Today's walk report: 122913

Getting my birds straight.

This has been a challenge, the "birding" aspect of chronicling my walks. I have to admit to some laziness on this level but I have decided to get my act together and not jump to conclusions on identifying birds. Also, as stated at least once before, if you come across any of my photos, know these birds better than I do and would like to offer corrections I'm completely receptive to this. I already made two corrections I believe to now be accurate on yesterday's walk report.

Here's one of those again for today.

I'm sure now this "hawk" I ID'd yesterday is not a hawk at all. It's a falcon. All along I was having a problem with the dark streak offset by white coming down from the eyes but yesterday's images weren't nearly as clear as those taken today. For s second time I'm changing the ID on this. Pretty darn sure this time it's a Prairie falcon (Falco mexicanus), this after continuing to question the size reference for what I had before which was a Merlin, Falco columbarius. That's another thing I find in a lot of online bird identification sites. They reference size relative from one similar bird to another but often don't give actual dimensions.

In flight the distinction becomes much more apparent for me. A red-tailed hawk would, for example, have its tail fanned. Also I'm pretty sure I have the under-wing pattern nailed down for a red-tailed hawk.

If birds could simply label themselves like so, things would be so much easier.

That's it for today. I got out a little earlier but walked the same 8.79 km as yesterday. It was a little rougher toward the last 2 km so I decided not to take on any more distance plus it was really windy toward the end. I could feel it pushing me back on the homestretch and I'm a fairly formidable opponent as people go.

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.