Nighthawk

And when the sky turns dusky gray

Before the night has fallen

I come to watch your flight display

I come when you are calling.

You call to me when day's at end

I long to see you in my sky.

My sleep will come – but only when

I've heard your nightly lullaby.

2018

(from the book Discoveries In The Dark by Doris Potter)

© Doris Potter

Ice Halo

 

This ice halo, encircling the sun, was observed yesterday while I was walking in St-Laurent looking for migratory birds.

Just a quick note on how ice halos come to be:

Ice halos are caused by both refraction, or splitting of light, and also reflection, or glints of light from ice crystals typically suspended in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds.  The crystals have to be oriented and positioned just so, in order for the halo to appear.  They can appear around the sun or the moon.

Here is another photo of this atmospheric phenomenon:

Orion

Orion is one of the easiest constellations to find and, luckily for me, appears in the southwest sky which is the direction my windows face.

I was never able to capture the whole constellation in the frame but I could get the major stars and "objects" such as Orion's belt and sword.

You will need to click on the images to enlarge them.  Hopefully you have a touch screen or other way to further enlarge the first photo.  The four outer stars from upper left clockwise to lower left are:  Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel, and Saiph.  The inner stars can be seen better in the second and third photos.

Orion 

 

Orion's belt (first without names and then with names)

Orion's sword (first without names and then with names)

Iridescent Clouds

On May 17th I observed iridescent clouds as I was out looking for wildlife to photograph.  It was towards the end of the day and it added some excitement to my outing.  I have seen this phenomenon before but only in the winter.  

You can check here for a brief explanation of how this effect is produced:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_iridescence

The photographs were darkened using exposure settings and minimally saturated to bring out the colours.

Fire Rainbow

On June 10, 2018 near South Lancaster, Ontario in a conservation area called Cooper Marsh, my cousin Blain and I were treated to a rare and very beautiful atmospheric phenomenon called a fire rainbow.

After researching it on the Internet we learned that certain conditions need to be met for the formation of fire rainbows. 

These conditions are as follows:  the sun must be more than 58° above the horizon; cirrus clouds need to be present; and the hexagonal ice crystals in those clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.

Here is a picture that Blain took of me photographing the amazing sight!

The following shots are a selection of many that I took that day.  

(Note: colours have not been adjusted but the images have been slightly darkened to compensate for over-exposure).

I have made two other blog postings of atmospheric phenomena (iridescent clouds and ice halos).  They can be found by clicking on the following links:

Iridescent Clouds

Ice Halos

Back to blogging

Well, it has been awhile...  Finally I think the amazing summer (er, spring) weather and the return of the geese has inspired me to post some photos.  About a week ago I went to Mount Royal on a very foggy morning.  Just as I reached the Mount Royal cemetery summit, the fog lifted, the sky turned blue and hundreds upon hundreds of geese appeared overhead.

At first they were Canadas and I was enthralled but then while I watched, the sky became full of undulating necklaces of white Snow Geese.  They made some of the most magnificent patterns.  Not just Vs but long fishbone-like designs in the sky. 

And sometimes the flocks were mixtures of Snows and Canadas (as shown in the last photo below).

Interestingly, the dark Canada Geese were picked up by my camera's auto-focus feature quite well but the white Snow Geese threw it off and I had to try to focus manually (always a disaster for me), but I thought I would post these photos anyway.

How I love to see and hear the geese in the spring!