Friday Night Photos Potpourri Edition
Submitted by Socialprogressive on Fri, 11/17/2023 - 5:00pm
Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.
We had a little rain on Wednesday and there's more in the forecast for this weekend. The long range forecast is predicting sunny and 70s for Thanksgiving day next week which will be nice.
It's good to see the price of gas has been coming down the last few weeks. When I filled up the other day regular was $5.09 a gallon. A drop of about .30¢ since the last time I filled up a few weeks ago. Now if only the price of food would come down.
Wishing everybody a Happy Thanksgiving next Thursday.
A little of this and that from here and there while out and about.
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Comments
Nice grouping of contrasting views
love lost
heading offshore
determined explorer
pink and green shimmering
tres musicas vamonos
feuding fowls
cost of war
prickly thistles
and at least 14 jammin'
thanks for sharing social!
truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security
Hi, QMS.
Thanks for the image titles. The Star of India "heading offshore" doesn't happen very often. I was hoping to get some shots of it with all it's sails unfurled unfortunately it didn't lower the main sails until it was to far away for a good shot.
I was going to take a Viking river cruise until I found out they don't let sack and plunder the towns and villages along the way.
Well it is not actually a photo but....
Hi, humphrey
Nice Gary Markstein cartoon. From some of the photos I've seen he's not to far off the mark. Thanks for sharing it.
I was going to take a Viking river cruise until I found out they don't let sack and plunder the towns and villages along the way.
What are those 2 ducks doing?
Great shot of them! I love how you captured the water in the balloon photo. I meant to comment on your wood duck photo last week too. Amazing shot. What settings do you use to make the water look like that?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Hi, snoopy
Hope you and Sam are doing well.
The two birds are coots and they are fighting. When I'm shooting wildlife I usually set my aperture as wide open as the lens will go to help isolate the subject from the background. In the case of the photo you asked about the aperture was f/5.6.
I was going to take a Viking river cruise until I found out they don't let sack and plunder the towns and villages along the way.
Hi pixelators
Hi all, Hey SP!
Great photos as always. I hate seeing those balloons in the water. Soon to end up in a fish or turtle.
Still waiting for some intrepid team to name themselves the Mighty Fightin' Coots.
Not positive, but I think your seed head is an Artichoke.
A few degenerate photos of slides
The Mighty Fightin' Coots
![coots-fighting.jpg](/sites/default/files/user_images_3/coots-fighting.jpg)
some Black Skimmer in flight
![blkskmr2.jpg](/sites/default/files/user_images_3/blkskmr2.jpg)
Black Skimmer
![blkskmr.jpg](/sites/default/files/user_images_3/blkskmr.jpg)
I gotta fly. Have good ones all!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Hi, dystopian
You are correct, the seed head is an Artichoke. There is a field of them about a 20 minute walk from my house.
Thanks for the shots of the coots and skimmers. Interesting color pattern on the skimmer. I wish we had them around here.
I was going to take a Viking river cruise until I found out they don't let sack and plunder the towns and villages along the way.
skimmers
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
The "All about birds" website
needs to update their distribution maps. They don't show any Black Skimmers in Ca. It's not the first time they have been slow to update their maps.
I was going to take a Viking river cruise until I found out they don't let sack and plunder the towns and villages along the way.
Hi, great photos. About CA Skimmers --
First CA sighting I know of was 1962; 8 September 1962 at the mouth of the Santa Ana River in Orange County, ( https://www.birdforum.net/gallery/black-skimmer.680077/ ). Ebird has them in the Hayward Shoreline (East SF Bay) as early as 1994. They are definitely in San Diego, check eBird for locations.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Hi, EL
Thanks for the tip on eBirds. I took a quick look at their site. They have much better maps than the All About Birds website.
I was going to take a Viking river cruise until I found out they don't let sack and plunder the towns and villages along the way.
Major Irony Alert. "All About Birds" is an all purpose bird
and birding site from Cornell, which has an extremely reputable ornithology program. They also are one of the partners in eBird, which collects and displays historical sighting information submitted by mostly amateur birders. eBird is pretty certain to be more current as it is continually updated.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
socal skimmer saga
Hi EL and SP,
If of interest some historical perspective on the socal skimmers... I followed these a bit...
I think that 62 Orange Co. skimmer record was a one-day bird, and not sure any more were in OC 62-72 the decade I lived there birding Bolsa Chica and Newport Bay many hundreds of times. My folks compiled OC CBC's then. We were pretty tuned in, and would have chased any local report. The Sta. Ana River mouth bird was the first socal record actually. Probably why someone (likely OC birders) put it into ebird.
Also I think all records in Dunn & Garrett, Birds of Southern California: status and distribution, 1980, were entered into ebird, as it is the bible for everything prior and up to that date.
Unfortunately most of the copies of that printed were lost in an arson fire at LA Audubon's Audubon House in Plummer Park, in W. Hollywood, shortly after printing. Maybe a couple months? I forget. A buddy got one at auction in the 1990's for $500. I got mine for $20 the week it came out.
Black Skimmer in socal was an accidental vagrant occurence in '62 and remained such coastally a decade at least. The first Salton Sea birds were 3 in 1968, colonization there for nesting began in 1972. The San Diego Bay nesting started in 1976 and was at 75 or so birds present in summer 1979.
But in the 70's a few more had started to show upcoast, mostly from late spring to late summer, as when Elegant Tern and Heerman's Gull move north from Mexican nesting grounds. And where the closest to socal nesting and source birds of all three were.
For skimmer as of 1980 there were maybe 5 or so Sta. Barb. Co. records, double that in Ventura Co., only a very few in LA and Orange Counties. LA Co. had no habitat left. OC had lots with Bolsa Chica and Newport Bay. As of 1980 any OC report would have had all the top local birders chasing it to see one in the county.
Nesting began in Orange Co. at Bolsa Chica in the 1980's, in LA Co. in the 1990's. Again, in both cases associated with new Elegant Tern terneries, as with the first coastal colony at San Diego Bay. The Elegant Tern did not nest in socal in the 1960's either, it was only a late summer visitor from Mexico. All this stuff moving north as breeders, by hundreds of miles, started in earnest about 50 years ago or so for the first pioneers of those three species.
In the 1990's as co-compiler of Palos Verdes Peninsula CBC, the first count records (winter) were early 90's. There, the way to get the best count of them (and Mew Gull - now Short-billed Gull) was to be at the southmost tip of San Pedro at the Pacific Ave. overlook before the sun came up. Which I did for alcids and shearwaters with scope anyway. As long as it was not windy overnight, immediately after sunup, a parade of Mew Gull and Black Skimmer would pass by Pt. Fermin going south in about the first half-hour of light. They proceeded to Cabrillo Beach or Terminal Island (maybe or maybe not visible later in day) where they slept the day off. Yes as long as there is no wind and the sea glassy (night) they feed at sea overnight. And sleep on the beach all day. Not all skimmers do this, but our local birds did in winter. I had been watching those Mew Gulls for decades trying to figure out how they were makin' a living sleeping on the beach all day.
Since the 90's skimmers are resident in socal, with a number of well-established breeding populations in Elegant Terneries. Smaller numbers winter around bays or lagoons, mostly near where they nest.
The Bolsa Chica ternery is one of the great spectacles you can experience with a ternery at fairly close range, and drive right up to. Besides the skimmers, nesting Least, Forster's, Caspian, Royal, and Elegant Terns. Ten thousand or more birds. It is incredible. You ought to hear it when a Peregrine visits. But put all in trunk, leave nothing in sight in your car at the parking lot there. Some birders have lost their camera gear the last decade or two.
Did you see the hardware/jewelry (band) on the bird behind the front bird in last pic? One leg I see a band on it. That is from my friend or one of his students at Bolsa Chica, Dr. Charlie Collins. He is the worlds leading authority on swifts. Named one recently. CSULB. Birded a fair bit with Charlie. Once I was following him way out in the middle of nowhere, to climb Clark Mtn. in eastern Mojave, a peak at about 8000' with firs, in the desert. He hit a jackrabbit, and when we stopped I asked if he knew. He said we would check it in a couple days on way out, he was trying to bait in what would then have been California's first Black Vulture. Charlie was funny.
Somewhere I have skimmer pics with the lower mandible in water, skimming. Whaddabird!
anyway, more than you wanted to know I'm sure... so with apologies...
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
fascinating account
not to be a bird brain but
what is a temery?
truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security
TERNery - its where terns congregate to breed - they're
colonial nesters, up here, for example, there are islands in the lagoons at the hayward shoreline and when it is breeding season they are simply crammed full of terns, mostly forsters, but some caspians or aleutians sneak in now and then, and, since the 90s, skimmers.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
@QMS Hey QMS,
sorry about another post on this, guess I got terned on.
Of course EL answered already about what a ternery is. Another of those terms is heronry. For birds which are colonial nesting waterbirds in particular, such a term is used for the breeding aggregation and site. Often is is multiple species involved. In a heronry there might be Great Blue and Little Blue Herons, Great and Snowy Egret, Cattle Egret, Roseate Spoonbill, maybe Ibis, and Night-Herons. All nesting in close proximity. Generally just out of bill stabbing distance from each other.
Greynolds Pk. in Miami has a heronry in the park you can walk around at point blank and observe a half dozen species nesting. Stone Harbor in south Jersey has another famous heronry with arms length boardwalk viewing. High Island Texas has one too. A famous ternery near you is Plymouth Beach, Mass., where I spent a summer studying terns. Caspian, Common, Arctic and Roseate Tern all nest there. I was there for the Roseate mostly. There is so much energy in a ternery or heronry it is mind-boggling. And oh the sounds! Though they might not smell the best if downwind.
Remember, one good tern deserves another. Ternabout is fair play, and so on.
I am still trying to find out what a colony of boobies is called. Will advise...
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
sorry, my bad eyesight
saw it as tem rather than tern
there is so little space between the
letters but plenty upstairs!
truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security
Thanks. n/t
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
No apologies needed
Thanks for all the info, dystopian. One of these days I need to drive up to Bolsa Chica and check it out.
I was going to take a Viking river cruise until I found out they don't let sack and plunder the towns and villages along the way.
Bolsa Chica is awesome
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Always enjoy this diary!
Rec'd!!![Smile](https://caucus99percent.com/sites/all/modules/smiley/packs/kolobok/smile.gif)
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Hi, orlbucfan
I saw where some areas of South Florida got up to 10 inches of rain. Hope you were able to stay high and dry in your area of the sandbar peninsula.
I was going to take a Viking river cruise until I found out they don't let sack and plunder the towns and villages along the way.
South Florida especially on the eastern side got slammed
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
The “Star of India” once flew the flag of independent Hawai‘i !
http://freehawaii.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-last-ship-still-sailing-which...
that is a beautiful image
really amazing how much canvas she carries!
truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security
Hi, lotlizard
Excellent photo.
It appears that she still flies the Hawaiian flag.
I was going to take a Viking river cruise until I found out they don't let sack and plunder the towns and villages along the way.