First Flight

Today my art group went to a training horse stable. Lots of horses, several dogs, barn and other out buildings, nice big trees, and thousands of flies. We even had some rain drops for a bit.

By accident I happened on two baby birds who were having their first flights. One was perched on a fence post and the other was on a stump. One of the workers said all three were lined up on the stump for awhile. The third didn't make an appearance while I was there. I got within 2 ft of both birds so was able to get some nice photos.

One lady in the group happened to be at the exercise pen just as one of the horses got onto the dirt and rolled in the dirt. She got a perfect photo of him rolling in the dirt and kicking up dust. He had a very nice dirt bath. Then would get up and kick his back legs in the air, run like crazy, then rear up on his back legs. He was like a kid out of school. All wild and feisty. As soon as the groomsman came back and picked up his training whip, the horse got back into it's exercise of running around the ring. It was fun to watch. His dirt bath didn't last long because as soon as his exercise session was over, he was hosed down. I bet that felt good after all the flies.

I met one horse named Holly. She was my favorite. She had her face covered to keep the flies out. I was scratching her nose to help with the flies' irritation. I saw her over against the pen rubbing her backside to scratch. When she came back to the front of the stall and I started scratching and rubbing again, I told her if she was turned around and didn't kick me, I would scratch the backside. Well no sooner said than done. She turned her backside to me and backed her rear up to the gate and stood there. So true to my promise, I had to scratch. She stood there while I did it. So so funny.

One of the dogs gave me a perfect photo shot too. He sat down at my feet when I got the camera pointed and looked up for a photo. The other dogs kept showing me their backsides. I wonder why it is that when you get a perfect shot lined up and a dog turns away. I really thing they are playing with your mind. I know two of my dogs don't like photos taken. The schnauzer would turn her head and look back at me with the whites of her eyes showing. And she would turn every time I turned the camera on her.

I will be doing a picture of the one little bird. I don't know what kind of bird it was but it had a yellow breast. I did see the mama causing a ruckus a little farther away letting us know she wasn't happy we were watching her babies. Well I am guessing it was the mama. It also had a yellow breast.

Here are the copies of the photo and of my drawing. I now have to transfer the drawing to some good paper.