Aurora Borealis - May 10, 2024, Last Installment.

On Friday afternoon, May 10, 2024, Jan and I were getting coffee in a very small somewhat crowded coffee shop in downtown Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. We overheard people talking about the Northern Lights showing up that night. And thus began one of the most exciting nights of photography in my life. If you have read my three previous blog posts you have seen some of the spectacular color displays we were able to capture. In these images I have included some foreground information to put the color displays in perspective. The picture above was taken to the northeast of the Trumpeter property where they house the pygmy goats and alpacas.

Looking to the northwest you can see the moon low on the horizon. The building shown here has an additional suite that is separate from the main B&B house..

This image is looking due east showin the stable for the animals.

Another view to the east showing the building with the separate suite mentioned above.

Looking north into the entrance to the Trumpeter Inn. This was later in the night. I started photographing just after 10 pm when the aurora was mostly just green and not very bright. Then the colors started showing up, getting brighter and more colorful until after midnight when the display began to calm down and return to mostly green. This image was taken at the beginning of that transition.

In all I took about 150 images that night. I put them into a slide show and each time I run them I am blown away. I hope you were able to enjoy them as well.

If you would like to follow my blog and have it delivered to your email, please follow this link:

https://follow.it/notes-to-my-mother?leanpub

Comments

Family Life Of Red Foxes

The family life of a red fox is a joy to observe. The kits are very much like puppies, jumping on and chasing each other almost the entire day. Of particular interest is how the Vixens teach the kits to eventually become self sufficient around their food supply. There are two vixen in this family unit, the mother and grandmother, and I can not tell them apart. The kits you see here are still suckling from their mother. But by this time in their young lives she is well on the way introducing them to game. In the beginning she will stash the game, encouraging the kits to forage for it. The next step in the process you can see here, where she brings game directly to the kits. Here she is dropping a rabbit for them. At this stage in the teaching she has killed the rabbit. The next stage will be for her to bring them live game. The little black one grabs the rabbit and makes a run for it getting away from his siblings. A...

Red Foxes

I had never experienced anything quite like photographing red foxes. I was with them nearly all day, for three days in a row. I was so taken by them, especially the way they related to each other. Above is the dog fox, the adult male of the group, with one of his offsrping, a female kit fox. In this family group there were two vixen, one was the grandmother, the other the mother of three kits. The adult females attended the den all day with one or the other going off to hunt, returning with food for the kits. Missing most of the day was the dog fox and when he would return the kits all gravitated to him. All of the kits seemed to adore the dog fox but the moments between him and his daughter were especially touching. What a gorgeous, photogenic animal he is. When I returned a year later he was still there and there was a whole new brood of kits. I am hoping to return again this year having missed last year due to a bout ...

Art Display At The Center For Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa

The Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa, has a wonderful program that encourages artist members to display their work. The work is hung in the Social Hall and typically has about twenty pieces hanging for two months at a time. On March 1rst I will be hanging several images taken in Iceland, along with some wildlife images, including foxes, coyotes, eagles and kites. I will also have some paintings by my mother and two of my own. I am pretty excited about this showing. One of the pictures I will have in the show is of Godafoss, a beautiful waterfall in Iceland. When I first saw pictures of this waterfall I knew I wanted to go to Iceland to take pictures of it. This composition required gettin into some very cold water.

Notes To My Mother

Search This Blog