This wordpress iPhone app is great. I can blog while doing all kinds of fun activities like when I’m lying in bed at the marriot in Philly or sitting around the airport or waiting on a grounded airplane for an hour.
Sitting on the plane, ready to swallow an Ambien, when the pilot announced that the flight was cancelled. This sucks.
….because everyone chickened out and we’re the only ones nuts enough to fly in this weather. I am in a highly unnerved state.
We made it to the airport just ahead of the storm and I think we will take off as scheduled
In defiance of the impending shitstorm that is about to befall the state, I am posting some old pictures from Longwood Gardens I dug up while looking back through my photos. Actually I was deleting useless shots to free up more room on my geriatric computer.
Weather forecasters are predicting over a foot of snow in our area and it’s supposed to start tomorrow afternoon. I am desperately hoping we can make a dash for the airport before driving becomes difficult. Our flight to Spain leaves tomorrow night and if all goes off as planned, we’ll miss the storm altogether and will be dining on fried sardines and sangria while narrowly dodging the legions of ill-prepared lemmings scrambling to their nearest grocery store to buy the last loaves of Wonderbread and gallons of milk .
Of course, the horrifying alternative is to be stuck in the Philadelphia airport for the weekend with nothing to eat but fast food, a nightmare if there ever was one.
We woke up to several inches of snow and evidence of a fox travelling through our yard:
At least I think that’s what left these marks. It looks like the tail left an impression as it drug along the snow.
Yesterday morning we awoke to the sounds of a large number of cackling and cawing crows. I walked outside and all the trees in the vicinity were occupied by a flock of about a thousand birds. The crows around here are very wary and even though I stood at the base of our butternut tree, 150 feet below them, as soon as I pointed my lens in their direction, they scattered. I don’t have high hopes of ever getting a good crow photo around here. Incredibly, there are still knuckle-dragging, troglodytic humans around here that hunt them for “sport” legally, so these birds flee the instant anything is pointed at them.
Lancaster County is home to a large flock of crows. I read somewhere that the flock is estimated to be about 30,000 birds but, personally, I think that could be a little low. They’ve lived here for centuries but as more land is developed, all of a sudden they become a “problem” for intolerant homeowners who think that people are the only animals that have the right to exist. We weren’t living here when it happened, but I think there was talk – or even action carried out – about poisoning the flock. Can you imagine what kind of selfish, short-sighted moron cooked up that idea? As a result, a concerned citizen’s group was formed called Lancaster County Crow Coalition that works to remove the birds by non-lethal means.
Researchers at Penn State are working on “reducing Lancaster’s crow problem”. Come on. How about spending some money where it’s really needed and work on reducing the people problem around here?
Here’s another one of my favorite bird/David Attenborough videos of thick-billed crows in Japan:
Guns in Japan are illegal and so is harming these birds which enabled me to get shots like this in Kyoto with a really crappy lens:
and this one in a park near where we lived:
All I had to do was sit down at a picnic table and start eating. Within minutes they’d show up and ask to share.
David Attenborough in New Guinea talking about birds is all the TV I’ll ever need. This is a clip from the The Life of Birds series and one that you simply must see. The extraordinary part comes about 2/3 of the way through.
Hobble yer lip partner and don’t even think about callin’ me Tex. I made another cowpoke shirt. And check out those boots. Just got them today and they are as comfortable as a pair of slippers. Believe it or not, they’re made by Abilene Boots right here in Pennsylvania in Somerset County.
…and I need to get my shit together and figure out how to wield this mother-of-all-cameras with proficiency.
I took this picture of Sinbad at 1/60 of a second, f4.5, with my 50mm lens. If you’re shooting at anything less than around 1/100 of a second, it’s not reasonable to expect a sharp picture. At speeds that slow you either need a very steady hand or a tripod. I have neither in this case and a subject matter that was constantly jerking and twitching in anticipation of the cookie I was holding. Still, I got this picture of the little nutcase:
Not bad. He’s extremely tough to photograph with that black light-sucking coat. Here are a few more, all at slower shutter speeds:
By now, pictures of the mutts are probably getting stale, but they’re the only things I can shoot in this miserably cold weather. Stay tuned and I’ll make up for it when we return from Spain with some interesting shots.
Here’s one of Little Buddy just so he doesn’t feel left out:
I can’t decide if my camera has problems or if it’s me. Many of my pictures seem to be out of focus despite having one of my lenses calibrated and cleaned. I did some research on the internet and a lot of people have the same problem…but that doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with the camera. There are droves of whiners out there who want to blame their equipment for their lack of photography skills, so I don’t know how much faith I put in all the complaints. Of course, the vast majority of people are thrilled with the 5D Mark II. The thing that makes me think it’s operator error is the fact that some pictures are razor sharp. For instance, last night I took this shot of an old leather camera bag by my desk:
That’s completely unedited and it’s as sharp as can be. But I feel like all the pictures I take outside are a little soft. I spoke to a guy at Canon the other night and he said suggested I change some settings. I took a few photos of Little Buddy but am not convinced the problem is resolved. I’ll take it to Spain next week and see how those shots turn out. If they suck, this thing is getting returned.
Friday was delightfully warm. Temperatures in the mid forties allowed me to sit outside for several hours and attempt to get bird photos. Here is a bird with an extraordinarily high cute factor – a Carolina Wren lacking a full set of tail feathers:
Not as sharp a photo as I’d like, but chalk it up to operator error. I can no longer blame a faulty lens. Thryothorus ludovicianus is its scientific name. Thryothorus or thryon is Greek for “a reed” and thouros means “rushing”. Ludovicianus is Modern Latin for “of Louisiana”, the site where the original specimen was collected.
This cardinal never quite worked up the nerve to leave the safety of the yew bushes while I was sitting so close to the feeders:
But the blue jay did
Here’s a mourning dove:
Most birds collect food to feed their young. Pigeons and doves are the only birds to actually produce it. They make a substance called “crop milk” that comes from fluid-filled cells sloughed off the surfaces of the crop. Both males and females are able to produce it which is why pigeon and dove offspring grow so quickly.
White throated sparrow:
male house finch:
And this little smart-ass had the temerity to try and empty the feeders right in front of me:
I don’t mind feeding the squirrels, but when they sit on the feeder and eat seed wholesale, it irks me. I chase them off every chance I get but they’re getting to the point in which they call my bluff and don’t bother going too far. As soon as I turn my back, they’re emptying the feeder again.
In the middle of January! I’m so desperate for insect photography that I actually got excited about finding this stinkbug in our house yesterday.
And this is indeed a true bug. Most people refer to insects in general as “bugs” but only members of the order Hemiptera are actually bugs. Hemipterans include waterbugs, backswimmers, stinkbugs, water striders, bedbugs and assassin bugs.
Here are some cool bugs I’ve encountered in the past. Probably the most spectacular, the wildly colored clown stinkbug that I found in Japan:
A stinkbug from Australia. I took this photo at the San Diego Natural History Museum using a Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens:
A reduviid from Japan. Don’t ever pick one of these up:
Another reduviid. These things aren’t called “assassin bugs” just because it sounds bad-ass. Look how it’s sucking the juice out of that beetle:
Here’s another stinkbug from Japan. The Japanese name for this bug is “ushi-kamemushi,” which means “cow bug” or “ox bug.”
A green stinkbug from Valle Vista, California:
and one nasty mofo, a water bug, also known as a “toe biter” that I caught in a pitfall trap on our Lake Hemet expedition two years ago:
About a year ago I was in the hair salon in San Diego and picked up one of those vapid magazines one always finds in those places and began to page through it. I came to this picture of Madonna.
and simultaneously hyperventilated and soiled my drawers. That had to be the most exquisite garment I’d ever seen and I really reallyneeded to have it. I later found out that it was designed by a woman who calls herself L’Wren Scott and that Nicole “Plasticine” Kidman also wore it at some awards shindig:
L’Wren Scott is an American designer from Los Angeles and if you think that dress doesn’t demonstrate her ability to channel cool, then maybe the fact that her beau is Mick Jagger might. Honestly, the woman is gorgeous, dates the king of cool and can design clothing like this.
This dress is severe and odd. I realize that. But it just did something to me and I instantly fell in love with it. It’s a good thing I can sew because instead of paying $1621 (that’s reduced from $2895)I got it for about $50 and twelve hours’ labor. Meet my version of the Headmistress Wool Dress, School Marm from Outer Space, by Melody McFarland:
I didn’t try to make an exact copy of the original. I figured if I was ripping off someone else’s creation, the least I could do was craft it as it was represented in my mind. I did not have a picture of it in front of me while making it, but rather tried to rely on memory and see how things worked out. I studied the pictures for a few days and then made both the collar and cuffs without looking. I compared the two after completion and found that my collar is thicker and the cuffs are thinner. That’s fine with me. I think it still carries the same look and I am thrilled with the results. In fact, our director at work said to me today “I like your dress. It looks very Italian.” Looks Italian? Really, people. When we’re talking chic, is there a greater pinnacle than either Parisian or Italian? Not in my book. She couldn’t have come up with a better compliment.
The original has some intricate detailing that I just wasn’t prepared to duplicate. The back is zippered and vented, like mine, but has plackets of buttons. I won’t make another one of these until this is threadbare, but hopefully by that time my skills will be such that I’ll be able to do a more accurate copy. I can’t imagine something like this looking dated.
There are a couple of things that bug me. The collar doesn’t lie as flat as it should (probably why it’s so narrow on the original), the sleeves could have stood to be a bit narrower and the lining could be a little neater but I am really happy with the fit and most everything else.
Follow the widget on the right to see the full review at Patternreview.com.
My once-damaged 70-200mm lens is now back in my possession and I didn’t realize until now just how messed up it really was. No wonder I couldn’t take a decent picture! Apparently something on the end portion had come loose, no doubt when I was trying to wrench off the haze filter that had a bent rim from when I dropped it. The Canon repair people repaired, calibrated and cleaned it, leaving it like new.
I sat outside by the birdfeeders this afternoon for as long as I could bear. It’s 28°F today and I didn’t last long. I usually have to spend an hour sitting by the feeders until the birds are brave enough to venture forth. I only lasted about 30 minutes before the cold drove me indoors. I managed to get a photo of a Carolina Wren:
Of course as soon as I get inside they start showing up in droves. I took these through the glass door. A cardinal:
and the wren taking off from the feeder:
Might as well get some shots of the mutts while the camera is out:
The novelty of winter has worn off for me and I am really looking foward to spring when the plants and insects are back in action and I can spend more time outdoors. This cold weather stinks.
