There Be Ducklings...safely hiding

On the pond just a few steps east of our front door

Mama Duck is hiding while tending her five darling ducklings

While we slowly, softly, step as near as we can to take photos of a fine feathery family we admire and want to share with you across the miles although I could only capture their shadows behind the blades of grass in the middle of this photo

and here in the lower right section of this photo.  Mama duck is keeping her family safe from hawks and the zoom lens of my iPhone4S. (:
Happy Springtime !

Are you enjoying sighting
lambs and calves and chicks and colts and ducklings around you?

Zooooming with the iPhone 4S*****

Finally, I am experimenting with the zoom feature on my iPhone 4S  Zippity do dah !!!

[one of my fuzzy first attempts]

It is a different way to see the world around me . . .
up close and personal.

These are the first cherry blossoms of 2012 I've seen on the tree outside my bedroom window.
In the news this morning I read that there might be damaging ice and snow at various East coast locations in the USA.
The Google Doodle today is bursting with colorful blooms in honor of  Earth Day.

Challenges contend for attention, or corrupt the view,
but they also offer a jarring jolting contrast that propels me to look for and nurture and
 celebrate beauty that is up close and personal around me.

What is beautiful up close and personal around you today?