We had visitors this weekend. As such, we toured some local attractions; the Ape Cave and the Trail of Two forests. Both areas feature fascinating geologic features based on lava flows from Mt. St. Helens.
In the evening I was treated to views of some astral bodies documented by Messier. Globular clusters, a galaxy and more. All very beautiful, some like tiny puffs of white smoke and others like diamond-chips on impossibly smooth velvet.
Perhaps the most exciting, for me, was the sighting of a Great Horned owl, perched on top of a tree near the border of our property. With the telescope trained on it, we could watch it hoot and rotate it's head around. A few times I was able to make out, faintly, it's eyes as it looked my way. It appeared to be calling to another owl, as we heard a response after most of the hoots.
Monday, after such an eventful day of sights, we decided to venture out to the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge and were delighted by the landscape and the abundant wildlife. Perhaps most memorable were the Great White Egrets. Dazzlingly white, I remember seeing these in books as a child, but I'm not sure I've ever seen them live until yesterday. I counted 20.
We also saw numerous Great Blue Herons, some by the waters edge, others in the midst of large, dry fields. One was undoubtedly the least shy heron I've ever encountered. As we approached it in our car, (it was standing in the road) it slowly stalked across our path and into the grass on the other side. When we passed it, we couldn't have been more than 30 feet away, probably 20.
3 comments :
Your readers may be interested in the fact that what made the owl sighting so special was that it was done in near darkness...that we had already viewed Venus and Jupiter and only a short time later we were able to see stars and nebulae. I didn't get a chance to ask you whether the owl's eyes were glowing when you saw them.
I also have documentation (courtesy of Jerry, our guest) of all the Messier objects we saw, along with directions for finding them again. I think future star parties will be greatly enhanced with this information and I plan to make more trips to dark sky locations to use this newfound information.
I don't think the eyes were glowing. The contrast in light and dark was subtle, though crisp. The pupil "covered" perhaps 2/3rds of the area of the iris.
Unlike the drowsy owl that is commonly rendered in cartoons, this owl looked quite alert and active, almost excited.
I looked for him again last night, to no avail.
Hi James
Did the book for the children arrive OK?
I'm still wheeling at what wonderful hosts you were and how much fun I had staying with you. Your house is SO comfortable! It makes me renew my interest in building a straw bale house here, as I mentioned. I'll look up that architect in Bisbee.
OOOPS, speaking of which, I forgot his name. Can you post that for me?
I'll talk to Judy about making an appointment with him.
Thanks again... I loved speding time with your children and look forward to seeing you again. I'm not sure when that might happen but I was initially mentioning to Grandpa Jim about visiting him in September 2006.
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