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Space Shuttle Endeavour – The Final Flight

Today, those of us in the Los Angeles and San Francisco area were treated a spectacular final display (or parade if you will) of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. It took off from Edwards AFB in Palmdale bound for the Bay Area where it toured around the Golden Gate Bridge and the Silicon Valley before heading back to Southern California.

Endeavour Space Shuttle
Endeavour Space Shuttle

It approached Los Angeles from Malibu, flying over the Getty Center, Santa Monica, Venice Beach heading east past the Hollywood sign, over Griffith Park and onward to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena where it made a massive arcing turn and headed south toward Orange County. It did fly by’s over Disneyland, Boeing in Seal Beach, over Huntington Beach and back toward LA where it came to the end of its final flight at LAX.

Endeavour Space Shuttle
Endeavour Space Shuttle

It will soon be moved to the California Science Center in Downtown Los Angeles where it will be put on display (vertically) for everyone to enjoy.

 

Posted by on September 21, 2012 in Photography Adventures

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Arctic Loon and Gyrfalcon in California?

Spent the past couple weekends chasing some decent rarities in California. An Arctic Loon near San Simeon State Beach, which is the 2nd Arctic Loon I’ve seen in California – but I was able to get some absolutely stunning photos of him!

Arctic Loon
Arctic Loon

Less than a week later, a Gyrfalcon showed up in Riverside County. Marking one of the farthest south records ever for the species. The last Gyrfalcon I saw was in Alaska and the last one in the Lower 48 was in Idaho!

Gyrfalcon
Gyrfalcon

 

Posted by on February 3, 2012 in Photography Adventures

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Black-tailed Gull in Long Beach now??!

Late this morning, Robert Hamilton discovered a Black-tailed Gull at Alamitos Bay near Long Beach, CA. The bird is resident in East Asia, including China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea. It is a rare vagrant to Alaska and northeastern North America and an even more uncommon visitor to California. This marks only the second or third record in the state of California.


Black-tailed Gull
Black-tailed Gull

I am keeping up to date records and photographs of the Black-tailed Gull again, here:
http://www.kiwifoto.com/rba/btgu.html

Some other goodies showed up while photographing the Black-tailed Gull.

Red Knot
Red Knot

Heermann's Gull
Heermann’s Gull

 

Posted by on November 8, 2010 in Photography Adventures

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Breaking News: IVORY GULL in CALIFORNIA!

Ivory Gull

You heard right. On November 4th, Mike Stensvold found and photographed an IVORY GULL. To give you an idea of the magnitude of such a claim:

Range map of Ivory Gull
Range map of Ivory Gull

The reason for the delay in letting everyone know? He wasn’t sure what the bird was. He’s a beginning birder that loves photographing them and had sent the photo’s off to more knowledgeable friends to help ID the bird. No one got back to him until today! That’s when I got ahold of the images and assured him it was an Ivory Gull and let everyone know about it. Poor guy, he feels terrible about not getting the word out sooner but he didn’t want to get chastised like the last time he thought he had a rare bird and was unsure of the ID!

More stunning photos from Mike:


Ivory Gull

Ivory Gull

Ivory Gull

I’ve also setup a website here documenting all correspondence and field observations of the IVORY GULL as results trickle in. Good luck to all those that go looking for the bird tomorrow and this weekend. I will be there bright and early tomorrow!

 

Posted by on November 5, 2010 in Photography Adventures

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IBM launches iPhone app to monitor California creeks!

IBM has just released a pretty neat iPhone app to help monitor water conditions and levels of California creeks. Creek Watch is completely free and allows anyone to report their photos and observations based on GPS coordinates.

IBM designed the app to make it as easy as possible for local residents and visitors to contribute productively to the management of the state’s ecosystem, and to do so without any expert knowledge.

“Creek Watch lets the average citizen contribute to the health of their water supply — without PhDs, chemistry kits and a lot of time. Harnessing the crowdsourced data movement for a cause people care about is a win-win-win for citizens, local water boards, and IBM’s desire to solve big data challenges.”

I often find myself photographing in the field along creek beds around Southern California so I will certainly by contributing to this great effort.

 

Posted by on November 4, 2010 in Photography Adventures

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