{"id":40117,"date":"2025-10-15T18:19:59","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T22:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=40117"},"modified":"2025-10-15T18:19:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T22:19:59","slug":"new-york-state-of-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2025\/10\/new-york-state-of-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"New York state of mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know, no posts for five days and I come back with that previous one. You’ve probably already switched over to some celebrity gossip site, haven’t you?<\/p>\n

I blame it on conditions. For over a week we’ve been dealing with the side effects of some storm system and it’s been solid overcast the entire time – that’s simply not normal for this area. However, this is directly comparable to cloud conditions for damn near the entirety of New York winters – not temperature-wise, at least, it only got a little chilly, but the solid slate sky and believing you’re a ghost because you cast no shadow, that’s<\/em> New York. So there’s the hit to the mood, but more importantly, it greatly reduces the photographic opportunities.<\/p>\n

That said, I got a handful of pics today, before the sun broke out again, even. Nothing new, of course, but some pics nonetheless, so I’ll feature a couple here.<\/p>\n

First, be it known that the Orionids meteor shower<\/strong><\/a> is going on now, but will peak the night of the 21st<\/sup>, which coincides with a new moon, so pretty much the best viewing conditions, especially as the humidity should now be dropping seriously and reducing atmospheric haze. I think we had a decent sky for only one night of the Draconids, about a week ago, and I wasn’t able to get out for that, so maybe this time. As always, if you don’t see a post about them, it means I had my usual shitty luck with meteors.<\/p>\n

So in poking around the yard today, I happened to look closely at the elephant ear plants alongside the back walk and spotted this guy.<\/p>\n

\"Carolina
This gives you an idea of conditions, since this was midday and the Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis<\/em>) should have been out running around scarfing up bugs – it wasn’t that<\/em> cold, but apparently this one wasn’t good with it anyway. Funny – I was using the Sigma 180 macro and the edges of the stem, much closer and thus far out-of-focus, where blurring over the eyes of the anole, but as the aperture stopped down when the shutter opened, they cleared a little better.<\/p>\n

A little later on I’d switched to the 18-135, and as I approached the plant again I saw the head of the anole duck back into the hollow of the stems, leaving behind only this hint of its presence:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"single
Rather desperate-looking, isn’t it? The anole, however, was only holding onto a near-vertical surface and not clutching wildly for a rope. Changing position slightly revealed a more complacent view.<\/p>\n

\"Carolina
There are several different species of plant known as “elephant ear,” and I have yet to determine which this is – slack, I know. If it’s important to you, you can do some kind of Venmo or CashApp transfer to spur me onwards – it won’t work, because I don’t use the stupid things (people will use their smutphones for anything<\/em> except actually talking,) but I’ll register the desire anyway.<\/p>\n

The first hints of fall colors have begun, and I should be able to find some prime examples in a week or two. Plus I just missed a veritable shitload of wood ducks since the bathroom window wasn’t open when they arrived this evening – it has the best view, but they’ll both hear and see me opening it and fly off, so once they’re arriving it’s too late, but there were at least thirty<\/em> descending on the corn – rather frantically and boorishly, really. Hopefully I’ll have some more pics of them soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know, no posts for five days and I come back with that previous one. You’ve probably already switched over to some celebrity gossip site, haven’t you? I blame it on conditions. For over a week we’ve been dealing with the side effects of some storm system and it’s been solid overcast the entire time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,4,3],"tags":[531,4081,7838,991,5169],"class_list":["post-40117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-nature","category-photo","tag-anolis-carolinensis","tag-carolina-anole","tag-elephant-ear","tag-meteor-shower","tag-orionids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}