Behold - a Linear Egression, with reflection!

 

Virtual Aviary

I set my virtual aviary site up a couple of years ago, but hadn't set up a pointer to it here until now. It started as a learning exercise in Python and Django, but I've kept it live and growing as a vehicle to host my collection of bird photographs. It's been satisfying and informative to structure and apply a database to organize the images based on metadata, and to explore tradeoffs between appearance and functionality. I'd never have gotten to its current count of 231 photographed species in New England without the help and company of other birders, so am appreciative for that. 

Cryptic

Wikipedia describes the coloration of this Common Nighthawk as cryptic. I don't read this usage as relating to cryptography, or to a type of crossword puzzle, but it is certainly well camouflaged as it sleeps during a morning.

Springtime!

Yes, I'm anthropomorphizing, but this White-breasted Nuthatch does seem suitably enthusiastic for the season!

Iridescence in flat light

A bit of a science project here. I was out yesterday when I saw a Bufflehead swimming on a river. I enjoy these small ducks, which somehow look particularly playful as we see them in the winter. The males are noted for the iridescent colors in the plumage on their heads, as in this example from last year, but that's usually only noticeable when they're viewed in sunlight from the right angle.

My weather yesterday afternoon was cloudy. Flat lighting. Still, I enjoyed taking pictures of the Bufflehead. When I uploaded and processed them, I was surprised to see that colors were still present, as shown below. It's a noisier image and the lighting's clearly less appealing, but I still found it interesting to be able to see and distinguish the magenta, green, and blue areas around the bird's head.

 Nice to know that iridescent color isn't wholly extinguished in shadow!

US Capitol flags for inauguration

When I watched this week's inauguration, I noted that there were five flags hanging from the US Capitol, but that only one was the current 50-star version. I wondered why, and was intrigued by the explanation I found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_Ross_flag. Apparently, every presidential inauguration displays Betsy Ross' 13-star flag, with its stars arranged in a circle, and there were two of these. There were also two copies of another 13-star flag, though. What were those about? It seems that each inauguration gets a flag of the version that was current when the incoming president's home state joined the union, and Delaware was one of the original 13 colonies. Barack Obama's inauguration, in contrast, featured a 21-star flag reflecting Illinois' later admission. I had not known that.