Rain on the Horizon

Had to interrupt "Color Week" for this photo of Thursday's sunrise. The little areas of rain along the horizon were pretty cool.

Full Moon Fever

Alright, whether this is the Corn Moon (the name of the September Full Moon) or the Harvest Moon (which is the Full Moon closest to the Autumnal Equinox), it was lovely. It will be quite full tomorrow night as well so you may be seeing the Harvest/Corn Moon again later this week ;)

The clouds were pretty, too

Another Sunrise

Tough to be Silver

A Silver Man takes a break along the Riverwalk ...

Independence Day Re-Cap

Wild Weather

I didn't think just setting the camera on the table and putting the shutter speed at 30 seconds would really get anything.

I hoped.

Apparently Mother Nature wasn't camera shy on Thursday night.

Here's what the storm looked like as it rolled in over Navy Pier.

High Bridge

Finally figured out that this bridge, part of the Chicago Skyway, is called High Bridge. What an original name.

Never Get Tired of This

I never get tired of the sunrises. They are just all so very different.

August 25, 2010

August 30, 2010

September 3, 2010

(Uh-Oh! This one has an "autumn" look to it)

Lunch Partner

Another chance to quote Carl Sandburg:

Bee Song

--------------------------------------

Bees in the late summer sun

Drone their song

Of yellow moons

Trimming black velvet,

Droning, droning a

sleepysong.

So this little bee kept nibbling on my fruit plate. He wouldn't go away and swatting at him didn't seem like a good idea -- I was afraid he'd get mad and sting me. So I spared a small piece of watermelon and put it a few feet away. That distracted him sufficiently for me to enjoy my fruit plate as well as pull out the macro lens and take pictures of him eating a summer lunch.

Summer (Traffic) in the City

Two reasons why I prefer walking to driving in general and definitely during the summer in Chicago.

When Whales Fly

And then, in the middle of the Wednesday night storm, a spouting whale went flying across the sky. Of course, no one else saw it -- everyone was in their basements because the air raid (storm warning) sirens were going off in the Loop.

OK so maybe it does take a bit of imagination to see the whale.

Sunset Competition

So after I commented about the sunsets and clouds on the east side of Lake Michigan, I guess Mother Nature was trying to show me that she could produce some interesting sunsets and cloud formations on the west side of Lake Michigan, too. This sunset and storm cloud was brought to you by yet another strong winded, sky-streaking lightning, cats-and-dogs raining storm that knocked down trees, flooded suburbs and generally created havoc in the Chicagoland area.

Life is Good

I guess life is good if you are a bug and you land on someone's hat and you get your picture taken instead of getting swatted. Bugs, like wildflowers, are not my area of expertise. No clue what this is -- only that I think it is an interesting looking insect.

What's Blooming: Plan B

I was going to post the last sunrise of summer (Autumn arrives at 4:18pm CDT today) but Chicago has a really thick fog near the lake so Plan B is a late summer flower collage.

At the top is a not-yet-ready to fall apart dandelion. So few seem to have all their feathery seeds left (the birds have been eating them as they come through). At the bottom are some bright purple and cheery yellow wildflowers from the Magic Hedge area. I think I need to purchase a wildflower identification book. I'd really like to know what I'm photographing.

Trees To Infinity

I was going to call this post "Tunnel of Trees", but this stretch of trees doesn't come close to rivaling a beautiful stretch of road in Northern Michigan known by that name. And it did kind of look like the trees continued in these straight rows out to infinity. The shadow patterns on the ground also caught my attention.

Whatcha Got?

I can't say it's the official birdwatching greeting, but you do get asked "Whatcha Got?" occasionally if you're standing in a park looking at something through binoculars. Usually by someone else with binoculars. (People wearing uniforms and badges tend to say "Miss, what exactly are you doing with those binoculars?")

It seems the Fall Bird Migration has begun to get active in the Chicago area. I was at the Magic Hedge (by Montrose Beach) and happened to turn around to see this sight.
Not wanting to miss anything, I walked back and looked in the general direction as everyone else. There were a lot of warblers flitting about in a tree. Sitting at the very top (a rather dangerous location given that two Cooper's Hawks were in the area looking for a snack) was the immature bay breasted warbler, shown below. It doesn't have its full adult colors, like it will in the spring. In fact, most of the birds going through now won't look like they did in the Spring. That's what makes it challenging.

Eamus Catuli

Was able to go to a Cubs Game last week, which gave me the opportunity to document the current year in "Cubs Time":

AC0063100

• The AC stands for Anno Catuli, which is Latin (loosely) for Cubs Year. (Oh, and Eamus Catuli loosely is translated to Let's Go Cubs.)
  

• The numbers are updated at the end of the baseball season so these figures are as of the end of the 2008 season.

• The first two digits (00) are the number of years since the Cubs won their division. So "00" means they won last year. So far so good.

• The next two digits (63) are the number of years since the Cubs won the National League. So "63" means they last won the National League in 1945.
  

• The last three digits (and, yes, they had to ADD a digit last year), represent the number of years since the Cubs won the World Series. Gee, has it really been 100 years? Somewhere, Steve Goodman is still watching and singing The Dying Cubs' Fan's Last Request.

It was a Crosstown Classic (Cubs vs. White Sox) make-up game from an earlier rain-out. It was a beautiful day but, as a Cubs fan, not such a beautiful outcome (Cubs got trounced).

But Cubs fans are kind of a special breed (hey, we're still fans and they haven't won in 100 years). This is the shirt that the guy in front of me was wearing.

Foggy Morning Fisherman

We've been having a lot of foggy lakefront mornings lately. This fisherman is heading home in the morning fog along the pier at Montrose Harbor.

Up Up and Away

There's a new "ride" at Navy Pier. In addition to the Ferris Wheel, Carousel, various dinner cruise boats, and some spinning swing thing, there is now a balloon ride. It seems to just go as far as its tether will let it, which is fairly high (maybe 30 stories up).

What's in Season?

Leave it those Nichols guys to get all artistic with the way they stack the sweet corn at the Green City Market. One of the guys said that it was supposed to entice people over to their stand. When I told him that I felt guilty buying the corn since it ruined up the design, he said he was going to go mess up the stack. I certainly didn't feel guilty buying the corn after getting it home and seeing the beautiful gold and white kernals (this is bi-color corn). And it's very sweet!