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Outdoor Ontario

Recent Posts

91
Ontario Birds / Re: Purple Sandpiper
« Last post by Charline on November 18, 2024, 02:10:37 PM »
Those dots in the water are caused by chromatic aberration.


I still don't know why the bird is called purple sandpiper.
92
Ontario Birds / Re: Purple Sandpiper
« Last post by Shortsighted on November 18, 2024, 02:04:11 PM »
Ah well, everyone gets confused by that.  If you look carefully, the purple is in the water when the clash of reflected sky and the green algae results in a maelstrom of purple frothy water that these sandpipers are attracted to.  If you mean, where can you find purple sandpipers that may occasionally look a little purple depending upon how much purple water gets splashed on them, then I would have to say Beaton Point, on the beach, next to the southern end of McLaughlin Bay in Oshawa.  I can sell you a ticket in order to recoup my loss when some clown charged me to take a photo.  I asked him where his ticket booth was and he said it has been sent out for repainting, but he wore an official-looking vest.
93
Anything Goes / Re: Tallest Indoor Christmas Tree in the World
« Last post by Charline on November 18, 2024, 11:42:05 AM »
Digital coffee? Thanks.


My back pain has returned. Since I could not sit and did not want to lie down, I went for a walk in the Eaton Centre.


The Christmas tree was not the craziest thing that I saw there.


Look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4BJ_dRjtCs


I laughed so hard that I forgot about my back pain.


94
Ontario Birds / Re: Purple Sandpiper
« Last post by Charline on November 18, 2024, 11:35:43 AM »
Great shots!


Where can I find purple?
95
Ontario Birds / Re: Purple Sandpiper
« Last post by Shortsighted on November 17, 2024, 04:47:08 PM »
A couple more shots of the Purple sandpiper.  It is difficult to manage the contrast between light areas and shadows with a cropped sensor-equipped camera, especially when the light is 90-degrees to the subject.  I was already sitting on wet slimy stones within half puddles on a cloth shopping bag because I forgot to bring my foam mat.  Any more ambitious attempt to get the sun behind me would entail my entering the lake, which is not my idea of fun at 10-degrees and in a breeze.




 
96
Anything Goes / Re: Tallest Indoor Christmas Tree in the World
« Last post by Shortsighted on November 17, 2024, 03:21:45 PM »
 In the beginning there was probably no beginning at all, but let’s just ignore that generalization and say that in the beginning there were quarks, and they were going quark, quark, quark, or what ever quarks do when they are not being enigmatic and figuring out how to be in two places at once, or fundamentally trying to decipher what a “place” really is all about.  As is their habit, the quarks got frisky with the rest of the gang: muons, pions, gluons and all the other monks, who had their own habits.  After the party was over, which would have been the next morning, except there was no next morning yet, or calendar, or daylight-savings time, or time itself, or even a postal strike, which takes its own sweet time.  Let’s just say after the mess was cleaned-up we eventually had the atom, but they called it Egoyan because back then they were not yet on a first-name basis.  You know the chapters that came later: the molecule, the elements, the element’s handmaidens, aka the questionable substances on my dinner plate, the bar code and finally the property of unaffordability, which is relative, but not with my relatives, but maybe yours, and therefore it is not a constant, like “k”, but displays an inexorable shift to the poor end of the spectrum.

 
Now we have progressed to the digital age where the venerable pixel is rapidly escaping, nay pouring from the virtual universe into reality, whatever that is, and is hypnotizing every molecular assemblage that has managed to get a foot-hold on terra firma after scaling that wall that Trump insists he built, but his shoes were still clean and polished so I have my doubts, and now the pixels have taken the form of the venerable green Christmas tree, but not not a real green Christmas tree because that would be cruel, breaking up that mycelial network and all, especially so soon after discovering it, even though Trump says it’s a hoax.  So, the shoppers stand entranced, instead of shopping as their DNA commands them to do, and the Christmas tree looks like a plumb bob standing upside-down on its base and displaying a threatening hyper-ballistic configuration, yet that portent is masqueraded by friendly graphics with supercilious undertones that tell us all that pixels rule and will continue to rule long after you and I are dust.  A storm is brewing however that may even lead to pixel dust and the end of all meaning.

 
Other than that ... cool fake tree!  Thanks for sharing.  I hate to ask ... what did you buy?  Did you feel hypnotized by watching it?  Must be exhausting.  Get yourself a coffee ... it's on me.
97
Anything Goes / Tallest Indoor Christmas Tree in the World
« Last post by Charline on November 17, 2024, 10:35:39 AM »
Take a look at my 6-minute YouTube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azNr7NeZg3Y

The Christmas tree in Eaton Centre is said to be the tallest indoor one in the world.  When the towering  Christmas tree is decorated with over 333,000 LED lights and through 1 million channels of pixel mapping, it is even more spectacular and special. It symbolizes the start of the winter holiday shopping season in the downtown mall. There are three sets of the light show. I have filmed two and a half. How did I miss some? I was so drawn to the lights that I forgot to record some parts. The light show will continue daily during the holiday season.
98
Ontario Birds / Purple Sandpiper
« Last post by Shortsighted on November 16, 2024, 04:46:32 PM »
There were two Purple sandpipers among the other shorebirds:







Purple sandpiper into the sun


Dunlin head pop-up
99
Ontario Birds / November shorebirds
« Last post by Shortsighted on November 16, 2024, 04:40:20 PM »
A group of Sanderling and Dunlin on the algae-covered rocks.


Sanderling


Whatever it's probing for it will be cold


Dunlin into the sun


Dunlin


Dunlin in chunky profile




Dunlin siesta


Dunlin ... perky
100
Backyard Birding / Re: Pop goes the feeder
« Last post by Napper on November 15, 2024, 11:46:22 PM »
We have junco's at least 4 near the feeder this week.

One is smart enough to actually eat seed from the feeder.... black oil seed.
Being brief because internet is acting up.
Napper

3rd attempt