Wapsi Square Forum

scantrontb wrote:Animusic!

My memory is fuzzy but I think that animation may have been one of the included demos with my old ATI Radeon video card.

edit: Holy carp, Intel made a real life version.

More bird pics!

I was weeding the azalea bed this morning and heard a hawk call out from right overhead. The bird was in a tree in my front yard, hanging out and keeping an eye on me. So instead of using phone camera, I went inside and grabbed the SLR with telephoto lens. The hawk was still in the same place but in a photo-unfriendly position. So I snapped a few pics and took the camera back inside. After pulling a few more handfuls of weeds, I decided to go get the camera and find a better position. Well, I come out and it is gone. But then I hear another call, still close but from somewhere I cannot see. I walk to the back deck thinking it is in the tree from my other hawk picture. Not there. I look around the corner and there it is, in a tree to the side of the house. And in sunlight! I am identifying the bird as a female red-shouldered hawk. If someone knows better and I am wrong, my feelings are not hurt. After a bit, she flew off to what looks to me as a partially finished nest in a tree next door. During the day, I kept hearing another hawk calling, and finally spotted it, another nester on the other side of the house!
Nest is in the upper left corner of the photo.

And the other nester...
Look closely and you can see the hawk's head just above the edge of the nest.

Beautiful! Very nice photography!

Ages ago, when I worked at a summer camp in the Parry Sound, Ontario area, I was in charge of the horseback riding program. The campers were underprivileged kids from the Toronto area, who mostly never left the city, let alone be in the country, apart from their time at camp. I had made several trails in the woods, to ride through with the horses. One year, there was this hawk's nest up on a tree that was 10 feet away from the trail. So every time we rode by, I passed on the word to be quiet and look up. They would see the nest, and hear the young ones, as we rode by.

I wonder how many campers remember that...

Dave wrote:Beautiful! Very nice photography!

I concur. I look forward to eventually having a DSLR camera, and be able to play with the depth of field, leading to focused foreground and blurry background... You can't do that, with a point and shoot...

Hey, check out the bottom of the index page - there's a new sub board!

viewforum.php?f=16

Great pictures.

I'm pretty sure that the pileated woodpecker who chopped holes in the porch railing and then got away before i could grab the camera is still around here somewhere - i heard a woodpecker working that sounded way too loud to be a red-headed...

Thank you to all for the kind comments.

Equipment used is a Nikon D5000 with 70-300 lens.

I'll have to get up on the roof to see if that gives me a better vantage point for viewing the occupied nest.

I went up to the mountain today with my brother and his father-in-law. They have a hog problem, and we were scouting the area, checking trail cameras and looking for the pigs' favorite areas to lurk.

We'll be going up there each weekend, setting up a corral trap, checking cameras, that kind of thing.

Alkarii wrote:I went up to the mountain today with my brother and his father-in-law. They have a hog problem, and we were scouting the area, checking trail cameras and looking for the pigs' favorite areas to lurk.

We'll be going up there each weekend, setting up a corral trap, checking cameras, that kind of thing.

Do NOT shoot a wild pig head-on in the forehead with a .357 magnum- you will piss him off!!!

Nah, we'll be using shotguns and rifles. Plus, we're gonna trap them, and shot them at close range.

Apparently in Arkansas, you can do whatever you want to kill the pigs. Some use explosives.

Alkarii wrote:Nah, we'll be using shotguns and rifles. Plus, we're gonna trap them, and shot them at close range.

Apparently in Arkansas, you can do whatever you want to kill the pigs. Some use explosives.

Really? I have a 12 gauge round out of Russia- it explodes after travelling 50 yards and impacting something. Ought to be interesting against a pig... I have a scar on my left knee where a pig opened me up after I ricocheted a round out of a python off his forehead- distance was 35 feet

I don't like wild pigs

Personally I would rather do it from a tree stand, with a rifle. A bullet to the side, just a little behind the shoulder blade should be sufficient to drop it. That's about where the lungs and heart are.

All of my previous printers used dye ink; the WF 7110 uses pigment ink.
 
I've been meaning to do this for a while, here's a side-by side comparison of the yellow inks, where the difference is most obvious  {Pigment on the right, dye on the left}:
 

Alkarii wrote:Personally I would rather do it from a tree stand, with a rifle. A bullet to the side, just a little behind the shoulder blade should be sufficient to drop it. That's about where the lungs and heart are.

Personally, i'd prefer to do it from a distance with a remotely-triggered IED.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

Alkarii wrote:Personally I would rather do it from a tree stand, with a rifle. A bullet to the side, just a little behind the shoulder blade should be sufficient to drop it. That's about where the lungs and heart are.

Personally, i'd prefer to do it from a distance with a remotely-triggered IED.

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Rooftop vantage point does provide better view of the nest, though there wasn't any action today when I got there.

These two came wandering up to the back yard this morning. They came along the creek side that cuts across the fairway behind my place, not even disturbed by the golfers that walked within a few feet of them. Jasper was for the most part disinterested, initially. As the geese walked a little further into her area, she charged them. The geese side stepped over the edge of the creek (It has sloped cement sides and bottom for erosion control. Not as pretty as natural but it did cut down the number of water moccasins in my yard.) and gave J a few loud squoncks. These geese do not honk, their call is kind of a cross between a quack and honk. J is trained to not leave the yard, so the birds were safe. They did elect to retreat the way they came.
We have an abundance of Egyptian Geese in the area, they appeared several years ago and stick around all year.

Not sure what Jasper is, or how big - i'm sure you've said and i missed it or forgot - but the "trained not to leave the yard" says "dog" to me.

No matter how big, i'd say Jasper is lucky those weren't domestic or Canada geese - they don't back off and they are, shall we say, dangerous.

I remember, the last time i was in London, walking through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. For most of the walk, squirrels and pigeons were practically grabbing me by the shirtfront and going "Are ya gonna hand over the goodies, or do we have to muss ya up?"

And then, suddenly - no squirrels, no pigeons.

And then i saw - geese in the Round Pond.

NOT tolerant of others in their territory.

Geese and swans are MEAN.