Blood Oranges!

Every now and then we pick up a bag of grapefruit that someone has left for others who would like to have them.  Many people here can't have grapefruit because it interferes with some of the medicine they take, so they're happy to give them to someone who can enjoy them.

The other day we picked up a bag of grapefruit, and noticed another bag carefully labeled Blood Oranges.  We were curious, so we decided to give them a try.  We quickly found that they are well named.  Here's a picture of one of the blood oranges sliced open:

A sliced blood orange.

The juice they make is equally sanguine.  Take a look at our morning orange juice, as produced with the blood oranges:

Blood orange juice.  Quite a contrast between the blood orange and the white grapefruit.

Looks like a drink fit for a vampire!  Actually, the taste is almost identical to that of a normal orange, and you might not even notice the difference if you were drinking your orange juice blindfolded.

Apparently, blood oranges are popular in Italy, and are the ones in common usage there.  You might want to keep that in mind if you travel to Italy and order some orange juice.

The Whisperer Speaks

I'll be giving a dragonfly talk for the Maricopa Audubon Society next Tuesday, April 2, at 7:30 pm.  It will be held at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona.  Here's a little blurb about the talk:

It will be fun, as usual, to share the enjoyment of dragonflies with others.

Comet PanSTARRS

Last week Betsy and I had some great views of Comet PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4).  It was just barely visible with the naked eye, and was an easy object with binoculars.  We also had nice views of it with our spotting scope.  I found the following picture on the web that shows pretty much what it looked like in our binoculars on March 12, just to the left of the crescent Moon.  Notice the nice tail pointing away from the Sun.

Comet PanSTARRS, as it appeared in the western sky on March 12, 2013.

As we viewed the comet one evening a couple drove up and asked what we were looking at.  We told them the comet, and they asked if we could show it to them.  They had gone out that evening specifically to look for the comet, but hadn't seen it yet.  We were happy to point it out in the sky and show it to them in the spotting scope as well.

The next comet to be coming our way is Comet Ison, sometime around Thanksgiving, 2013.  It may put one a good show, too.

New Physics Textbook!

Here's the cover of my latest Physics textbook.  I just got it a few days ago.  This book will go on the market in the Spring, and students will be using it this Fall.

I have high hopes for it, especially since it's much better than any of its competitors.

I'm busy now on the 5th edition of my university-level book now.  Looking forward to completing it as well.

I was at the University of Washington a couple days ago, and saw a student doing homework problems from the 4th edition of my university-level book.  It was fun to see my problems, along with the art work, on the student's computer screen.

The Sunset Of 1/17/13

I was working at my desk yesterday, when I noticed a nice sunset in progress.  I went out on the deck and snapped a few pictures.  A couple of them are presented below:

Burrows Island.  The sun sets almost directly behind the island this time of year.

The Olympic Mountains silhouetted by the sunset.

The trees at the top of Burrows Island against the reddening sky.

The Adventure Of The Solitary Solitaire

Yesterday, Betsy and I went to Washington Park, right next to where we live in Anacortes, WA.  It was a beautiful day, and we went to one of the main lookout points in the park.

View to the east from Washington Park.  Mount Erie is to the right, and our home is in the Skyline area to the left.

One of the reasons we went to this spot was to look for Townsend's Solitaire.  This is perhaps the only place in Skagit County where you have a good chance of seeing this bird.  It comes down from the mountains in the winter to feed on the juniper berries that are so abundant in the park.  Here's the tree where we first saw the Solitaire, and a view of the bird with plenty of berries nearby for the taking:

The juniper tree where we first saw the Townsend's Solitaire.

A Townsend's Solitaire at Washington Park.  Notice its all gray body, light wing bar and eye ring, and buffy patches in the wing.

As we expected, the Solitaire was feeding on the juniper berries.  Here a shot of it just after it grabbed one.  In the next shot you can see the bulge in the throat where the berry is on its way down:

Townsend's Solitaire getting ready to swallow a berry.

The berry is on its way down the throat.

We got lots of nice views of the Solitaire, as shown in the next photos:

There were other thrushes feeding on the berries as well.  The American Robin shown below was having a great time eating one berry after another:

All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend a morning before going home for lunch.

Looking to the west from Washington Park.  Burrows Island, Rosario Strait, Lopez Island, and the Olympic Mountains are in the distance, and the "family tree" is in the foreground.

Halloween 2012

We had a good Halloween, with about 25 trick-or-treaters visiting our domicile.  It started out stormy and windy – in fact, it was pretty wicked outside when Betsy and I set up the jack-o-lanterns.  Shortly after that, however, the winds calmed down and the rain stopped.  It was reasonably nice the rest of the evening, and the kids took advantage of the break in weather.

Here are the jack-o-lanterns we put of to greet the trick-or-treaters:

Jack-o-lanterns for our Halloween.  Clockwise from lower left, they are "BOO" jack, "Happy-face Dragonfly" jack, and "Classic" jack.

We still get some nice sunsets, though the weather has been pretty cloudy in general:

It's late in the year, but we're still seeing a lot of dragonflies at Cranberry Lake when the sun comes out.  In the following photo the large bluish dragonflies are the Happy-face Darner, the red ones are the Autumn Meadowhawks.