Tell us what pictures you have taken recently (that are interesting)

[Skipper]

Matt, I have to admit I clicked on this thread and saw your pics and for a brief second I thought, “wow, Matt’s graphics card is insane.” I thought this was from MSFS 2020.

But for real, Costa Rica looks gorgeous. How are the beaches?

[Matt_W]

The beaches are nice. The whole Nicoya (Pacific peninsula) coast is just beach cove after beach cove. Dozens and dozens of beaches. We stayed at a pretty remote resort in Islita, but just 20km up the road was Samara, which is a cute beach town with a nice long beach fronted (directly on the sand) with charming little restaurants and bars. But, you know, a beach is a beach and I live in San Diego.

The landscape is gorgeous though, with dramatic, lush mountains and a daily parade of amazing clouds. It’s a really easy country to visit. Driving is easy. Airbnb works great. Many people speak English. Their national parks are well curated. And it is and feels safe… And I could eat gallo pinto and fried plantains every day and be happy.

Here’s an unusual view. Just behind me is the famous waterfall on Rio Celeste, a dramatic waterfall that is often a brilliant sky blue color due to a chemical reaction with the sediment dissolved in it. (It’s brown now because it’s the rainy season.) I thought the bespoke railings for the stairs coming down to the platform made a nice contrast with the jungle vegetation.

Here’s the waterfall, just for completeness. (It’s just a waterfall, nothing special.)

[Nesrie]

So these are not the best pics and a little blurry despite the camera usage, not the phone, partially due to the actual smoke in the air.

So the brief story is last year I had robins. The mom was super nervous around me going in and out of the house about once or twice a day, a little more often on swim days and constantly fled the test and hung out on the fence watching me.

This year I have mom, the smoker who like all members in my family who tell me they don’t smoke “that” much but still means she’s going in and out of the house 10 -12 times a day. The robins did show up this year, either mom again or one or two of the babies, I swear there were two different birds, but they can’t handle mom being out there. It’s just too much, please if she kept flying away like that she might as well advertise to ever bird of prey in the area where her nests were. I thought, well that’s that, my smoker who swears she is barely that, chased away my birds.

Then this pair showed up, and it is a pair. I believe their doves, they look like it and sound like it, and neither of them is too terrified of our presence. Since mom makes the area gross of smoke all the time, i don’t hang out there much so I didn’t see the baby when it was tiny but baby is pretty noticeable now.

Also at least 1-3 robins are still around the house, in the front getting breakfast and they use the bird bath put up. I’ve kind of verified there are not any roaming cats in the area, so I didn’t really fight the bird bath, and one really plump robing just has a heyday in it. It flies away though any time I come out.

Also come fall, I need to clean under there. It’s pretty obvious eew once I took the shot.

[BennyProfane]

Yeah, that’s a mourning dove. Makes a kind of mournful “whoop wooo” sound.

[Nesrie]

I hear that sound all the time, even before the nest. I guess now I also know they will just move in on someone else’s nest too.

[Thrag]

If you take a picture of the Salesforce tower from just the right spot off Land’s End the dome of Temple Emanu-El really complements its profile.

[Cormac]

Well, despite ongoing covid concerns, I’ve hired a camper and headed up to Norway for a roadtrip. It’s been awesome, though rather worrying that masks are only a thing in the big cities. Otherwise it’s been amazing to be travelling again!

Here are some quick snaps - I’ll post some more after the trip.

[Cormac]

• gotta confess that the sword pic obviously did go through a filter ;)

[Kadath]

Two recent shots that make me happy.

[Alistair]

Is the second one where the hunters sit?

[Kadath]

Lol no. Top one was at Sandy Hook NJ and the deer there are half honey badgers cause they don’t give a f about anything. I was literally 10 feet away and they didn’t spook. Bottom one was at my nieces thanksgiving day football game where she was cheering

[Courteous_D]

The deer here are similarly relaxed. This guy was taking a break by my front path the other day:

Not a great photo (took it through a window; he was only a couple yards away), but that kind of proximity was unheard of when I was a kid.

[Kadath]

Nice rack!

[Skipper]

@Courteous_D

The deer here are similarly relaxed.

My father, an avid deer hunter when he was younger, got all “give more than you get” in his old days.

He took to feeding the deer in the semi-country house he and my mom lived in during the last 15 years of their life. Many would come right outside the bathroom window and porch and bed down for the evening. I’m sure that wasn’t a good idea for him to feed them that way (it was some sort of actual deer feed and a mineral lick as well.) But it made an old man happy to sit and look out at a small herd of deer a few times a week. He’s also have to update us on all of the individuals in the herd each time he talked to us.

This picture and your comment made me smile thinking about that. Great shot!

I should mention, that looks like either a mule deer or VERY large whitetail. Where do you live? The more I look at it the more I think just a large whitetail. The face colorings and rack seem to be that way anyway.

[Courteous_D]

That’s a whitetail (I’m in southern Indiana), and he does indeed look healthy. The biggest I’ve seen in my yard was a buck who came through a few years ago sniffing after some does. Super heavy around the shoulders, and an enormous set of antlers. I wish I’d had a camera with me. He was on a mission, though, and didn’t wait around for me to fetch one.

@Skipper

But it made an old man happy to sit and look out at a small herd of deer a few times a week. He’s also have to update us on all of the individuals in the herd each time he talked to us.

Yeah, I can see myself going that direction too. They really are beautiful creatures, and fun to watch.

[Skipper]

Yeah they are fun to watch. Fawns are adorable, too. The only drawback to having them close to the house like that was that they can be pretty dangerous to household pets. Deer are not defenseless and will kick and bite the crap out of a dog if things don’t go well.

It was back then I learned there is actual feed you can buy for deer. Minerals and salts are also needed in their diet and usually lacking, so a lick is a good way to get them returning to an area. I kind of miss getting to see the ones outside of my folks old place.

Forgot to mention I forgot what time of year it is. That deer (and maybe the prior one you saw) is in rut. They swell up from extra hormones during mating season and tend to look like gym bros. Like, “brah, I’m gonna pump out another set once you get done taking my pic.”

[Courteous_D]

Yeah, the giant from a few years ago was definitely swole. I tried to count the points and lost track at ~12. He probably has offspring for miles.

I have does and fawns passing through all year around, but I don’t see too many full-grown bucks in my yard except around this time, when they’re all out on the pull. What are they doing the rest of the year? Bowling? Playing cards?

All things considered, they’re cool to have around. I remember going out for a walk one night. It was just past dusk, and drizzling. I came across a deer about 10 or 15 yards away from me, munching at some foliage, backlit by a streetlight further up the road. I paused to look, and after a minute or two it stopped eating, straightened up, and gave an almost imperceptible shake. The rain on its coat came off in a sudden, shimmering halo of mist as the streetlight caught it. It was an extraordinary sight—completely silent, and almost otherworldly. I wish I’d had a camera with me then, too.

[Romalar]

I was testing a new camera and lenses over the holidays (and relearning some photo processing software.)

Mostly I saw (and snapped) geese on a walk a week ago, but there have been some cranes. This one decided he owned these backyards by some birdfeeders people placed next to a wetlands park.

After it snowed, I really wanted to try out a zoom lens despite the poorer light. Didn’t have a lot of time as more snow and sunset came on, so I only got a couple of good shots of woodpeckers.

On the same day, this lake nearby had several people icefishing but it was too far off for a very good shot. The ducks were actively diving for whatever food was left, though.

[Thrag]

This picture of the shavings stacking up on my smoothing plane ended up looking kinda artsy so it goes here.

[Thrag]

Went on a small hike around sunset. The sun’s last rays of the sun were peeking through a mountain pass under a ceiling of clouds.

Which projected on to the bottom of the clouds to the east.