Do you like your sunny-side ups with or without birds? Both are on our menu today.

When I took my photos of the Sun moving along the horizon toward the equinox, and showed them to you in a recent post, I also snapped a lot of 'shortly before,' shots. This post consists of the best of those pictures. (And a couple of during and one shortly after shot.) 

Not much talk with this post, maybe a few comments.  Just enjoy some beautiful moments in time.     

I can't quite decide if we're looking at the sky or the sea in this one.  Does anyone see a boat out there? 

I wish you all could have seen this one in person. This is just a section of the spectacle that filled the  eastern sky.  It lasted only a couple of minutes, then it was just a grey sky. 

I think this one could be a postcard. 

A very ordinary looking morning, but look closer....

I like to play with some of the pictures, just to see how they look.  Case in point.....

That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed them.    -djf

Which way do you lean? Arachnophobe or Arachnophile?

I don't know what you think of spiders, although I suppose that a few of you are actually shuddering as you read this from the very mention of the creature, right?  Well, this post is about just a few of them that I've recently met here in New Zealand. 

What I'm going to show you are only pictures, okay?  No videos. No need to panic and do something crazy....like clicking out of my post.   

These spiders have been rather hard for me to find.  I did some reading about them and found that many are nocturnal. Since I'm not, that simply means that we have working different shifts and have therefore not run into each other.  

Recently, I felt the need to correct that.  While walking through Henderson Park, I came across a long fence in a shadowy area that was covered with webs. I started 'surfing', if I can call it that, the fence-wide web and I eventually discovered a few spiders, hiding under sections of that web.  I politely poked a couple of the webs with a little stick and the spiders got up out of bed to glare at me for a while.

Here are some shots of the stream I was following to the spider's fence. 

 

It's nice in here. Out of the hot sun, with a cooling breeze.  

February here is like August back home in Michigan. It can get hot.

It's the fence-wide web! There is some sun, it's true, but the trees will provide on-and-off shade all day long here. It must stay fairly cool and the webs themselves act like umbrellas at the beach.  

 

I think the jury is still out and deliberating about whether or not spiders are my friends. I  think their 'twelve good spiders and true' are having a hard time deciding if I'm worth being friends with.  After all, I come along and wake them up, poke at them with sticks, and subject all those eyes to bright flashes of light. Would you want to be friends with someone who did that to you?     

I don't know if you are thinking of these spiders as Arachne (Greek myth), Shelob (LOTR), Aragog (Harry Potter), Charlotte (Charlotte's Web),  or Itsy-bitsy (nursery rhyme), all names of spiders that I've run across, but that's up to you. I rather like the story of Arachne myself. She was a world-class weaver who turned out to be a little too good....

 

Spiders, whether you like them or not, were the world's first 3-d printers.  You have to be impressed with that.

So, there you have it.  Did you make it through without a panic attack?  I was careful to start you off with these very modest-sized specimens so as not to stress you too badly.  I'm told that there are some that live under porches here that are as big as my hand.  I'll give you fair warning if I photograph any of them. 

Truth be told though, I'm 70 now and I don't bend very well.  I doubt that I'll find myself under any porches.  Of course, if they hear about that stick incident today on the web from their little cousin on the fence, maybe some of those big ones will come looking for me. I'm glad at least that they're non-venomous.    -djf

  

Moving toward equinox

Recently, I noticed a brilliant sunrise was in progress.  I grabbed my camera and recorded the picture just below. It was taken on 3/07/22.  Jeanne reminded me that the equinox was coming up and I thought that it might be fun to follow the change in each day's sunrise point until then.  

Each morning thereafter, I checked out the horizon, hoping for more amazing colors as the sun appeared.  I got some beauties.  

This is a record then, of where the sun rose each day. You'll notice that some days are missing. That's because the cloud cover was so heavy that I couldn't get a picture. 

This was taken on March 9th.

 

Taken on March 12th

Taken on March 13th. Not very exact, but you can see that it has moved since yesterday. 

Taken on March 14th. 

Taken on March 15th

March 16th

March 17th

March 18th

(No visible sunrises for a few days.)

March 22nd.  Up until today, I was shooting all my pictures to the right of the palm in the middle of the picture. Today, as you can see, the sun is coming up well to the left of that palm. The next couple of shots give you a closer look at this sunrise.   

Here comes the sun on the first day after equinox that I could see it.  

 Thirty seconds after the picture above.  I like this one.

And I like this one, a close-up of the preceding photo, even better.  I looks as though the sun is in the middle of the clouds, not behind them.  

That's it for this series of photos.  I've had a good time each morning between sips of coffee. I hope that you enjoyed seeing them.  

I'm writing this on Friday, March 25, and haven't taken any decent sunrise photos since the one above.  

I got some pre-dawn shots of Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, all in one part of the sky yesterday, but by the time dawn arrived, heavy clouds and drizzle prevented any further clicking.  

The shots of the planets really pleased me, but that's the subject of another, albeit brief, post.  

Take care.   -djf

UPDATE:

I might as well show you a couple more since I have them. I took them this morning, Saturday, 3/26/22.  

High tide, low tide

I am one of the most fortunate of grandparents ever, in my opinion. For several years, when they were young, I walked our grandsons to and from school every day.  It was their primary school and each morning and/or afternoon, Jeanne and I shared the pleasure of accompanying the boys to and from Summerland.  

One day, it occurred to me that the school was inhaling in the morning and exhaling the students and caregivers in the afternoon. There were easily as many grandparents as there were parents walking the kids to school each day, and I reveled in the joy of being part of the process.   

I was reminded of this form of 'respiration' that I saw at the school recently when I walked along the Opanuku Stream.   

We, at Waitakere Gardens, are located less than two miles from the bay that leads into the Pacific Ocean. Our stream is in a constant, and rhythmic 'respiration' of sorts of its own, as the tides rise and fall along part of its length, culminating at the bridge near our village.  

I have come to recognize that the stream is never static. It is always rising and falling, much like our own chests do as we breathe or like the school does with its daily influx and outflow of families.  

I like being able to feel the earth and moon communicate, if you can call it that. The force that they follow and that rules the universe is visible daily in my little stream.  While I can't feel them directly, I know how real they are by observing their effect. Further, I have seen evidence that the birds are even more aware than I am of this power.  

Let me show you what I see when I walk.

This is a bit of the Opanuku at low tide.  

This picture was taken from roughly the same point at high tide. 

That's a sleeping duck which has floated at least 80 yards downstream since I've been watching and taking pictures. Who knows where it'll be when it wakes up? 

Low again,

and high tide at the same spot.  

This tiny rapids is just downriver from the previous pictures' location.

This upcoming video was shot at approximately the same location, but the tide is quickly covering these rocks and is causing the stream to appear to be running 'uphill.' 

Just after you start this video, let me suggest that you stop it for a moment.  Right about in the center of the picture, you'll see two bits of rock sticking out of the water. They are small, just a few inches across and a leaf floats first by the smaller, and then floats up to the larger.   

You'll notice that by the time I pan back with my camera and show them again near the end of this 1-minute video, that the smaller of the two rock 'islands' is gone, already covered by the incoming tide. 

Notice too, all the fish that are swimming around in the incoming waters. The water is hard to see into I know. The lighting isn't ideal and the surface of the water looks dirty. It's actually a heavy layer of pollen. If you keep watching however, you'll see that the water is teeming with fish.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSLcozb6wac

Here is a picture of the Oratia Stream, which passes within about 100 yards from the Opanuku at one point. (That's why they're called the Twin Streams.) 

The stream normally flows from the left to the right. What I'd like you to notice though is that there is a large semi-circle of debris and pollen accumulated on the down-stream side of a fallen tree that is hung-up in the water. That's because of course, the tide is making the stream run upstream right now.  

Here is a photo from the same place at low tide.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I felt the birdlife along the stream was even more attuned to its power than I was.  This is why I said that.  

One my way back from taking some of these pictures, I was walking across the bridge over the Opanuku.  I heard a bunch of ducks making a racket down below.  

As you can see, they are grouped together and were very animated.  Normally, the ducks seem to stay together in pairs and certainly don't make a racket. 

The water is nearing the top of the rock shelf on the upper left of the picture.  That means the tide is coming in.  I think the ducks were excited about that and saying so. Mallards do eat small fish, although vegetation is their preferred food.  

These folks know it's time for the small fish to come in as well.   I see them here a lot.  I don't know if they are catching these small fry for bait or for consumption.  A frying pan full of small fish makes every bit as good a meal as a pan full of one big one.  They use a very fine net that is about 20 inches square and supported by four strings.  They lay it on the bottom and then rapidly pick it up to trap the fish.  

I took the two pictures just above this one before I went into the grocery store to buy a few items.  By the time I came back to the bridge, maybe 15 minutes later, and took the picture below, the rising tide had completely covered the rock ledge, visible in the first picture.  I took a wider angled picture this time to show the ledge was completely submerged. 

The ducks at this point in time were all under the bridge, but still making a ruckus, maybe arguing about who would go first through the seafood buffet line.    

I said that I was fortunate earlier and it's true.  I've had a meaningful retirement, and it continues. I see our grandsons growing and I continually learn about the natural world, a-la-New Zealand as I observe it. I have even been able to watch how the planets and stars cycle during the year.  I could claim that the whole universe seems to be 'breathing,' but that would be just too corny, so I won't.  

 But I haven't yet seen everything there is to see, so I will keep watching...     -djf

p.s. 

One more photo.  I went back across the bridge a little later.  Look how high the tide got!