky Horse Park. What a treasured memory it was, the day I saw him there.
Donna Ridgway

Screen saver images.

I took the carousel horses off my screen saver, and gave myself a new treat! Some wildlife photos... These are four of the images I see going by each day when my computer sits idle. There are 28 images now, I might add some more as time goes on, for I have other species of wildlife I haven't added.

You ought to see the fox photo, it's of two young fox, coming out of the fox hole, and do they ever look cute. Maybe I'll post them on my artist reference photos blog. You can see them over there, along with a few more examples of this screen saver. That poor blog needs some more followers, if you enjoy Montana photos of scenery and wildlife, you might like to mark that blog so you don't lose sight of it. :)

Of course it's for sale on a cd. $15 includes shipping. Just email me artistreferencephotos@gmail.com if you'd like one.

A Blog Award! My first....

And here it is! Awarded to me by Sheona Hamilton-Grant. This is an award, given by fellow bloggers. In return, you pass it on to seven, fellow bloggers who you enjoy, and name seven things you love.

Here are seven bloggers I want to pass the award along to:
Cathy Lewis

Brenda Thour

Catherin McMillan

Tree Pruit

Judy Elizabeth Reid

Angelika Joy

Sharon K Shubert

Here are seven things I love:

My kids and grand kids
My husband
Horses playing in a field in early morning light
My camera
My computer and the internet
The wonderful things we find in our photo shoots
Animals

Please take time to see the blogs I've recommended for the award, you'll enjoy them all!
Donna Ridgway

Photo of horses on the Rocky Mountain Front.

The horses were great, the mountains were beautiful...It doesn't get any better than this when you're out taking photos.
Donna Ridgway
email me at montanahorsegallery@earthlink.net

The owl we found on our photo shoot.

My parents came to visit us, so we took them on a photo shoot with us. We turned west when we left the driveway, as these photo shoots are not usually very well planned, we go where the wind takes us after we leave our house.

As the day progressed, we ended up west of Choteau, Montana, on a dirt road, heading for Pishkin Reservoir. I was visiting with my folks, and not paying very good attention to my photography, when Robert stopped the car and began backing up. I put my window down, and got the camera ready, when he stopped the car again, we were next to this owl, who was caught on the barb of a wire fence.

When we first saw him, his head was turned the other way, and we were so saddened to think he was dead, caught in the wire, and starved and frozen to death. We were just ready to go closer to see for certain, when I saw the owl turn his head, his beautiful eye flashed life to me, and I said, "He's still alive!"

Robert grabbed his leather gloves, and Carhart coat and we went to see if we could extricate the owl. The poor little guy was so grateful to be helped, he never once tried to bite Robert's hands. It was the strangest thing, I've about ever seen, how he got caught up in the wire like he did. His wing was not broken, but his soft under feathers had twisted round the barb, to a point he could not get loose. We think possibly a gust of wind threw him into the fence somehow.

After we got him loose, we held him still for a bit, with his wing down by his side. You can see here, he's not a large owl. Because it's daylight, his pupils are huge.

We determined he could move his wing. His grip on Robert's fingers was very strong. He looked healthy and hopefully, like he hadn't spent a terribly long time hanging there.

We had to decide what to do with him, and based upon his condition, we decided to set him down on the ground and see how he did. He seemed so grateful to be free, a bit in shock, and probably stiff and sore from his experience, but he also seemed he would be fine on his own again. I thought he would rather be in his own environment than anywhere else in the world, so we left him there recovering from his ordeal.

Robert and I are always telling people about our photo adventures. This time we were able to share the adventure with my parents! I'm 57 years old myself, so that's a wonderful thing-to still enjoy the company of your parents on a day like this turned out to be.
Donna Ridgway