Reflections of a Great Egret

 

A lone long necked Great Egret doing some fishing at the Indiana Dunes State Park this past Spring. 

Lone Tree

 

Lake Michigan Lakeshore, from the Cowles Bog hike in Indiana Dunes National Park. 

Class of 2027 and Class of 2039

 

Drew's brother, Matt was in visiting from NYC and we got to see William's (Neuqua Valley HS Class of 2027) marching band at the homecoming football game. The twins and Graham (all future Neuqua Valley HS Class of 2039) were in attendance. 

Stand Still Please

 

Sometime when you have to move you have to move. Especially when it is windy out. 

Spooky Path (not so much) and Spooky Path (AI)

 

The shot below is my real shot. I came upon this path and it felt a little bit spooky. I was walking by myself in Midewin Tallgrass Prairie looking for birds and I thought this would make a nice spooky sort of shot....but it really wasn't all that spooky. The trees overhang only half the path (from the right side) and there are sign posts that point the way. Those posts are easy to remove but making trees on the other side of the path would normally be a chore and mostly beyond my photoshop skills. I could try to clone the one side over to the other side but it would be a pain. Not worth it for a throw-away shot. However, with Phothoshop AI, all I had to do was select the left side of the image and type in spooky trees and...done. Did a little clean up. Took out the poles and now I have the shot above, indicating a spooky walk through this forest. Photoshop AI is quite scary. If you have an idea, you can just type it in and the software creates it (or attempts to create it) for you. And this is only version one. Nothing you see in photos is real but this will really, really be the case with Photoshop AI. 

Stand tall in Yellow

 

No birds in a recent hike, but I did see more yellow standing tall in the distance. 

More Yellow (and green)

 

Yellow season in full swing. 

King of the Hill

 

I figure to see a Bald Eagle you have to go out west or someplace far from home. Apparently, not the case as this Bald Eagle was sitting at the rookery at Lake Renwick, not 20 minutes from my house. The rookery was abandoned this time of the year and perhaps because of our friend playing king of the hill, no other waterfowl were around, but it was a nice surprise anyway to see a Bald Eagle so close to home. The rookery is man-made as it was built to support several bird species on a small island in the middle of the lake. This will definitely be a place to visit in the Spring!!!

Franklin Building on Dearborn

 

I had never noticed this building before, but I got a chance to see it and visit the Sandmeyer's Bookstore inside. Apparently, this 14 story building, built in 1916was a key part of Printer's Row on Dearborn and housed the Franklin Printing Company. The mural above looks like it has an artist, a bookbinder, a typesetter, a bored printer and a few others involved in bookmaking back in the day. Looks like the author is in the center in brown and an editor in green? I bet the publisher is in purple as that is the royal color. Fun bookstore in an interesting historic building.  Did I get the roles right? It is just a guess but I think I got them right. The bookstore itself, Sandmeyer's is a nice store with a mix of titles. A bit on the small side but with lots of room to move around. Have to give it an another visit when I am not so backed up with books to read---like that is ever going to happen. 

Chicago Lit Fest

 

Got to visit the Chicago Literature Festival for the first time yesterday downtown Chicago in Printer's Row. The Festival is a 4 block long book party, with publishers, bookstores and lots of authors promoting their wares. The choices were somewhat weird and random but I added a few to my already way to many backlogged pile of books to read. The shot below was just when the shops opened for the day. As I was leaving, it was quite crowded. Nice to see. 

Lockport Military History Weekend

 

Lockport Military Weekend is happening this weekend with battles going on all day. WWI, WWII, Vietnam and the Civil War reenactors are all present, with my buddy Bill pulling the cord to shoot the cannon for the Union side. I got the flame for the trigger but even at 1/20th of a second later, the shot out of the cannon has already fired. The battles go on all day today until 5pm or so. I heard from Bill that the Germans have a very cool tank firing in the WWII battle. If you are nearby, drive over to Lockport for the show. 

It's Yellow Season

 

Yup, it is officially yellow season. Tall Goldenrods. 

Blue-grey Day

 

With the day starting out today very blue, rainy and grey, I saw this Blue-grey Gnatcatcher as a good subject for today's shot of the day. Pretty little bird, with a white ring around its eye and a small sharp bill, good for catching mosquitos and other small insects. This shot is from a trip to Orlando last spring. 

One more Moon shot

 

As I started to file away the blue moon shot from last week, I was thinking that the shot was pretty impressive--for a handheld shot. I have taken full moon shots before (see below from 2018 and 2020) but none turned out as nice as with this combination of lens and camera. I now have the Nikon Z9 and I was using the Nikon 70-200 at 200mm, cropped tight in post. I do have a longer lens (100-400mm) and now I wish I would have tried it (maybe next month) to see if I can get it even sharper as I wouldn't have to crop so much. However, the longer the lens, the harder it is to handhold and keep sharp. Surprisingly, the moon is a very bright subject and you can shoot at a fast speed to limit hand shake. The shot above was at a 1/180 of a second at ISO 100 and that was fast enough to keep it both bright and sharp. 

The moon below was my previous best. It was taken with my previous camera, the Z7 and a handheld 150-600mm at 600mm. Despite the longer lens and faster shutter speed of 1/1250 at ISO 6400, it didn't do as well. I should have reduced the f-stop (depth of field) as the moon is a flat object with no depth in the night sky. You can't crop in as tight, as the quality of the shot breaks down, with that combination so it is a smaller shot, despite the longer lens. 

Same thing with the 2018, previous best with the Nikon D850 (a great camera by the way) with the same 70-200 lens. Again, harder to crop in as the shot starts to pixelate if you keep cropping in. Same lens as the shot from last week but with the Z9 technology, you have much more room to crop than with the chip in the D850. The shot below was taken at 1/2500 at an f4.5 at ISO 400. 

So, three moon views from three different cameras. Pretty amazing how fast the technology has changed and I didn't really push the Z9 to see if I can get a better shot with a longer lens. Again, I might lose out on holding it steady--we shall see. There are a lot of tricks to try and I will try a couple and see how it goes!!!

A shot of Double-crested Cormorant

Always weird for me to see birds that I am familiar from other parts of the country up here in Naperville. These are Double-crested Cormorants, that I common see all over the place in Florida, but last week for the first time, I see them in Naperville, in this case, at Whalon Lake off of Royce Road. These birds can often be seen sitting with their wings spread out, drying in the sun. According to their distribution map, they are here from Spring through Fall. Glad to see them here for now. Heading out for Florida and points south soon.