Tag: Baraboo

Wax Now Out

Okay, I’ve decided to try and look on the bright side of this pandemic crap.  Now that I am unofficially officially retired.  I’ve decided to try out a bit of optimism.  Not that I consider myself a pessimist by any means – more of a realist.  Sometimes when things are brown and ugly.. you gotta call it crap, pure and simple.  Covid-19 is crap, no way around it – but it has made one American tradition a LOT more civilized.  Yes, I am talking about Black Friday.  The annual day where capitalism and frugality duke it out at the cost of all human decency and altruism.  Admittedly, as a person who truly enjoys studying behaviors both in society and out in the wild, Black Friday nationwide petri dish treasure trove. Pick some strategic locations (number 1 being Home Depot as they pass out donuts and drinks to those standing in their line) and then stay up all night until 4am and rush out to stand in line while your wife hangs out in the car or RV at the back of the lot.  Breakfast, a show and if there happens to be some really good item I don’t have to lose my humanity for, then bonus.  I’ve seen it all, screaming matches, toy tug-o-war, adult fights, adults getting trampled, kids getting trampled, trips, falls, my wife walking briskly up to me with a hot sale item in her hand telling me we have to head for the checkouts immediately … will leave that story right there ha.  All good blog fodder for the other flagship Intrigued blog.  Not sure what the standard behavior is other countries – just assumed this is just a US stigma.  Regardless – the pandemic has accelerated a new era for Black Friday – one more focused on sitting in your most comfortable living room chair and dancing down the aisles with a mouse and keyboard.  I suspect that the emergency room visits outside of Covid cases plummeted this season as a result – maybe some carpal tunnel or extra eye strain cases, but those shouldn’t take up precious ER beds.  So there you have it – the pandemic has brought more civility to the US – who would have guessed that could have happened.  Then there is the benefit of successfully ending the concept of hugs which I’m all for!!! Yikes, my intro got away from me today.  The good news is the animal wildlife part (not the above wild human part) is more of a picture than a word post.  You might recognize today’s featured feathered friend.

Cedar Waxwing found in Wisconsin in July 2013

No, your browser cache is not acting up and bringing in images from the last post.  Over the past 13+ years, this might be the first time I’ve featured the exact same bird species in back to back posts.  I try to be a bit more creative for my readers.  However, in this special case, I wanted to follow-up on a missing element from the last post.

Cedar Waxwing found in Wisconsin in July 2013

Hit the jump for an explanation of the deja-vu

Continue reading Wax Now Out

A Majestic Domestic Spotted in Baraboo

Once again, we are back in Baraboo, Wisconsin but this time with specimens from the Goose family.  First off, an apology.  The title of this post really doesn’t fit based on a crap load of Internet research.  After frying a bunch of synapse coming up with a clever title I hated to give it up so we are going with it.  This series of pictures was taken on our way home from our Easter stay at Chula Vista Resort.  just outside the Dells.  Our trek home took us through the city of Baraboo which always makes me shudder in fright  … who in their right mind would take the effort to make a Circus Museum?!?  I’ll answer that, a DERANGED CLOWN LOVER that’s who.  Give me a second to get the heart calmed down..

beatbeatbeatbe atbe atb e atb e atb e a tbe e a t b e a t b e a t   ahhhh that was close

Continuing on, there is a nice stream that runs through that city which can be seen from the main thoroughfare (as it heads to Devil’s Head if you are curious).  On that day we spotted a couple of birds hanging out along the shore.  Not wanting to pass up a shot opportunity I had Linda turn onto a side road for some in vehicle shots – the Beast was on the camera so there was plenty of reach.  Turns out we were stopped right next to a No Parking sign and some cars were giving us disproving looks.  Not wanting to ruffle the locals, Linda dropped me off and started cruising around while I took some more shots from the banks.  Turns out the final product had a nice surprise.

It was high day which put up a pretty good fight on the exposure effort.  Admittedly, there is some blowout just below the neck, but was able to recover a lot of the feature detail outside that (embrace the RAW).  At the time, the small LCD screen was not able to really show a unique feature of the bird, but once in the digital darkroom it came out crystal clear.  Let’s move in a bit so you can see for yourself.

That eye is just plain gorgeous.  The orange eyelids really make it pop against the white coloring.  The sun angle even gave the highly desired glint.  To do it again I would have backed the exposure off one or two stops and then brought the light back in post processing.  Recovery restored a lot of the detail around the head, so a tighter crop would take out some of the blow outs, but there needs to be some of it left – otherwise it would look like someone took an ax to it (eesh).  As an example, here is another tight crop which gives even a better view of the eye but again, a less appealing crop from an overall composition perspective… and yes, I needed to apply some additional recovery on this version to get the detail back in the head feathering.

Hit the jump to see more pictures from this post

Continue reading A Majestic Domestic Spotted in Baraboo

The X-Ducks of Wisconsin

Howdy all, I was recently reminded that we are half way through the steamy month of July and there is yet to be a post on the blog. You would think with how hot it has been in the last two weeks I’d be cranking out post after post in the comfort of my air conditioned den. On the contrary, I’ve been swamped with activities as of late which has included wrapping up phase one of my summer project (literally put the last piece in that phase a mere two hours ago) and a healthy (or not) dose of heat running conditioning needed for the Bix race at the end of the month. I do not want a repeat of the Steamboat race and it looks like there has been some improvement based on my recent Bix@6 training run (93-95 out when the training race started last Thursday and it went quite well). The good news is all the post processing work on this month’s series of posts is already complete!   …and just what is the topic this month…

After much thought and contemplation I’m going with the birds captured during our photo shoot taken  in Wisconsin over Easter. Tragically, this means another month (at least) will pass before getting to the Indy Zoo pictures and the birds of Banner Marsh.

It’s quiz time.  Any guesses as to what that water fowl is (note, these are all non-shopped)?

If you can identify it, please feel free to let me know.  As far as I can tell this is another mutant specimen.  If you recall, this is not the first mutant to grace these pages.  The mallard derivative from the Emoquon series certainly fits this category (link here).    This strange bird has more of the duck features than the goose characteristics in that previous one.  It was also easier to pick out the main ingredients that made that bird.

This on the other hand doesn’t really match anything.  The dominant white and the the black tail feathers would put it somewhere in the Snow Goose realm (or just the white neck and orange beak has traits of an Embden Goose), but it took the stature of a smaller duck.

it that wasn’t fun enough, let’s move on to mutant specimen number 2 and 3.  The one on the right looks like someone sawed the head off the one above and slapped a better Mallard head on it.  Those Mallards must really like to sow their oats.

Shifting to the one of the left.  They were hanging together so the assumption is they were mates.  The left is likely the female due to the dominant male Mallard coloring on the right one.  It looks closer to an Eskimo Sandwich than it does a duck.  The breast feathering almost has a turkey composition and nothing in the reference books really showed markings that chocolaty.

Hit the jump to see even more strange waterfowl.

Continue reading The X-Ducks of Wisconsin

Freezing in the Devil’s Playground

Predator enjoying some powder

Last weekend I had the opportunity to ride some powder at Devil’s Head Ski  Board Resort in Wisconsin.  Unfortunately, my wife was unable to go due to illness, but some of my friends were able to make the trek up there with me.  We actually headed up Thursday night in order to beat some of the weekend crowds on Friday.  A mere 4 hours from our house makes this a very bearable trip.

Slopes

Although it was pretty cold out, the real danger was the weaponry that was being deployed.

Back Country Warning

…. what?  I get the sense you are not buying this.  Fine, I’ll come clean, the previous pictures were not from Devil’s Head.  I didn’t take the camera with me so I went ahead and threw in some pics from our Colorado trips a few years back.  What gave it away, the fact that Devil’s Head is in the Midwest (think flat) or there would actually be a back country there?  Anyway, we had a great time.  The first day (Friday) temperature was not too bad during the day session (~24 deg), but the wind was cranking through in the 13-15 mph range making the exits off the lift rather blistering.  In fact, we could put our arms out and the wind would blow us uphill to the start of the adjacent runs.  The temperature started dropping pretty quick after noon and was darn cold for the night session.  Luckily we know to keep our board edges razor sharp in the Midwest in order to cut through the ice – nothing like transferring edges and noticing that yellow hue signifying solid ice (no, not THAT kind of yellow snow).  I had fallen pretty hard on a mogul run earlier in the day due to being all ice in between the mounds.  Everyone with me fell on that run as well, but only I ended up with the third knee – translated… a huge swollen welt on the left side of my left knee.  It didn’t seem to affect the motion I needed to board so I brushed it off.  This injury coupled with my shoulder that had a cortisone injection a few days before forced me to curtail my rail activities.  Linda cautioned me to take it easy this time because she couldn’t drive me home like she usually has to.  So very little of this:

Grinding the rail

A little more therapy on the shoulder and some ice on the knee should have me back on the rails next time we go.

My observations from the week follow the jump

Continue reading Freezing in the Devil’s Playground