After figuring out how to change a couple of setting in my camera during our Denali trip yesterday I decided to take a quick trip over to see the owls to try to get a comparison photo to see how much difference there was between the two pictures. Â It’s pretty amazing!
And it looks like the owlet really wants to fly.
Stopped by the owl family location today to grab a few photos.
First of all, tripods make such a huge difference in the lack of blurriness in my pictures! I’m going to carry mine with me when we go to Denali for sure.
Secondly, I’ve got a backlog of photos from different two day trips from Denali to still process and I’m going back again this week since shoulder season ends. Â I might get caught up next week/month. Â Or never. Â I’m enjoying seeing the photos on my computer for sure and learning to pick just a few from a large bunch. For example I took 72 today, but only three made the final cut!
Thirdly, that little owlet has gotten so big and he is supposedly about to fly! I saw him open his mouth and then preen his feathers on one wing, but I’m still not fast enough to switch my camera to capture such fast movements so I didn’t get pictures of him doing that. But I got these three, first momma bird has one eye on baby, she closes her eyes and he looks innocent enough and then he makes a silly face. 
A friend gave me three raspberry bushes that she pulled out of her community garden spot.  I put them to the left side of the yard near the fence, in hopes they get big and bushy and give us some visual privacy from the neighbors until we install a fence on that side.  The last neighbors on that side had three boys and the oldest was a girl and they were far quieter and less obtrusive than the new ones who have two young girls and a newborn.  The incessant shrieking of the two girls can be quite annoying, but it’s the need for attention that gets me.  I just want to work in my garden uninterrupted, but like most children they want to know what I’m doing, what is my name, what do I do, etc.  They aren’t bad or obnoxious, but I just want to be left alone by everyone.  Hopefully the bushes will fill out like my friend indicates so that I’ll have some visual privacy from the spot where the girls tend to come and watch me garden the most.
According to my friend, I should get what I’m looking for!
“Its a hybrid which produces well, smaller than commercial but also bug resistant. ” and “Once they’re established, they do try to take over. Having them in a spot where they’re easy to cut back might be a good idea. Pretty hardy, they do okay in full sun or shade, but personally think they do put on better fruit with partial shade. They do tend to shade out everything else, and can get quite tall.”
My three raspberry bushes, Cybercontroler, K-9 and Dalek Caan (rose bushes are named after the Doctor’s companions, so I figure this is a fitting naming scheme):
What started out as a simple, but functional one-animal cage that was underused by the current animal that was residing in it and was even more difficult to use by the keeper with regard to cleaning and maintenance has finally evolved into a two-story cage that is far easier to use and a better use of the space for animal and keeper alike.  Right now it houses the two largest female boas I care for, Athena and Joxer, each between 7 and 8 feet long .
Eventually I’d like to upgrade them to a similarly built five-foot long cage and move the slightly smaller two males into this one, but given my budget and space constraints, this will be the girls home for the next year. Â It’s still much, much better than what they had.
Adding radiant heat panels to both levels. Â I use RBI Radiant Heat Panels:Â http://www.reptilebasics.com/rbi-radiant-heat-panelsÂ
I forgot about painting the supports for the shelf until after we got everything home and since this was the only color paint I had, it is what we used. Â It’s under the shelf and not visible, so it doesn’t really matter, right?
My helper, Bug.
This is a perfect example of why I wanted to change the doors out. Â Due to the narrow opening, I had to use tall water bowls temporarily instead of the normal wide cat pans that I normally use since I find they are nearly impossible to tip over. Â Joxer, residing on the top level, almost immediately climbed into her tall water bowl, then dumped it out as she got out. Â Cleaning up the mess between the two cages with only about a foot-wide opening was a huge pain in the butt. It’s a good thing I’m also planning to rip out all that carpet this summer too…..
Glass purchased from a craigslist add. Â $25 each
Given this is about $50 worth of wood, we decided to try to fix as much our of measurement issues with pieces we had.
Finally done with the front of the doors.
About nine hours of work, two trips to the hardware store and $100 in supplies later…..
The hasps that I bought to secure the doors cracked the first one we tried to install, so I need to take them back and get slide locks. In the meantime these old-fashion gate locks seem to do the trick! I also need to add the chain to hold the doors open for me instead of holding them up myself. That will get done this week as well.
Before and after. I’m fairly confident that the snakes will enjoy the more private areas they each have now. I think the open glass made them very uncomfortable.
I did some upgrades to one of my cages this weekend and I just added these little blocks to drop the cord closer to the RHP since the tape I was using to secure it kept coming off. This seems to be working really nicely too.
I was able to get rocks from a couple ladies off a facebook group today and now my sitka rose bushes and strawberry plants are now safe from the cutting blades of the lawnmower!
Before rocks to protect the roses and berries…..
My sitka rose bushes and strawberry plants are now safe from the cutting blades of the lawnmower!
Rose, the first companion, now safe from the cutting blades of the lawnmower!
I stopped by the owl nest yesterday around 6pm to see if I might sneak a photo of the elusive-to-me owlet. Â I’m still learning so much, even focusing with a zoom lens that is supposed to auto-focus does not seem to work, so this made my fourth trip out there since I really would like to eventually get a great photograph of these beautiful birds.
When I got there there was one guy out with a camera, an obvious photographer.  Another arrived with a ginormous camera, lens and tripod.  And within the space of the approximate 20 minutes I was there, a total of four more photographers showed up, most with tripods, plus some kids.
The noise from the kids and the chatty photographers was obscene. Â I sat in my car the entire time, with my seat leaned back so I could be as unobtrusive for the owls as possible, but the rest of the humans there made me ashamed to be a part of humanity. Â No respect for the gorgeous animals was paid, instead, these people acted like they were part of a big human circus. Â This is not the kind of photographer I want to be or be affiliated with, so I left. Â I just feel really badly for the owls that had to stay……
I’m trying to raise my own plants again this year. Â So far I’ve got lettuce, tomatoes, kolrabi, radishes and two kinds of swiss chard started and they seem to be doing well after just one week.
Keeping them away from Bug, the orange cat, is proving difficult and I’ve had to close off the spare room to him completely since he was already found chewing on the little plants.
I plan to direct seed kale and I might try carrots too. Â And there are potatoes to plant again. Â So much work to do, but it’s a welcomed distraction.
Yesterday I went to Denali National Park & Reserve with my friend Susan. Since it’s “Shoulder Season,†which is the time before the park opens for regular tours, they allow cars to drive into the park up to mile 30 of the road. During the regular season cars can only go to the Savage River at mile 15 so this is a big perk if you can get out there during the before or after the regular touring season.
The weather was perfect, hovering at just above 40F. Jeans, sneakers and an insulated vest was all I needed most of the time, with the addition of a windbreaker for a short walk we took on the Mountain Vista trail since the wind was blowing cold air around.
We left Fairbanks at 10am and got home just before 9pm. We did take a small detour on our way home to go investigate the report of a nesting Great Horned Owl. After a bit of driving around, I finally spotted the nest with both the female and the male and I think we both let out little squeaks of delight! We pulled up near to them while they both kept a watchful eye on us. After taking a few shots and talking to someone who was just there watching them, Susan brought me home.
At the park we saw three caribou running across the road at about the same place on the way in and out of the road. Mostly we saw their butts and I was not fast enough to even get a picture, but they were impressive animals to see run!
Lots of traces and tracks of animals on the Mountain Vista path, but nothing large enough to photograph. On our walk we also saw lots of tiny butterflies and somehow we noticed a spider when we stopped to listen to some birds and a squirrel chatter at us.
A couple of times I saw tiny birds flying low in the trees and we think they are Snow Buntings. These are super fast flying little birds. No pictures though.
Susan notice sheep on the way out of the park so we stopped to get a few pictures. It was here I got a crash course in the shutter priority setting on my camera. And considering how far away the sheep were and that I only had a 210 lens, I’m pleased with my results.
469 photos taken with a Sony a6000 using a 55-210 lens. I used primarily aperture priority but switched to shutter priority for the sheep at the end of the day since the wind was blowing us around quite a bit.
A very, very relaxing day that was full of learning and practice for my newfound photography habit.
Since I am not performing at the recital this year, I was able to take photos and video at the dress rehearsal for the recital. Â I learned how to use the viewfinder “focuser” (I just found out it’s called a diopter-adjustment dial) so no more trying to looking though the viewfinder with my reading glasses. Hooray! Thanks to Susan Stevenson for helping me with this!
And holy moly, photographing subjects that move so much is tricky business! I had 544 photos and these were the best and only really salvageable ones. Â I do wish my new lens would arrive as the distance was hard to shoot with just a 50mm lens. Â Sony a6000 on automatic once I realized I shot the first half of the first song on AP. Â The problem with going back and forth from aurora to daytime photography; I remembered to swap the lens and I guess it will become habit eventually to ensure I’m on the right setting for the scene.
I’m really pleased at how well the ladies have done on their own for the past couple months. Â Melody reapply stepped up and took over Bhangra. Â Melody and Christina worked together on the ITS practices and not only united the existing core group, but managed to help two of our newer members really fit in and work on a hard number that turned out really well.
There’s also a bit of sadness associated with these pictures. Â This will be our last recital, at least with me in charge, since I’ve decided I’m not going to be teaching anymore. Â It’s been a while coming for business reasons and the death of my daughter has made everything else seem pointless. Â I’m not sure if the ladies will want to go on without me and I’m not sure if they do want to go on if they want to go on under the name I’ve used for so long. Â I’m ready to let it go if they want to keep going though, so after the recital I think we will be having a talk about what happens next. For now I’m keeping it quiet, so the recital may go on with much as much positive energy around it as they have put into it.
Stopped at Creamers Field this afternoon to try to get some pictures of the birds. I’m not a big birder and my abilities at identification are as simple as I can tell the difference between a duck from a goose and a raven, but I thought I would photographing them a try.
I only had my 50mm lens but thought I’d try and see what I could get. I’m pleased with the results, given I wasn’t really trying or sure of what I was doing. I also need to work out how to see through the viewfinder when I zoom since I need reading glasses these days and fussing with sunglasses, eyeglasses and the viewfinder turned out to be trickier than I thought it would be.
I’m waiting for the 55-210 to arrive and plan to do some more research before I head back out.
Sony a6000 with a 16-500mm kit lens on automatic focus.
