December 2017 Super Moon

It was cold, I waited, It came!   :-)

Rising across the valley from me.

Another Fall photo

From the front porch.
I thank the farmer who built our house over a hundred years ago for building it in the middle of the property and not up by the road. It means that once and a while when the creek floods we can't get out, but this is what we get in return. (as usual,click on it for full size)

It's elk season.

They have been camping out here for three weeks. The local hunters are upset.

They don't mind me taking pictures.

               

 The above is a crop from the panorama below, which I made of them the other day. I had my 105mm macro lens & wasn't expecting to photograph anything closer or bigger than a bug. 

fall

Autumn afternoon

Great Blue Heron scaring Pond Turtles

Bigger is better so click on one.

Birds & the bees

An American Robin being proud to be one.

The crop holds up pretty well!

And an acorn Woodpecker

Waxwings and a skimmer

Cedar waxwings

Best viewed large w/a click

An 8 spotted skimmer

We had a REALLY good view of the eclipse here.

Click on one for a better image.

At totality

Just past

Another 'Pastafarian" held the sacred colander and projected multiple images

While the large arc was created by Fred using a spottong scope. 

The maple tree also created many pin hole camera images on the house & lawn.

It was what frightening to some folks. 

Fred's projection was a hit. You can actually see sunspots. That isn't dirt.

Today's dragons

Go ahead, click on one. You know you want to. 

Eight-spotted skimmer (Libellula forensis) 

Not too hard, It wasn't moving.

Harder. It was.

Rhionaeschna multicolor - Male Blue Eyed Darner

We took a break and drove up through Eastern Washington and up into Canada last week. 

It was hot there too. 

I found these guys in a bit of an alpine meadow in the Canadian Rockies. Lots of thistles feeding the butterflies, and even some honeybees among other small pollinators. .

Best viewed full size with a click.

I believe these are:                  Painted Lady butterflies, Vanessa cardui

This was there too:

Maybe a small wasp? I'll edit this later when I know.

 I found this by Hat Rock on the Columbia on the way home. 

Here is a closer crop:

When we got home yesterday since I still had the 200mm macro on the camera I took a few of the swallows swallowing while Theresa watered the garden

. Here's one:

New Kestrels

This is the third year we've had kestrels in this box by the house. Before we painted & repaired the place they used to nest in a hole some ancient flicker had made in the clap boards. I put this up and they moved right in.

Kestrels are in decline. They are N.America's smallest & most colorful falcons. They eat small animals. Mice, shrews, voles, etc. The adults feed three to four voles/day to each chick and continue feeding them foe a couple of weeks after they leave the nest.. They have four to five chicks per year,

Click to enlarge for best effect.

 There were four of them

 My old friend Jim Anderson from Bend came by and banded them. Jim was my mentor when I was a teenager and the reason for many of my interests. Ecology, wildlife photography and flying to name a couple.
We got them just as they were ready to leave and missed one as it "flew the coop" that morning. 

I replaced them after banding, but Jim's grandson took them out as my hand was to large to fit through the hole with a bird in it. I have plans to add a door to the side of the box as well as a small "bird cam" I picked up from a guy in Oregon City.

.

Lots of photo ops the next day when they flew.

I had time to take one shot of the pair. I looked away and one was gone, but this is my favorite shot.

  The other followed.

Daisy thought that was pretty funny. 

Swarm

Two of the barn hives swarmed in the afternoon yesterday.   I first saw a small swarm on an apple tree when I got home & started to get ready to collect it when it flew. I think it was a swarm from the hive in the swarm trap that was sitting in the barn, because it wasn't very large, and it looked like they may have even gone back into it as they were all around it. Shortly afterwards Theresa saw a swarm in a wild plum tree where they have landed before. This was considerably larger and because of the reduction of activity today in the Langstroth hive by the barn, it probably came from there. This hive was from a cut out I did on the barn wall last year right after they moved in..

 They collected up above the higher ladder first. I didn't get the queen and they left the box and reformed lower down to the right.

Dropped a few on the way down.

 I carried it down and shook them into the box. This time I got the queen inside and the rest followed.

I then moved the hive about a half mile away so that the workers wouldn't be tempted to drift back to the original hive. In a couple of weeks  I may bring it back. There were a lot of bees. When I lifted the inner cover to add several frames, it was pretty heavy.