Peggy's Cove photographs

A few years back while vacationing in Nova Scotia my family went to Peggy's Cove.  Peggy's Cove is a  small rural community located on the east shore of St. Margarets Bay in Nova Scotia's Halifax Regional Municipality.  This spot offers great photographs.  The bay scenes include old worn boats, houses and a fantastic landscape.

Beautiful sunset photographs

These are a couple of my favorite sunset photographs I have taken over the last few years.  The first one was taken in August from the dam on Lake Grapevine.  There was little to no editing done to the image.  This was the most impressive fiery orange sky I have ever seen.

The next sunset photograph was taken on Lake Fork in October.  Some editing was done in Adobe Lightroom.  The sunset was pretty impressive.

The last sunset photograph was taken over Lake Worth.  It is an HDR photograph and was heavily edited in Photomatix.  I love how the photograph turned out even though it is not very close to what the scene really looked like.

All of these photographs were taken on a Canon 5D Mark II.  A tripod was used for all three because of low light conditions and for the bracketing process for HDR in the third shot.

Smooth Earth Snake photographs

These are some photographs of a Smooth Earth Snake I have taken.  I shot them with my Canon 5D Mark II.  My lens is a Canon MP-E 65mm 2.8 1x-5x macro lens.  You can take extreme macro photographs with this lens.  Smooth Earth Snakes are a common snake in Texas gardens.  I usually find a dozen or more every year.

 These small snakes only get about 8 inches.  They eat small insects and larva.  There are two types of Earth Snakes.  There are Smooth and Rough Earth Snakes.  Smooth Earth Snakes have smooth scales.  Rough Earth Snakes have keeled scales that make them feel rough.  These snakes are harmless and do not bite.
Smooth Earth Snakes are reptiles which mean they are cold blooded.  Like other reptiles these snake have to have the sun to heat there bodies.  They can sometimes be found in the open in grass soaking up the sun.  If they sense danger they will quickly retreat into the leaves.

These photographs of a Smooth Earth Snake were taken on some old white carpet in my garage.  I had found three of these in the yard that day.

Texas Blind Snake photographs

I have only found two Texas Blind Snakes.  I found both under a log near Austin Texas.  These Texas Blind Snake photographs were shot on a Canon 5D Mark II camera and a Sigma 180mm macro lens.  Ever year in June my family takes a trip to Fredericksburg Texas for a family reunion.  While there we have access to a camp ground on Redstone Ranch next to LBJ's ranch.  I always find a lot of animals while I'm there.  Last year I flipped over a log trying to find something new to photograph.  There were three Texas Blind Snakes under the log.  I was able to catch 2 of the 3 before the last one got away.  I then lost one of the remaining two snakes.

The one that I was able to keep I photographed.  These reptiles are pretty cool.  These are some cool facts about Texas Blind Snakes.  They only get a few inches long averaging about 7 inches with the largest specimen reaching 10 inches.

Many Blind Snakes are mistaken for earthworms.  They has a similar appearance but upon closer inspection they can easily be identified.

The one that I was able to keep I photographed.  These reptiles are pretty cool.  These are some cool facts about Texas Blind Snakes.  They only get a few inches long averaging about 7 inches with the largest specimen reaching 10 inches.

Texas Blind Snakes are blind and have two black eye spots underneath scales on there heads.  These tiny reptiles do not bite.  Even if they did, the mouth is so small they could not bite a human.  These snakes eat small larva ants and termites so they are consider beneficial.