Tern Turns for Profile Portrait

I believe this to be a species of Tern. I spied him this morning in Carroll Creek. This was my third and best photo as he turned his head to give a profile for this portrait that shows off his crown and the hanging feathers down the back of his neck. (iPhone on full magnification at about 6:40 Dom inside the covered bridge-- auto focus a challenge for the phone no doubt due in part to moving water, high magnification, and low light)

Wild Imagings

I must wonder of the sculptor had in mind CS Lewis' Narnia series and the Divine Aslan (Jesus Christ type) in this art which graces the park in front of the Carroll County Library. I shot this with iPhone 4s and an App "Camera +" which allows separate focusing and exposure points. This shot would not have been possible without the Camera+ exposure set to capture more of the shadows under the high noon sunlight today. Sculpted by Westminster artist Bart Walter http://store.russellfinkgallery.com/wawiimisr.html

Carroll County Center

Westminster City Plat painted on the side of this old antebellum building. The town was founded out in about 1764 with a document presented in Frederick In 1837 Carroll County was founded and in 1838 the City Fathers made petition for Incorporation of Westminster On the east end of Main stands the original stone marker for Westminster

Winchester Walk

This is one of the charming and well preserved Victorian homes in Westminster. Along with Frederick, this city has become one of my favorite for a stroll as it takes one back in time with many antebellum and Victorian style homes and buildings 

Mobilis

Cylburn Mansion

Baltimore. ca 1868
Built by a wealthy mine owner and occupied initially by his mother and him as a summer house north of and above the heat of the city. At 61 he married a beautiful 19 year old debutant who commissioned it's lovely gardens. The city bought the estate in about 1945 when she passed away. The 270 acres are assessable to visitors via a series of trails. Now known as the Cylburn Arboretum and a city park.
I enjoyed the small gardens and got some ideas of things I might like to try one day at Carrollton on the Southfork

http://www.cylburnassociation.org/

Braveheart on Druid Hill

Baltimore.
What a delightful surprise this was this morning. The statue of William Wallace is grand. It is especially meaningful for our family as Wallace is a distant cousin of my wife through the Morgans (Sarah Morgan-Squire Boone line.) Wallace in 1320 in the Declaration of Arbroath wrote and said, "It is in truth not glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself" That spirit of resistance against tyranny lived on in the Scots, and came with them in the great migration to American Colonies Where they gathered to finally defeat their English overseers. (Morgan May McAfee Johnson Lyons Patrick Lyttle and a host of other ancestors)

Occupy Baltimore

Since G8 crowds posed the possibility of Occupy Frederick I decided to evacuate on sound advice from a close advisor and drove east until I arrived at Federal Hill in Baltimore The original Occupy Group moved in and occupied this hill and set up batteries of artillery over the city in 1861 for the duration of the war to ensure those Rebels didn't cause any more trouble.