Lint

A few more hummingbird photos from last week. She looks like she's dozing off in the first two:

https://i.imgur.com/PKKONCxl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/YQZGh2fl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/yiyErXIl.jpg

The owls were out in the open space this morning but never came up to the bird baths. Fortunately, I have more pictures from yesterday:

https://i.imgur.com/PtaLnGVl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/VcRgSQvl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/nqxKBEQl.jpg

birds are cool in general, and hummingbirds and owls in particular are sofa king cool!

The female finches were fighting for feeder spots today. In the last photo you can see the one finch actually has a foot on the back of the other finch as she pushes her out of the way.

https://i.imgur.com/AYSfDWzl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ltKDuODl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/oXlDf2jl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/hyilvNfl.jpg

Mr. Rufous says "Don't they know this is a hummingbird feeder?"

https://i.imgur.com/Zu3kyC7l.jpg

I really wish I could have got this one in clear focus. It's very difficult to focus in the dim pre-dawn light.

https://i.imgur.com/3MCtkkBl.jpg

Sooooo pretty!

finch fight!

Thank you!

A feathered frenzy!

I just got back from a mid-week camping trip, timed to coincide with the new moon. I've wanted to try some night sky photography since I bought this new camera a few months ago and finally conditions were right. I need to fine tune some settings but this one came out okay. That's the Milky Way running from lower right to upper left. The bright object in the lower left is Jupiter and that is one of its moons just to the left of it:

https://i.imgur.com/9ndmMHtl.jpg

Very nice!

wow, one of Jupiter's moons? how cool is that.

The owls made an evening appearance yesterday when it was still light enough to get some photos. I'm also taking pics from my bedroom window now because it's about 12 feet closer to the bird bath. I caught this sequence as an owl hopped from one bird bath to the other:

https://i.imgur.com/Wk0E0cel.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/jo6ANYXl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/qUXJCbpl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/rVHqraRl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/uf9GLHel.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/td046XWl.jpg

I wish these owls would leave me alone.

One of them must have had insomnia because a couple of hours ago it showed up in broad daylight.

https://i.imgur.com/HUkSuBUl.jpg

"Whoooo made bubbles in the bird bath?"

https://i.imgur.com/Lfo7Wotl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/3tj3T7Al.jpg

And because I haven't posted any pics of owls flying in days hours:

https://i.imgur.com/vTXk68Al.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/YnTUFchl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/yRYK88Nl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/l2i4mEYl.jpg

Looking north from New Brighton Beach towards Capitola. Taken on Tuesday morning...there's a little smoky haze in the sky, but this is before the fires really took off in the Santa Cruz Mountains. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...3bdd737d_c.jpg

Wow.

Seriously.

awesome pix, Bumbershoot. :wow:

blondebear, how close are you to any of the fires?

Thanks, Jackie!

We're actually getting haze from the California fires all the way over here in New Mexico.

Probably 15 miles as the crow flies to the evacuation zones in the Santa Cruz mountains to the south and the foothills of Mount Hamilton in the east.

Today's lunch homemade tamales
[IMG]https://i.postimg.cc/mZSfZxRg/tamales.jpg[/IMG]

I took this sunrise photo on Thursday morning while camping. It somewhat shows the haze from the wild fires in California and Colorado that has made it to the Jemez mountains and Valles Caldera in New Mexico.

https://i.imgur.com/8D2uAiYl.jpg

wonderful photo, as always. :)

I'm glad I'm not still living in Carson City as I see they are getting it. I think it was 2 summers ago I lived through smoke that was only bad for a short time but present for a looooooooooong time and I really hated it.

I tried to do a little cardio and once I was deep breathing I could feel a burning in my chest. :(

the Columbia River
 

https://i.imgur.com/TjlofcEm.jpg

I finally stuck my toe in the water. well, all of them but not a lot more of me.

So this year the Black Headed Vultures made it this far north. https://i.postimg.cc/8Cs0Vhvd/Black-...tures-2020.jpg

They're right outside my window. Do they know something I don't know?

Yes.

I haven't posted any hummingbird pictures in a while so here are a couple:

https://i.imgur.com/QBFApwCl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/6pebYi7l.jpg

awesome, thank you!

Don't encourage me, I have more! ;) Seriously- thanks, Jackie.

When I was camping last week and taking Milky Way pics (post #510), I took a few of the constellation Cassiopeia. I was pleasantly surprised to see the Andromeda galaxy appear in a couple of the photos. It's not much, just a faint fuzzy oval around a bright center. I just can't believe I took a picture that shows another galaxy.

The first photo has circles around the stars that form Cassiopeia. The top three form a triangle or an arrow that points to Andromeda in the lower right. The second one is the same photo without the red circles.

https://i.imgur.com/JARUrtph.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4GYmZCth.jpg

Andromeda and the Milky Way are on a collision course. In about 4.5 billion years, they will be close to us and will fill the night sky. After that the two galaxies merge and probably form a large elliptical galaxy.

And a few million years later, they will settle some unfinished business.

Translation: A black hole 36 million times heavier than the sun spiraled into a black hole 29 million times heavier than the sun, and during the merger a mass of about 3 million solar masses was converted to energy in the form of gravitational waves. I can't even figure out how many megatons that boom was, but it definitely sterilized a large sphere of space many light years in diameter. The monster in the center of our galaxy and the one in the middle of Andromeda will go through the same dance.

I'm staying home that day. I'm calling in sick.

The Perseus Double Cluster shows up nicely, too. See the arrows below the bottom which points to it, about an inch up.
--------------------------------^^^

Umm, no. M⊙ means solar masses, not million solar masses. LIGO is incapable of detecting mergers of supermassive black holes because their gravity waves are too low frequency.

I thought I already replied to this but I guess I forgot. Anyway, thanks for pointing that out, Alky! I didn't know it was there.

An Arizona Sister butterfly showed up at the hummingbird feeder today. These photos are for Hoser:

https://i.imgur.com/wG8U1wfl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/DYRUpgGl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/q8kwjz3l.jpg

Wups, you are correct senior.

The juvenile Cooper's hawk has been back a couple of times recently:

https://i.imgur.com/t44JFhVl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/zSO2t4Yl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/frxdZ84l.jpg

Hawk butt

https://i.imgur.com/zK6lUEXl.jpg

This morning makes three in a row with no owls showing up. They may have dispersed to find their own territories (I think they're siblings, not a mating pair). I wrote a blog entry about the whole Owl Experience.

Within 2-3 weeks the hummingbirds will fly south and the feeders will come in.

Weird Hibiscus (Hibiscus schizopetalus)

https://i.postimg.cc/65n3Vf6L/hibiscus-02.jpghosting photos

Show us a snapshot!
 

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...44d3e4701d.jpg

I finished the table! (still need to power wash the thinset drips off the floor; also the pineapple is looking a bit forlorn these days)

Close up of the center:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...734262743c.jpg

Many years ago the table, with a glass top, was left outside over the winter. We had a big snow storm and the gutter came off the roof on the 2nd story and swung around under the porch roof, knocking the table over and shattering the top.

The base is wrought iron and sturdy as heck, so I built a new top out of plywood (painted to minimize weathering),covered it with hardibacker (thinset into place), and tiled it (also using thinset). The edge banding is PVC molding trim painted with Rustoleum and fastened in place with both liquid and metal nails. I grouted it over the weekend and touched up the edge banding. It should survive just about anything now. Still need to replace the gutter, though.

Ta da!

These are speed limits you don't see every day. :)https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...ff2ae4b2ce.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...04c7abe399.jpg

Sent from my SM-A102U using Tapatalk

I’ve been working in Cheyenne, Wyoming all this week. A few snaps from my phone. Sorry about the sideways bull rider.
https://www.giraffeboards.com/attach...1&d=1599188028

https://www.giraffeboards.com/attach...1&d=1599188028

https://www.giraffeboards.com/attach...1&d=1599188028

That is one big meadowlark.

A few recent hummingbird photos:

https://i.imgur.com/7FWNwfJl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/RyTMaFol.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/2CHHdLQl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/LjDg4Tsl.jpg

very good action shots :heart:

Thanks, Jackie!

A couple of days ago I had two visitors who haven't been around all summer. A female Northern flicker showed up- at least three flickers were regular customers all winter but stopped showing up in late spring. I think they head for the mountains to beat the summer heat. I know flickers are common all summer long up around seven to eight thousand feet. We see them on every camping trip.

The same day, an adult Sharp-shinned hawk stopped by. I think it's the same one that was here in April & May (see posts 204, 363, 364, 365) due to its tendency to stand on one foot, the right one. It did put its left foot down before it took off.

Flicker

https://i.imgur.com/fJUwYYnl.jpg

Sharp-shinned hawk

https://i.imgur.com/1uO960zl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Z2nLENkl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/0srZF1Hl.jpg

I always had Northern Flickers in my yard when I lived in Nevada.
I :heart: them.

same thing with California quail.

not that I don't appreciate Oregon, because I do, but I kinda miss northern Nevada. :(

Yeah, I like flickers. I mostly saw the yellow-shafted variety back east but out here it's the red-shafted. I hope to someday get a photo that shows the red coloring on the underside of the wings.

Those are spectacular photos, but here's a few without birds in them. :D

Wilbur and Trixie hanging out on a lazy morning.

https://www.giraffeboards.com/attach...1&d=1599447686

We had a stunning sunset last night. An iPhone camera is almost an insult to it.

https://www.giraffeboards.com/attach...1&d=1599447686

Everything's bigger in Texas? This sculpture is just standing in a field alongside a small country road. There's also a giant strawberry metal sculpture and I swear there used to be a giant grasshopper and a giant dung beetle and dung ball, but those must have been relocated or something.

https://www.giraffeboards.com/attach...1&d=1599447686

The picture of deer reminded me of when a herd just wandered through the campground at Capitol Reef National Park last year:
https://www.giraffeboards.com/attach...1&d=1599482888