Daily Photo - Clouds

I feel less ill today.

Daily Photo - I feel ill

Hopefully this won't make you feel ill.

frog toes. Day two of the random head cold sore throat thing.

Daily Photo - Odd Alarm Clock

Any new critters get isolated for at least a month. This guys iso tank is about 1 foot from my bed. Around 5 am he starts bopping around it. I get woken up by the little thunks he makes as he lands on the glass.

Daily Photo - Dreaming of Summer

I kind of miss the bugs.

Daily Photo - Teeth

and how Licorice has very few of them. Only 1 canine left and I'm expecting that brownish black line means it might have to go soon too.

Daily Photo - Cat Feeding

I got a little lazy about washing out Licorice's cat food cans. I moved him to a new room and moved out all his cans. Since I'm insane about recycling I couldn't just throw them away, so I washed all 30 something with some hand soap and a tooth brush. My bathroom looks like I own 10 cats not just one who insists on Fancy Feast, which btw is the most expensive crap cat food I've ever bought.

5 Things I've Learned...

in the last 12 months or so of playing with my camera. 1. Dawn really does have the best light and is worth hauling out of bed for. 2. 250 mm is barely a telephoto if you're chasing birds. It is also irritatingly slow. That same 250 mm has to be stopped down to f/8 to take anything approaching sharp. It also needs to be within about 10 feet and take up at least 1/4 of the view for focus to be less hit or miss. In other words it isn't as useful as it could be.

100% crop

3. Mirror lockup let's you take better long exposures, esp. with a tripod and remote. 4. A dedicated flash is completely worth it to photograph bugs. A ring macro flash might have been better, but I can't bounce that off the ceiling. 5. Keep taking photos until the critter leaves. This isn't film. I don't need to hoard my film, or pay for processing. If I take 100 photos of something so be it. I should easily get 5 I love and 20 use able photos from that type of burst. The ratio should be even better if the critter doesn't move much.

Moose Hill - cont.

Squirrel Track.

The snow had a very interesting consistancy. The holes I think were from a warmer rain we had earlier in the week, and the tiny white balls were a dryish snow we had after.

Fungus in Snow. Some of the trails need some grooming of winter downed branches, but there weren't any significant blockages.

Another maybe coyote.

Deer track with all 4 hooves. most of the ones I saw only had the front two. There was a nice running track on the main trail into the sanctuary.

I realized how tiring it can be walking on snow when I got back out to the street. My feet seemed to be celebrating the ground not sinking anymore. It was odd, as it was a harder snow, with very little give, so I wasn't sinking much at all.

Daily Photo - Moon

100% crop from last night.

Moose Hill

I got lazy, and the sky wasn't cooperating, so I didn't go out this morning.

Here's a teaser of yesterday's hike.

There was a nice tree full of robins. Multiply this pic by at least 4 to get the full number. I even got some in focus. I could have done better if i bothered to wear my snow pants so I could have sat down and waited for them to start landing again. I lost patience.

I found my first turkey tracks.

And I'm going to convince myself these were coyote since dog's are not allowed, even if they spent an awfully large amount of time on the trails. More to come.

Totally Blanked

I went out early this morning and likely will be doing the same tomorrow. (I'm trying to keep seeing dawn to get in mental shape for Utah) I'll be making up the posts sometime tomorrow. I took several hundred photos at Moose Hill this morning that I have to work through before I can post.

Daily Photo - Algae Eaters

Algae coated snack for my new fish.

24 hours later.

At least they're eating well.

Daily Photo - Green Tree Frog

New Critter... Who Really Wanted to Sleep

I had an empty critter cage this week. I even kept it empty after shuffling around the snakes this weekend (the adult corns were making me feel guilty with them in 30 gallon tanks, so I bought some covers and swapped them to 30 breeders gaining some floor space.) Since it was a critter cage it can't hold water, or I would have used it for the catfish. Last week I was out getting crickets and spotted a green tree frog in a cage with huge White's tree frogs. I mentioned it to a worker at the pet store, since he easily fit in their mouths and knowing how hungry whites can be he wasn't long for this world. They said they were going to move him. I went out again Saturday to get cage clips to finish my new snake cages and saw he was still in with the whites. At this point I was just going to buy him since he looked to be in good condition, but was going to get eaten. I asked about him again and they asked if I wanted him. I left the store with a free tree frog because it turns out he had come in with the whites and they didn't have a number for him, so were just leaving him in there. I kind of wish they had some more but I don't like paying for wild-caught animals anyway. Hopefully he'll be happy alone in his 20 long turned on its side to be 30" high by 12" in either direction. (Sadly enough I had an empty cage because one of my leopard geckos died without a mark on her a few weeks ago. No warning just died. She seemed to be in good condition as well, just dead.)

Daily Photo - More Snow

And the birds to go with it.

Daily Photo - I Have to Stay Out of Pet Stores

Back in college I had a bit of an aquarium problem. I think I got up to 15 tanks before I started downsizing. I now have 3-5 running at any time. Today I happened to go to a PetsMart and find this guy and his kin on sale. $1 each. Normally they go for $5 at that store and up to $10 elsewhere. Back when I had lots of tanks I had a pair of these spawn once and I ended up with one new fish out of maybe 15.

Chaetostoma spec. Catfish.

I went to 3 stores and ended up with 7 of them. They're living in my kitchen in a 15 gallon for the next month until I'm sure they don't have any interesting diseases (my last attempt at this grew some kind of yellow fungus and died. I've never seen anything like it before or since.) I think I ended up with 3 different species. Hopefully a pair of at least 2 of the species though. I'm trying to keep myself from driving to another store on the off chance they have more. I'd have them catch just the species I really want, but it isn't really worth it trying to explain which one of the 6 I want. At least I don't mind having extras.

Daily Photo - Sunrise

I would love an unobstructed view of the East. It's this or power lines.

Daily Photo - White Throated Sparrow

They got a little more daring.

Daily Photo - Request

Paperwhites, requested by Mom.

Daily Photo - Relax

Nothing sleeps like a tired dog.

Daily Photo - Ice

A break from the birds, unless I get a really good blue jay pic.

Daniel Webster - From 1/6/10

Dawn to 9 AM Daniel Webster.

Daily Photo - Junco

I promise to not spend all morning tomorrow at my back door waiting for something interesting to land. I learned today that this guys name is pronounced Jun-Ko, which makes a lot more sense than what was in my head.

Daily Photo - Blue Jay 3

Sadly enough his face is not in focus, rather his shoulder feathers are nicely focused.

Daily Photo - I know, more birds...

Yet another song sparrow. They're getting close to the door... Also a bonus visitor. I think it is a white-throated sparrow. It didn't want to come very close though and I returned the bird guide to the library.

Daily Photo - Crow

Crow at Daniel Webster early this morning.

Daily Photo - Blue Jay

I'm getting better.

Daily Photo - Snow Drift

Nothing like slightly sticky powdery snow and lots of wind.

It's Been Snowing for 3 DAYS

And I spent today very slowly leading the ground feeding birds from far out in the backyard to my back door, since I couldn't take the camera out while it was snowing. I got them to the backdoor by dusk. Here's hoping they come back tomorrow, even though it is supposed to stop snowing. The blue jays are extremely skittish about the idea, but do eventually get all the peanuts I put out, mostly whenever I get distracted. The above pics have a bit of a glow about the birds. I'm having issues compensating enough for the snow. I might have to try my flash tomorrow if it doesn't brighten up a bit. And for contrast. More fun with my zoom lens that freaking refuses to focus outside but seems to love flash work.