Sparkling Waters, Day And Night

Now that we're back home we've been enjoying the sparkling waters.  Here are a couple shots from the other day.

Sparkling waters to the west.  Burrow's Island is to the left, and Washington Park is to the right.

A ferry on its way to the dry docks in downtown Anacortes.

Nice little boat.  Notice the bright reflections in the water from its windows.

Heading in and out of port.

After enjoying this during the day, we had another experience with sparkling waters in the evening.  Just before going to bed we turned out all the lights and had a wonderful view of the first quarter moon reflecting on the water.  It was a beautiful, ghostly reprise of the scene we had seen during the day. We noticed that the moon had a nice halo around it, and also a bright moon-dog.  As we were marveling at the moon-dog a meteor went streaking by right over our heads.  It started out bright, then flared up to about twice its initial brightness, and finally faded in the distance.  One of the brightest meteors we've ever seen.  What a delightful end to the day.

Memorial and Reunion In Virgina

Last week Betsy and I went to Fredicksburg, Virginia to attend a memorial service for Betsy's parents at Arlington National Cemetery.  We arrived first, and went to visit Betsy's brother Tony the next morning.

Bella, Tony, and Betsy at Tony's house.

At the end of the road is a path that leads to a reservoir.  Bella likes to retrieve balls in the water – in fact, she jumps into the water and swims out from shore even before the ball is thrown, knowing Tony will throw it just ahead of her.  Here she is returning to shore with the ball.

Bella returning the ball for another throw.

Later in the week more family arrived, making for a nice family reunion.  Here are the six children of John and Angela posing together for pictures.

Jane, Kitty's Betsy, Lucy, and Joanne taking pictures of the siblings.

(Left to right, back row)  Michael, John, Tony.
(Left to right, front row) Stephanie, Betsy, Kitty.

The memorial service at Arlington was held in the Old Post Chapel.  The chapel is located on the grounds of Fort Myers, adjacent to the cemetery, which is to the right in this photo.

The Old Post Chapel.

Inside the chapel well before the service began.

After the service a procession went to the grave site, led by a Navy band, a horse-drawn caisson, and an honor guard.  At the grave site the band played and the priest spoke again, then a 21-gun salute was fired and taps was played.  The service was concluded with Tony giving the eulogy.  We then retired to the Officer's Club for a reception.

Back In Anacortes

Well, we're back in Anacortes, safe and sound.  Good to be home.  I'll load the pictures from our trip into the computer tomorrow and start posting some of them.

Memorial Service

We had a wonderful memorial service yesterday at The Old Post Chapel at Arlington National Cemetery.  After the service, a Navy band and honor guard escorted the caisson to the grave site.  There we heard a 21-gun salute, the playing of taps, and a stirring eulogy by Tony.

We're at Tony's now, getting ready to have dinner.  We leave for home in the morning.  After we get home, I'll post some pics from the trip.

Heading For Norfolk

We're heading for Norfolk, VA today, to visit some of Betsy's old stomping grounds as a kid, and to see her grandmother's grave.  We've been having a nice visit, and almost everyone is here now.  Betsy and Kitty spent a lot of time yesterday working out details for the memorial service Monday.

Betsy and I have been having fun visiting wildlife sites nearby.  We've seen a lot of birds, including old favorites like

Northern Cardinal
Indigo Bunting
Northern Mockingbird

as well as new birds like

Chimney Swift
Yellow-throated Warbler
Carolina Chickadee

Similarly, with dragonflies we've seen old friends like

Common Whitetail
Common Green Darner
Blue Dasher

and many new ones like

Calico Pennant
Comet Darner
Spangled Skimmer

The weather has been great, with temperatures around 80 and low humidity.

Tomorrow we go to Tony's for a picnic, and to make final preparations for the memorial service.

In Virginia

We arrived late last night.  It was misting and humid - made me think of Hawaii.  This morning we're getting adjusted to the time difference, and are getting ready to head over to Tony's house.  I also found some good information from the local Audubon society on bird hotspots in the area, so we'll see if any of those are nearby.

Dragonflies of Cranberry Lake

We haven't seen many dragonflies since returning to Washington, but finally a couple days ago we saw our first ones at Cranberry Lake in Anacortes.  We saw a couple Four-spotted Skimmers laying eggs along the shore, several California Darners flying over the meadow and landing on the ground, and at least one American Emerald – a dragonfly with wonderful green eyes.

Here are a couple pictures from the lake:

Four-spotted Skimmer, male.  The dark spots at the nodus (center of leading edge of wing) give this dragonfly its name.  The dark spots near the tips of the wings (the stigma) don't count, since all dragonflies have them.  Notice that the front two legs are folded up and tucked behind the head, as they are in flight as well.

California Darner, male.  These darners like to land on the ground, though most other darners perch about chest high in a bush or tree.  Darners are large insects, but the California Darner is the smallest of the darners in our area.

American Emerald, male.  Named for its intense emerald green eyes.  Notice also the green cast to the thorax.

American Emerald, male.

Super Moon/Annular Eclipse

Before leaving Arizona we saw the "Super Moon," which happens when the full moon occurs at perigee – the closest approach of the Moon to the Earth.  At this point the Moon has a larger than average apparent size, making for a large full moon.  Actually, the effect wasn't that great, and I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been aware of the situation.  Here are our pics of the super moon:

One of the interesting things about the super moon, though, is that the corresponding new moon is a "mini moon" – smaller than average, because it occurs at apogee, the point of greatest separation between the Earth and the Moon.  This is why the solar eclipse that occurred two weeks after the super moon was an annular eclipse, one that leaves a ring of fire around the shadow of the moon.

Why do we have "super moons" and "mini moons?"  The reason is that the Moon's orbit around the Earth is slightly elliptical, meaning that the distance from the Earth to the Moon varies.  This is illustrated in my sketch below with an orbit that is greatly exaggerated – the actual orbit is so close to circular that the human eye can't tell the difference.

More of our pictures of the annular eclipse can be found here:

http://theadventuresofjimandbetsy.blogspot.com/2012/05/adventure-of-tuba-city-treat.html

Venus In Transit

You've probably seen a lot of pictures of Venus in transit, but maybe not this one sent to me by a friend:

I doubt Botticelli could have ever imagined his work of art in this context.

The Transit Of Venus

It's still an on-going event at this time, but here are some pics from our deck:

Venus (lower right) soon after starting its transit across the face of the Sun.  Several major sunspots are also visible.

Safe viewing using eyepiece projection.

A little later in the process.

First Birthday!

This weekend we attended Landon's first birthday party at a Lynnwood swim center.  It's a nice facility, with a pool area that includes a "stream" and a "whirlpool."  It also has a couple interesting water slides.  I should have brought my swim suit.  Here are some shots of Landon enjoying the pool with Gary and Gary James:

Here's a short video clip:

The center also has rooms for functions, like celebrating a birthday.  We had lunch and a birthday cake there, and also watched Landon and Gary James open presents.  Here are some pics from the party itself:

A Kettle Of Condors

After our adventures in Pismo Beach, Betsy and I headed up the coast on our way to San Francisco for a meeting with my publisher.  Along the way we always keep an eye out for California Condors, though we've never had any luck.  Here's Betsy enjoying the scenery and "looking for condors."

A little way further up the coast we pulled off at the following look-out.  The scenery was beautiful, and we thought this would be a good place to get out and stretch our legs.

As soon as I got out of the car and took this picture, Betsy says "Hey Jim, take a look at this bird.  Is it a condor?"  I looked at it and said, "Oh yeah, that's a condor all right."  Here's what we saw:

We were excited to see our first condor.  Then Betsy said, "There's another one."  Sure enough, two were flying together.

Soon we noticed more and more of them, until finally they had formed a "kettle," just like hawks or vultures.  (The term kettle comes from the fact that the group of soaring birds look like they are circling within the confines of a kettle.)  Here is the kettle of eight condors.  A ninth condor was also there, soaring by itself.

We showed the condors to several people at the lookout, serving as field guides, and giving them views through our scope and binoculars.

One woman was almost beside herself with excitement.  She said she lived in the area and had looked for condors at this location for the past 15 years, but never saw any.  She had gone to the pinnacles before dawn trying to see them at their nesting grounds, but with no luck.  She had seen only one previous to this, and couldn't believe that we were able to view a large group like this.  In fact, we were looking at roughly 10 percent of the world's population of California Condors.

To document our sighting of condors, Betsy posed with the California Condor page in our Sibley field guide:

Here are a couple of video clips of the condors soaring, shot at maximum zoom with a point-and-shoot camera.  The picture is jittery, but at least it gives some sense of what it was like to watch them flying and interacting with one another.  In the second clip, notice the "wing dipping," which is characteristic of condor flight.

The Swallows of Arroyo Grande

After seeing Cliff Swallows gathering mud to build nests in Tuba City, Arizona, it was surprising to see the next step in the process in Arroyo Grande, on the California coast.  Here are a few pictures from our hotel, where a good-sized colony of Cliff Swallows was busy building nests under the eaves of the roof.  In the photos below you can see the fresh mud (darker in color) being added to the nest, as well as one complete nest to see what the final product looks like.

A Cliff Swallow works on its nest.

Cliff Swallows have cream-colored foreheads and buffy rumps.

Adding fresh mud to the early stages of a nest.

Tight living quarters.

Finished product.

The Great Pismo Lagoon

After our visit to Tuba City we drove across the Mohave Desert to Barstow.  It was 108 ˚F in the desert, but only in the high nineties in Barstow when we arrived there in the evening.  I doubt we'll experience triple digits again for awhile.

After Barstow we went to the Pismo Beach/Arroyo Grande area on the California coast.  Very nice, with temperatures in the 70s.

We went birding at the Pismo Beach State Park Lagoon.  It was quite windy that day, but we were sheltered from the wind at the lagoon.  Still, we could hear the roar of the ocean waves the whole time.  Here's what the lagoon looks like:

We had a good time here, and saw many "California" species, including the California Gull, California Towhee, and California Darner.  Here are a few more sights from the lagoon:

A young Pied-billed Grebe.

A male California Darner perched low in the grass.  Notice simple appendages, and lack of frontal stripes on thorax.

A male Blue-eyed Darner.

Bullfrog meditating on the lagoon's edge.

A young frog, still retaining its tail.