Last Friday, we featured a video of the return of the Canada geese (Branta canadensis) to the pond after their curious disappearance months previously the count was always either six or eight geese at any given time. A few days after that, I was looking out the bedroom window just after waking up in the morning to see nothing out there, until a flash of
Tag: observation
On composition, part 30: Timing
The moment someone talks about timing when discussing photography, most people immediately think of tripping the shutter, getting the photo at the key moment that ideal action or positioning occurs, and this is certainly one aspect that’s important, and thus, the first that I’ll discuss – which tells you there’s more coming along, too.
Timing the shutter trip is not just about
A little demonstration
So this is just a series of photos that I set aside to illustrate something, waiting for a slower period, and since it will be raining steadily for the next two days it seems, now’s the time. It would be better illustrated ‘real-time,’ except to do that I’d have to have a documentary film crew following me around, which hasn’t come to fruition. Yet.
[Stop shrieking and
Doctor Domoore
Like many people – actually, a ridiculous number of them – I grew up with this idea of being a “friend” to the animals. I can remember, from a very early age, going on a camping trip and sleeping in a pop-up camper, wishing (now that I was out in nature) that a raccoon would slip into the camper and curl up on my back to sleep this was my way of
The fine line between clever and stupid
Quite a few months back, perhaps as much as a few years ago, I started thinking about how and when I began to embrace critical thinking. I mentioned before that I used to believe in a whole lot of crap and gradually left it all behind, but was there some particular event that started this process? We like
Storytime
Previously, in regards to the talk by Sean Carroll, I mentioned revisiting the comment about the universe being made of stories, and so I return. This is little more than stream of consciousness, I admit, so don’t expect anything major.
First off, what does “the universe is made of stories” even mean? Is this metaphorical, poetic, or what? Well, as Carroll says, it means that we
Amateur naturalism, part four
Amateur naturalism, part three
Our next topic in the series is reptiles – you can also refer back to the posts about insects and birds if you like.
Reptiles (and amphibians, which I’ll also refer to here but will use the same term for each just for convenience) are perhaps the most misunderstood of animal classes, which is unfortunate because they’re actually pretty cool. They become more prevalent with warmer
Amateur naturalism, part two
This follows on from the series I began here – the topic of this installment is birds. There are some basic observational guidelines contained in that first post, so I’d recommend skimming that one too, even if bugs aren’t your thing (sounds strange, I know, but the possibility exists.)
Now, bird-watching is a common activity, and it’s easy to find plenty of sources that tell
Amateur naturalism, part one
In an earlier post, I mentioned encouraging kids to keep a journal about their insect observations, and at that point (the first draft of this is being typed immediately after I published that post) decided to create a series dedicated to this subject. So, welcome to the first of
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