More from Hoover Dam

The one in Ohio, not Arizona and Nevada!

Tom

Olentangy Shore

Olentangy Shore, originally uploaded by Tom Arbour.

The Olentangy River was absolutely beautiful Sunday evening and I was able to capture several images with my camera. I am sure most of this Ice has melted (it is 52 right now), but it may soon have scenes like this after our temperatures drop again.

Tom

And I thought 6 Billion Gallons was a Ton of Water...

Last weekend, I shared pictures from a quick stop by the O'shaughnessy dam and reservoir on the northwest edge of the Columbus metro area. Two days later, I visited another one of this great city's water sources, Hoover Reservoir, which stores over 20 billion gallons. That is the number two and ten zeros-20,000,000,000! Hoover is also a well birded site--in fact, it is part of the Big Walnut Important Bird Area, designated by Audubon Ohio as such.

So last Monday when I had the day off thanks to Martin Luther King, I decided to head over to the Hoover dam to see what was to be seen. To my surprise, plenty of interesting things were going on this cold, windy, and clear January day.

I started out by driving Megan's yellow Volvo wagon down the narrow asphalt access road to the bottom of the dam and parked the car in the empty lot. There were reports on the Ohio Birds e-mail list of mallards and a hooded merganser frequenting an open area just below the dam.



Sure enough, there they were. Plenty of mallards, and a pair of hooded mergansers. The male hooded has a bright white hood and can be seen in the upper left, in the water.


I also enjoyed watching the relatively common ring-billed gulls circle the artificial canyon created by the dam.







I was able to practice my panning technique on these gulls. I must say, I wasn't expecting much from these photos, but I was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded them onto my computer. I was really fortunate to have such pleasing light.

And since blogger is giving me fits right now, I'm going to save part two, the waterfowl of Hoover Dam, for tomorrow.

Tom

Views from Madison

Some quick shots from my trip:

The capitol building in Madison, quite a place. It looks great from each of the four angles that you can view it from, although I was only brave enough to capture it from this view. I was surprised my Canon A60 camera actually worked in the -1 Fahrenheit temperatures.

The University sits right on Lake Mendota. The large wooded area is a nature preserve that I wasn't able to get to during my short stay. The Lake was completely frozen, and was frequented by both ice anglers and cross country skiers.

The "Old Red Gym" sat right next to our conference center. Quite imposing, this building also served as an armory. It also sits right on the lake.

Finally, the place where I was dropped off by the lovely Vangalder bus company-which is obviously affiliated with Coach USA. I was was quite relieved when I arrived to campus on Wednesday night!

BRRRRRRR...Madison is really cold!

-1 Degree. -11 Windchill. Boy do they make it cold here in Wisconsin. Why haven't we figured out a way to bottle up that cold air and pump it back into our houses during summer?

Lessons from this trip:

#1. Don't fly through Chicago, no matter how much you like to see rows and rows of 777's and 747's (i'm a airliner buff). Everyone else I talked to who connected in Cleveland, Detroit, or Minneapolis to get to this conference actually landed at the Madison airport. I did not. United wasn't able to get me here Thursday night and instead of staying at Megan's Uncle's house until the next morning when I did have a confirmed flight, I actually hopped on a bus that brought me to Madison three hours later. Crazy I know, but it was only a one block drag (I have my rollerboard suitcase) across the snowy sidewalk to my hotel.

#2. It is darn cold in Madison Wisconsin. It is ice-immediately-forms-on-your-nose-hairs cold. To my friends in High School, yes, you know how cold it really is here in Madison. Colder than a _______. I'll let them fill in the blank. Usually you think of snow as being wet. Not here-- the snow has a texture similar to styrofoam since it is so cold and so dry.

#3. Lakes. I finally got to see Lake Mendota, made famous to me in my limnology class at Miami University. It seemed like every scientific paper I read on lakes was either completed on Lake Mendota or compared their results to a study of Lake Mendota. I can see why the University is so famous for lake studies, since the campus is smack dab right against the lake. I even saw a bored looking college student shuffling snow around on the ice this afternoon as I was listening to a presenation.

#4. Madison is great little town. A jammed packed little town. Since the town sits on an isthmus between two lakes, space is at premium. Many of the buidlings in the area, including my hotel,are 6-8 stories tall. There don't seem to be any skyscrapers here either. State street is lined with cutesy boutiques, ethnic restaurants, and your typical college student stores--outdoor gear, college sweatshirt joint, bike shop, camera store, and art supply place. Oh yeah, and a cool looking old time movie theater.

So that's all I have, the conference has been great so far, I've gained quite a bit of insight into what other states are doing as far as mapping invasive plants go. I feel like today was a crash course to catch me up with the past 10 years or so of things that have been going on, and my brain was a bit frazzled. A nice walk down State Street in the -1 degree temperatures took some of the edge off. Did I mention it was cold here?

Tom

What holds back 6.3 billion gallons of water?

The O'Shaughnessy dam northwest of the City of Columbus. Megan and I checked out the this dam and 840 acre reservoir for the first time this past weekend after our frigid late afternoon visit to the Columbus Zoo.

The most interesting thing about the dam, to me, was the fascinating water patterns created by artificial waterfalls.



Although the above picture is rather artificial, further on down the spillway there were several "water steps" that looked as if they were meant to recreate the look of a natural waterfall. The pattern reminded me of a terrarium background that I had when I used to keep fire bellied toads ( Bombina orientalis) many years ago. The photograph on my background was probably taken on some tropical island. This day was anything but tropical, although not yet cold enough for ice to form around the fast moving water.



As far as natural history goes, I have been told that the limestone outcroppings are a sure place to see snow trilliums Trillium nivale, a species originally described and named by John Leonard Riddell M.D. from material he collected right here in Central Ohio. Ah, but those plants will have to wait a few more months!

This day, of natural interest, was a group of a dozen mallard or so ducks and the ubiquitous ring-billed gull. Although I tend to think of ring-bills as pests, I must say, it was quite fun photographing their soaring flight. I was able to practice my "panning" technique which I will hopefully perfect before our trip to Sanibel Island come March. And speaking of trips, I'll be headed to Wisconsin tomorrow to learn more about a data management system that may help us better track invasive species in Ohio. I hear that the high in Madison is going to be 9 tomorrow! Wish me luck....






Tom

Live Backyard Bird Cam

I have the web cam running this afternoon (I set it up during lunch) and quite a few cardinals have been stopping by the feeding station in our backyard. In addition, I have put out sunflower seeds right in front of the camera on the window ledge. It was quite fun today at lunch to watch the cardinals through the window. I do not have one way glass, but they were so busy eating they apparently did not mind me watching. Looking at wild birds from six inches away is pretty darn cool.

Live Bird Cam

Natural Ice Sculptures from Kenney Park

This morning I had a few minutes to hike back to Kenney Park and check on the Olentangy River. The river is moving too fast and temperatures have not dropped enough for the river to ice over. However, left high after the floods, were several pools of ice. The beautiful and intricate patterns were very fun to photograph. My friend Bryan recently sent me a web link to a page about different types of ice. formed. I will have to do my research later on and see if any of these formations match up with the photographs on the page he sent. Megan and I are headed to the Columbus Zoo this afternoon. I hope you enjoy these images.








Which one do you like best?

Tom

Little Pond- a first attempt at HDR imaging

Little Pond
Originally uploaded by Tom Arbour

One the most interesting things about digital photography is the ability to produce things called high dynamic range images (HDR). I have seen this technique used on FLICKR and have always been intrigued. The images I see are usually quite strange looking. Recently, I have seen landscape images produced using HDR techniques that were quite appealing. After doing some internet research, I think I have caught the "HDR bug"!

Last night I created my first HDR image. I used a software program called Photamix Basic to combine two images of Little Pond into one image. The original images, taken within seconds of each other and with a tripod were under and over exposed. By themselves, the images did not look very good. However, put take the lights from one image and the darks from another, smush them together in a computer, and whala!, this is what you get. I like this image, although if I cropped it so that the light spot in the lower right was eliminated, I think it would be more pleasing and balanced.

Chris asked to see the starting images, and here they are. I think that the final picture takes more from the second image. Be sure to click on the final picture to see the image at FLICKR, where you can also take a look at the image at larger sizes.

Tom

Nine Years Ago.......

Nine years ago to the day I was on a Boeing 747 jet zooming across the Pacific Ocean to Sydney, Australia. I spent three months in this fantastic country. Recently, I found David's Images of Nature Photography blog, and his pictures have brought me right back to that country. This shot of a very tame gray kangaroo is from South Durras Beach, New South Wales.


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Wordless Wednesday- Fish From Our Aquarium

Any fish lovers out there? Quiz time. Which species are these?

Munroe Falls Sunset Watercolor

Munroe Falls Sunset, originally uploaded by Tom Arbour.

Thanks to Chris, the Chicago Nature Lady, for inspiring me to paint a little bit. She often displays her artwork on her blog. This painting was inspired by a photo that I took over Christmas vacation while Megan and I were visiting my parents. It was fun and relaxing to paint with watercolors again.

Tom

Eastern Gray Squirrels

Here in Columbus, most of our eastern gray squirrels are actually gray. That wasn't so where I grew up. About half of the squirrels were jet black. This mix of squirrels was always blamed on Kent State University, a rumored epicenter for the melanistic black squirrels in Northeastern Ohio.

In our yard in Columbus, we have an abundance of gray squirrels. It seems at any time of day, I only have to look out one windows to see these furry creatures. The individual pictured below was was perching on our "accent rock" in front of our house. It makes quite a nice squirrel perch.

 

Scratching an itch......

 

So since I most often see gray squirrels that are actually gray, I was fairly surprised to see this darker furred animal in the box-elder from which our feeders hang. It isn't the typical melanistic squirrel that I'm used to seeing. A look at its tail reveals some brownish-tan hairs, and even his back hair is not jet black. Still, a unique individual for the yard, and I'll be sure to keep my on the feeder to see if any more melanistic squirrels visit.

 

I'm curious, does anyone else have black eastern gray squirrels where you live?

Tom

Blendon Woods Metropark- A Bird Photo Essay

Whenever I need a quick bird photography fix, Megan and I head to Blendon Woods Metropark on the northeast side of Columbus. We drove there today and spent the last 45 minutes of the day's sunlight watching the birds, ducks and geese.

The Black-Horned Tree Cricket

I take a ton of photos of plants and animals. Sometimes, I have no idea what I'm photographing, but I'm always fascinated to see first hand something I haven't seen before. Back in October of 2006, Megan and I were camping at Alum Creek State Park. It was fall, and the goldenrods and asters were in full bloom. I noticed many different types of insects living amongst the goldenrod jungle, including this fascinating creature.

 

I never new what it was. Boy was it cool, and boy did I wish I had a better photograph, but it remained nameless. Until tonight. At the library, I picked up the copy of "The Songs of Insects" by Lang Elliot and Wil Hershberger, mainly for its CD of insect songs. Megan and I checked out our stuff and headed over to the gym, and I tried reading the new book as I walked on a treadmill. The reading-while-working-out thing made me sick to my stomach, but before I gave up, I turned to the page describing the black-horned tree cricket, Oecanthus nigricornis. Eureka! The photo I had taken almost a year and a half ago popped into my brain. Finally, I had an identification for this fascinating creature. The photographs in the book are superb. They even have shots of both the male and female. Looking at the image above, I think this is a female because it has a long , narrow ovipositor jutting backwards from its abdomen! Cool. According to Lang and Hesrberger's book, this species ranges throughout Ohio, living in brushy fields, roadsides and bramble thickets. That definitely matches up with the early successional habitats around Alum Creek Lake near the main campground where I took this picture. Hopefully I'll see this insect again this summer. What a cool find. Save those old digital pictures, and hit the library often!

Tom

Wordless Wednesday- a northern mockingbird

Tom

Maine, Day #4

It is hard to believe that it was only one week ago that I took these pictures. Two feet of snow was on the ground in Maine. Today, Columbus hit a record high temperature for the day somewhere in the upper sixties!

Day four in Maine was another day of snow. A look out the window was gray, and all I could see was more snow coming down. Plenty of snow. Probably eight more inches over night. Another day to stay in and let it snow.

What to do on a day like this? Megan decided to brush her dog, Jazz.

Quite a nice looking golden if I do say so myself.



Jazz didn't like being brushed, but afterwards, everyone looked like they were quite happy.



It wasn't until the late afternoon that the snow let up, and the sun peeked through the clouds for a few minutes and we were able to enjoy the Maine woods and the ice of little pond.



Megan's brother Ben and his friend Gardner checked out the ice the day before, and everything looked safe.

Megan's dad Glenn ventured out with Dublin and Murphy, the resident chocolate labs of little pond.



Meanwhile, Gardner attempted to start a fire. This intrigued me.



Apparently, since the heat goes upward, the ice doesn't melt. But it does melt a little bit. I'm wondering how long it would take for the fire to eventually melt through?



Gardner pointed out that this one fire that you didn't have to worry about putting out!



A look up to the house, and I was ready to go in. The sun sets about 4:45 where Megan's parents were, and I was ready for the fire.



Up at the house, looking west towards the pond. You can see docking stored for the winter on the bog. Little Pond and the surrounding Oxford Hills Region of western Maine is a fantastic place. It is off the beaten path, not readily visited by droves of tourists, and it is a true slice of what life is like in rural New England. I'm not sure if I would want to live here year round, but I will hopefully be visiting for years to come. I hope you enjoyed the trip! Megan and I will be back in May, so be ready for more shots of the Little Pond in a few months. Meanwhile, I'll have plenty of interesting pictures of Ohio and beyond in the upcoming days.

Happy blogging,

Tom

Maine, Day #3

The great thing about Maine, and I'm sure most parts of the country are like this too, is that when it snows there, it really snows hard and heavy. But usually the next day the clouds leave and the skies open up and reveal a beautiful day. Here in Ohio, it is mostly gray all winter, so having bright, sunny, and snowy days in Maine was special.

So for day three in Maine, I woke up about 8:30 and peered out the window. The moon was still in the sky, but everything looked good for a wonderful day.



Megan had a cold, so I decided to head out on snowshoes to see what I could see at Little Pond.



Down the driveway and down into the balsam fir forest I went. American beech trees still cling to their leaves.



Snow shoeing was great fun, and it is quite a work out. It also helps you traverse through the 20 or so inches of snow on the ground fairly efficiently. I made my way through the forest, out to little pond road on the northwest end of the property. I followed the abandoned little pond road (it is still in the delorme atlas!) down to the bog of little pond. The typical hummocky micro-topgraphy really stood out well in the snow.



It was here where I had the please to watch and photograph a mature male pine grosbeak for about thirty minutes. It was feasting on the fruits of the shrubs in the bog.





Getting fairly tired and cold by this point, I decided to take a shortcut back to the house--through the bog and fen. It was tough, but as I made it out up onto solid ground, I was only a few minutes from the house. A nice paper birch caught my eye. This is one deciduous tree that is not native to Ohio, but at little pond, it is common.



On my way back to the house, I had to pass the feeding station. Why not try to get a few more shots of birds? I noticed a white pine branch above me. The light was magnificent, and every few minutes, a black-capped chickadee would land there before dropping down to the feeder. I metered carefully, used my ski pole for a monopod, and got lucky to get this shot.

Maine, Day #2

Day two in Maine was a snow day. Dark clouds, all day, and plenty of snow. By evening, we had 8 more inches, making about twenty or so inches on the ground. It was a day to stay inside and enjoy the fire. I did take this shot out the window across to the other side of the pond.


All that snow has to come from somewhere, right?


Day three will be tomorrow, with plenty of pine grosbeak photos!

Tom

Winter in Maine- Day 1

Megan's parents live in rural western Maine. The towns near them are quite tiny and fairly provincial, and they live five miles or so outside of the town center. When the original owner built the house in which they now live in the early 1990's, the house wasn't even on the electric grid! It was powered by a generator and heated and lit with propane. Now, the Woods' house on little pond is on the grid, but the place has kept its rural charm.

One of the greatest things that has happened to Megan and I is Skybus Airlines. We can fly to Portsmouth New Hampshire for literally dollars, rent a car, and drive just under two hours to get to Little Pond.



Little did we know that below these clouds would be a winter wonderland.



Once on the ground at New Hampshire, we picked up the rental car and drove to Maine. New fallen snow coated everything, and our drive was nice and sunny. When you start seeing snow plows and logging trucks, you know you are in rural Maine.



Little Pond sits just to the left of this road which is Maine State Route 117. We turned into the driveway, and what a sight it was! The snow was piled up everywhere.



Once we arrived, I immediately started taking pictures. I grabbed the telephoto lens and shot from the deck out across the 26 acre frozen and snow covered pond. The small pine trees in the foreground are black spruce growing in the sphagnum bog, while the taller trees are mostly white pine.



A quick trip out to the bird feeding station revealed what I was expecting. Dozens of black-capped chickadees and several red-breasted nuthatches.



Later on in the day, a male hairy woodpecker visited the feeding station.



Later on in the day, this tree ornament caught my eye.



What a great first day in Maine. Smooth travel, wonderful scenery, and it was great to see Megan's parents and brother. And what better way to end a day than with a wonderful meal grilled on the stove top by Megan's brother Mike?



Be sure to stop back for days two, three, and four.

Happy New Year,

Tom

While I was Gone, The Birds and Squirrels Feasted

While Megan and I were in Northeast Ohio then Maine over the Holiday Season, the birdcam kept watch on the feeding area in our backyard. The camera recorded an image every two minutes, and I merged these images into a nice little movie that sums up the events from December 22nd to this evening. During that time, we did come home, and I added more seed, added an additional feeder close to the window, spread sunflower seeds on the window sill (look for the cardinal closeups-they are quick though!), and finally, I adjusted the camera a bit. All in all, pretty exciting. It is amazing how many birds the camera captures. If you'd like to see the camera live,which is a live streaming video if you have relatively high speed internet, just click on the link to the right.

Happy backyard birding,

Tom