shanmonster | Got 'Im!

After days of near-constant staring at the eagle cam, I thought I'd saved two perfect images. The first was of the two adult birds staring off into the horizon. However, when I saved the image, I was silly and didn't do a print screen. So when I actually viewed the picture, all I saw were the two eggs. Ah well.

This time around, I caught the moment when the Momma bird had just jumped out of the nest, soaring off to go get a snack or whatever it is that nest-weary eagles do. See?

In other photocentric news, the moon shoot went pretty well. Girl Jodie and Witch Hazel's Mom showed up along with us to view the biggest bit of moon I've seen in ages. We went to the experimental farm and parked on a corner behind some trees, out of the way of street lights. The peepers were out in full force, tweeping their creepy song, and I could see many stars--almost as many as the numerous middle of the many nowheres where I've lived. The incandescent moon stretched our sharp shadows out to the nearby woods, and I amused myself by dancing, marionette-like, to make a shadow play. I could even read by the light of the effulgent moon.

The man in the moon gurned at me. "You can see a woman's profile on the right side," said Hazel's Mom. I looked, but I just wasn't seeing it. The shadow on the left half began to shift into a recognizable pattern.

"I don't see her, but I do see a man sitting on a toilet with his head down."

Not exactly romantic imagery, is it?

Gradually, the bottom left edge of the moon began to flatten out. Over the next hour and a half, the moon looked less like a glowing aspirin and more like a milk-sopped cracker with a bite taken out of it. Just before the eclipse was total, the moon looked like Mount Fuji, or a toenail clipping.

The last time I witnessed a lunar eclipse was when I lived in Moncton. The moon was even more enormous in appearance, and was a deep, rusty red--the colour of tacky blood. Last night, the moon was much more muddy. It was brown with a hint of rust. As the eclipse took over, the stars brightened appreciably.

Hopefully, some of the many photos which were taken will turn out decently. Something about the night made me giddy, and I found myself chattering and nattering nonstop, even singing some horrible Paula Abdul songs, as well as my requisite paean to Rather Good's Moon Song. Hopefully, some of the thousand words captured with 400 film will be more valuable than the many thousand words I jibbered!