February 20, 2022 · 23:40

Brave Solo Hibiscus

A handful of days last weekend it was up into the 80’s and low 90’s here, but last week was down into the 60’s and low 70’s here, and tonight it’s damp, cloudy, drizzly, and headed for the 40’s. But that didn’t stop this one, brave, solo hibiscus from taking it’s shot at being FIRST to pop and get pollinated!

Don’t think that the hummingbirds don’t appreciate it! First, this is out of sight of where Little Bastard sits and guards the feeders, so they can hit it without being attacked. But it’s also the real stuff, not that artificial concentrate that goes into the feeders.

Give ’em hell, brave solo hibiscus!!

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

February 19, 2022 · 19:50

Yet Another Night At The Theatre!

We’re all masked and vaxxed (and so is everyone else, which I love) so we’re out at the theatre again tonight.

The Ahmanson Theatre, to be exact, to see “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.” I know very little about it, so it will be a surprise!

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Filed under Entertainment, Los Angeles

February 18, 2022 · 23:48

Three Days

Hey! It’s a three-day weekend! I literally didn’t even realize that until it came up in a meeting this afternoon.

And I don’t have to go to the hangar! That gig’s done!

I don’t even know what I’ll do with myself.

Maybe (hold on, this is going to be a radical concept!) read one of those books that’s been sitting there.

Maybe (buckle in!) watch a movie or a couple episodes of a TV show that I started years and years ago.

Maybe (inconceivable!) I’ll just sit and watch birds and clouds.

Let the adventure begin!

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Filed under Castle Willett, Paul

February 17, 2022 · 23:51

Moon Rising Over The Valley

It was clear and cool with the moon rising, one day past full. The picture from the iPhone was nice, but a bit blurry. It was time to get out the tripod and the light bucket lens.

Due west, the lights of Woodland Hills and Tarzana just above the trees at the center, the moon rising at the left. (Blow it up to see a bunch of detail.)

To the north-northwest, looking across the canyon.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Photography

February 16, 2022 · 23:35

The Belt Of Venus

There are astronomical phenomenon that you can observe on most any clear morning or evening if you have a clear sunset or sunrise. Observing them at sunrise means getting up at an hour that’s way, WAAAY before I want to be awake, so let’s talk about sunset!

While the sunset in the west might look great, take a peek behind you just a minute or two after the sun sets. You’ll often see something called the “Belt of Venus,” with a dark, shadowy band at the horizon about as wide as your hand held horizontally at arm’s length, with a broad, diffuse pink band above it.

This was a particularly good apparition of the effect about ten days ago. Through the trees to our east on a wide-angle view, the blue-gray belt at the horizon was quite clear. That’s the Earth’s shadow, rising as the sun is setting opposite it.

Above it you can see the pink glow of refracted sunlight through the atmosphere, the sunlight being bent from the sun below the horizon behind us and spread out, similar to how a rainbow is created.

This is not a small effect needing a telescope or binoculars. It’s literally 180º wide or more!

So the next clear sunset (or sunrise, in reverse order, for the masochists in the group) take a look and impress your friends with your newfound meteorological knowledge!

You do go out and watch the sunsets with your friends, don’t you?

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

February 15, 2022 · 23:49

Wild Weather

We didn’t get much actually AT our house, but you can see one of the nastier cells moving by to our west and south.

This cell dropped a pretty good load of hail in Calabasas where one of my daughters teaches high school, then went on to cause some havoc down by Santa Monica Airport and then LAX. I happened to be listening to ATC for Burbank at the time and they were getting folks diverting there who had intended to go to Santa Monica and then thought better of it. Later on I saw that some of the big commercial jets, instead of coming straight in from the east onto the runways for LAX were heading 20-30 miles north up over Covina before looping back down to catch the glideslope just because of a long tail of nasty showers and hail stretching from Long Beach to Pasadena.

It was in the mid 90’s here on Sunday for the Super Bowl – today it looked like it has snowed at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena there was so much hail.

We got a smattering of rain and it was thirty to thirty-five degrees colder than it was two days ago. Almost like East Coast weather…

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Filed under Panorama, Photography, Weather

February 14, 2022 · 22:39

What Does A Hummingbird Sound Like?

I don’t know about all of them, but the local male Anna’s Hummingbird sounds like this:

I tried to catch it once before, with minimal success, but tonight the little bastard (that’s actually what I call him, he’s VERY territorial and has chased off most of the other hummingbirds) was right outside the back door and going like crazy. I never did quite see him in the video – turns out he’s in those vines along the post on the left hand side.

I sort of hate what YouTube does to the audio, overly emphasizing the base and wiping out the higher frequencies where the hummingbird’s clicking away. But to me he sounds a bit like the mouse click on my old Logitech trackball, a really rapid staccato, like you were scrolling one page at a time, really fast, through a really long document.

But I might have just been sitting at the computer for way, way too many hours.

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Filed under Birds, Critters, Video

February 13, 2022 · 22:48

When The Crows Start Screaming

It was warm again so I was outside, Skyping with my son, watching the birds. There were a dozen or more juncos out there, along with finches, hummingbirds, towhees, and mourning doves.

Sort of all of a sudden, all of the birds on the ground vanished into the bushes and three or four crows up at top of the pines went nuts.

The problem was obvious.

While this red-tail hawk had perched and was facing off against two crows, its mate was circling above being chased by a couple more. After this one left and the two hawks met up they did a few passes overhead just over the top of the pines, maybe fifty or sixty feet up. It was STUNNING to see them right overhead, soaring so close.

They sailed off down the canyon with the crows following to make sure they stayed away. A looked like a win for the crows – but tomorrow’s another day. The hawks did not seem to be poorly fed.

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Filed under Critters, Video

February 12, 2022 · 20:09

The Second Lizard Of 2022

I suspect that yesterday’s “first lizard” wasn’t one of the “tree lizards” from last year. For one, the tree lizards seemed to only be seen on the tree, where the ground lizards didn’t seem to ever be on the tree. But who knows? I never could get them to wear ID bracelets.

Today’s guest lizard was on the tree and looks to me to have different markings and be a bit smaller.

At the 0:17 mark, just after he moves, you can see him “doing push ups.” This is not an uncommon activity to see. I asked Dr. Earyn McGee (who runs the wonderful “Find That Lizard” contest on Twitter on Wednesday evenings) and she said that it was a territorial display, meant to warn off competitors. I didn’t want to harsh any lizard mellow, so I backed away and let this guy have his sun and tree.

Of course, as I backed away I almost stepped on the third lizard of 2022, a teeny, tiny little dude about an inch long who probably just hatched in the last day or two. We all survived, wiser for the experience.

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Filed under Critters, Video

February 11, 2022 · 23:08

The First Lizard Of 2022

It’s been warm, above 80º every day this week, and I was wondering when the first yard lizard would wake up from their winter’s rest and come out for some photons.

I had spooked this one earlier when I was out in the back yard and it was extremely cautious and skittish, off into the bushes in a flash. However, as warm as it was, it didn’t take long for him to come back out, by which time I had grabbed the camera with the big lens.

I started walking cautiously across the yard, trying hard not to spook him again. (“SERPENTINE!!”) He wasn’t letting me out of his sight.

I did my best to look non-threatening. Plus, the sidewalk was nice and hot, so he had some incentive to stay there.

I don’t recognize this one from last year, but it may be one that has grown quite a bit. He’s very dark, and there was a pair of very dark lizards that were always on the big tree. Perhaps he’s one of that pair?

About eight feet away was as close as he was going to let me get, which was fine. I wasn’t there to harsh his mellow, he needed the energy and some ants or crickets to start rebuilding his strength.

The dark lizard and the bright white sidewalk made for some high contrast photos. A little Photoshop crop and work to bring out some detail shows some of the nice patterns on his back and tail!

Long live the lizards!

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Filed under Critters, Photography