December 2022

Blackberry Treat
Bozeman, Montana
2022

We had some frozen blackberries which just weren’t very good for some reason. Rather than throw them out, I put them out for the birds to snack on. It turns out that even the magpies didn’t care for them. This guy showed up right away and flew off with one. After that though, a magpie would stop by every once in a while and peck around a bit but then turn up its nose, er, beak, at them and fly off without taking anything with them. That behavior lasted until the day I poured some bacon grease over them. Then they disappeared in a hurry. Too bad that flicker from yesterday’s POTD wasn’t around for the blackberries.

My Friend Flicker
Bozeman, Montana
2022

This flicker (female northern flicker to be specific, I think) was hanging around our bird feeder recently, mostly being frustrated because she couldn’t get into the feeder as it’s covered with a wire cage that only smaller birds can get through.

I was shooting at a high ISO speed on my camera when I took this photo so there was quite a bit of noise in the image. Usually I use Photoshop when needed to reduce the noise in images, but in this case I thought it added a nice, sort of painterly effect, so I actually enhanced it a bit.

Occulation Preoccupation
Bozeman, Montana
2022

Two nights ago, there was a lunar occulation (a.k.a. opposition) of the planet Mars. These happen about every couple of years but this years was a bit special as it was a full moon. Also, Mars was particularly close to the Earth, making it look brighter than normal. If you look closely at this photo, at about the 8 o’clock position on the moon, you can see Mars just before it disappeared behind the moon. This is a highly cropped image I took using a 100-400mm zoom lens zoomed to 400mm. There are of course many closer photos of the phenomenon available on the internet, taken through strong telescopes. I like this one which shows Mars just as it is reappearing on the opposite side of the moon. I didn’t bother to stay out or go out again to see the re-emergence of Mars–it was too dang cold out there!

Yogi and Boo Boo Test My Smarts
Bozeman, Montana
2022

“You untie it Boo Boo and I’ll catch it when it falls.” It honestly took me about five or six iterations before I finally came up with an almost 100% bear proof bird feeder that is still easy to refill. (I say almost 100% because I can see a bear one day actually untying the rope on the pole.) I don’t know if I’m actually smarter than Yogi because he’s smarter than the average bear, and this may not actually be Yogi and Boo Boo. But as of last fall when our trailcam caught this image, I’m so far smarter than these two bears because they went away empty pawed.

Shelf Test
Bozeman, Montana
2022

Just messing around with my new camera looking for subjects to try it out on, so I pointed it at some of the miscellany on my windowsill.

Waddle and Fluff
Bozeman, Montana
2022

Nine degrees outside and trying to stay warm and scavenge for food at the same time. Is this how the penguins do it?

Iron Cross
Bozeman, Montana
2022

I must have been in junior high or high school when I first saw a gymnast doing the iron cross move on the rings. I was then, and still am, extremely impressed by the muscle strength it obviously takes to execute the move. As difficult as it seemed to be, when I was young I always thought that, at least theoretically if I chose to work out long enough and hard enough I might be able to do one too. I never did of course. Now, with a snapped bicep muscle and a shoulder in need of rotator cuff repair, I can’t even fool myself into thinking I could do one. In fact just thinking about trying one makes my arm hurt! It’s much less painful to just admire this magpie doing an aerial version.

The Road Less Taken
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

This disappearing highway in a desolate desert setting, is actually photograph of dried scum on the side of a floating dock that had been taken out of the water for the winter. I’m sure this will end up being the background for a new composite photo–as soon as I can figure out what goes with it. In the meantime, I thought the base scene itself was interesting enough to post.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few years photographing these dock floats because of the interesting impressionistic scenic landscapes they form. The Fashion Queen has teased me about going to such a scenic place as Bighorn Canyon and spending so much time photographing the likes of these plastic floats. I’m sure it’s resulted in some double takes from people passing by as well.

Dry Dock
Bighorn Canyon, Montana
2022

A high and dry float line demarking a swimming area on the reservoir at Bighorn Canyon. While the water level is low, with water drawdowns for irrigation etc., it’s actually not bad for the end of another dry year. In fact, we’ve seen it worse in just the last year or two when even in the middle of the season there was so little water in the reservoir the dam pool did not even reach this far upstream. Montana’s own little version of what’s happening at Lake Power and Lake Mead on the Colorado.

Shocking Phone Calls
Gray Mountain, Arizona
2022

I don’t know if it was the intended effect or not, but the lightning bolt style arms and legs on the hot pink character next to this phone made me think picking up the receiver could be a shocking experience.