Crepuscular rays

It’s an ugly name for one of the most beautiful phenomena you can see in the sky. Crepuscular means occurring or active during twilight. Crepuscular rays are rays of sunlight streaming through clouds that seem to converge on the position of the sun. They can occur anytime during the day, but are probably most common at dawn or dusk; thus, the name. I have been looking for a good example without much luck. Friday evening while Leah and I were looking at some very nice clouds showing something else I had been looking for, I realized we might get crepuscular rays. And we did.

Crepuscular rays

Crepuscular rays

They are faint, but they’re there. A zoomed image shows them a little better.

Zoomed crepuscular rays

Zoomed crepuscular rays

I might have been able to emphasize the rays with some manipulation in Elements, but I wanted to keep the image as close as possible to the way it actually looked to the naked eye. And we might have been able to get more dramatic pictures if we could have seen the sunset closer to the horizon. Unfortunately, we can’t actually see the sunset from our deck because the sun goes down behind the mountain. We get good sunrises, but from the deck, the sun disappears pretty early in the evening.

There were some other interesting things going on in the sky Friday, including some I have been waiting to see for a while. I’ll post those later.

Friday Felines

I inherited a chair from my parents and we put it in our bedroom. It has become a popular place for napping.

Zoe in the chair

Zoe in the chair

But Zoe is not the only one to like it.

Lucy in the chair - no diamonds

Lucy in the chair – no diamonds

They do not share the chair.

 

Gimme

Beertown trio

Beertown trio

Zeke pushes his head between our legs when he wants attention. In this case, it looks like he wants a beer. Smokey, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. We have always pictured Smokey as a heavy drinker and cigar smoker who hangs out in kitty bars. We think he prefers whiskey, probably cheap whiskey. He is too embarrassed to go to any bars now, what with his short cut and (we think) a shaver burn on his right side.

We gave in

The little crippled fox has been eating cat food in the driveway for some time now. It was looking pretty scruffy, so on Monday we gave in and have started putting dog food out in a bowl a little distance from where the outside cats eat. We thought the fox ate the food Monday night, but it was too late and too dark to be sure. Tonight we got confirmation.

The fox eats

The fox eats

But I didn’t get a shot of the really good part. Before this, Leah’s cat Zoe was chasing the fox around in the driveway. From the kitchen window Zoe looked almost as large as the fox. The fox was definitely trying to stay away from Zoe, but it didn’t look like she took it too seriously. She certainly wasn’t going to leave the food.

One of our neighbors told us tonight that her critter cam has caught this fox and one kit recently. She said her husband has seen more than one kit, but that was some time ago. The critter cam has also caught a coyote within the last couple of months, so it’s possible the one kit is the only survivor.

She also told us her camera has caught Zeke a couple of times when he has gotten loose.

I noticed that the fox was putting its bad foot on the ground tonight when it stood or sat. It still holds it up when it moves. The injury is more than a month old, so I don’t know whether it means anything positive or not.

Turtle highway

We were on our way back from eating a quick supper in town and saw a turtle in the middle of the inbound lane of Huffaker Road. He was not moving. This is the second time in the last two weeks we have had to move a turtle off the road. This one was about a half mile from the previous one. It was definitely a different turtle, because it was significantly bigger. If I spread my fingers as wide as I could, I could barely pick him up with one hand.

... and stay out!

… and stay out!

I didn’t want to take a picture while he was in the middle of the road; Huffaker is not a busy road, but people tend to drive at a good pace. So I waited till I put him down in the grass, and then, of course, I couldn’t get a good shot of anything but his shell. I wish I could have taken a picture of his front feet, because the claws looked to be particularly long and thin.

Neither of the turtles was moving when we found them. They were both partially retracted into their shells, and didn’t react much when I picked them up. I have no idea what they’re doing just sitting in the road. I would guess they were attracted by the heat of the pavement, but I’m not sure why since the days have been so warm.