Mystery Bird

Anybody know what kind of bird this is? I spotted him at Hillsborough River State Park Saturday, got two quick shots, and he was gone. I could look it up, but I'm lazy. He was tiny, in case you can't judge the scale from these shots. Maybe only 2.5" tall. And fast. He's not even in half the pictures I tried to take of him. I don't usually spot birds this colorful and tiny, but maybe it's because I'm distracted by the big birds, the hawks, eagles, storks, cranes, herons and egrets. My loss, I suppose.

Nap Time

I think this may be the best alligator picture I've gotten yet! I shot this Saturday at Hillsborough River State Park, and it came out better than I expected. The reflection in the still water is what makes it, I think. Click on the picture and you can get a larger version of it. Zoom in and you can see the detail in the skin on this guy. It's a great shot!

Finding The Right Angle

Anybody want to guess where this is at? Or what I was doing to shoot it? Anyone? Anyone? I didn't think so. When I shot this picture, I was lying flat on my back in the lobby of Rockefeller Center in NYC. 30 Rock, I guess you could say. This is a Swarovski crystal chandelier that's three stories tall, and I'm lying under it shooting up. You can see the nearby crystals are blurry and spread apart, but the ones up nearer the top are in focus and much closer together. I thought it was a great angle to get a unique picture of something impressive.

The different colors in this shot are just light refracting in the crystals. I think it was lit with all white light, which the crystals fragmented into all the colors of the rainbow. You can see more of that in the shot below.


And finally, this would be the shot taken by most tourists. You can see the spiral stairway that wraps around the piece. I think this is where we left the building after visiting Top Of The Rock, which gives you a great view of the Empire State Building up the street, but not much else. Well, at least at night. I suppose during the day you could see Central Park to the north, but at night it's just a black blob. The million dollar night-time view is from the Empire State.

Live At The Cleveland Zoo-Real Life Drama

Here's a bit of unintended wild adventure I spotted at the Cleveland MetroParks Zoo last year. This little finch had found a snake, or perhaps the snake found him, I don't know. I came across the events already in progress, but I stuck around for a bit.

These two seemed to be in a knock-down drag-out for dear life. The bird didn't seem to know that he should try to grab the snake right behind the head, so he wound up getting nipped a couple of times.

But the bird had the advantage of flight. When things got a little hairy, he'd take off into the air! Unfortunately, it didn't go on for too long. A group of tween girls showed up, and they broke up the action. I couldn't tell if they felt sorry for the bird or the snake, or if they just didn't like true-life adventures very much. But there wasn't anything to shoot after they arrived.

I don't know what kind of snake this was, but he sure does have some nice markings. If he were a little darker and maybe a little bigger I'd think rattlesnake, but his head's not shaped right, either. I'm sure someone out there will let me know what this is exactly.

Mmmm, Soft!

Here's a fellow I don't think you've ever seen here at the blog before. This is a soft-shelled turtle. They're pretty common around here, showing up in just about any pond that's big enough to stay wet for a period of time. I shot this fellow when someone else found him wandering across a parking lot in the opposite direction of the nearest water. His hole must have dried up and he was looking for a new place to reside. So this guy was steering him towards the nearest pond, I saw what was going on and naturally I grabbed my camera and ran alongside to get a picture. About 5 seconds after this picture, the turtle got a sniff of the nearby water and started moving much faster than you might think a turtle could in that direction. Fifteen seconds after I took this picture, he was gone. We saw him a short time later, swimming back and forth in the pond, with his neck fully extended (probably a foot long!), enjoying the luxuries of his new domicile. Oh, and did I mention he bites? He bites hard. That's why you see him on the ground and not getting carried towards the new pond.

Bad Cat! Bad!

I can't believe I forgot to post this to the blog. When I visited Big Cat Habitat a while back, one of their white tigers decided he didn't want anyone to take his picture. And guess who was taking his picture when he decided this? Yep, you guess it, it was me. Sorry these aren't in focus, but I was too busy worrying how strong that wire between he and I was.

As you can see, he wasn't after the person to the left or to the right of me. He was coming after me! Maybe all that inbreeding made him grumpy. (There is no such thing as a white tiger breed. It's a genetic mutation that's only been seen a few times in the wild. So when they try to breed for new white ones, there are lots of genetic problems, since all of the white ones are related. Take that, Sigfried and Roy!)

He didn't calm down after charging me, either. He roared at a few other folks, and at a trainer that came over to see what was the matter. I guess he didn't get enough for breakfast or woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Who knows?

How'd They Do That?

I can't get my cat to look at me when I call her name. Yet somehow, people can train tigers to sit up on their haunches atop spinning mirrorballs. Maybe house cats and big cats aren't all that closely related. Anyhow, I saw this tiger at Big Cat Habitat here in Sarasota recently. They rescue big cats and other large furry critters, and let them live out there days in peace. But some of the animals get to perform for the tourists, and they seem to enjoy it.

Mooseeum

OK, maybe part of this is supposed to be tongue in cheek, but I doubt it. What this boat is supposed to say is "FL Maritime Museum At Cortez USA". So maybe someone thought they would be cute with the "mooseeum" spelling, but shouldn't there be a moose somewhere around? Then I could understand it. Without the moose, it's just not right. Oh, and they left the 'r' out of Cortez. That's the name of the fishing village that was holding the festival I was at when I saw this boat. And that's where the museum is. Perhaps I'm too picky, but you really should spell the name of your town correctly on your boat.

Airfest 2009-Cross Purposes

One of the aerobatic treats that you often see at these airshows is two planes flying towards each other at a high rate of speed, then they pass with seemingly no space between them right at show center. Every year I see this, and every year I try to get shots of the two planes as close to each other as I can. Here are three shots of the Thunderbirds I got in this situation. The top one is the best, but it's far from a perfect picture. The plane in focus is the one I was tracking, the blurry one is moving in the other direction at several hundred miles per hour, so you can perhaps understand the blur.

In the shots above an below, the planes weren't headed straight at each other, instead they were coming together from 90 degrees apart. That made it a lot easier for me to get both planes in the shot, and may explain why I got two pictures like this, and only one of the other type. To get these shots, I predict when we're going to get a pass like this, track one plane, and as they approach show center, I lay down on the shutter release and let fly with the shots until any possible pass is over. I wind up with 10-20 shots taken less than a third of a second apart, and I either got the picture or I didn't. If I wait until I see the second plane in the viewfinder, it's too late to take the picture. Trust me, it's that fast.

Duck, Duck, Goose

Sorry, I lied. There are no ducks here, only a goose. Or I suppose it's a gosling, a baby goose. I thought he might be somehow Easter-appropriate. He's a cute little fellow, isn't he?

These shots are from 2006, and were taken on a lake in Lakeland. There are lots of lakes in Lakeland, but you probably guessed that, didn't you?

The Missing Kingfisher

I was under the impression that I had only shot pictures of a kingfisher recently, once on my way home from work, and once when I was in Titusville to see a shuttle launch, both from earlier this year. I found this picture that seems to disprove that theory, though. It's from March of 2006, and clearly shows a kingfisher sitting in a tree. I shot this out on Anna Maria Island one evening, and appear to have promptly forgot about it. I probably did so because it's not a very good picture, and you're only looking at a tiny detail of the whole shot. But I must have known I was looking at something out of the ordinary, even then.

Hoppy Easter II

Look! I found another bunny rabbit to show you! This guy is a local, I shot him out on Anna Maria Island a couple of years ago. Isn't he cute, ears in the air, all set to lay an Easter Egg for you?

No, No, No

For those of you keeping track at home, this is a Toyota, not a Chevy. That plate must be from their old car. Or maybe they lost a bet with a faster car, I don't know. Yeah, that's it. Chevys 1, Toyotas 0.

Presto Chango

Would you believe that these are two flowers on the same tree? Yep, they are. When they first open up, they start out the red color you see above, but as the fully open, they turn in to the yellow blossom you see below. I have no idea what sort of evolutionary advantage this may have given to the tree, or perhaps God just thought it was a neat idea. Wait, I'm wrong. I looked these up, and this is called a Beach Hibiscus. When they first open, they start out yellow, and then go red as they begin to curl up and die. Now that I think about it, that seems right. The ground below one of these trees is covered in curled up red blossoms. Sorry if I misled you there.

Ah, Memories

When I was a little kid, my grandmother had these flowers planted behind her house. When I'd stay over there, I'd play with them, thinking they were some kind of grapes. I knew better than that, obviously, because I never ate any of them, and besides, they were hollow. It wasn't until much later that I realized these were actually the flowers of whatever sort of plant this is. I think it may be a type of kalanchoe, but I'm not at all certain of that. I know that it propagates very easily from a leaf. In fact, if you look at the somewhat out-of-focus leaf in the shot below, you can see the notches in the circumference. If you pulled that leaf off and put it in the right place (which is basically anywhere it can get even a little light), each of those notches will produce a new plant. Pretty cool survival trait.

I shot these on Longboat Key a few years ago, If I remember correctly. You don't see these things too often. I think people are afraid to plant them in their garden because they take over with their quick propagation.

B1 Before

Back in 2006, I had the opportunity to go to the Daytona 500. I wasn't too excited by the loud and fast cars going round and round, but they did have a flyover by a B1 bomber the day before the big race and I was there. Unlike the other flyovers I've seen by this plane, this time it was actually staying there, and I could see it at the airport next door if I climbed to the top of the grandstands. And sure enough, that's what I did. I stayed up there until the thing took off, and got some half-decent shots. Having watched it for an hour before hand, the actual fly-over at the start of the race was a little bit anti-climatic. If you don't have a sense of how large this plane is, look just behind the forward landing gear in the picture above. You can see a crew member sitting on the ladder leading up into the plane.

Love Of Money

Perhaps it's just my warped sense of humor, but I think it's somehow appropriate that Wall Street dead ends into a church. I kid you not.

Hoppy Easter!!!

Took me some doing, but I found a picture I took of a rabbit. Here he is, just searching for a little something to eat. I spotted this guy on the wild savanna inside the Cleveland MetroParks Zoo last year. He was surrounded by zebras and giraffes, and some weird vultures, too. But I think if any of those other creatures had been very close, this bunny rabbit wouldn't have been out in the open like he is. Have a Happy Easter Sunday, and I hope you're enjoying the burst of posts today and all this week.

Live At The Cleveland Zoo-Chipmunks

Last June, I spent a day at the Cleveland MetroParks Zoo, and then in July I shared pictures of many of the animals with you. But there were some I missed for whatever reason, so I'm back to those guys. One of the critters on unintentional display at the zoo is the chipmunk. Much like squirrels here in Florida, chipmunks are every where up there. However, they are much more skittish. I think these shots are of two different animals, but I managed to get pictures of them only because there was something keeping them from getting away and hiding when they saw me approaching. One of the them jumped two feet in the air to get on top of a wall and scurry away when he thought I was too close. Not bad for something that's under six inches long, not counting the tail. Anyhow, I really thought these rats with racing stripes were cool. I wish we had them in Florida. But then I wish we had lots of things in Florida. All we get are eagles and alligators and snakes and such. Nothing really cool.

James A. Garfield

I think I mentioned that I visited Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, and their Garfield Monument last year. Well, I meant to share some more pictures then, but all I ever showed you were the actual coffins in the base of the monument housing the remains of Garfield and his wife. These shots highlight the statue of the 20th president that occupies the center of the round building. I shot from all around, including down onto his head and up to his shadow near the domed ceiling. I have to say that I was more impressed by this spot than I thought I would be. And I was doubly impressed when I discovered I could venture out onto the roof!

Tiffany & The Dead

During my trip to Cleveland last year, I visited Lakeview Cemetery. I find myself going to cemeteries fairly often, and I'm not sure why. I don't get a whole lot of good pictures there, but they are neat to wander through. This particular cemetery features a tomb and monument to President James Garfield that I shared a bit of with you before, and a small chapel that I want to share with you now. Known as the Wade Memorial Chapel, it was dedicated in 1901. What separates this from other chapels in other cemeteries is the interior that was decorated by Louis Comfort Tiffany. That's right, Tiffany. Each wall is covered in beautiful tile murals, the pews are decorated with tile medallions, the alter is distinguished by intricate fretwork and the wall opposite the entrance is a huge stained glass window. You can see one of the walls in the shot above, and details of the stained glass window in the two shots below. The bottom picture shows the chapel itself from across the small lake on which it is located. If you get the chance, this place is worth a few minutes of your time. Oh, and there is an attendant on duty to tell you all these things.

Don't Sleep In The Subway

When I was in NYC last fall around September 11th, I took the subway just about everywhere that I didn't walk. I'll admit that I was nervous about it at first, but after riding the commuter rails in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago and Cleveland, it wasn't all that bad. I even got a car all to myself one morning (I think it was early Saturday, go figure...), so I was able to take a quick picture. I think it was only empty for a single stop. I was too self-conscious to take any pictures in a car when there was anybody else in there. They must clean these things at night, because this car looks spotless. They can't stay that clean after a long day of service.