We still have a reasonable backlog of photos, but readers who have good pictures of wildlife (broadly construed) might consider sending them to me.
Today marks another error by Professor Ceiling Cat. I received these nice photos from Stephen Barnard on March 29, but I lost the identifying email, and he trashed it in the interim. Readers, then, can entertain themselves by identifying the animals (hint: there are birds, mammals, and a snake):
Reader Lauren sent a photo of an arthropodian stowaway, as well as an interesting sans-wildlife photo.
I was flying from Toronto to Sudbury, Ontario, on Wednesday and noticed that we had a small stowaway. I decided to take a picture with my iPhone, and while focusing on the ladybug observed that the propellor looked damned weird in the screen. I immediately captured this video.
The video:
I’m told this is caused by a combination of the iPhone’s scanning speed and the fact that its camera scans from top to bottom.Unfortunately we lost our guest shortly before landing. I hope she survived the descent.
Me too. It’s amazing this creature hung onto the plane for nearly the full flight.
Finally, I thought I’d throw this in though it wasn’t not taken by a reader, though it was sent by one (Gina). The Daily Mail reports the sighting of an unknown deep-sea creature (it’s surely a a coelenterate) that resembles the FSM. The headline shows how far the Flying Spaghetti Monster has permeated our culture (click on it to go to the story; not that “god” isn’t capitalized):
The photo:
A video:
And the Mail’s picture of the FSM. Note that its caption is wrong: His Noodliness was created not to mock creationism, but religion in general.
Some readers may be interested to enter this inaugural Biology Letters and Proceedings B photography competition –
“Photographs can be used to make science more tangible and accessible by illustrating theories and hypotheses using real examples in nature or in the lab. We are therefore inviting submissions which can be related to underlying biological principles, while engaging a broad audience of biologists, scientists, and the public with the scientific context of the image.”
http://tinyurl.com/p2tu3l3
Sounds like WEIT(the non-blog)’s Readers Wildlife Photos would be a good illustration of Biol.Lett & Proc’s aims in it’s photo competition. “Trump your cat, on the other paw”?
Wikipedia reports that the FSM was originally created to mock creationism (in a letter to the Kansas State School Board), although it broadened out subsequently into a general satire on religion.
Personally, I like the Pastafarian assertion that pirates are a much maligned class of people about which mainstream religions have been spreading malicious rumors all these years.
The pirate costumes at the annual Camp Quest Pastafarian dance party are a delight.
That’s my understanding of the matter too – the Revelation Unto Bobby (RBUH) struck after the “equal time” attempts by the Kansas School Idiocy Injection Board, to allow “equal time” in the curriculum to “scientific evolution” and “Protestant Xtian Creationism Du Jour” (I forget the exact genus of creationist idiocy). There were various howls of protest at the time – IIRC there was a strong protest from “Catholic Xtian Creatinism Da Anno”. But the Revelation According to Bobby (MRBUH,CO) is the one that has stood the test of time and is well on it’s way to immortality.
I’ll play the Argument From Authority card too : I was ordained into the Church by the email of His Bobbyness. I got a PDF crtificate and everything. Except the Doctor of Divinity – I couldn’t bring myself to stoop to that.
I think I got two specimens of wildlife, Deets Cuteus and Deets Sheepherderwagonus.
Or maybe I am just confusing the two.
That’s about my limit too – except I vaguely recall from previous views of RWPs that silver thing is called a Cobra, and is therefore the snake Jerry referred to. I could be wrong – my knowledge of cars is even worse than that of science. At least I’m interested in science.
Sub
Snake:Cobra
That was a clever one PCC! I also like how it looked as if Deets was stalking the ‘snake’.
Alexander Semenov has taken pictures of creatures that look a lot like the FSM too.
For the record: sandhill cranes, northern harrier, redwinged blackbird, downy woodpecker, doggie, car.
I got the doggie and the car. No sweat.
Maybe that should be d*ggie.
Correct.
“I salute thee O great Noodley One.
Have pity on us, your unworthy terrestrial creations, who stand/swim humbled by the appearance of Your Magnificence. You have blessed us with Your presence.”
A snake with fishing gear! That’s something you don’t see every day…unless you’re Stephen, of course. I usually don’t see noise/grain in your photos but the blackbird (though a lovely BIF) does. Too high of an ISO? I stopped using auto ISO on my DSLR, and sometimes run into this problem when I forget to change it. I messed up about 20 shots by shooting in bright daylight with HI-1 ISO (1600) lol! Some were recoverable.
I’ve seen insects stuck to car windows while traveling relatively fast, but on an airplane? I wouldn’t believe it unless I saw it. Thanks!
Heavy crop
Aha, that’ll do it.
I haven’t been doing much still photography recently because I bought a drone (DJI Phantom 3 Professional) and I’m learning how to use it. It takes outstanding video and is a lot of fun to fly. A problem is that my rural Internet connection is poor so I have problems uploading the videos.
My plan for the drone is to use it to video and harass the herds of elk that raid my alfalfa fields in the fall (instead of shooting them).
I’ve been thinking about getting one of those exact drones myself. I’d like to send it over the forest down the back of my house, which is hard to traverse and encompasses about 9 acres.
I’m tempted to get one of those myself. In addition to using it as a toy, I could use it to shoot video for productions films. They are becoming very popular.
One thing to note: they are a risk to aviation and there are some FAA rules for use. There have been a number of near misses in the vicinity of airports.
I just sent this to Jerry, but what the heck, I’ll put it here.
Here’s some drone video in 1080p I uploaded to Flickr. I flew from my house across the creek and field to harass the horses. (I’m not quite intuitive with the camera tilt yet.) Then I went on autopilot to return home.
There’s nothing special about this video, but it gives you an idea of what I’m up to. Wait until I shoot the elk.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/110292855@N05/20391163759/in/dateposted-public/
Wonderful. Thanks for posting this. What camera are you using? From what I’ve observed, the GoPro is not exactly ideal as it has a rather poor range in latitude.
Also, I’d recommend checking out Vimeo as an upload resource. There are a lot of excellent examples there.
The film shows exactly why this is a monumental new technology. It’s transfixing to watch from a birds eye view the landscapes we often take for granted at eye level. The fields and stream take on a significance hard to appreciate using conventional photography. I hope you will manage to treat us with further experiments as you progress.
I think DJI (a Chinese company) sources their own cameras. This video is 1080p, but the camera is 4K capable. The camera is mounted on a sensitive and apparently extremely delicate gimbal. Everything about this flyer is designed for light weight, as you might expect. It’s extremely breakable.
It took some getting-used-to to fly it beyond where I could see it, as I did in this video. The trick is to keep a drone/camera perspective though the live feed on the controller. (The aircraft feeds a live view to a mobile device mounted on the controller — an iPad Air 2 in my case.) It’s intoxicating, like an out-of-body experience.
I like gadgets, and I especially like gadgets with cameras. This drone has an exceptional price/performance point. That’s why I bought it.
Sounds like Christmas morning at your house. I bet you waited up all night for the UPS truck to arrive. 😎
The next thing you need is a good video editor. Your going to want to embed these great perspectives inside a story line, or at least add music and maybe a voice over. Practice your David Attenborough voice. 😉
A plane with propellors! That is weird.