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Posted
5/3/03 Taken 3/4/02 I suppose if you get to know a member of any
animal species well, you will find a touch of goofiness in that being. A
scientist of a literal persuasion might argue the impossibility of this,
and say that all behaviours must fall into line with the strictures of survival.
This is, of course, a belief, a tenet of a rational religion. I
am OK with goofiness, it obviously has a firm place in the universe, and
imaginative and sympathetic myth-makers of the past had allowance for tricksters
and humor on a cosmic level. The male cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus)
below is demonstrating the proper cockatiel approach to taking a sink bath,
which includes writhing around like an itchy snake, fluting feathers, and
bending into pretzel shapes. Water dripping from a faucet tends to
trigger this activity. To top off the oddity of it, often there is
very little getting wet involved. Here the water splashes in the background.
Cockatiels hail from a dryish part of Australia, and during the rare
rains it must be quite a sight to see a flock of 10 or 20 cockatiels going
a little crazy all at once.
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Posted 5/3/03 Taken
1/1/02 A friend visited from sunny California and it seemed appropriate
to take him to the local ski site. We talked, ate, and stayed after
the sun went down. There wasn't enough snow to keep the gravity fans
happy, so they had fired up the snow machines. As a non-skier, I could
still feel a sense of irony at the notion of mechanical snowstorms, but I
enjoyed the spectacle with the lights, the dark firs, drifting snow haze,
and the colorful snowboarders or skiers that came out of the darkness.
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Posted 5/3/03 Taken
1/6/02 The snow situation improved soon after the time of the shot above.
This was before I learned how sensitive my digital camera is to wetness,
so, because there had been so few good snow days in recent years, I was running
all over town taking in the beauty and taking pictures.
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Posted 5/3/03 Taken
1/6/02 Crowning the local courthouse is this unusual weathervane. The
starlings, convivial as usual, decided to take in the snowy scene out in the
open. If I were a starling, I might have thought about some cozy nook,
but maybe not... The snowflakes were quite large, and starlings aren't
all that big, so they must have had to work at it to keep from becoming a
snowball. Were the birds out there for a pleasure view, or did they
hope for some rumor of food somewhere in all that white stuff?
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Posted 5/3/03 Taken
1/6/02 But what about the ducks? I found them to be a bit subdued,
but patiently accepting of the snow building up on their insulated backs.
Truly this is a bird for all seasons. If the military or whomever
really wants a go-anywhere vehicle, I suggest they build a really big duck.
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Posted 5/3/03 Taken
1/6/02 This view stopped me dead in my tracks and I forgot for a few
moments I had a camera in my hands. There were no tracks but mine; no
one else had seen precisely this scene but me. And now you...
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Posted 5/3/03 Taken
11/22/01 Cold from the last few images? Here's something to warm
you up. A good deal of what is happening in this image is ionized material.
It struck me one time that in identifying earth, water, air, and fire
as the basic elements, the ancients weren't doing so badly: it conforms to
our recognition of the four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and ionized
matter. The latter is sometimes called the fourth state of matter.
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Posted 5/3/03 Taken
1/19/02 Houses are not very easy to photograph, oddly enough. They
are too big, or too complex, or too bounded by distracting structures. But
I do like to try it, and this house seemed to be a satisfying object to accept
as a model. Though imposingly large, its structure is simple. And
for simple, the color scheme could hardly be more so. The snow helped
to define and isolate the structure from its surroundings.
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Posted 5/3/03 Taken
1/18/02 Pigeons are magnificent flyers, and quite social in outlook.
They seem to soar about in groups for the pleasure of it. On cool
days, they find a handy sun-facing roof to take a convivial break, then at
a signal from the skymaster pigeon perhaps, they launch into another thrilling
sortie around the town.
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Posted 5/3/03 Taken
2/1/02 Here the pigeons are coming in for a landing after patrolling
the perimeter of the town for 20 minutes or so. Most birds will stay
in the sun for the next while, but some, perhaps overheated from their exertions,
will sit in the shadow of the chimney until they cool down.
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Posted 5/3/03 Taken
3/1/02 I have photographed this general scene several times. Sometimes
a person happens to walk over the bridge just when I'd like that to happen,
as here. Bridges are, of course, heavily symbolic, and who am I to fight
something so thoroughly given by my culture? I call this image
Second Thought.
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