A friend notified me that there were some owls nesting near where she lives. So I went over to take some photos last week.
This is one of the parents, although I’m not sure which one. For various reasons, I think this is the female.
There was some media hyperbole about the full moon this past weekend. Because of the irregularity of the moon’s orbit, the moon was to pass closest to earth this month. This occurs every 22 years. The moon was supposedly 14% bigger and brighter than… what? When? As with most media news, the science is glossed over completely in favor of sensational claims like 14% brighter, never mind the details. I can only assume they meant it was 14% bigger and brighter than it was 11 years ago when it was probably farthest from earth.
In any case, it was a fine evening to hike up a nearby hill and take photographs of the full moon rising. I checked my GPS which has a sun and moon app on it. It stated the moon would rise at 7:38 my local time.
I hiked to the top of the hill. At 7:38 nothing was visible.
It turned out there were some clouds in the east which blocked my view of the actual moon rise. At 7:48, this is what I saw:
There is a slight bluish cast in this photo because it wasn’t fully dark yet.
To wrap up my trip west to California, I want to give a plug for my friend Joel, who is an artist, the first artist I ever knew. I think we first met in art class in junior high school. It turned out he lived a couple blocks away from me and we’ve been friends ever since. That makes him the longest lasting friend I’ve got.
Joel has worked with a variety of mediums, including water color, acrylic, stained-glass, and photography. I have a window that looks almost directly into my neighbor’s window, so I thought I would commission Joel for a stained glass piece to block the view. I suggested hummingbirds since there are so many around the Colorado mountains in the summer time. We kicked a few ideas around and this was the end result. When I was in California, I picked up the piece from him and now have it hanging in the window. I love it!
Visit his website and take a look around. If you have an idea for a stained glass you’d like, feel free to contact him!
