Bird Watching Club

NOT BIRDS..BUT MAGICAL BUTTERFLIES

THEY ARE BACK

Lisa, seeing your little hummer reminds me that I want to try a hummingbird feeder this season. I think we are finally out of the brutal winter. My photography classes have been difficult. Hopefully in the end they will be worth it. Lot's of technical stuff right now. Haven't been out taking pics for quite a while. Doing indoor photography work with lighting. Beautiful collage of butterflies.

Lisa, beautiful. I have never seen one in my backyard. Never seen on ever!

Thank you VR. That was really interesting.

My wife is battling two cancers here's her info. She doesn't like forums, blogs or the internet for that matter.

My wife, (now age 68) back in Dec of 2012 was diagnosed with Stage 4 ER+ breast cancer. One node and a small spot on the spine. After 3 infusions of AC she was clean except for the 6 cm tumor in her breast. The oncologist said since the cancer was responding well to estrogen blocker (aromasin) it was best to leave it be.

A little over a year later, Nov 2014 the cancer morphed and went crazy. She had a radical mastectomy and breast removal. A biopsy showed it to be ER+ and the oncologist prescribed tamoxifen. 19 lymph nodes were removed and 9 of the 19 had triple negative Metaplastic keratinized squamous carcinoma. A PET scan done after the surgery showed some cancer still in her armpit, probably spill over from the nodes. She's back on A-C again, no Taxol as she almost died from it earlier. One good point, she had intense pain in her rt armpit for about 10 minutes; maybe it was from the cancer being killed.

She has two cancers, one ER+ PR+ HER2- and another triple negative.

I love the bird pictures, especially the more colorful ones. I do pen and ink over watercolor drawings of them in a stained glass type setting. I especially like non-profile pictures as the internet is loaded with birds in profile. Many years back I did borders for a number of greeting card companies, someone else added the calligraphy prayer or whatever. I've returned to art as it helps settle my nerves through this cancer mess. Got any pictures for me? Mike Walsh

Hi Mike,

I wish the best for your wife. I may have seen your posts on another thread. I can only imagine how difficult this is for you and your wife.  Your work is beautiful. Hang around. Maybe you can use some of our photos. I haven't posted too much lately but now that spring is about sprung in the Midwest hopefully that will change. I am taking some photography classes right now so I have been pretty busy with that and haven't had a chance to post much.
Thanks for sharing your beautiful artwork.

Nancy

one more

oh, mum..so good to see you again.we missed you! love the peacock

Mike, your work is beautiful.  I'm sure people will be posting more bird pics now that spring is here.

Welcome to spring from Illinois.

My photo of a pair of cowbirds that come daily for seeds!

My photo of 4 crows that come daily for food scraps!

Those cows are very patient.

inflight beautiful shot