Friday Photos

Friday Night Photos Play Ball! Edition

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

It's spring and for me that means one thing, baseball. I'm a big fan and yesterday was opening day for the 2023 season so I'm a happy camper. The new season brings with it new rules to speed up the pace of the game. Pitchers are limited in how much time they take between pitches and batters are limited in how many times they can step out of the batters box during an at bat. I really like the changes. The game has a more consistent flow .
As the late, great Ernie Banks used to say, "let's play two". I'm down for that. So grab your glove, get to the ballpark, and root, root, root for the home team.

I shot these at a Padre vs Reds game a few years ago.

Putting the ball in play
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Friday Night Photos Green Bird Edition

Happy Friday everyone, Hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

More rain and below normal temps again this week. Since the atmospheric rivers started flowing a few months ago we've had at least one day of rain every week, and while we do need the water it's starting to get a little old. Not as many sunny and 70° days that we normally get. On the up side the ground is so saturated I haven't had to water my orange trees in months.

For the last few months there has been a small flock of Red-crowned Parrots hanging out at Santee Lakes. I've seen them there in the past but this is the first time they have hung around this long. Normally they're only there for a day or two before moving on. Along with being colorful they are also very vocal and very loud. You can hear them squawking from a long ways away which makes them easier to find.

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Friday Night Photos St. Paddys Day Edition

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone. Remember, everyone is Irish today so I hope you're all wearing something green and have corn beef and cabbage on the menu. Oh, and don't forget the Irish whiskey.

A few of my "Irish" friends sporting green in honor of St Patrick's Day.

Paddy O'Mallard
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Friday Night Photos Stacked Edition

Happy Friday everyone. Hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

For anybody who read the thread title and expected to see photos of well endowed women I'm sorry to disappoint you. In this case stacked refers to stacking multiple frames of the same image shot at different focus points to increase the depth of field. Depth of field (DOF) is how much of the subject is in focus. The two main factors that determine DOF are the aperture setting of the lens and distance between the camera and the subject. The larger the aperture the the smaller the DOF and the smaller the aperture the larger the DOF. With distance, the closer to the subject the smaller the DOF, the farther from the subject the larger the DOF.

5 frame stack
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Friday Night Photos Pelican Place Edition

Happy Friday everyone. Hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

Just like with the Brandt's Cormorants I posted last week, it's also breeding season for the Brown Pelican.

From All About Birds https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Brown_Pelican/overview
The Brown Pelican is a comically elegant bird with an oversized bill, sinuous neck, and big, dark body. Squadrons glide above the surf along southern and western coasts, rising and falling in a graceful echo of the waves. They feed by plunge-diving from high up, using the force of impact to stun small fish before scooping them up. They are fairly common today—an excellent example of a species’ recovery from pesticide pollution that once placed them at the brink of extinction.

Pelicans incubate their eggs with the skin of their feet, essentially standing on the eggs to keep them warm. In the mid-twentieth century the pesticide DDT caused pelicans to lay thinner eggs that cracked under the weight of incubating parents. After nearly disappearing from North America in the 1960s and 1970s, Brown Pelicans made a full comeback thanks to pesticide regulations.

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Friday Night Photos Breeding Season Blues Editiion

Happy Friday everyone. Hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

It's breeding season for the Brandt's Cormorant.
The largest cormorant on the Pacific Coast, Brandt’s Cormorant is an expert diver that can swim deeper than 200 feet in pursuit of fish and shellfish. In addition to standard cormorant black, Brandt’s sports a vivid cobalt-blue throat patch and eyes during breeding season, along with wispy white feathers on the head. This species nests on cliffs and forages in the California Current, an area of rich upwelling between British Columbia, Canada, and Baja California, Mexico.

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Friday Night Photos Foreign Feathers Edition

Happy Friday everyone. Hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

Due to the Avian flu that's been going around, many of the birds at the zoo have not been on display for almost a year. Luckily some of the more colorful birds don't seem to be effected and are still out. Hopefully the flu will pass soon and the birds in lock down can come out join the rest of their friends.

Golden-breasted Starling, Northeastern Africa
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Friday Night Photos Zoomania Edition

Happy Friday everyone. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

I went to the Zoo yesterday morning. After rain of biblical proportions for the better part of the last month I wanted to make sure it had not floated away. I'm happy to report that the zoo did not float away, but the bearded gentleman in the robes building an ark out front seemed disappointed that the rain had stopped and that was really going to mess up his departure schedule.

Leopard
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