A sunset picture of a slightly different nature.
Looking due south, with the sun setting off to our right, a number of houses on the hillsides of Woodland Hills and Calabasas will catch the setting sun just right. The glint and reflections can be quite bright.
The hills between here and Malibu, centered around Saddle Peak with the array of microwave towers on top of it, are also quite lovely. Especially when they’re not on fire.
Filed under Los Angeles, Photography, Sunsets
I mentioned a few days ago that I realized that I hadn’t heard the owls in a while.
Last night, at least one of them was back, loud and proud, right across the street.
I’ve taken out the 18 to 20 seconds of traffic noises, sirens, and low flying aircraft in between each hoot, turning about 120 seconds real time into 26 seconds of hooting.
I’m glad they’re back – I hope more follow. I love it when three or four of them get hooting across the canyons.
Well, at least until they start pushing a normal, average moon as a “supermoon” just for clickbait.
What it absolutely is is a full moon, about two hours past full. So, a 99.9% full moon.
Remember, the Moon’s orbit isn’t perfectly round, so sometimes when it’s at full moon, directly opposite the Earth from the Sun, sometimes it that instant it’s a bit closer, sometimes a bit further away. Most of the time it’s about average. On those handful of times per year when it’s closer than average, the clickbait mainstream media trumpets it as a “SUPERMOON!!!”
If the clickbait mainstream media wasn’t doing that, the odds of you noticing the difference would be tiny. Miniscule. Extremely unlikely.
Astronomically small. (Sorry, not sorry.)
What tonight’s supermoon is also doing is wiping out our ability to see about 90% of the Perseid meteor shower. You need a nice, dark sky to see the most meteors. The full moon is thousands of time brighter, so you can only still see the very brightest of the meteors.
Enjoy the beautiful moon! Good luck with the brightest meteors!
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space
With the five-year drought now putting SoCal (and pretty much everything west of the Rockies) on severe water restrictions, the front yard is looking dodgy and brown.
And yet…
Our hero abides. It doesn’t bloom all the time, but every week or two it will pop off another flower just to either:
Hang in there little white weed flower. I might be needing you there more than you can imagine, and that’s only going to get more true by the day I suspect.
Filed under Climate Change, Flowers, Photography
It’s been a while since we had a decent sunset here. There have been clouds now and then (see the “Skyscapes” posts of the last month or three), days when it’s totally clouded over (but no rain AT ALL, at least not here), and lots of days when it’s “clear and a million.”
Down along the shore there have been some nice sunset pictures from San Diego, Orange County, Santa Barbara, and on up the coast.
But here, in “The Valley” – not much.
Until tonight.
Not the best ever, but not bad.
Not the same as getting the finest of wines, but to someone parched and panting, a cold glass of water can be exquisite!
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather
It’s been quite the day. I think I may have blown a brain circuit or two.
Let’s keep this simple. What was I doing fifteen years ago?
Traveling to a NASFIC in the Saint Louis region with the family apparently. (Side note, while I was also working full time plus and also going to Pepperdine to get my MBA and starting my flying lessons, I apparently also took six trips around the country, went to three airshows, two science fiction conventions, and three or four baseball games. Where did I get the time and/or energy?!) But rather than going with the stock photo of the Gateway Arch and Old Courthouse in downtown Saint Louis, I like this one of that same area broken up and fractured in the reflections of an office building.
Filed under Photography, Travel
Last Monday I heard the resident front yard mockingbirds making quite a racket. They make very good guards. A racket generally means something’s up, predator wise.
I recognized this guy immediately. I’ve seen him from a distance and knew he was in the neighborhood.
Usually it’s down in the canyon below the house, sitting on top of a power pole. I’m pretty sure its nest is in the top of a pine tree right next to the pole.
Its call is very distinctive (the first one here), and the Cornell Lap Merlin Bird ID app confirmed the pictures – it’s a Cooper’s Hawk.
The two mockingbirds were on the wire above it, sounding the alarm constantly, and occasionally swooping down to take a pass at the hawk, trying to frighten it off. I was amazed that it stuck around for over five minutes, giving me a chance to walk around and take some pictures.
When it finally did take off, the second it was in the air there was a flood of mockingbirds that scrambled out of nowhere to mob it. While there were two on the wire, when the hawk got in the air there were suddenly 20+, dive bombing it, taking shots at hitting it in the air. With very little effect that I could see.
What a beautiful bird! I hope I see it back up here at the top of the hill again soon, whether the mockingbirds like it or not!
Filed under Birds
Every now and then someone goes off on social media about how they’ve seen the moon during the day and it’s NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE (LIKE, EVER!!) so this is obviously a sign of the impending apocalypse or a glitch in the Matrix or a conspiracy by the Illuminati or something.
These people are usually mocked hideously (as they should be, because, jeez!) but it does make me wonder just how clueless some folks can be about the world around us. I understand that not everyone can have a college degree in the sciences or be the next “Jeopardy!” super champion. But where exactly do we set the bar for awareness of “common knowledge” facts about the reality that surrounds us 24/7/365?
I think it’s safe to assume that by their teenage years everyone should have noticed that the moon is often visible in the daylight hours. Water is wet, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, fire is hot, Darth Vader is Luke’s father, and the moon is often visible in the daylight hours.
(Too early for spoilers on the Luke thing?)
Filed under Astronomy, Freakin' Idiots!, Photography, Space
Ten years ago:
From: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Ten years ago, Opportunity made this terrifying, improbable ride from space to the surface of Mars, successfully plopping itself down in Gale Crater to look for evidence that Mars once had liquid water on its surface and the possibility of an environment which could have led to the evolution of life.
The SUV-sized rover was designed to last one Martian year, or 687 Earth days. Anything after that was gravy.
Today was day #2,965 of gravy as Curiosity continues to operate, explore, and climb while it sends back thousands of pictures and other data from the surface of Mars.
(And going strong.)
Happy Landiversary, Curiosity! And congrats to everyone at NASA and JPL who continue to Dare Mighty Things.
Curiosity has taken over 500,000 images. What’s it looking at tosol?
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
The ChemCam is looking at rocks.
Want to see a recent, more conventional image?
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Click on it to see it full-sized, it’s a big image.
Carry on, Curiosity. You’re doing great!!
The birds come, the birds go.
Some of them are seasonal-ish. Take the juncos. Back in the spring I noted that all of them seemed to have vanished, except for one. “Solo Junco.” Then they were back last fall, a dozen or more. Now they’re gone again – except for Solo Junco. I like to think he’s the smart one who’s figured out that there’s food here 24/7/365 and he doesn’t need to fly to some other continent to spend the summer.
There were bluebirds in the spring, more this year than last, until the neighbors’ trees got pruned within an inch of their lives. I was out in the front yard this evening, being scolded by my new mockingbird overlord, when I realized that I hadn’t seen a single bluebird in June or July after that tree trimming.
This evening while out in the back after dark, listening to the mockingbirds (again), I realized that I hadn’t heard the owls in at least two or three months. There are times when I’ll hear them three or four nights a week, at least a pair, sometimes more, hooting through the canyons. I hope they’re back sometime soon. I love listening to them. And occasionally seeing them.
It’s all cyclic, I guess, although I’m not doing a good job of tracking the data to record the cycles. I do remember in the spring, about the time that the juncos left, also noting that I was seeing relatively few mockingbirds. We often had dozens of them, especially noticable when there was an owl or a hawk around. They do tend to sound the alarm and make a racket. But I had only seen one or two in months.
About a month ago they came back in force, and again we have dozens in the neighborhood. One pair in particular seems to be hanging about our house, with the male being noticeably aggressive in the last few days. They might be building a nest in the rain gutters over the front door, or he might be getting worms and bugs out of the leaf debris in those gutters. Either way, when he gets interrupted by me going in or out of the front door, his displeasure is vocal and energetic.
This is what led me to today’s scolding. He was on the gutter’s edge right over my head, then flew down by the garage, then to the top of the garage where he could assert his dominance. Well, in theory. I wasn’t backing down, instead choosing to open a dialogue with proposals about how we could share the space like two reasonable critters.
I’m not sure that we made much progress. There are some translation and communication issues, to be sure. Perhaps I’ll see if he’s interested in taking food offerings of some sort.
If that gutter is being claimed by him, we’re going to need to figure out something in the next three and a half months. Christmas light season is right around the corner. Sort of. Given my recent encounters with gravity, climbing ladders to put up lights will be extra “special.” The last thing I’ll need is getting dive bombed by a pissed off mockingbird, treating me like he treats a hawk or owl.
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