Young Hawk

Broad-Tailed Hawk

I was collecting my recording gear the other morning when I turned around and saw this hawk sitting on a branch close by.  I tried not to panic.  I keep a camera setup on my telephoto lens for such occasions.  It did not take long until I was firing away.  I have since decided that I need to clarify, in my mind, the way to set a single focus point on this camera.  The limbs in front of the hawk were throwing off the focus.  I went through 336 shots on my computer and my eyes were beginning to cross.  The focus was just a little off in most of them.

Broad-winged Hawk

The hawk was patient with me and allowed me to work angles and light. I even followed it after short flights away from me.  I was able to come away with a couple good shots.  This one is the best, I think.

I think it is a young hawk.  I considered Red-tailed, and Red-shouldered hawk and well as Marsh Hawk as an ID.  I finally settled on the Broad-winged because of the vertical splotches on the chest and the yellow irises.  I wish I remembered an impression of it's size.  I could have used that in the ID.

Anecdotally, I remembered hearing the crows making the kind of racket that usually indicates they are chasing a hawk before I saw this bird.  I wondered if this bird flew close to me to get away from the crows.  I don't think that an adult bird would have come so close to me.  

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Tadpoles in Winter?

Pond Ice Hole

I noticed this break in the ice the other day while walking my trail.  I decided to walk out on the bridge to see if I could discover the reason for it.  The temperature was right at freezing and had not changed over night.  I decided there must be a source of heat under the water.

When I looked down, I saw movement.  It looked like tadpoles and they were as large as I have seen.  I called my grandsons and their dad brought them over to see.

Bullfrog Tadpole

The tadpole could barely turn around in my thin aquarium.  It had small hind legs.

Bullfrog Tadpole

I am starting to think that tadpoles do not always mature to frogs in one season under water.  I think that I would expect this one to become a frog this season.

Bullfrog Tadpole

The boys thought these the largest tadpoles they have seen.

Bullfrog Tadpole

I looked at Wikipedia and saw a picture of the bullfrog tadpole which gave certainty to my identification.  Even the smaller ones without legs looked to be the same kind.

I was telling the boy's grandmother about this later and she said that she had kept bullfrog tadpoles in her classroom for a season.  A parent bought them in.  She also brought pond water saying that they don't tolerate tap water well.

Could this be a sign that spring is just around the corner?

Back to the ice-less water, I wondered if the congregation of all the tadpoles might be making the the heat which melted the ice.  There were dozens of them down there!

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Macro Photography IV and Geology

Subject

I set out in this session to produce and image which showed detail throughout.  This was captured with the Sigma 105 mm macro lens on a Sigma 2x converter with a canon 500d closeup lens mounted up front.  It gives a 2.6x on the sensor image.

Sigma 105mm lens on a Sigma 2x converter with a Canon 500d mounted

This arrangement is much better balanced and the movements generated by the focus rail are small enough.  

Machinist's Scale at 2.6X

While producing the image at the top I could not help wondering what I was photographing.  It is a "rock" I laid out for photographing.  The tiny inclusions are in my opinion definitely metal of some kind.  Initially I was thinking quartz for the bedding and that would mean that the metal was either gold or copper.  The metal seemed corroded so I decided that it was copper.  As a last check before writing about it, I decided to check the hardness.  It cleaved under the pressure of the standards stones.  I eventually determined that it was soft, 3 to 4 on the mohs scale.  I checked its reactivity with acid and it was an effervescing one.  That leads me to believe it is Calcium Carbonate or something like it.  I am now completely unsure about the metallic inclusions.  I am almost completely sure they are metal.  Help!  The bedding has perfect cleavage.  I think I can see cleavage lines in the shot at the top.  It does not taste salty.  It is soft.  It reacts with acid.

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