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Making a last cruise along the Blue Ridge Parkway after a day of shooting at Doughton Park last Saturday, the plan was to find a suitable composition for sunset photography. There was a problem, however. Smoke from the raging wildfires out west has become evident here in the east. An overwhelming pall had affected the sky, as well as the nose. So, photography shifted to highlight that.
I saw these ladies in tow along a fence as I drove by. It might have made a great image, though they huddled up when I approached for a vantage point, perhaps seeing me as a threat. Likely, the pervading smoke already had them on edge… they looked like linebackers protecting the quarterback. The “linebacker” closest to me gave every indication that she was going to rush me. I do have experience with cattle. An Angus cow once charged me as I was helping to load her onto a trailer. Gravity didn’t seem nearly as clingy in that moment as I managed to jump well clear of her, dropping a bag of silage in the process. That half-ton plus lump of bovine muscle went from seething killer maniac to ‘Let’s just enjoy a little snack break’ in an instant. In this moment, the fence between me and miss linebacker appeared as of little consequences, yet she eased up when I spoke gently to her as I managed a few shots of them. Their somewhat comical expressions are obvious here, but so is the smokey haze. This orange hue in the sky was as good as sunset was going be. Prayers up for those in harm’s way out west. Evidence this far away can only portend how bad it truly is.
These ladies are likely young Black Baldy cattle, a crossbred beef cattle obtained by crossing Hereford cattle with a solid black breed, typically Aberdeen Angus. They are a bit bigger than Angus, though they forage as well as Angus. That’s good, as you can see the ‘gridiron’ here is a bit on the rough side. They watched as we got back in the car, then ran alongside us until we accelerated past them. Rough field or not, they made hay of it… ha! I made a cow joke.
A rare for Montreal UP SD60M which has had the UP wings added to its nose (UP 2392, ex-UP 6237) is leading two NS Dash9's (NS 8978 & NS 8992) on CN 529 as it awaits its signal to enter Taschereau Yard with just 23 cars in tow.
Hiking up a little elevation on the Appalachian Trail in the North Georgia mountains, and I mean a little, compared to so much of the AT in Georgia
ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) looks more like a very small telescope in this image! From this perspective, it is difficult to make out the silhouettes of the VLT’s four 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes, which sit atop Cerro Paranal in the Chilean Atacama Desert.
More information: www.eso.org/public/images/potw1713a/
Credit:
ESO/B. Tafreshi (twanight.org)
I happened to look up and thought what a great sky I just had to try to capture it.
I've given the raw file a boost in Topaz clarity to get it close to what I saw.
A soybean load out of Minnesota left UP rails a few miles back in downtown Omaha and is now on the BNSF Omaha Sub starting a trip to Hastings, NE via Lincoln, NE to return to home rails.
Union Pacific's Sinclair local rolls into its namesake town on a sunny, albeit cold, morning in February 2015. Power for the local was provided by SD40Ns 1823 and 1865, former UP CA8 25561 can be seen in the background on display at Sinclair's 'railroad' park.
UP 1823 ~ LDA01 ~ Sinclair, Wyoming
Union Pacific's Laramie Subdivision
02.24.2015
After the lead motor crapping out on this train, CP decided to let this UP lead long hood forward, with what are "portable ditchlights". Definitely one of the weirder trains I've seen along this line.
Purple Gallinule ~ Florida Wetlands
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Purple_Gallinule
www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Purple_Gallinule/id
(click more comments to see 8-shot series)
Member of the Nature’s Spirit
Good Stewards of Nature
Industrial grime at its best! A JS locomotive loads up with coal in the western (active) part of the open pit at Sandaoling. Xinjiang Province, China.
Whether it was just the wind and rain overnight or perhaps spring is coming the Mill Lake Bald Eagle pair are getting the old nest cleaned up.