Profiles of Nature 54

Life isn’t fair, and it’s not even well-balanced. We can’t try to get philosophical and consider it a test – that’s just lame. We’re here with yet another Profile after we thought they were dead and gone, with no dramatic, heroic denouement to occur. Deal.


Today we meet Hrisovalantis (‘Hrisovalantisbusbyberkeleydomperignon’ to his read more

Not perfectly clear


Was on the way past and stopped at Jordan Lake yesterday at sunset, even though it looked as promising as always, which means, “Not at all.” True to form, the sun set without a cloud in the sky, leaving nothing to produce nor capture any colors, but as it dropped still lower, the bare hints of high-altitude humidity began to show through faint crepuscular rays. I won’t read more

Visibly different, part 47

This one was inspired when I was going through the folders and realized I had a counterpart that was just done recently (like, since the last Visibly Different post.) We start back in October 2009.


Part of the reasoning behind this was wanting a portrait of myself to use for promotional purposes, only not serious ones – I’m never going to be a realtor so I don’t read more

Make-believe

It’s cold out there, so let’s pretend it’s nice and balmy, and to assist this I provide a summer shot, a big one.


This is from 2009, and is actually three images stitched together vertically. Curiously, it looks like I was using a faster shutter speed for the topmost image because the water isn’t blurred as much there, but this isn’t true – all read more

Pfeh

So not only did I get out to view the ‘peak’ of the Leonids meteor shower on Thursday night/Friday morning, I returned on Friday night/Saturday morning for the predicted surge. Though you wouldn’t know it in the slightest – yeah, it was that bad. The first night was notably cold, dropping below freezing, which I realize doesn’t hold a candle to some northern weather read more

Those ugly signs

Nobody likes getting old, which means we deny the signs too often, trying to pretend it’s not happening to us, or not as fast as it is for others. But occasionally the evidence rears up and attempts to bite our noses off.

Back in August I was on an outing and spotted several snakes, considering myself pretty sharp-eyed for finding them, and featured the images herein. Yet just as I was going read more

Visibly different, part 46


Our opening image comes from 2004, in Florida, the territorial display of the brown anole (Anolis sagrei.) That big sail under its chin, called a dewlap, is only displayed when a male anole is marking its territory, typically when another is nearby, though I’m unsure if there can also be a sexual element to it. What I’m drawing attention to here, however, is read more

It’s that season

Coming through the kitchen yesterday, I saw something cutting across the sprawling frontage of Walkabout Estates, and quickly grabbed the camera.


Just a white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus,) a moderate-sized six-point buck, which normally don’t start becoming visible until dusk, though this was middle afternoon. I shot this through the storm door glass, where read more

One of these days…

… I’ll feel justified in making this yearly post.

If you’re checking out that sidebar where it shows what posted around this date on previous years, you may notice a pattern: we’re coming up on the peak of the Leonids meteor shower, which may be visible all throughout November but reaches maximum activity on the 17th/18th. More or less, anyway – they’re read more

On the waterfront


I mentioned taking a trip recently, which was to Washington, only not that one, and not that one either, but the one in North Carolina – the first town to be named after George Washington, as they proudly proclaim. Well, not the whole town, or really anyone living there that I heard, but on a plaque in a park, anyway. Washington sits on a river delta read more

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