Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
Coots often hang out in large groups and when it gets cold enough to freeze the ponds at Ridgefield, such as this cold New Year’s Eve morning, the constant movement of the flock helps keep part of the pond from freezing. This not only benefits them, as they dive under the water both to feed and to avoid hunting eagles, but other waterfowl as well, such as the bufflehead who would join them the following morning.
A preening heron is momentarily left with a pompadour on a cold New Year’s Day. I thought it a good look but it must not have agreed, for it pulled the feathers back tight against its head and resumed its grooming.
After seeing a crab spider on our aster near our front steps, I started looking for her every time I went up or down. I noticed she was frequently on one of the blossoms but by the weekend when I had the time to photograph her again, she was on a flower that was not going to be easy for me to reach. But then I noticed this assassin bug nymph on a nearby blossom and photographed it instead. What a deadly place our beautiful little aster can be! The assassin bug kills other insects by attacking them with its proboscis (you can see it hanging below the face of the nymph) and injecting either venom or digestive juices, and then sucking out the fluids of their prey.
Don’t do it, ye bees and butterflies of the world, for in her inviting arms awaits a deadly embrace! The front two pairs of legs of the goldenrod crab spider like this large female are much longer than the back, as she doesn’t spin a web to catch her prey but rather waits for them to land on her flower, embraces and immobilizes them with a venomous bite, then sucks the fluids from their bodies. While they often hold out all four long legs to grab their prey, In this particular case she’s using two of her long legs to gain extra purchase on the petals of the aster and holds out only her two frontmost legs. From the front of the flower she was invisible save for two tiny feet sticking around the edge of the petals.
After a much-needed summer shower, I grabbed my macro lens to take some pictures of rain drops on the flowers in our garden and was amused by this little crab spider seemingly defending the last remaining clump of pollen on one of our purple coneflowers. Her life is actually tied to the pollen, as she is lying in wait for a pollinator like a bee to land on the flower so she can kill and eat it.
Clever girl.
Baseball is trying out some new rules in an effort to stay relevant to the youth of today. I’m not sure about the 5 Mound Rule, where four tall pitcher mounds have been added behind the normal one, allowing 5 batters to be pitched to at once. But I do like how the fifth mound partially blocks second base, sure to introduce some much needed somersaulting into the game.
During the dry months, this is where Ellie and I enter Irving Park every day on our walks. The park offers a number of recreational opportunities for the neighborhood, as in addition to the dog park there are basketball courts, tennis courts, a playground, picnic tables, open fields, and baseball diamonds. As in surrounding Irvington, many old trees provide shade and character throughout the park. Sometimes the baseball diamonds are not in the best of shape and there are no fences in the outfield, but the types of teams that play here aren’t likely to be hitting any home runs.
So I had to smile when someone put up these little signs on a few of the trees at the edge of the park, indicating the distance to home plate. Nothing wrong with a little optimism.
While not heavily travelled, Siskiyou is the busiest street Ellie and I cross on our walks, so long ago when training her I started giving her a treat if she’d wait for my command before we crossed. We frequently pass this old truck, owned by a resident on a nearby block, parked here as it’s a cross street with easier access and more available parking than the other streets. It’s often piled high with junk that I assume is awaiting transport to a recycling center. While I’m thankful it’s not parked in front of my house as it’s a bit of an eyesore, I was amused when I noticed it had ‘Hot Cake’ painted on one side, and I’m almost developing an affection for the old thing.
I’m less fond of it when it is parked near the intersection as it completely blocks us from the view of traffic, so I take Ellie to a different intersection to cross if there are any approaching vehicles.
Back in June I pre-ordered Sony’s just announced A7R II mirrorless camera, guessing that its ground-breaking features might otherwise make it hard to come by in the early days, but also knowing that I had plenty of time to cancel before it shipped in August. I got an email from Amazon that the camera is going to ship in the middle of the week, the first date they are available in the US, so it’s time to decide if I should cancel or not.
I expected there would be plenty of reviews by now to help me make up my mind (the camera is already shipping in the UK for crying out loud) but the non-disclosure agreements must not be up until later in the week because there has been little information available since the initial announcement. I think Sony is even holding a press event here in Portland on Wednesday but reclusive cat bloggers must not have been high on their invite list.
I’ll sleep on it but I’m leaning towards canceling the order given the expense (I’d switch all of my non-wildlife shooting to Sony’s system). But I’ve been flip-flopping all over the place the past week as while there is much I like about my little Canon M, there is much I don’t, and the Sony solves some of my biggest complaints with the M.
For example, I grabbed the M this afternoon when I saw Boo stretched out and about to fall asleep on top of the cat tree, as it nicely contrasted how differently he sleeps than tidy little Scout who preceded him, but I had to stand scrunched in the corner of the room with the camera near my heart, snapping pictures before he changed his pose. The camera’s buffer fills quickly so I couldn’t take a shot when he yawned, not that the slow autofocus could have tracked him, but without image stabilization even this static shot yielded a bunch of unsharp pictures and thankfully one sharp one.
The Sony has built-in image stabilization, a high-res full frame sensor that would allow faster shutter speeds, is more responsive, and has a much better autofocus system. It can also do nice video (4K even).
But that price tag …
Boolie 