Try A Little Tenderness ...

 “… But it’s all so easy …

Just try a little tenderness …”

      ~ “Try a Little Tenderness”

            ~ 1932

       ~ song by the Ray Noble Orchestra

        ~ Renditions include those by Bing Crosby,  Frank Sinatra & Otis Redding 

  I spotted a honey of a summer sight ~ two beautiful white-tailed deer fawns, twice the joy of seeing just one! ~ sharing a tender moment as they enjoy their first summer on an early July evening along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.

 The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20^th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.

In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.

Spring Watch Of The Cooper's Hawk ...

 

“Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.”

            ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

                 ~ 1803 ~ 1882

Basking in the evening sun, a Cooper’s Hawk peers from a high perch, gazing over the spring landscape in search of prey as sunset beckons in early April at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

The Apple Of Their Eyes ...

“You are the sunshine of my life

That’s why I’ll always be around

You are the apple of my eye,

Forever you’ll be in my heart …”

     ~ “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”

                         ~ Stevie Wonder

                     ~1974

My favorite white-tailed deer button buck – Buttons, as I call him, at left, – meets his apple at the same moment as his mama doe in mid-January at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania, a site to warm the heart on a winter’s evening.

I began photographing Buttons as a precious white-spotted fawn, then a sweet button buck and then a beautiful yearling until he migrated away in January 2020. Along the way I tossed him many apples, which he loved eating. It’s a true joy and blessing to me personally and as a photographer to have watched this white-tailed deer grow.