Masked!

I took four photos today - two of this soggy Downy Woodpecker and two of the woods behind our house, looking rather ghostly.  The original woodpecker photo had a distracting background so I decided that this would be an excellent time to experiment with my new Topaz ReMask program.  (Thanks to Osuzanna for providing me with the links to some excellent tutorials!)  It's taken me about an hour of futzing and faffing but I've finally decided that I'm pretty happy with this.  The background I used is one that I took of some fall leaves several days ago - I set the image to be out of focus when I took it because I just wanted some interesting bokeh to play around with.  After carefully "cutting out" the woodpecker and her perch, I set them on the background.  I am sure you can find plenty of little errors if you look closely enough, but for one of my first efforts, I'm pretty pleased.

And if you want to see our spooky woods, look at Extra.  The photo was taken late in the day when the light was very low, and some fog had started to roll in.  This is the view from our deck and patio, and it's part of the reason we have so many woodland birds here.

MIL is over for Sunday dinner, so I'm going to go visit with her for a bit.  She and Hubs have just finished playing cards where, from the sounds of it, both were cheating.  And speaking of parents, we talked to mine this morning.  They are getting ready to move from Phoenix to Tucson where they will stay until mid-January (allowing me to make a quick visit).  

I am working on identifying the last few "mystery birds" from Costa Rica - I had a hot debate going on this morning with several very experienced birders who were going back and forth on the id of one.  It was finally settled as a male Variable Seedeater.  A lot of hoopla over a tiny black bird.