{"id":154079,"date":"2024-02-20T06:22:55","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T13:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=154079"},"modified":"2024-02-20T10:28:17","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T17:28:17","slug":"the-redhead-and-the-blonde-in-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/20\/the-redhead-and-the-blonde-in-my-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Redhead And The Blonde In My Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Both mean a lot to me.<\/p>\n

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In the last month or so, when other birds have been relatively scarce, I’ve spent quite a bit of time attempting to photograph this drake Redhead at one of the ponds I frequent. Typically he’s too far away for really good photos but on this day, January 15, he came in unusually close for an extended period of time.<\/p>\n

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He repeatedly…<\/p>\n

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dived…<\/p>\n

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for food, giving me several opportunities to photograph him diving at varying shooting angles.<\/p>\n

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Redheads typically feed on a mix of aquatic vegetation and invertebrates but on this day he was concentrating on submergent vegetation.<\/p>\n

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And he ate a lot of it.<\/p>\n

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Many birds can move their whole upper jaw, or parts of it, relative to their cranium, because of regions of thinner bone called “bending zones”. One of these forms of flexibility is called “distal rhynchokinesis<\/a><\/span><\/span>“, where a section of the upper beak, near the tip, bends upward relative to the rest of the beak.<\/p>\n

It happens quickly so it’s tricky to photograph but in this single photo I caught him bending the tip of his upper bill upward.<\/p>\n

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I’m not sure why I like this quirky photo but I do. I suppose it’s because of the peekaboo effect with his eye located perfectly between the tip of a wing feather and the shadow of that same feather.<\/p>\n

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OK, now onto some recent medical developments. And to the “blonde in my life”.<\/p>\n

Back in 2017 I learned that I had a 3 cm aneurism on my descending aorta at about belly button level just below my kidneys. Hearing news like that will get your attention but I was told to just keep an eye on it by having it checked occasionally and if and when it ever reached a certain size (I can’t remember what size), I’d have to have it repaired.<\/p>\n

Two years later, in 2019, the aneurism had grown to 3.5 cm but it still wasn’t large enough to risk being repaired.<\/p>\n

Last week, more than six years after I learned I had the aneurism, my doctor told me it was past time to get it checked again so yesterday I had a CT scan to check its size. To say that I was tense and anxious about it is an understatement but the news was good.\u00a0 Following is part of what my doctor had written on my test report when I received it yesterday afternoon.<\/p>\n

“Please let patient know that his CT angiogram shows that his aneurism grew by 2 mm over the last 5 years, which is essentially nothing.”<\/em><\/p>\n

That news made me feel like I had a new lease on life.<\/p>\n

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Whenever I have another MRI or CT scan in my future I have the choice of three medical imaging centers but I always choose Millcreek Imaging because that’s where technician Bobbi Jaramillo works. Readers will remember that several years ago I was in a lot of pain because of my bad back but I couldn’t have back surgery until I had an MRI performed. But medical imaging centers were backed up for several months because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

That’s when Bobbi stepped in.<\/p>\n

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At the time I didn’t know Bobbi, but unbeknownst to me she’d been following my blog for years. So when I wrote about my dilemma on my blog, Bobbi emailed me and told me she could get me in for the MRI the very next day!<\/span><\/p>\n

And she did.<\/p>\n

Bobbi has been my MRI\/ CT scan technician ever since and we’ve become great friends over, I believe, five different procedures (scans). She performed my CT scan yesterday too and it was nothing short of wonderful to see her again. In my state of anxiety, with her professional ways and medical knowledge combined with her warm greeting and friendly manner, she put me at ease – even before I knew the results of my scan. For which I’m very grateful.<\/p>\n

OK, enough of that. Sorry for ‘going medical’ on my readers again but my blog is one of the primary ways I keep my out-of-town and out-of-state family and friends apprised of what’s going on in my life. On Feathered Photography, given my medical situation and my far-flung relatives and friends, that’s just the way it is.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Both mean a lot to me. (9 photos)<\/p>\n

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