The Hummer Thread Vol.2!!!

[Sari ONeal]

Nice catch, Charles! I've never seen any kind of whale. They don't like being inland this far I guess it could be possible to find whale fossils

 

We had some neat clouds pass by with small storms last night, I'm waiting for my GoPro to recharge so I can download them and see what kind of goodies I have.

Also, we got woken up to a storm early this morning, and after it passed I went out to put the GoPro out again to catch the next one, which arrived with a beautiful roll cloud.

 

 

Here's the latest trail cam compilation, I'm all caught up on my backlog now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z48wVOkwxoA

 

Here's the one before that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwQ8brLFKkI

 

I also had someone buy a coyote clip for actual dollars, not pennies...... 😮

 

[Charles Lewis]

7 hours ago, Patrick Cooper said:

Wendy, a whale watching boat tour sounds really cool. Ive only seen whales from land myself. Some of them were closer than others. Once had a whale exhale really close to me and it sounded so loud. Oh gosh that really sucks for the person whose camera fell into the sea.

Charles, amazing photo! Yea that's the tricky thing about whales when they're submerged - it can be hard to know where and when they're going to surface. 

 

I don't know if they have whale watching in Australia but they certainly have it in New Zealand. I went out whale watching in Massachusetts which was very cool. The whale watching boats have an active cooperation with the biologists studying the whales so there is always a biologist on board who is very informative.

[Patrick Cooper]

Wendy, that also would have been awesome to have the whale swim under your boat.

That reminds me of a similar experience I had with great white sharks. There were 2 - 3 great whites feeding on a dead whale off Cape Jervis in SA waters (hard to say how many they really were since most of the time, they were underwater.) A lot of people came out in boats to see the action (including some members of my family.) I was there among them. One of these sharks was particularly large. It was huge - longer than our boat. And at one stage, it swam right underneath our boat. 

By the way, the sharks were really calm. Most of the time, they were cruising around. Only once, I saw one of them take some bites out of the whale. They had already been there for about three days so they weren't all that hungry anymore. 

[Sari ONeal]

Oh, our cute little storms from last night, and early this morning:

#2 was pretty neat, too bad it was after sunset, so it was hard to see much towards the end. Also, I only spotted it going by when I went to get the GoPro after storm #1 fizzled out. Had I seen it earlier, it would have been easier to see and catch.

 

[Sheila Fitzgerald]

We went whale watching when we were vacationing on the east coast too. Saw a lot of whales on that trip but I was so sea sick I didn’t get any photos. The whale watching trips we’ve taken here on the west coast, barely saw any. That was many years ago as I rarely do things on the water due to severe issues with motion sickness. OTC meds help a lot more with that now than they did in the past so either I’m less sensitive or the meds are better than they used to be. Great shot.

 

Love watching your wildlife and weather clips Sari. Makes me wish we had more space around us sometimes. But I’d probably go nuts too far from the city. I definitely like to be close to stores and such.

 

Did a bunch of gardening, transplanting a tree from pot to the ground and my tomato plants from the pots I started them in to the ground. They actually did well with the transplant and are starting to perk up (they were getting water logged in the pots as they weren’t draining properly). And now the dog has decided he’s going to start digging in the mud/dirt. He didn’t dig before I did this and the dirt was always there. So I had to take all my old stepping stones and lay them over the area to create a barrier so he doesn’t dig up the lemon guava or the tomato plants. Today I got out to Home Depot and got the supplies to fix the drip irrigation system, part of which got damaged when I was digging up to do the planting. The existing lines are so old and brittle. Hopefully this is as easy as it looks because I didn’t read up on it. Just looked at what is there and bought similar parts. Looks pretty straight forward (crossing fingers).

 

The credit card purgatory continues as well. There’s another speed bump in getting a new card to us so now it’ll be 5-7 days before it arrives. Don’t really realize how much one uses a card til you can’t. So no food delivery for at least a week as well since they only take contactless payments now. I had scammers and fraudsters. Makes life really a PITA for the rest of us.

[Patrick Cooper]

Sari, some very dramatic clouds in that video.

This is a video about a very interesting town in Australia - Coober Pedy. It's out in the desert and many people there live underground to escape the intense heat. There are even underground churches. It's surreal. Actually, most of the world's opals come from Coober Pedy.

 

[Sari ONeal]

Patrick I know I've seen that video or parts of it before, it's pretty neat. Better just not go walking out in the open land as you don't know when you fall in a deep hole 😮

Matmata in Tunisia has similar underground dwellings dating back a long time. It's hot there as well, so it makes sense.

 

Sheila - I didn't even know the roll cloud (that last one in the video) was coming; I just set up the GoPro to shoot the storm that was coming, and only after I got off the ladder and walked to the fence line did I see the edge of the cloud. It rolled in really fast, too, I walked in to tell my husband to check out the cloud through the window, then I went back out in the pasture to get a panorama with my phone - there was no time for a better camera, it would have taken too much time to set up. So I got a few shots with my phone, and then it was already on top of us. Mean looking thing, but really not much in it, there was a storm behind it, but not a bad one.

 

 

 

[Sheila Fitzgerald]

Yeah, it was definitely a dramatic effect. The clouds blow through here pretty quick too, but we get more of the puffy white ones and the off shore breeze blows through pretty much all the time, more so in the afternoons. I think I was temperarily blacklisted by the shelter after that last mom and litter we had because she started acting feral after about 3 days. When we took her back to the shelter, she was all sweet and affectionate again like she was when she first got here. the new vet and assistant decided I was not a good foster from the sounds of it. Until they sent the same cat without her kittens out for a foster to adopt and she started acting feral after a few days. Yay. LOL. I'm vindicated. I knew it wasn't anything we were doing. I've fostered many animals over the years. Anyway, we now have a lone kitten who came in terrified, hissing and biting. 24 hours later, he's just the most chill kitty who loves to be petted. We normally foster putting them in the kids bathroom because it's the size of a small bedroom and easy to clean, but since he's already 2 months old and needs intensive socialization, we put him in the kids computer room. Which was a pain the first 24 hours because he wouldn't use the litter box, but I put a tray of clay litter in there and now he's using it (the shelter uses these decomposing pellets). Anyway, he has an eye infection that's looking much better with the eye drops but the left eye is still slighly smaller than the right due to the swelling. Hopefully by tomorrow they'll be more symmetrical. I so don't need another kitten, but he sure has a lot of personality. I might have to see how the dog would interact with him....

 

Edited to add a photo now that it's up

 

 

[Wendy Townrow]

Sari well done on the coyote clip selling for actual dollars. Fabulous storm ... I dont see them rolling in here ...

Charles we have whale watching in Australia, that was what I was describing.

As for sharks, I had an experience on Fraser Island, we could see a school of fish in the white water, then sharks came into the white water ... they were in 18 inches of water ... then the dolphins came and the sharks left, then the dolphins left and the sharks came back. I dont know what sort of sharks, but I realised why they advised not to go swimming over there.  We travelled up round the headland and there were fishermen up to their waists in water fishing ... crazy people ...

Sheila, getting seasick is a bummer ... I get motion sickness in cars (and when I went sky diving ... once ... never again). Thankfully I dont get seasick. Sympathies on the CC mess, a good reason not just to have one card.
Glad to hear that you were vindicated on the Mama cat situation. That kitten is cute.

Patrick, Coober Pedy is on my bucket list, we were supposed to go there a couple of years ago, but Dad had a fall and we had to cut our trip short. I have been to a few other opal mining places and they all have their own personalities.
Sari ... I know in QLD the occupational health and safety regulations means that holes have to have safety hatches on top now. They had a few people fall in (as well as animals lol)

 

[Charles Lewis]

Three years ago we did an Alaska cruise. In Ketchikan we went salmon fishing. The local Orca decided to go salmon fishing too. We didn't catch any fish but we got some real close-ups of the Orca.

[Patrick Cooper]

Sari, it would take a crazy person to walk around the outskirts of Coober Pedy at night. Yep, one wrong step and they'll be down a deep hole. Yes good point about Tunisia. I saw a little bit of Tunisia on a travel program I watched on TV. They stated that that is where the first Star Wars movie was partly filmed which is no surprise. It looked so familiar.

Sheila, great kitten photo.

Wendy, I never knew the waters of Fraser Island were so "dramatic" for lack of a better word. I knew all about the dingoes on there. Looks like a great place for sanboarding (one of my hobbies.) Wow, you've been sky diving? That must have been an amazing experience. 

Charles, awesome orca image there. I saw orcas in a public aquarium in Vancouver. I waned to see them in the wild on a boat tour but I ran out of time. 

Apparently, there were some orcas that visited Penneshaw in Kangaroo Island, South Australia where I'm based but apparently, I missed them. I had no idea they were here until it made the news a short time after. Orca sightings over here are extremely rare and I'm not sure if they've ever been seen in Penneshaw before.

Though some other members of the dolphin family are very common here. Particularly the bottlenose dolphins. There's a local pod of bottlenose dolphins that hang around here. I took this photo of them from land.

[Patrick Cooper]

I just looked up flights from Adelaide to Coober Pedy and it's a lot more expensive than I thought. Around $600 for a return flight. Crazy. Considering that it's within the same state and only a 2 hour flight, I was expecting a lot less. According to a youtube video, it'a bout a six hour drive from Adelaide to Coober Pedy. I looked up coaches and with that particular mode of transport, the prices are a lot more reasonable but it's an 11 hour journey. I'm not sure if I could handle 11 hours on a coach! I have been on extremely long coach trips before in the past (going interstate) and it's enough to drive you crazy. 

[Patrick Cooper]

Debbie, as far as I know, none of us have ever met each other. We all live very far apart so there is that great distance to consider. I wonder if many SS contributors have met each other in person.

[Sari ONeal]

Deb, like Patrick said - nope. He and Wendy are Down Under, and Sheila is in California, which might as well be Down Under from me as it's some 1400 miles from here.

 

Patrick - 6hr drive is just a tiny little road trip, if you don't have animals that you have to take care of twice a day, just go for it! Road trips are always fun!

[Patrick Cooper]

Sari, certainly tempting! I might make it a family trip in that case. 

[Sheila Fitzgerald]

Yeah, Wendy and I have talked on skype a few years back, but none of us have actually met IRL. I have met Jeff IRL when he was living in the bay area. He helped me tremendously in learning studio lighting and improving my skills significantly with some photoshop tips. And I've met a few others in Southern California not on this thread as a general rule and one in Oregon. We just tend more towards a coffee shop format in our conversations and we all get on very well over all.

 

I have to give the kitten eye drops three times/day and after this morning, about 10 min later I brought him his food and there was this object sticking out of the lower section of his left eye. I thought he had a small piece of dried grass or something in there and when I got ahold of it and pulled, it just kept coming. This is what came out. YIKES was my first thought and checked his eye for trauma but it seems it was stuck behind the eye in the muscle like my contact was for me. I can't believe he had something so big in there. He definitely looks more comfortable now that it's out too.

 

And my son gave him a name. So he's now Casey.

 

[Sari ONeal]

Wow, Sheila, indeed that was probably the reason for his eye trouble, poor baby!

I think your son is telling you that you need another family member

 

[Sheila Fitzgerald]

LOL. My husband did come in there and roll his eyes as he made a comment on becoming the crazy cat person household. I would need to see how the other animals respond to him before I make a decision but it appears we may have him until around August 9th as a foster since he's scheduled to be neutered on the 10th, so there's time to decide. And our older cat Jasmine (the tortie) seems to be missing. We haven't seen her in at least 24 hours and it may be closer to 48. The kids usually take care of her feeding needs and she sleeps with my daughter so I don't pay as much attention to her activities but yesterday they asked me if I'd seen her as they haven't. HOpefully nothing bad has happened to her. She does invite herself in at some of the neighbors so I'll have to go ask around today to see if anyone has seen her.

[Wendy Townrow]

Patrick love the dolphins  ... as for Coober Pedy. Airfairs have gone up horrendously in the last 6 months because of the dreaded virus  and travel resrictions. I would definitely think about a road trip for 2 reasons. You have your own transport when you get there and are not held down by a tour itinerary, and the second reason is that you can stop and look at things on the road trip itself. Book accommodation there and you are good to go. Imagine staying in an underground B&B!
I am not a big fan of coach trips as i always feel cramped.

Debbie as Sheila says, we spoke via Skype ages ago, but we mostly interact here, because many of us have been on this thread for years we "know" each other quite well. I think of it as the office water cooler. Where we all take a break and have chit-chat. In fact a few of us were on the thread that this one replaced when SS broke the old one lol. Some of us are regulars (forum junkies lol) and others come and go ...

Oh Sheila the poor baby ... I am glad it came out. I hope Jasmine turns up. It is always a concern when the furbabies go missing. It sounds like your son wants the baby! I know where the other names came from, where does the name "Casey" come from? lol on hubby rolling his eyes!

[Sheila Fitzgerald]

Wendy, my dtr told me Jasmine made an appearance late last night demanding dinner, so apparently she's just being scarce. Probably smells the new kitty. And my son says he's actually ok with just fostering and letting him go and be adopted by someone else. We'll see how he feels in a week. The kitty took over his chair this morning. And yes, he definitely seems to be feeling better (the kitten). The inner sclera around the inner area of his eye has been enlarged and swollen. It's getting smaller and looking more like the right eye.

[Wendy Townrow]

Glad to hear Jasmine is still around and ok .... you will have to let is know how your son feels about the kitten next week ...

[Patrick Cooper]

Sheila, amazing that thing came out of the kitten's eye. That reminds me of the time that my father was holding a goanna (monitor lizard) with a grass seed in it's eye. This was on the farm on Kangaroo Island. The goanna was a fair size (close to a meter or thereabouts) but it's eye was tiny compared to the grass seed. The grass seed was very thick and was pretty much covering the entire eye. Not a nice sight. I pulled it out and then shortly after, my father set the goanna free. 

Wendy, thanks for the good words on the dolphins photo. Dolphins are so hard to photograph. Even harder from a boat, I find. Though amazing to watch and to be around. Sometimes they swim quite close to the rocks. 

Oh yea I was suspecting that it may have been the Coronavirus that was pushing up the airfare dramatically. I actually haven't looked at any airfares for quite a while. Regardless of what mode of transport I take to Coober Pedy, I definitely wouldn't be part of any itinerary while I'm there. I like my freedom! Though yea good point about stopping on the way with a car trip. I must confess though that even at my age, I actually don't have a driver's license. So I'd have to convince other family members to tag along if I did want to go by car. 

And another thing - I think I would prefer to go to Cooby Pedy after I get hold of an rc quadcopter that can be used to record decent quality aerial video. Some time back, I was using a cheap action camera strapped to an MJX Bugs 3 Pro GPS quadcopter. That's what I used in Bali to record some aerial clips. Though a few months go, I had charged up the battery and only had this quad up in the air for about 1 - 2 minutes when it seemed to lose power and dropped out of the sky from a fair height. Not sure if I could trust it again.

[Jeffrey B. Banke]

Patrick, can't you get new batteries for the drone? I did for mine, now have 4?

[Patrick Cooper]

8 minutes ago, Jeffrey B. Banke said:

Patrick, can't you get new batteries for the drone? I did for mine, now have 4?

Jeff, I probably could. Though these are proprietary batteries -unique and specially designed for this particular drone. And thus - probably expensive. Though regardless, the battery was fully charged. So the drone likely has a fault of some kind. Maybe an electronic problem but who knows. If it's dropped out of the sky once, chances are it could do so again. 

By the way, I saw another whale today. This one had it's fin in the air and was bring it down hard on the water and splashing around. Ive never seen a whale so active before in real life. I got some more shots with the 600mm mirror lens. It was really hard to manually focus at one point (when it was really active.) Though I think I managed to get better focus later on when it had calmed down a bit. 

[Jeffrey B. Banke]

Yea PAtrick most of the batteries are proprietary, mine are, but I managed to pick some up before they got too scarce since the company went out of the business.

 

Hey cool on the Whale and the 600mm shots!

My biggest lens is the 400mm f2.8, and if I put the 1.4 or 2x extenders on it, I just am not satisfied with the results, so have to content myself with either getting closer or cropping the 36Mp down to something smaller.