One Shot #20 | Spring

Jersey Shore: Birds

I previously posted series on Snowy Egrets arguing over a mate and a Great Egret, but here’s the rest of the wingèd crew.

Northern Cardinal, preening

Jersey Shore: Figure Study

At Cape May Point State Park, a cooperative Great Egret posed for me on a pier. I think I may have interrupted his Tai Chi routines.

Jersey Shore: Egregious Behavior

This is the first of several posts showing photographs from our recent vacation to Wildwood and Cape May, New Jersey.

While looking for Red Knots at Cook’s Beach, on the bayshore north of Cape May, we observed the following scene involving a female Snowy Egret, a male who attempted to court her, and another male who objected to the first male’s advances. The dialogue is an interpretation by yours truly.

"Hey, baby, I like the way you wiggle your toes when you fish. You come here often?"

That’s Uncredible!

Texas man misidentifies Red-headed Woodpecker in his back yard as a (probably extinct) Ivory-billed Woodpecker (via The Birdist.). KYTX credulously reports:

KYTX deleted most copies of the story and video from their web page, but this one's still up as I write this. Note that the deleted story was not replaced with a retraction; it just went down the memory hole. No journalistic lapses to see here, folks!

Pizzeria owner near Pittsburgh misidentifies a pigeon as an angel in his security camera footage. KDKA credulously reports. Luckily, they've called in the nuns, who receive extensive training in image and video analysis.

Corralled | 28 | 2.8 | #15

Cat Picture | 28 | 2.8 | #12

Mangled metaphor of the day

David Vladek of the FTC:

If you don't come up with that novel use for that data, it's an albatross that will come back and bite you.

Anyone who’s been through a CMMI appraisal will know the feeling

Kate St. John reports that a Peregrine Falcon fledgling collided with a window at CMU’s Software Engineering Institute:

He can fly.  He can see well enough to navigate.  He can perch.  He just needs some quiet time to recover.

On photorealism

Via Mental Floss, a Web Urbanist article on hyperrealistic painting, like this Steve Mills painting:

I confess that I don’t really get it. The paintings are not realistic, they’re photorealistic. They show traits typical of cameras and lenses, like limited depth-of-field. For all I know, the paintings are painted from photographs.

As a technical achievement, the results are astounding. I’m honestly amazed that humans can do this. But what does the painting add that a photograph lacks? It seems to me like a great deal of extra effort, without an artistic payoff.

Photograph by yours truly. It didn’t take 500 hours. Does it make a difference?

Headline of the day

In ScienceDaily:

Great Tits Also Have Age-Related Defects

10 Things I’ve Done That You Probably Have Not

Based on John Scalzi's list, with the same caveats.

1. Skipped an art history lecture to have ice cream with Whit Diffie.
2. Been run off the sidewalk by Stephen Hawking. I have no idea how he got a license to drive that chair.
3. Seen the aurora borealis and Omega Centauri from the same place.
4. Helped a town clean up after a tornado.
5. Put an endangered Whooping Crane in a headlock.
6. Attended the U.S. Space Academy (“Space Camp”).
7. Appeared on the Discovery Channel.
8. Been administered Immunoglobulin G.
9. Watched a SpaceShipOne launch from the back yard. On my birthday.
10. Drove my car stupid fast on an abandoned WW2 airstrip, with grass growing through the pavement and cattle wandering across the course.

My favorite non-existent birds

1. Violent Green Swallow
2. Four-winged Plover (I’ve overlooked them before)
3. Black-winged Redbird
4. Medium-billed Dowitcher
5. Southern Cardinal
6. Indiglo Bunting (by Timex™)
7. Most Tern
8. Roseate Sporkbill
9. Pufted Tuffin
10. Spotless Towhee
11. Bewick’s Skylark

Also: Xantus has the best name, and should get one of everything. (Xantus’ Prairie-Chicken, anyone?)

Slide show: Wildwood/Cape May 2010

OK, my Flickr album for this year’s vacation is done.  Or at least as done as I feel like doing right now.  I recommend the “full screen” button in the slide show.

Cape May: Sunset walk at the Meadows

This evening was the CMBO’s sunset walk at the Meadows.  Not a lot of great birds, although the Spousal Unit picked up a Sora just a few feet away, at the edge of darkness.  But the walk, as always, provided great photo opportunities of the lighthouse and ponds at sunset, with a bonus of a full moon rising.

Wildwood: Two Mile Beach

Today the Spousal Unit and I went to Two Mile Beach, near the Coast Guard’s LORAN transmitter in Wildwood.  We followed the path over the dunes and walked to the jetty at the end of the beach.

The bird activity was relatively quiet, with much less tern activity than last year.  Shorebirds included Sanderlings, Western Sandpipers, and Black-bellied Plovers.  At the jetty there was a single Ruddy Turnstone on the rocks:

On the way back, we watched a Turkey Vulture feed on the beach.

Cape May: Photowalk

Went out this morning for a CMBO-sponsored photowalk at Cape May Point State Park.  It was another beautiful, clear morning without a cloud in the sky.

The park continues to be overrun by Monarch butterflies on every flower:

We spend a while at a brush pile along the dunes, working on some Palm Warblers:

Not much else to note from the walk.  The Black-bellied Whistling Ducks were not present at the state park while we were out.  They may have moved to the Meadows.

I heard back from Louise Zemaitis regarding the tagged Monarch we reported on Sunday.  It was a local tag, from Cape May Point on September 7.  Based on the date, she said that there’s a possibility that it was a breeding Monarch, rather than one that will migrate to Mexico.  But who knows—maybe it will be recovered down there this winter.

Cape May: Monarchpalooza, Black-bellied Whistling Ducks

Cape May is in the midst of an epic Monarch butterfly migration.  This morning at Cape May Point SP, they were on every flower, and in huge numbers overhead. 

(Click any photograph to embiggen.)

Among the half-million Monarchs in the area today, the Spousal Unit and I came across one with a tag from the Kansas University Monarch Watch program, tag number NMW 190.  We reported the tag recovery by email.

Buckeye butterflies were also numerous:

We also saw lots of American Lady butterflies:

We didn’t participate in any organized bird walks today.  There were a few nice raptors overhead (immature eagle sp., Osprey with fish, Peregrine Falcon, Coops & Sharpies).  The stars of the day, though, were the 4 Black-bellied Whistling Ducks in a pond near the hawk watch: