Clear and cool with light winds. Frosty overnight, with official lows in the upper 20s, though I’m sure it was colder at my house. Highs today into the upper 30s (at least at some locations).
Today I made it out to Verstovia to walk up the hill during my morning call. The walk and talk was something that worked well last year for calls with my parents. I gained/maintained conditioning earlier in the year than I had in quite some time. This was even though I only made the trip at most once per week.
This year I decided to expand the practice to at least some of my Monday and Friday morning calls, though for various reasons I hadn’t done so until this week.
It’s been almost two weeks since my last walk and talk, so I was not sure how today would go, especially with a potentially icy trail.
No other cars were parked at the trailhead when I got started shortly after 9:30am.
The trail was icy, but I did not find myself slipping much on the way up. It was a little more challenging on the way down. I slipped a few times, though fortunately all were minor, and didn’t result in any hard landings.
I felt a little winded trying to talk near the beginning, but still managed to make it to the view point in about 28 minutes. Approximately the same time as my previous effort. I did have my camera and binoculars last time, but this time I was also carrying a backpack.
I drove out to Starrigavan after I was back off the trail.
The sun is now getting high enough to shine in the estuary during the middle of the day.
The afternoon was devoted to working on things at home. I am nearly done with November photojournals, so that feels like good progress.
Shortly before 4:30pm I left home to walk down for sunset at the bridge.
A robin popped up to a utility wire on Lincoln Street. It’s right by where I saw a robin a few days ago, so I suspect it’s the same one (maybe working on the holly berries in the yard there).
The basically full moon shining over Verstovia caught my eye. I was nearing the bridge when I the thought popped into my mind that I could get a picture of St. Michael’s with Verstovia and the moon while the sun was still shining on the church.
I actually started up the bridge, thinking I probably didn’t have time if I wanted to catch any green flash. I thought better of it, and went over to Lincoln Street.
I didn’t have the best lens for the job, but made due by taking multiple shots which I could stitch together.
I still wanted to get up on the bridge for the actual sunset, so I didn’t stick around to work on the best framing.
I made it to the top of the bridge just as the sun was touching the horizon. I was slow getting my camera settings correct and missed the chance to see if there was any inferior image coming up from the horizon (though I think there was a small one).
The sun is definitely getting close to setting behind Vitskari Island. Hopefully the horizon is clear again tomorrow. If so, I’ll be interested to see how much closer it sets to the island.
As with last Tuesday’s very clean sunset, there was a color shift as the sun disappeared. Also like that sunset, I think I missed some of the initial green shift as it was over exposed. If I want to underexpose the scene enough to have the small piece of sun not blown out, I’ll need to use exposure bracketing or manually set the exposure. The -3 stop adjustment I’m allowed to do with some of the settings automatic isn’t sufficient.
I did catch some nice blue-green light, but did not see the magenta which showed up at the end on last week’s sunset.
This evening I did some microscope work on some collections, including ones from yesterday and today. I was not thorough with photo documenting. Mostly I wanted to confirm my initial thoughts about ID (not necessarily to species).
I did take more time documenting one of today’s liverworts. I think it’s probably Marsupella emarginata though it seemed like an odd site for it. It was growing on rock (not unusual) in a place that I imagine is dry for around here (not so expected, though nothing around here is especailly dry, I suppose).
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
