Salt Lake City has beautiful night skies too. Any ponies! Believe it or not, my friend has somehow achieved that childhood dream and has one of these in her (sort of) backyard! She named it Willow after the resilient title character of that unforgettable Val Kilmer movie back in the '80s. We can't all have Val Kilmer (or, rather, the Val Kilmer of the Iceman decade), but some of us can still ride off into the sunset...
Here's another shot taken using the telephoto. My parents have been avid bird-watchers ever since they set up this feeder in the back yard, but this brings a whole new level of interest to the sport to me - now I can actually see what I'm looking at.
I became a bit of a naturalist while taking a few days off work the other week and took some fun shots of whatever visible critters were out and about from my safe vantage point behind the window and beside the fire. With this amazing telephoto lens, you don't need to stray far from your La-Z-Boy... and you get some great detail. It was fun chasing around the family with the telephoto too, but human models are slightly less forgiving about seeing their pores pop up later during a slide show. :)
Today I spent the afternoon hanging out at the dog park, normally known as Harvard Square on Oktoberfest Sunday - when hounds, terriers, and Shih Tzus like this rule the roads. This little guy looks pretty harmless, but he's holding his own against the tangle of helium balloons conspiring to launch him skyward. It is so fascinating to me what dogs will put up with, and without the slightest trace of crankiness.
There's something seriously disturbing about low tide... can't put my finger on it. However, my friend put her foot in it when she decided to go kayaking at low-tide the other day. You never know, though... mud-caked booties could be the next big thing. Every time I see an Ugg, I am reassured of that possibility.
Okay, granted this dog is pretty cute, but it is so entertaining to me what people do to dogs. We saw this one at a barbecue earlier this summer, but I'm only just archiving these pictures and found this blogworthy! I've forgotten her name at this point, but she (let's call her "Bonanza") followed me out to the car when I went out hunting for band-aids, but upon finding nothing edible at the scene, left me abruptly.
And here's a shot (finally!) of the one and only humpback whale of the four-hour tour, Salt. I guess they named him Salt because the markings on the underside of his tail look like the contents of an upside-down salt shaker - the typical naming rationale for most of the sighted whales... but I admit, I wasn't paying too much attention to the narration, and probably missed the important parts. We circled Salt for the entire whale-watching portion of the trip, and he didn't let us down. He turned out to be an impressive size, and a few times he opened his mouth like this and you could see him sifting food through his giant jaws.
I'm not sure why, but the main route running through Hanover seemed to be a real trap for butterflies, and it was sad to see a few of them strewn along the side of the road. While maybe a little morbid, it was a great opportunity to catch the still beauty of an insect like this.
On the local church property sat a lake, home to a family of swans. I learned that the name for baby swans is signets, and we also learned how protective parent swans can be. We flipped an old row boat and decided to take a spin around the mossy top layer. The male swan put on a very puffed up performance, making majestic and threatening swoops across the lake, flapping aggressively, and making gutteral throaty squawks to warn us from getting too close to his babies, probably. The incident sparked an hour-long debate about whether a swan could really "take" a full-grown man in an unarmed conflict.
A dalmation peering down from one of the rich houses of the L.A. coastline. He looked like the only resident around that day, and we were happy to see that at least one of these homes was being lived in!
And yet another creature of the sea. These things are called Leafy Sea Dragons, and although this one is in motion, you can make out its essential shape. In real life, it resembles the end of a feather duster floating around in the water, and it moves pretty quickly. I think this variety of fish is new to the aquarium, although perhaps I'm not the best to judge, since during my last visit to the museum, upon asking where we could catch the dolphin show, I was informed that the dolphins had not performed there since 1992. My mistake.
This image is a little distorted, of course, because it was taken through the glass of an aquarium tank, but it was my clearest low-light shot of a fish all day, and I liked the urchin look of the tank plant life as a backdrop.
The fin/leg of a giant old sea turtle "Myrtle the Turtle" at the Aquarium last week. I took the day off on Wednesday to hang out with my cousin and siblings, and we chose the Boston aquarium, the North End, and Harvard Square as our tourist destinations for the day. Aparently, this chick can spend up to 60 minutes to 2 hours underwater (depending upon whether she's sleeping, which requires less oxygen).
Here's the real thing! Ducks hanging out in the swan boat pond, appreciating the lull from the summer tourist season! They came courageously close to we humans onshore.
Here's one of the ducklings at the Make Way for the Ducklings portion of the Boston Public Garden. This was one of the only opportunities to take a picture of the duck unstraddled. The statues were mobbed with children, as usual!
This caterpillar reminded me of an Oriental rug, although it is even better than a rug - first, because it has a digestive tract and secondly because it has tiny little brushes for feet that would really keep the floor clean.
Soph and I took a walk down to the local farm and discovered this gorgeous cow that was hanging out in the barn. The coolest thing was that he was sharing his pen with a pig, getting along swimmingly.
Here's a bird Jason and I saw wandering along the marshland in Gloucester. I surprised myself by correctly identifying it as an Egret (it's actually a Snowy Egret), and Jason snapped this fantastic shot! In researching the name, I found a great site for bird watchers called WhatBird.com.
The zebras at the San Digo Zoo. This was the one front view I got of these guys!