Today's walk report: 071413

9.04 km and 3 hours later...

I didn't add much distance to the "regular" 8.79 km walk but I sure took my time.

Mostly stuff I've shot before, only different.

A green fruit beetle (Cotinis mutabilis) gets serious with an Emu Bush flower.

More tiny flowers, no ID.

 

I'm not sure if that was a flour tortilla or some sort of pastry but this squirrel was eating like it was a huge score.

 

A much better shot my donkey friend from the other day.

The world famous straw flowers once again.

 Bee on another unknown flower, Australian native.

A flower in the sun.

Igor came up on my iPod again so I cruised over to the chalk hills of the cross country course to listen and watch the sunset.

It was a really nice walk. I got a lot out of my system. Thanks for participating.

Today's walk report: 071213

Beetles Mania...

I didn't think anything was going to happen until I followed one of these guys in flight only to find several of them seemingly frolicking on this one native Australian bush.

These are Green fruit beetles (Cotinis mutabilis). When they first fly around you they are rather intimidating due to their size... if, of course, you don't realize what they are and that they couldn't care less about you.

The long needles on this bush made things difficult with the camera. I'm going to look for these guys again tomorrow.

Looking for love?

I'm pretty sure I know what these two were doing.

I'm not so sure here.

This was amazing to watch. I was about to switch to manual focus and see about doing a focus stack, then it decided to leave.

Something else I enjoyed watching. Through the camera I was sure this was a Peregrine Falcon but it looks more like an Osprey here in the photo. I'm confused. Anyway it was holding position for awhile before swooping down on something. I believe it missed. I only brought a 60mm macro lens so I was compromised for shots like this.

Those people down below, I swear they were clueless about taking those baby strollers down. These are the trails of the campus cross country course and the are in really bad shape.

I wasn't planning to go this route but Stravinsky's, The Firebird came up on my iPod when I arrived at the top of the hill on the other side. It felt right for taking a detour to watch the sunset but before the music encouraged me I was planning to head home.

Again a compromise for the 60mm lens. This is looking north during the sunset. It's 4 images. Two stacked vertically for the left side and two stacked vertically for the right with those two haves then stitched together. While I've done many vertical stacks before I'd never tried subsequent horizontal stitching.

The recording I was listening to was Boulez conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. That's on YouTube also but it's audio plus some idiot's graphics. Here's the real deal, Part 13. Infernal Dance Of All Of Kashchei's Subjects...  If you don't like this music, I don't know what to tell you... I guess I'm sorry for you.