Mostly Birds (but not always): an idiot abroad the country

Showing posts with label an idiot abroad the country. Show all posts

Friday, September 6, 2013

Big Stormy Sky Country

The Montana Sky opened up in a big way on Thursday afternoon when a thunderstorm passed within a couple of miles from our rental house.

On our way back from a trip to Quake Lake my wife and I stopped at a scenic overlook and we noticed an anvil head cloud in the distance

Anvil head cloud from Quake Lake
(those are not cattails in the water but rather 30 ft dead trees killed in the flood when the lake was created during an earthquake in August 1959)

We made it back to the house before the storm passed by and I was able to get the following photos.

Back side of same cloud from our rental house

Lightning show begins

Big strike

Tangled double bolt

Storm passes behind nearby mountain

If you have ever tried taking photos of lightning you understand that the best time to attempt it is nighttime, when you can take long exposures to increase your chances of capturing a strike without overexposing your photo. All the photos above were taken before sunset and were 1/5 to 1/8 of a second in duration which makes it tough to have the shutter open while the lightning flashes. I took about 1300 photographs in order to get 10 or so to turn out. I also missed a few good ones while the shutter was closed momentarily between photos.

Later in the evening the sky partially cleared before another distant storm skirted by. In these photos I was able to capture stars in the clear part of the sky while lightning lit up the storm clouds. They weren't the best star photos taken this week nor the best lightning photos taken that day, but it was pretty remarkable having an opportunity to photograph them simultaneously.

Stars of Scorpio next to storm cloud

Milky Way core visible on the left side of the photo

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

700 lbs of Crazy

Q: What will send you back to your vehicle faster than a 700 lb beast, with weapons on his head, wading across a river toward you?

A: A 700 lb Elk that went from sparring with vegetation, to being attacked by imaginary water-demons, to calmly exiting the river, to lip-synching his bugling call then deciding to cross the river in your general direction.

♪ Rumour has it ♫

It was all probably normal elk behavior and normal human behavior to get the hell out of his way.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Red Rock Lakes NWR

Early Sunday we drove out to Red Rock Lakes NWR to look for Moose. We saw three plus Elk, Pronghorns and Mule Deer.

Lots of raptors were seen there such as Red-Tailed and Swainson's Hawks along with American Kestrels and Northern Harriers.

Big Starry Sky Country

Day 1 : Saw 1 bird in North Dakota.

Lark Sparrow

Then a herd of horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Sadly we passed by this group about 10 minutes later and the young brown horse on the left side of the photo was laying flat on the ground as the others stood over it.

A pronghorn greeted us at our rental on day 1 in Montana.

Big Sky Country became Big Starry Sky Country when the Sun went down. This photo shows the center of our Milky Way Galaxy in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. The dark parts are clouds of dust and gas veiling the galaxy's core.

The second photo show the view overhead of the Cygnus-Orion Arm of our spiral Galaxy. Our solar system lies on the outskirts of this arm.

Next photo is of the far regions of the Cygnus-Orion Arm, away from the core of the galaxy, with the Andromeda Galaxy on the right side of the photo.

The Andromeda Galaxy is comparable in size to our Galaxy.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Home for a rest

To paraphrase the Canadian folk rock band Spirit of the West---"These so called vacations will soon be my death, I'm so sick of the drive, I need home for a rest."

   Things I learned over the last 10 days on my Yellowstone trip.
     1. Grand Prismatic Spring has to be the most beautiful 2 acres on Earth.

2. Although rain is inconvenient and doesn't make for great photo-ops, it's a great fire suppression system. The low humidity out there not only creates a volatile tinderbox on every hillside it also allows quick temperature swings. The temperature was 100 degrees when we picked my wife up at Bozeman airport on Tuesday and 28 degrees on Monday when we dropped her off.

3. The libertarian philosophy out west can show itself anywhere, at anytime and is completely understood by everyone present. Take the four-way stop at the corner of N. Canyon and Yellowstone Ave. in West Yellowstone MT., where rather than passing through the intersection in order in which they stopped at their respective stop signs the drivers proceed in order of their level of disdain for the government and no one beeps their horn and middle fingers remain in their holsters. It's as if Fox News told them that the stop signs were put there by President Obama.
4. There is a speed limit on the interstates in Montana and its not the same as the road's number designation. My co-driver was given 3 souvenir points to carry on her driving record for the next 2 years. On the plus side she did knock of an hour off of our GPS's estimated time of arrival in less than 3 hours. I'm told that while I was trying to nap the arrival time display was ticking down like a NASA countdown.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Yellowstone Continued

Grand Prismatic Spring viewed from Grand Asthmatic Trail

The wildfire that started in Pine Creek, MT on Wednesday August 29 continues until the time of this posting. As of Saturday evening it had burned 12,000 acres and was 30% contained. The two photos below show the burning hillside on Thursday morning.

Pine Creek Fire

Pine Creek Fire Close up

Our stay at the Centennial Inn was cut short by a night as we took off for a place less at risk after the wind shifted and the heat from the fire could be felt from a couple of miles away.