Red-Winged Blackbirds

  

Visited a nearby wildlife refuge today. PeeDee NWR near Wadesboro, NC.  Normally this time of year there are thousands of ducks of all shapes and types. They are busy flooding the cornfields which are the feeding pens for the migrating waterfowl.  But no ducks, no geese, not much of anything except thousands of red-winged Blackbirds gorging themselves.  The migrating water fowl must be really confused by the weather still being so warm up north and deciding why fly that long distance!

Hart Square Village

Hart Square Village is a period village in the foothills of Western North Carolina.  Hart Square in Catabaw County NC is open to the public one day per year and tickets go on sale the first Monday of Oct for the event on the fourth Saturday of October. Hart Village has molasses making, wood fired Pottery kilns, Horse drawn cotton Baler and Moonshine still...and tons of photo opportunities.  My first visit, I went with my mind set on making some good portraits of the period characters in the village for possible entry into Exhibitions and in the portraits category.  It was all that I had ever heard of it and I had a fantastic day and even succeeded in making a few credible portraits.  These are 2 of my favorites.  If you look carefully you will see that the first one has a bit of a "self-portrait" component.