Photography, nature, science, and more.
In the summer of 1969 I had just graduated high school and was about to start classes at Auburn University.
My favorite TV show was “Star Trek” and my favorite movie was “2001: A Space Odyssey” so I wasn’t going to miss the first lunar landing by Apollo 11 on TV.
Continue reading “My photos of the Apollo 11 moon landing”
I was fortunate enough to be the first person to see and photograph a wild American Flamingo at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge on October 31, 2018. This was the first verified sighting of a flamingo at the St. Marks Refuge since 1995.
It was by serendipity, that a hurricane, a mountain bike, and a flamingo combined to enable this sighting. By happy coincidence, it was on the anniversary of the establishment of the Refuge (Halloween 1931)!
Continue reading “The hurricane, mountain bike, and flamingo”
The Saint Marks National Wildlife Refuge was not in the direct path of Hurricane Michael but it did suffer quite a bit of damage.
Continue reading “St. Marks NWR Hurricane Michael damage”
The Hispid Cotton Rat (Sigmodon hispidus) is an extremely cute rodent with a unpleasant sounding name.
The cotton rat is mostly a herbivore and is often seen munching on a stalk of grass as though it were a corn cob. The cotton rat has large eyes with small fur-covered ears and is quite attractive.
Continue reading “The world’s cutest rodent is at St. Marks NWR”
We are fortunate to have a weather plant in our back yard. A glance at this amazing plant will tell us instantly if it is freezing outside.
Our weather plant is a Florida anise and when the temperature drops below freezing the leaves wilt. The first time this happened I thought the plant was dead but in a few hours it was back to normal.
Continue reading “Weather plant and ice crystals in rain barrel.”
Photos of the milky way are more interesting if there is some kind of terrestrial object in the foreground to indicate the location.
Lighthouses make great foreground objects not only because they show the location of the photo but the idea of this beacon shining over the vast ocean and the vastness of space is very compelling.
Continue reading “Improve terrestrial milky way photos using image stacking”
The night is a wonderful time to take photographs. I particularly love to take shots of the Milky Way, lightning storms, and moonlit landscapes.
Moonlight is simply sunlight bounced off the gray moon and it has the same color balance as sunlight. Moonlight photographs look very much like daylight images except you can see stars and any source of artificial light appears to be very bright.
Continue reading “Moonlight and lightning”
In my post of September 8, 2016 I reported Ranger John’s memorial bench had been damaged by hurricane Hermine.
On a recent visit to the Refuge on I saw the bench had been repaired (or replaced). I was so used to seeing the bench in that location it took moment to remember it had been gone for months.
Continue reading “Ranger John’s bench is back!”
This is the time of year that alligators search for food, sex, and territory. In the last few weeks I have enjoyed documenting this activity.
At the Picnic Pond parking area I saw a small gator lying in the dirt parking lot.
Continue reading “Alligators on the move at St. Marks NWR”
If someone asked me where the best place is to take photographs of roll clouds I would probably not answer “In a Publix grocery store parking lot after sunset”. However that is the place I saw and photographed my first Florida “Roll Cloud” formation. Continue reading “Roll clouds over a Tallahassee Florida parking lot”