Around the backyard

I took a walk around the backyard with the camera yesterday to see how things are coming along.

A robin has built a nest in the tamarack, just above the feeder. She used some plastic twine I had out there on the badminton net to make herself a nice home, which makes me feel like I helped. Here's a shot of Mama R, relaxing in her new home:

I don't think we have eggs yet, but I've seen someone I presume to be Mr. R watching over Mama R, so maybe we'll have eggs soon! I also saw an oriole making back-and-forth trips out beyond the marsh and the woods in front of the house. I'm sure there's at least one nesting pair up there.

Several others have made their homes for the season around the yard as well--on the side of the house:

and under the yew tree:


The marsh has greened up beautifully:

We're getting a nice stand of cattails right by the back fence, so I'm hoping for some good ops here:

I snapped this photo of a song sparrow and a female red-winged blackbird having a discussion:


The garden is bursting with green:

and the pears are about the size of a half-dollar coin:


I was hoping the honeysuckle would attract some hummingbirds, but so far I haven't seen even one. But the flowers scent the entire backyard:

Some unknown plants have come up--nature fans, give me a hand:



Yesterday, we shopped at the Centre Hall city-wide yard sale and got this for the backyard:
We've been wanting one of these forever! Now I can satisfy my primitive urges to build fires, something which got me into trouble a few times as a kid....

and this for the inside of the house:
We made our first loaf this morning, an easy whole wheat. FANTASTIC!

and this little bird:

Not quite sure of the ID, but I'm guessing a duckling of some sort? Think I saw one of these in a Bugs Bunny cartoon....

Coming attractions:
Adventures in digiscoping: Two flowers vs. Mountain
Niblet in the garden! (finally)

Great news for local birds!

Here's a great story from our local paper, the Centre Daily Times, about a great guy and his love for nature and birds.

Deal secures bird sanctuary
By Anne Danahy
PATTON TOWNSHIP -- Spend a few hours on Karl H. Striedieck's picturesque property on the Bald Eagle Ridge and you start to lose track of the number of unusual birds you hear.

"There's that cuckoo," Striedieck said of the bird making a clicking noise.

The chirping came as Striedieck talked about a conservation easement he signed last week with ClearWater Conservancy. The easement, supported by a $104,500 federal grant, permanently protects Striedieck's 245-acre property from development. The goal is giving forest interior birds -- such as scarlet tanagers, warblers and wood thrushes -- a route for migrating and habitat for nesting, breeding and getting cover.

"I thought at least I could do my part with 245 acres. It really doesn't affect my life that much," Striedieck said.

He made the comments from near the top of the 95-foot fire tower that he bought for $100 and had moved from Reynoldsville to his property.

"It's the greatest view in Centre County," Striedieck said.

It's also a bird watcher's paradise. In 1993, the group he was with saw 39 golden eagles in one day.

William Hilshey, ClearWater Conservancy's conservation easement manager, said the easement on Striedieck's property is the first one in the Pennsylvania to be completed through the federal Landowner Incentive Program. The goal of the program, which is administered by the state, is to support easement on private lands that have "species of greatest conservation concern."

"With land grant programs like this people can enjoy the property and still protect the resources that need to be protected," said Hilshey, who worked with Striedieck to coordinate the grant and easement.

The grant targeted the 190 acres of forest land on Striedieck's property, but the easement also protects the 35 acres of early succession fields -- with lower growth favored by some birds -- and 10 grassy acres. The easement means that Striedieck and whoever owns the land after him are limited in what they can do with it. Housing developments, for example, are off limits.

Striedieck's property -- most of which is in Patton Township -- is also about a mile and a half from State Game Lands 176, known as Scotia Barrens, which is also a designated important bird area.

Brad Ross, wildlife biologist consultant for ClearWater, said along with the forest, the early succession habitat is very important for birds such as Eastern towhees, field sparrows, indigo buntings and catbirds.

"Those are the two key habitats that this property possesses that are really valuable," Ross said.

Striedieck, a retired military fighter pilot, lives on the property with his wife, Iris. He started buying the property in 1966, when he got 14 acres.

"When you lived out here in the 60s, it didn't look like you needed an easement on anything," Striedieck said.

In 2004 he talked with ClearWater about looking into one. A longtime member of the Sierra Club, Audubon Society and Hawk Mountain Association, Striedieck said "it just seemed like the right thing to do."

When he was growing up his mother would take him to a fire tower and drop him off and he'd watch birds all afternoon, he said.

Later he became interested in raptors through the Hawk Mountain Association. He also learned falconry, which he still does, along with flying gliders from the runway on his property.

Striedieck said what pushed his interest in getting an easement was seeing the area in transition.

"This property is getting gobbled up by developers," he said.

Iris Striedieck said the easement is in keeping with her husband's love for nature.

"One of the things that's consistent in his life," she said, "is his appreciation for nature and birds and flying."

Getting caught up

There are a ton of photos and experiences to catch up on, as I’ve been too busy to blog lately. As a result, this is going to be rather a herky-jerky post; I’ll do my best to ease the transitions.

First, there have been many cute buns in the yard; fortunately, they’ve yet to get into the garden:

"Curses! Foiled by this stupid fence!"


Nibbling on a sunflower shoot from spilled birdseed

We’ve seen some springtime babies:

This American bullfrog tadpole was almost four inches long!


What kind of ducks are these? The adults look almost black--American black ducks? Or just mallards in the shade?

Is there a more exciting time in the garden than when the veggies start to appear?



Butterflies and caterpillars are everywhere:


What kind of caterpillar is this, nature fans?

Check out this upclose and personal time with Miss Kitty Claws:


and with Sugar Cookies and Chickie, Em’s stuffed baby bluebird:


Finally, this morning, I went birding with Roana and Nan from the State College Birding Club, and I actually saw an ovenbird! Normally, I just hear them--but we got lucky with this guy. Of course I didn’t have my camera ready. I pretty much birded by ear this morning as we drove through a lot of woodsy areas and heard all sorts of warblers and a hermit thrush--my first time to hear one in the woods. WOW. Now I know why Lang Elliot calls him the best singer in the bird world. We also saw a black bear run across the road and disappear up an impossibly steep mountainside--again, no photo. About the best shot I got was of this beauty:

"I beg your pardon, but are you going to eat me?"

I have to mow the rest of the lawn now, and then I may take the Nibble out into the garden later to see if he’ll succeed in eating the entire ten-foot row of cilantro; I wouldn’t put it past him!

Couldn't you just eat him up?

My kingdom for a car...

A few days ago, I read an inspiring post over at Mary's View about all the cars she remembered riding in as a kid and driving as an adult. I commented that it should be a new meme--to enumerate the cars (providing art when possible, even if it's just stock photos from the 'Net) we've lived with, put up with, almost died in, etc. Like a biographical timeline of our lives as passengers and drivers. Here we go, with my car-ography:

When I was a kid, we always had one decent car, huge for our big family (five kids). Then sometimes we'd have another car that dad picked up somewhere for like 50 bucks. Here are the ones I remember.

The first car I remember is our silver Chevy stationwagon. I think we had a few of these, always silver. Here's a picture of Mr. T's (not THAT Mr. T), so you get the idea of how huge it was. We had those until like 1977. Those cars were HUGE! My sister Mary and I would hang out in the back whenever we went anywhere--that way, Ricardo wasn't bugging us, and we had lots of room and windows to look out of. We would pretend we were in a big race with all the other cars, and if anyone passed us, we'd say, "oh that's a janitor going to clean up some of the track ahead!" A JANITOR on a racetrack? Okay, we were nutty.

Daddy also had a yellow VW bug for a little while---LOVED that car! I don't think we ever even rode in it--no seatbelts on that one, either. The only time we were in it was when we would play our driving game, where we would pretend to be two hunters heading for someplace (we'd pick a random Texas city, the crazier the name, the better), and of course we'd get lost because someone's thumb was covering up the right road! It was a silly game, like all our games.

Sometimes he would bring home a field car from the Highway Dept., where he worked before he went into business on his own. It was this super-dark blue thing -- I hardly remember it except for the fact that it had like a truck bed with these big steel boxes in it -- like utility trucks do--and it was sooo cool to us! We loved it when he'd bring that one home for lunch or something. We'd go outside and play on it--crawl all over it, etc.

Then he got this GIANT thing that he called "the hearse" -- he kept joking that he was going to buy a hearse, and we were all practically having fits, thinking he was serious and we were gonna get some big hearse with a coffin in it. Then he brought it home: an International Travel-All.

Photo courtesy of someone selling it on Ebay.

It was this gigantic SUV (before they called them SUVs) like a Suburban, only cheesier -- no luxuries at all! Everything was hard, rubber mats, no carpet, metal floor, vinyl seats, etc. -- and the back part with no seats was almost as big as my bedroom! We had some fun playing our driving game in that one! And it had the weirdest smell in it---it smelled like outside, and wild animals, and dirt. Perhaps some real hunters (including my dad) had thrown a deer in the back. . . and kept it there for a while. . . .
Then Daddy bought a brand-new Mercury Marquis -- color: champagne.
Here’s a black one (sadly, I couldn't find one in champagne) from the Fawcett Movie Cars web site. We all thought it was the fanciest car in the whole world! Even the paint color was fancy! You should've seen that boat -- it was like a mile long! Note the panels over the headlights—they would flip up like little garage doors when you turned on the lights. We had this for a long time. Sidenote: while googling for photos of this gem, I saw a link to a story about the search warrant issued for Timothy McVeigh’s Mercury Marquis. Eerie.

Then we got a series of Oldsmobile Delta 88s. See one here. Daddy had this one that was cream with maroon felty interior--we loved it! It was great until one day we had all this flooding (probably some random hurricane), and Daddy got trapped in the water--he tried to drive through but he didn't make it. The water came up into the car and flooded it almost to the bottom of the windows -- and it bleached out the maroon interior, ruined the car. (Daddy was fine!) So he got another one, a lot more boring--cream with brown interior. Blah.

By this point, I was old enough to drive, so I inherited my big sister Raquel's 1971 brown Ford Pinto Runabout—yes, for all you older people, it was a blows-up-if-rear-ended model! Check out this old ad:

This would have been around 1980-81; I was a sophomore in high school. We called the car the Brown Bean. It had been in a train wreck! Raquel had been going to a friend's house, and the lights/bells thing wasn't working but a train was coming, and she didn't hear or see it, and it kinda sideswiped her car somehow and spun it around -- she only had a few bruises!!! Pretty scary. Somehow Daddy fixed it with Bondo and by hammering out the dents, and then I inherited it.

When the Brown Bean died, my dad got me a used Chevy Chevette, in a light silvery blue. Check out some pretty hilarious photos here. I think it was a '79--by now I was a senior, so we're talking 1982-83. It had a tape deck and everything! I drove my sister and my friends crazy by ONLY playing Linda Ronstadt cassettes in the car. BUT WHAT A LEMON! It might as well have been painted yellow. That thing was always refusing to start, or dying on the side of the road.

Somehow, we held it together until I bought my own car when I was in grad school. My down payment was some Christmas money I'd gotten from my aunt, and my best friend's dad worked at the Ford dealership, so he helped me get a brand-new 1988 Ford Escort DX, in a deep red color. FANCY! Power everything! Great car. Had that until 1991.

Then I bought the first of three Toyota Corollas, one right after the other, between 1990-95. I would trade the cars in after two or three years, because I drove all over the state (for fun and to see family) so I didn't want to risk any breakdowns or whatever. I had the last Corolla, a ’95, until the month before we left Texas. By this point, it had well over 120K miles on it, and Kat's car was in better shape. I sold it to some people from Mexico who were headed for Nebraska to work in the meat processing plants. If only I had already read Fast Food Nation then, I could've warned them that they'd regret it!

Anyway--I then drove Kat's white 1994 Cutlass Supreme for the last couple weeks of delivering pizza for Domino's, and then we moved up here. We had that car until it died and we bought our Saturn Ion in 2005. It's a nice little car, and we call it "the little particle" because it's small and it's an Ion.

Mary talked a lot about her emotional attachments to her past cars, but I never really felt a connection with cars until I had my own reliable one—the Escort, and then the Corollas. I called all of them the same thing: my little red gem. I loved my cars because to me they meant freedom. I could just get in, drive down the interstate as long as I wanted, and no one could stop me and the car wouldn’t break down. True freedom, behind the wheel of my very own car.

Back then, I used to LOVE driving. I would drive to think, to unwind, to see new places – I loved being in my car. Nowadays, driving is more just a way to get someplace I need to go. Gas is too expensive to just take a drive for a few hours, and there’s never enough time to just drive for fun. Still--someday, maybe I'll get a new sweet ride, and I'll post pics of it. I'll definitely have to put one of these on the bumper--thanks to Mike at 10,000 Birds:

Weird messages

Has anyone else gotten weird messages like this one:
photocache202.flickr.re2
on a blank white web page screen when trying to view other blogs? I have been getting it a lot lately, and I don't know if it's just my computer (I am, after all, at work -- probably I'm being spied on by management as I view all this non-work-related stuff!) or if it's a Blogger thing or what.

Help?

Also--I've been rather busy this week and haven't posted a whole bunch of photos and things. I will catch up tomorrow, including a post on Niblet's new adventures in the garden!

Sick day photos

Em and I are both home sick today, which really blows. I did have a little walk outside this morning, though; I always force myself to get a little sunlight and fresh air when I'm sick, as they are a great tonic, so I dragged myself outside and got some nice photos. After about ten minutes, though, I was exhausted and came back inside. And despite all those early-morning birds out there, too--I hate being sick.

The garden has really taken off:

Compare that with the last photos I took, a couple of weeks after we'd planted. Kat was kind enough to weed last night; you can judge the difficulty of the job by looking at the solid green on the left and the nice dark soil between the rows on the right.

We were able to get a nice salad from the spinach and lettuce the other day, which has grown quickly and without bunny-aided interruption, thanks to our 8"-deep buried fence.

We finally beat the wild bunnies, who had thwarted our efforts so for the last two years, eating everything but the tomatoes and the corn. This year, it's picture-perfect.

There was a beautiful black and blue butterfly fluttering around this morning:


Is that a spicebush swallowtail?

The peonies are in full regalia:

and the multiflora rose is doing its multiflora thing:


I came back inside, bearing some treats for the Nibble, who was instantly in his happy place. I'll leave you with a little montage:

And what did you bring me?


What's this--fresh organically grown lettuce?


I believe this will do nicely!


Hee hee!


That was delicious, but--ahem--where is desert?


Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

As the lifelist lengthens

I went with Roana this morning to bird one of her PA Breeding Bird Atlas blocks that happens to be near my house. Got up at 6 a.m., and that after not being able to fall asleep until about 2 a.m. because I was so excited about going birding with a real birder!

We first climbed up a part of the Mount Nittany line, Centre Hall Mountain, that separates Brush Valley from Happy Valley, home of Penn State. We hiked up what appeared to be an old logging trail, though I can't imagine that anything could've made it up that road save for a Land Rover or a Humvee. Oh my aching ankles! It was a beautiful woods, though, full of very loud ovenbirds, red-eyed vireos, and cardinals. We heard wood thrush, scarlet tanagers, and many warblers, especially once we got higher up the mountain.

Birding for an atlas like this is a little different from regular birding, because you not only want to see the birds but to see them displaying any of a number of behaviors that indicate they're breeding in the area, not just passing through. As a result, you have to see the birds during "safe dates" (when they would typically be doing their breeding thing) or, if it's out of the safe dates, you have to see them actually performing breeding behaviors. So we tried to spot birds carrying nesting materials or food, getting agitated and/or territorial at our presence, courting one another, and so forth. I played scribe as Roana used her amazing ear for all kinds of birdsongs and calls, though a heavy fog and terrible lighting conditions made it difficult for us to see birds in this very dark wood.

We went to the top of the mountain, which was a pretty good hike, then scrambled our way back down the rocky trail. Again--oh my aching ankles! We were thinking that the way down would be easier, but it was almost harder having to keep our footing among the rocks.

As I said, I kept the list, but I'm only going to list my lifers here; also, I'm putting an H by those birds I only heard and Roana ID'd:
Ovenbird (H) (finally got confirmation on that call I've heard a million times)
Worm-eating warbler (H)
Eastern wood pewee (H)
Black-billed cuckoo (H) (won't for the atlas because we didn't see him doing anything and his safe date doesn't start until 6/10)
Black-throated green warbler (H)
Black-throated blue warbler (H)
Black and white warbler (I spotted him!)
Blue-headed vireo (H)
Blackburnian warbler (H--dangit--I really want to see one of these beautiful birds)

We then moved into Penns Valley and went up Indian Road, which is aptly (albeit politically incorrectly) named:

There was a beautiful wooded area here, set among the corn, soy, and wheatfields. Here, I saw some another lifer: a red-headed woodpecker!

Woo hoo! Beautiful bird!

We also got great looks at an oriole:


and a very cooperative chipmunk:


We then went down some Brush Mountain backroads, driving among the rolling pastures and fields and finding more lifers for me!
Vesper sparrow
Willow flycatcher (who was not in safe dates but was VERY agitated at our intrusion on his territory)
Least flycatcher (who was living across the road from the Willow)
Grasshopper sparrow

Note that I've added to my sparrow list too; I wish I could've gotten photos, but the vesper wouldn't sit still long enough and the grasshopper stayed hidden in the tall grass. I almost got a beautiful photo of an Eastern meadowlark perched on fencepost, but of course he flew away right as I pointed the camera at him.

All in all, this was a great trip with 14 lifers in about 4 hours! It doesn't beat my record of 23 lifers in 5 hours (set on my walk with Julie Zickefoose last month at the Oil Region Birding Festival), but it's pretty good for a foggy Saturday morning in June.

Mystery bird still a mystery

Near Coburn, PA: A bird photographed by a local birder remains a mystery, though the quest for a second sighting continues.

"The bird was sitting right over my head, so I didn't get much of a look at his sides or his head," said beginning birder and amateur nature photographer Delia Guzman. She first saw the bird Wednesday night on Long Lane and managed to snap four photos of him.

"Of course, the photo in which he looked down at me came out blurry. Otherwise, I got just his underparts. I don't know," she said, "maybe it was just a phoebe making a weird noise like a kingbird."

Guzman has tried two evenings in a row to find the bird again but has been unsuccessful. She will try again, she says, "maybe at some ridiculous pro-birding hour like 6:30 a.m. or something."

The bird could not be reached for comment.

Serendipity and plain old luck

Lucky moonshot, digiscoped through the Meade Condor with my Nikon Coolpix 4800. Why lucky, you ask? Take a look at my other digiscoped photos; this almost-crystal-clear one has GOT to be luck!

The first definition you'll find on dictionary.com for the word "serendipity" is "an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident." I knew that the word usually referred to a pleasant discovery made by accident, but I'd never thought about it as an "aptitude," as though certain people have a knack for making these discoveries. Interesting. Can one really have a gift for making lucky discoveries? Or is it that some people are gifted at looking at normal things and seeing in them something that becomes a great discovery? What was the difference between the guy who saw cockleburrs and thought "velcro!" and the millions of other people who saw them and just thought, "dangit! that's gonna run my hose!"?

Serendipity is rare in my life; normally, I'm just pretty lucky, but it doesn't usually lead to any life-changing discoveries like Velcro or saccharine or any of the other storied examples of serendipity. Lately, however, I've experienced some pretty neat things, and I'll you decide whether they're serendipity or luck.

Earlier today, I was surfing through some new birding blogs when I read an entry about the song of the Eastern towhee, usually rendered as "drink your tea." (I'd love to post the link to this blog/post, but I just can't remember where I read it. Sorry!) At any rate, I was going to an appointment this afternoon at an office that is surrounded by woods. After the appointment, I searched for an indigo bunting that I'd been told about in the woods when, to my amazement, I heard it: "drink-your-teeeeeeea!" I saw a little movement in a low bush and there he was: a male Eastern towhee--a lifer! I didn't have my camera ready, but I saw him there, not five feet away. Wow! If I hadn't read about "drink your tea" this afternoon, there's just no way I'd have been able to ID that song and know to look for that towhee.

Yesterday, I read on the local birding listserv that a blue grosbeak had been seen near my house, in an area I'd never really explored. I drove over there this evening, hoping to see the grosbeak--as though it would be the only bird in the area or something. Anyway, I didn't see the grosbeak, but I DID get lucky. First, I saw an orchard oriole, my second lifer of the day. I sort-of got a photo, though it's ridiculously bad:

He and his mate were intent on hiding in the thick foliage of this tree, but I got some decent looks at them, and I'm confident--orchard oriole!

Next, I saw this bird which I can't ID:



I thought it might be some sort of flycatcher, but they're small. What is this bird? UPDATE--I remembered that he DID make a sound--it sounded like someone clacking away at the keys on a manual typewriter. Help! Tell me it's something cool, though--not a mockingbird or something lame like that....

Then I saw a bird that I've debated with myself about life-listing because I'd only ever gotten one quick-glance-had-to-be-one-of-those sightings last summer: the brown thrasher. After today I can list him with confidence, and I even got photos!



Sweet!

I also saw some cedar waxwings--such beautiful birds, and my nemesis for oh-so-long until I moved up here and saw one a couple of years ago:


So maybe luck's been a lady to me lately, sending me to an area rich with birds that I'd never have discovered had I not gone to see a blue grosbeak. I suppose that living in such a beautiful area that's blessed by so many different species of birds is lucky. Or maybe just living on earth is pure luck in itself.

Tribute to Post #150 & a visit from the SC Birding Club

I realized after I'd read my previous post the day after I wrote it that I'd forgotten to honor the fact that it was my 150th post to beginningtobird. I'd mentioned in the entry title but then got so wrapped up in my pileated sighting that I just plain forgot to celebrate. Woo-hoo!

Tonight, Kat and I hosted a gathering of several members of the State College Birding Club along with the owners of the marsh behind my house. Greg and Mary Kay Williams own the marsh and Cooke Tavern Bed and Breakfast. They're great people who actually created this marsh from a horse pasture. They removed the "tile drains" (not sure what those are but they apparently drained off the natural water on the property) and worked with several local, state, and national organizations to develop the wetland. They've lived here for 17 years, and their work--this marsh--was the deciding factor in our decision to buy this house. Mary Kay was glad to hear about our love of the marsh, as most of our other neighbors have called it "a mosquito pit." Whatever. This place rocks.

So some people from the birding club came out as well to look for sora, Virginia rail, and American bittern. We'd hoped for the great egrets, but Mary Kay says she thinks they left. It's been a while since I'd seen them, but I was hoping they were just nesting. Oh well. Saw some great heron tracks, so I know they're still around. We saw rails and sora, who were very stirred up by one member's BirdPod. They walked right up to us, gathered in a group on Neighbor Ed's fenceline looking into the marsh. One began an energetic territory protection display so we moved on.

The bitterns must be nesting, maybe, because they didn't respond to the BirdPod, but I've seen them lately and feel sure they're still around. We stopped trying after just a bit to avoid irritating them.

All in all, we didn't see too many birds, but it was a beautiful evening and it was very exciting to have real bird clubbers hanging out here!

The high point of the night for me occurred once everyone had arrived and we were ready to hit the marsh. Greg and Mary Kay asked if Kat was coming along with us (she had been sitting out in the backyard with me, discussing the details of her day, when everyone arrived). The look on her face was priceless, and in her mental voice (which is too high for most humans, except for me, to hear), she cried, "Oh my god, I'm in birding hell!" But all that came out in the common human ear's hearing range was "Oh, no thanks!" She even managed a rather forced smile!

After everyone left, she told me that she felt like Non-Birding Bill must feel all the time. Gotta love her; she sticks to her "birds are creepy" guns even in the presence of hard-core birders. She's my rock!

I warned her I'd have to blog about this incident, and she just kept repeating "I was in birding hell" and shaking her head, shell-shocked. She says she can tell when she's about to enter birding hell with me when I'm talking with someone else in some random situation when, out of the blue, someone (other than me) will use "birding" as a verb (as opposed to "bird-watching"). That's when I hear her mental voice, like a tiny banshee, wailing somewhere far away. Those moments are priceless. I'm in birding heaven, she's in birding hell.

Post #150--and a pileated!

This morning when I got in the car to wait for Kat, I happened to look over at Neighbor Ed's front yard and saw a pileated woodpecker!

I was so freaked out that I dared not get any closer than our driveway, so these are pretty fuzzy--but it's definitely a pileated!

This is a true lifebird for me, in that I've wanted to see one of these since I was a little kid watching Woody Woodpecker and I found out somewhere that he was modeled after a pileated. Wow.

Kat couldn't believe how huge he was, like a big crow or larger, pecking at the base of an old stump. I wish I could've stayed and watched him all day long, but Kat had to get to school and I had to go to work.

Wow. I'm still all freaked out. What an amazing bird.

On a sidenote: Since this new "autosaving of drafts" thing, I'm unable to view a preview of my posts. I click on the Preview Since I've never been able to get a full menu at the top of the post window (all I get are the icons for spellcheck, for adding photos, and for Preview since I switched to Macintosh and Apple's Safari browser), I can only see the HTML view while composing. So without a preview, I'm just guessing how things look until I post them. Grr... Need to get a different browser but downloading them takes a million years with dial-up. Oy vey.

Anyway--I saw a pileated!

Saturday night (moon) fever

I was outside moving the sprinkler around the veggie garden when I looked up and saw this:


I ran inside and grabbed my scope; there's nothing like those times when the moon and a planet--in this case Venus--appear to rise beside one another in the night sky.


These are the best photos I got, both digiscoping through the Mead Condor, now atop the new Slik 540Q-II tripod with microfluid head, and with the camera on zoom. I tried several camera modes while digiscoping--regular, night landscape, macro, and infinity. Sadly, I didn't get the focused view through the camera that I saw through the scope with my eye. The scope performed beautifully, but I think the camera might've had difficulty with the low light.


I did a little reading about the phenomenon of "earthshine," which occurs when you can see the entire moon in a shadowy blue along with the lit part. I absolutely love it when the moon looks like this, and I was thrilled to photograph it.

According to space.com, Leonardo da Vinci is the first person to have recognized this phenomenon. Beautiful. The view through the scope was incredible, too--I saw all the features on the bottom of the crescent moon.