Playing Around and round . . .

Am, again, playing around with the layout of this blog. Turns out there is a way to offer subscriptions so when i create a new post, you'd receive an email notifying you ... but i don't seem to be able to learn how to install that app. Sigh, i'm fairly good with certain kinda tech-stuff — all things related to cameras, etc., but not so with codes et al. Well, i'll just continue to trundle along with the way this is.

Recently, three days ago, we returned from a three week trip to the mid-west: Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay which was a good venture as those things go although, for me, there were far too many words being thrown at my ears. Glad to be back to the quiet of the mountains.

I do have a good amount of photographs i want to post but haven't put them into the format that allows them to be posted ... another day or so.

Here's one i like:

From the Circus Museum in Baraboo, WI where the Ringling Bros started out.  A most interesting history of not only the Ringling Bros but also many other circuses.

A clown car and i couldn't find where it said how many got into this car.




Below is the entrance to the Cave of the Mound: a creation of the glaciers that pushed their way southward many eons ago.  It was a very interesting tour-

Often called "soda straws" as they are hollow from the water draining thru them; one of many types of stalactites.

Instead of turning into a stalagmite, this became an 'egg' like form.

The two images below were a single room viewed from holes blasted thru the wall so we could look inside. The cave was so filled with stalagmite and stalagmites that it couldn't be entered with breaking many of them ... so they blasted a couple windows into the cave wall and that's what we're look thru. You can see the edges of the opening about the edges of the photograph.

We were moving much too fast for the kind of photography i wanted to do as the angle and frame size is important to really give a sense of the size and forms of the cave.

Birds, again

Occasionally, a Red-wing blackbird show up at the feeders. I don't think i've seen it on the feeder, just in the tree watching the other birds. I think i've seen it twice. I'm a big fan of red-wing blackbirds as there were many of them at GGF but they are rather rare in the mountains here — don't know why.

The tree is a Sourwood tree also called Lily of the Valley tree ... this is its first year here as i planted it in the spring ... looking for forward to its fall colors.

I have been trying to get photographs of bird pairs: both of the same genius  and of different kind:

Two reds

Young Brown Thrasher on left, its parent on the right

And sometime they want something they can't  have or reach:

Tufted Titmouse reaching for the humming bird feeder - no, he/she didn't reach it.

Squirrels - wet and dry

Squirrels, like humans, have differing approaches to being in, or not in, the rain. Below are three samples of that difference.

The one was determined to eat despite the rain which was falling rather heavily. You can see how wet his tail is and somehow, he has it, somewhat, shielding his head.

  
This one stayed under the bushes and only his tail became wet which was drying off in the photograph.

And there is the squirrel who wouldn't get wet for anything. Soon as the rain started to fall, he ran under the car and sat on top of the wheel watching the very wet squirrel continuing to eat.

Interesting rodents!

More Moons - July '19

In the past couple of days the full moon has been amazing:

 The image above is something of an experiment as it is a large jpeg as i want to see how the image looks when clicked on; give it a try and then the one above it and see what difference there is and what you think about them. If you are viewing this in a phone, you won't see any difference. Post a comment about what you see please — thanks.

Red on red

Maybe looking at the mailbox's tail to see if it matched his tail?

Experment

This blog, a Google enterprise, will handle many photo formats and i usually post in jpeg as i use those on other places on the net which only take jpegs. In working with photographs, i am usually working in dng, RAW or tiffs, image sizes much too large to use on this site. However, in working with this moon photograph, i noticed that when i created a jpeg from the tiff that the jpeg becomes pixelated in the very dark areas ... it may do the same in other images but is not noticed in light areas.  So these two moon photographs are first a tiff and then a jpeg of the same image ... can you tell any difference? I'd love some feedback about whatever difference you might see.

May Full Moon, May 5-19-19

Well, i just discovered i was incorrect and this blog will not allow tifs nor very large jpegs. Still, please click on the image which will make it large and see if in the lower right and left corners there is a breakdown of the black area.

This is a composit of two images as when photographing the moon, it is much too bright to get any surrounding clouds in the image so i photographed the clouds and let the moon turn white and then photo....blah, blah ... and here is the mood along with the wispy clouds that were there that night.

Botanical Garden

There is a small botanical garden here in Asheville that is located at the edge of UNCA campus ... i don't know if UNC has anything to do with it, ie experimenting with different varieties, etc., but the gardens are pretty nice. So i have gone there twice in the past week and am enjoying working with the Sony's macro lens along with using an extension tube which allows a larger image without getting any closer. Here are some of todays images and at this time i don't know the name of any of the flowers:

I am relatively happy with the results above. Part of what i want to do or learn to do is photography in such a way that there is greater depth of focus, ie. more of the flowers are in focus. It is a challenge in gardens where there is often movements from   breezes, and gusty winds and the constant passage of people which adds to the plants movement.

The photographs below are from the day before and while not quite as sharp -there was considerable more wind then - i like some of the results very much especially with the ants:

I was fascinated with this plant and the toadstool like bloom that sat just above the leaves and i guess they had some kinda sweetness on the bloom as almost every one had an ant on it.

I believe the funny looking toadstools in the top image above is the forerunner for the open blooms on the bottom. In the bottom image you can see some of them in the background. I didn't see any there were in between the two stages you see here.

I plan on returning Monday when there are less people in the hopes that the above plants are still blooming and accessible for photographing. 

Rainy Morning

Local park

About a 10 min walk from where we were staying is the community park. I like and often walk there but never given it much thought as some place to photograph. However, i went out with a niece who wanted to do some photography and came home with these photographs:

A beautiful park from this lens' view.

Night-blooming flowers

The yard across from where we were staying had fairly long grass for the first week or so and we walked past it a couple times a day as we walked to and from my sister's house and one evening i notices there were yellow flowers where there hadn't been any earlier in the day. This was about 6:45 in the evening:

Sadly, i didn't take any daytime flowers as there were none to be seen. Turns out they are Night-blooming Primroses and very pretty:

The purple wrinkly-looking surrounding flowery-stem is the bloom from the previous night as they only last one night. I had no idea ... the owner came and talk with us and didn't know anything about the plant and offered to let us dig some up and bring back with us but we decided not to. A day or two later she cut the grass but that didn't seem to brother the Primroses at all:

I don't know what time they fold away in the morning as i never got up and went out to look ... do you know when Night-blooming Primroses die in the morning?

Eggs

While in SA, my sister mentioned that the lamp on the front lawn didn't work and so i volunteer to work on it. I discovered there was no electricity at the post and couldn't do anything about that But, i discovered a colony of eggs.

really really small - that is wrought iron they are on

and up close they look like this

Two days later i returned to see what was happening and there were dozens and dozens of small warms all over the lamp post and the breeze was blowing them on cobwebs all over the place. I backed away as i didn't want them either on me nor my camera. They were very very small. A couple hours later i returned and they were all gone - nada, nothing. Well, almost ... i find three or four and they looked like this:

You can see three or four in the above photograph along with the remnants of the eggs - my sister said they were the warms that ate into the bark of trees causing great damage. 

Bridge across the Nantahala, Bryson City, NC

Just southwest of Bryson City, NC is one of many rivers in the area - this one is the Nantahala and there is a small footbridge that crosses it for, i believe, the railroad workers to get to the railroad as there is not other access for miles. I first saw the bridge last year but not until i passed it did it register as a functioning footbridge. This trip i made of point of watching for it and stopping. It looks like this:

Yes, it is as exciting as it looks. Its quite safe and strong but with only a little effort, you can get the bridge to swing and take your breath away. And when two or three are walking on it, it has a very lively bounce.  I recommend a visit. 

Putting out the bird feeder after a month away

Arriving back from a month is SA, we had a great time as we crossed the country. In particular the lake area at the TN-NC border - i have some photographs but they still need some work so i'll post them later.

The bird feeder hadn't been out for that time and i put it out the day after we returned knowing it'd take a while for the birds to find it again.

Lo, one of the first birds to show up was one i'd not seen before:

Rose-breasted Grosbeak, not a common bird in our area.

and

Indigo Bunting, also not so common in this area

A couple days ago we took a walk around Beaver Lake Dam, a lake on the outskirts of Asheville. A little more then a mile in circumstances, it is a wonderful walk and filled with birds, turtles and many other small animals. Here are a few:

Killdeer

i don't know what this is - do you?

nor do i know what this is - do you?

notice it is banded

As you can read i'm very much a beginner when it comes to IDing birds; all help will be greatly appreciated.