Trip to the lake

The idea was good, the execution and reality not quite what I expected. I invited my photo buddy Ken out to the lake to shoot some bird pics. He has a fancy new mirrorless Nikon Z9 that can do everything but brew cappuccino and wanted to put a few more miles on it. 

Not a camera I could ever afford and probably nothing I need but very wonderful with lots of new technology packed into its sleek black chassis.

The day was cloudy and a bit chilly. Not optimal for the light lens I brought, last time I had the heavy 400mm 2.8, much sharper and better in low light.

I took the tiller the first time out. The bass boat moved too quickly on the water to get a decent focus with my old technology so I just enjoyed playing host to my friend.

Not a lot of birds around, nothing like the last time I had circumnavigated the lake. Red winged blackbirds, mallards, coots, vultures and a few blue herons, not much else.

There were lots of beautiful grebes about, a bird whose looks have always intrigued me. Many swallows of multiple types but much too fast to capture adequately on a gray day. Very nimble and elusive creatures.

Heck, what do I care? It was a really nice day to be out in nature, digging the unspoiled beauty. Not a problem to be happy and content on a fine, if monochromatic day.

We switched positions, Ken steered the boat and we made another pass around the lake. I was all set to call it a day and a good try when I spotted the lovely raptor high in the oak tree about a hundred yards away.

Now I did not get a perfect shot, I think Ken did. But perfection isn't really the aim at this point, at least with the gear I had at hand.

This was plenty good at 500 iso. My shutter speed was high because I figured he was going to fly and I wanted to be ready.

Always a thrill to shoot an eagle, I get such a rush.

We snapped a bunch of shots, both very happy for our score. 

Ken managed to get a great one with the bird's mouth open that caught me off guard. 

Of course his camera takes fifteen shots a second and it is a little easier to nail the intervals that way.

Poor me.

We got our fill and then went to see if we could shoot the herons that the buzzards had run off on our last lap.

They were not to be seen. We decided to go back to our eagle and see if we could catch him feeding but he was gone when we returned to his previous roost.

All raptors have nictitating eye membranes to protect their eyes from dust. This is a third eyelid which they can see through.Yesterday I shot this picture of a bald eagle in North County. Their membranes are evidently much less opaque than other raptors I have encountered, almost fully transparent.

I always feel blessed and privileged when I take a picture of an eagle, really can't explain it.

We packed up and went to our other secret spot to see what we could find.

We headed back to the eagle's nest, the clouds finally starting to break a little bit.

Both eaglets were in the nest but one was hiding, we only saw its wing for a second. We sat and watched for about ten minutes. In the flash of an eye, the adult male flew in with a meal, which we could not catch. It happened so fast. But we did get some of the aftermath.

This adult is not tagged so it is the father.

Quite probably the same male we saw by the lake.

What a great day!

Decent shots with the equipment at hand and a lot of amazing visual memories that I will have forever.

I'll take it. Happy Mother's day! And to you too mom, in case you are listening somewhere out there in eternity.

Couldn't have made it without you.

Irony meter pegged

“We can’t be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want.” - Clarence Thomas, yesterday 

“Let’s bully Congress into giving us just the outcomes we want.” - Ginni Thomas, January 6, 2021 

Ginni Thomas to Mark Meadows: “Do not concede. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.”

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From Above the law:

Law Professor Explains That Supreme Court Opinion Won't Be That Bad... Mugged By Reality 2 Hours Later

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Bomb Mexico?

You Don't Love Me Baby

birdy, birdy...

 

Arthur Alexander

Setting the bar...

 

Now here's a headline. 

Ever wonder what it might take to win a Republican primary election? 

Consider one Andrew Wilhoite.

The incarcerated candidate is advancing in his Indiana district. And has admitted to killing his wife by hitting her on the head with a flower pot and then throwing her in the river. A woman who, by the way, had just completed chemotherapy for her cancer.

An Indiana man accused of murdering his cancer-stricken wife won a township board primary election while in jail for the brutal slaying.

Andrew Wilhoite — who was charged in March with murdering 41-year-old Elizabeth “Nikki” Wilhoite, allegedly using a concrete flower pot — is one of three Republicans who secured a spot Tuesday in November’s election for the Clinton Township Board, the Indianapolis Star reported.

Wilhoite, 40, of Lebanon, has been in custody at the Boone County Jail since he told investigators he threw the flower pot at his wife’s head and dumped her body over the side of a bridge. He’s next due in court on May 27, according to the newspaper.

Court documents obtained by WTHR show investigators found traces of blood in the couple’s home after Nikki Wilhoite failed to show up to work at a Zionsville oral surgeon’s office.

Andrew Wilhoite told cops his wife had filed for divorce and that they had been arguing about his extramarital affair, claiming he had slept on the couch and didn’t see her when leaving for work, WTHR reported.

But Wilhoite later changed his version of events, ultimately admitting to cops that he hit his wife on the head with a flower pot and then drove her body in his pickup truck to a Boone County bridge where he dumped it, court documents show.

A friend of Nikki Wilhoite said she had just finished her final chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, WTHR reported.

Dude still received sixty votes. No Democrats are running for the seat.  And it is apparently legal for him to run, even from the slammer. You wonder what a person would have to do to be truly disqualifying to the GOP? Evidently murder is not enough.

Wonder if he has any national aspirations? Might have a real future in the party...

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Samuel Alito and Sir Matthew Hale

One More Cup of Coffee

Another hawkish morning...

 

Red tailed hawks in the nest and then a couple mature birds that hang out in the big tree near Latimer's old place.

And I couldn't resist one or two more eagle shots from yesterday. And by the way, Ken got some shots today and talked to an expert that told him that the white headed bird that has been tagged is indeed the adult mother.

Arthur Lee and Love

Aquiline Family Time

So as I think I said, I had great plans for yesterday but realized at the final second that I had nothing left in the tank. So I went home. And on the way home I stopped at the nest and got a shot or two of my feathered friends with a slight silhouette in afternoon light.

I sold a few paintings yesterday and a couple of things this morning. After my appointment I decided to look for a bald eagle's nest that I had heard about. Don't ask where, please, it's a secret. I went for a hike in a beautiful place and then set off to find my quarry.

I espied a bald eagle in the high eyrie with another one coming in for a landing.

My spies told me that there were two eagle chicks but that one had already fledged and left the nest. I quickly sighted the male on a limb of a far off tree. at least I think it was a male, could be the mother I guess.

Eagles make me very happy, not quite sure why but I don't see enough of them to get jaded. 

Anyway, I did not bring my really good lens, I brought my light lens because I was tired and it would have to do.

You get an idea it is an eagle but not much else. Of course, any kind of shot is better than nothing. 

Anyway I watched the nest for a while but my vantage was not very good and a large branch was always blocking one of the birds.

I watched the two eagle progeny play together,

And then I got lucky. 

Said father eagle decided to fly down and join his new youngsters in the nest.

Dad (or mom) is here!

Call me old fashioned but I have always been a big fan of family time.

As I think you can tell, I really enjoy shooting these guys. Next time I will bring the correct lens and try to do it properly.

Ciao.

Dead Kennedys

Hawkwind

 

After a hectic two weeks, my plan was to go hiking and shoot some bird photographs yesterday afternoon.

But when I got behind the wheel to drive an hour north I realized that I had nothing left in my tank and that I would be better served by going home and getting a little rest, maybe even an afternoon nap.

I didn't get a nap but I did chill a bit. And I managed to shoot a couple low light pictures of the mother red tailed and her two chicks this morning on the way in.

The babies are definitely getting bigger. Due to my work schedule I have been sort of remiss this year. Hope to get some better shots very soon.

Doonesbury

 

Say what?

“Rape is a difficult issue and it emotionally scars the individual, all or in part, for the rest of their life ― just as child abuse does. But if a baby is created, it is a human life and whether that mother ends that pregnancy or not the scars will not go away, period,” said Schmidt.

“It is a shame that it happens, but there’s an opportunity for that woman – no matter how young or old she is ― to make a determination about what she’s going to do to help that life be a productive human being. … That child can grow up and be something magnificent, a wonderful family person, cure cancer, etc.,” she continued. “This is not about keeping abortion alive, this is about keeping the mother alive, and just because you have emotional scars doesn’t give you the right to take a life.”

Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt

Defcon 1

The Democrats have few tools at their disposal with the demise of Roe hanging so starkly in the air. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer wants to bring legislation to the floor to codify existing laws but it doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell with West Virginia DINO Joe Manchin so recently voting against a similar bill.

There is always going back to the old way, majority rule, but both Manchin and Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema have dug their heels in against repealing the filibuster.

Sinema and Manchin voted against an effort by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democratic colleagues in January to weaken the Senate’s filibuster rule to allow voting rights legislation to pass.  

But this is all old news. What I would find funny if it was not so contemptible was the platinum airhead's logic for not repealing; Sinema implied in her statement the Senate’s filibuster rule is important to protecting the rights of women to make their own health decisions, including the right to an abortion.  

“Protections in the Senate safeguarding against the erosion of women’s access to health care have been used half-a-dozen times in the past ten years, and are more important now than ever,” she said.  

Hey Lady. I've got news for you. This is the big enchilada. All the cows are out of the barn. After this there is nothing left to protect. If you don't step up now it is over. It is Defcon 1. Are you really this stupid or are you just pretending? You think your big pharma cronies will get sore and cut off the money supply if you do the right thing for once?

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And please tell me, in what way does Joe Manchin resemble a Democrat in the slightest? He is a whore for the energy lobby, a coal baron, anti environment, anti build back better, anti labor, anti pretty much everything the party has ever stood for. How would you like to share a foxhole with this guy, who takes such pleasure in delivering kidney punches to his supposed fellow dems?

Harvest Moon

Listening in?

I was talking to a friend in Alaska on our cell phones yesterday about Peruvian food, I had just gone to Panca in Oceanside Sunday night. 

When he got home and turned on his computer he was suddenly bombarded with advertisements for Peruvian food.

He was put out as I would be. Are there people listening in to our private communications and straining them for keywords?

This happened once before to me, I was talking to a friend about railroad ties and the same thing happened. Immediate barrage of ads. Very specific topics, beyond coincidence.

How does this occur? Are ATT, Verizon and the other providers listening in to all of our phone conversations? If so, is it legal?

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On another privacy front, a company called SafeGraph is selling the data and locations of people who visit abortion clinics. That does not sound like it will end well.

SafeGraph’s Patterns data aims to answer questions like “how often people visit, how long they stay, where they came from, where else they go, and more,” according to SafeGraph’s website. SafeGraph calculates where it believes visitors to a location live to the census block level. SafeGraph does this by analyzing where a phone is commonly located overnight, the company’s documentation suggests.

Tracking visitors to abortion clinics has long been a staple in showing the threat posed by location data. In a 2018 investigation, The New York Times took location data and followed multiple people inside it, and unmasked some of those. One of the people followed visited a Planned Parenthood facility, according to the report.

Recently, a Christian-focused outlet The Pillar published a piece that used location data to track the movements of a specific priest and then outed him publicly as potentially gay without his consent.

Susan Collins is shocked!

Your winnings, madam.

Murder In My Heart For The Judge

Strange Bedfellows

With all the terrible news about the curtailing of reproductive rights, I would be remiss not to report a small ray of hope in the national tea leaves.

Congress voted recently to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and to block Russian oil imports. But look who joined forces to block the bill:

The U.S. Congress on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and reinforce a ban on Russian oil imports, following weeks of back-and-forth negotiations over the specifics.

Senators, in a pair of rare 100-0 votes, agreed to send both measures to the U.S. House, where lawmakers voted 420-3 to suspend normal trade with Russia, a move that will place the country, which is waging war against Ukraine, in the same ranks as North Korea and Cuba.  Three Republicans voted no: Matt Gaetz of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

The House then voted 413-9 to enshrine a ban on Russian oil imports into law. The Republicans voting against the ban were Gaetz, Greene and Massie, as well as Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Dan Bishop of North Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas. They were joined by Democrats Cori Bush of Missouri and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

Anytime you have wackjobs on the right Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie joining forces with the lunatics on the left Cori Bush and Ilhan Omar I would say you have at least started to define an acceptable center, the place where I like to think I live.

An interesting earlier post on a similar topic at the Bulwark, Who's soft on Russia?

Iron fist wears a velvet glove

"Our law affords constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing and education. … Our cases recognize 'the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.' … Our precedents 'have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.' … These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.

"These considerations begin our analysis of the woman's interest in terminating her pregnancy but cannot end it, for this reason: though the abortion decision may originate within the zone of conscience and belief, it is more than a philosophic exercise. Abortion is a unique act. It is an act fraught with consequences for others: for the woman who must live with the implications of her decision; for the persons who perform and assist in the procedure; for the spouse, family, and society which must confront the knowledge that these procedures exist, procedures some deem nothing short of an act of violence against innocent human life; and, depending on one's beliefs, for the life or potential life that is aborted. Though abortion is conduct, it does not follow that the State is entitled to proscribe it in all instances. That is because the liberty of the woman is at stake in a sense unique to the human condition and so unique to the law. The mother who carries a child to full term is subject to anxieties, to physical constraints, to pain that only she must bear. That these sacrifices have from the beginning of the human race been endured by woman with a pride that ennobles her in the eyes of others and gives to the infant a bond of love cannot alone be grounds for the State to insist she make the sacrifice. Her suffering is too intimate and personal for the State to insist, without more, upon its own vision of the woman's role, however dominant that vision has been in the course of our history and our culture. The destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her spiritual imperatives and her place in society."

Sandra Day O'Connor, David Souter and Anthony Kennedy 505 U.S. 833
1992

And finally, wonder what is coming next? From Constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe again:

Jefferson Airplane

Tearing down the walls 'tween church and state

The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 today that Boston violated the First Amendment when it allowed some private groups to fly flags outside City Hall while denying the same right to a religious organization.

Do you think they would extend the same privileges to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or, for the sake of argument, a Satanic church that worships Lucifer or a Temple of Baal? 

Or buddhists or frisbeetarians? 

Not a chance. Read Cavanaugh v. Bartelt, if there is no court sanctioned deity, no dice. 

The Court finds that FSMism is not a "religion" within the meaning of the relevant federal statutes and constitutional jurisprudence. It is, rather, a parody, intended to advance an argument about science, the evolution of life, and the place of religion in public education. Those are important issues, and FSMism contains a serious argument—but that does not mean that the trappings of the satire used to make that argument are entitled to protection as a "religion." Nor, the Court finds, has Cavanaugh sufficiently alleged how the exercise of his "religion" has been substantially burdened. The Court will grant the defendants' motion to dismiss. 

This is about the official state approved religions, endorsing the creed of the Christian majority and no one else need apply. In other news, bye bye, Roe V. Wade.

Palmyra Delran

All things must pass

If you like my bird photography and want to see more of it, remember to join one of my NextDoor Sites, birds or raptors (or both.) You don't actually have to live next door to join up.

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Speaking of next door, we have two new neighbors who are making our life hell at the moment, a woman ex cop from Lompoc whose large dogs bark all day and all night and a guy in a red truck who dusted me out in my own driveway and tried to run a neighbor off the road.

When you live on a dangerous dirt road in the country you need to be extra courteous and drive slowly, don't care what they do back in Arkansas. And you would think that the people that move in would have more consideration for the people that like me, have been there for three decades or more. But no. 

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It is with sadness that I report that longtime Fallbrook physician Daniel Manring has passed away after a very short illness. 

Dr. Manring was a wonderful man and a very good doctor. He helped a lot of people in Fallbrook, especially its senior citizens. 

He was a very smart person and a renaissance man of sorts. I believe that he played the trumpet. My friend Dr. Clements told me that Dan was a very good diagnostician.

I saw him walking by my shop the day before I left for San Francisco. Leslie and I wish his family all of our condolences.
 

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Jeff and Gena sent this picture down from their cabin in Alaska. 

It is warming up and they were watching the ice break up and float past them. They said the geese paid them no attention.

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I was talking to the boys at coffee and I mentioned something that they took issue with. An opinion I had. 

That while people may not be any more stupid (or stupider as some would say) they are certainly more ignorant today, at least in the matter of decorative arts.

A case in point: I had at least four people ask me what French cameo glass was this weekend?

If you don't know, it is the turn of the century art glass that you see a glimpse of on the top shelf, above the Harrison Mcintosh pots.

Galle, Daum, Legras, Loetz, Lalique, the beautiful glass has been prized by collectors for a hundred years. No more.

Now people stare at it with zero comprehension. Fallen off the map. Old or young, knowledge of art and antiques is at its absolute nadir. I could have told them that I made the stuff in my back yard and they would just nod their heads in affirmation.

I saw the wave starting about fifteen years ago, the great knowledgeable collectors were in their seventies and there was reason to be scared. There was no curiosity or backup whatsoever in the next generation or two.

And my worst nightmares have unfortunately come true. The modernists preach austere, monastic environments and anything that existed pre jetsons is thrown into time's forgotten dustbin. Clutter is taboo and institutional knowledge of art and decoration has been effectively denuded. Nouveau and deco have been summarily expurgated by the new vanguard of modern primitivists.

We are stuck with the most crass and venal present imaginable, civilization has had a big stripper in a martini glass tattooed on its collective arm and I have a feeling that things can only get worse.

My friend Bob has the most beautiful antiques imaginable, the shelves of Tiffany mixed metal and Amphora received nary a glance at the show in Del Mar this weekend. Ditto the art glass.

As the late, great dealer Gary Breitweiser once whispered to me, like Cassandra, over twenty years ago,"Wise up, Sommers, the days of the connoisseur are soon dead."

Unfortunately, Gary was right.

Violet green swallow

Greasy Heart

Leslie at Salk Institute

 

Roy Gaines

Del Mar recap

The Del Mar show has been pretty good, nothing like last time but there is still a day left and anything could happen. I bought two really great paintings at the show, at least I admire them very much. 

The first is this Dana Bartlett (1882-1957) still life. Only had time to snap a cell phone shot.

From the Fleischer Museum:

Dana Bartlett studied at the Art Students League in New York under William M. Chase and with Charles Warren Eaton. The first decade of his career was spent as a designer and commercial artist--first in Portland, Oregon for Foster and Kleiser and then in San Francisco. From the latter city he moved to Los Angeles in 1915 intending to become a landscape painter. His first exhibit in 1916 included oil paintings, watercolors and pastels as well as black and white monotypes, which he heightened with a slight tint of watercolor.

Antony Anderson, then art critic for the Los Angeles Times, found his nocturnal landscapes (for Bartlett was intrigued by the moods of nature) among his best works. Until 1930 Bartlett was a frequent exhibitor with the California Art Club and the Painters and Sculptors exhibitions. His decorative Southern California landscapes, complete with eucalyptus trees and purple mountains painted in pale pastels are almost the epitome of "Eucalyptus School" paintings.

In 1924 he traveled to Europe with the intention of making a special study of how Titian, Turner and Monticelli applied their color. Upon his return he experimented with the use of Venetian tempera as an underpainting. What resulted were a number of imaginative landscapes and still lifes painted in a high decorative fashion with brilliant, jewel-like transparent glowing colors, which are unique product in Southern California.

Bartlett opened up an art gallery in 1928 and eventually taught at Chouinard. He, like me, was once a sign painter and he gets extra points for that.

I really like this artist and have not had one of his canvasses in years. He nailed this one, the hard line on the vase and brindled background gives the floral subject so much pop and energy! Such a lovely painting for a dining or living room. It exudes class. I have to believe that it is one of the paintings with the venetian tempera underpainting with this incredibly luminous vase.

The second painting is dark in both value and theme. It is a painting by Claude Buck (1890-1974). It is signed and dated 1918.

From the Smithsonian:

Claude Buck started to paint when he was very young and at the age of eight applied to be a copyist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum rejected him because of his age, but Buck kept asking and three years later was finally granted permission to copy the old master paintings. He was the youngest artist ever to study at the National Academy of Design, where he spent eight years creating works inspired by romantic literature. In 1917, Buck founded the Introspectives, a group of four painters who created surreal images and believed that ​“the poetry of a picture means more … than the imitation or even the representation of nature” (Eldredge, ​“Claude Buck and the Introspectives,” The Shape of the Past, 1981).

From AskArt:

A leading member of the avant-garde Symbolism* artists movement in Chicago, Claude Buck moved there from his birth place of New York City in 1919.  He was known for his "fantastic, sometimes disturbing images with allegorical and literary themes" (Kennedy 97) drawn from writings of Edgar Allen Poe, operas by Richard Wagner, classical mythology and "New Testament" writings from the Bible.  Some of these early paintings had nude figures rendered in Classical* style to express abstract themes developed through dream-like landscapes and disregard of relative scale or relatedness between the figures.  These paintings had Luminist* elements achieved with light-toned paints worked with transparent glazes.

In the 1920s to earn money by gaining public favor and also expressing his increasing disdain for modernism, Buck did a number of hyperrealist* portraits, figures and still lifes.  These proved popular and aligned him with the opponents of abstraction and their Society for Sanity in Art* movement whose headquarters were in Chicago.

Buck taught drawing and painting at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art from 1921 to 1926, and at the Art Institute, where he took over classes of George Bellows.

In New York City before coming to Chicago, Buck had a reputation as a radical artist.  He took his first art training from his father, William R. Buck, from the time he was ages three to fourteen, and then until he was twenty-two, he studied at the National Academy of Design* where he was nicknamed "Kid Hassam" because his painting reminded viewers of that of Claude Hassam.  Buck worked as a scene painter in the theatre and at the Willet Stained Glass company, and in 1914 began portrait commissions to earn money.

In New York, he founded a group named the Introspectives, which reflected his own problems with melancholy during that period.  Members, holding their first exhibition at the Whitney Studio in 1917, were artists who expressed their personal feelings and experiences and included Raymond Jonson and Emil Armin. In this phase of his career, Buck was focused on Old World styles of Leonardo da Vinci, Ralph Blakelock and Albert Pinkham Ryder.  In 1929, the Arts Council of New York voted him one of the top one-hundred painters in the United States.

In 1949, Buck and his wife, Leslie, moved to California to a studio-home in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and ten years later they settled in Santa Barbara where he died on August 4, 1974.  In California, he was a member of the Carmel Art Association*, the Santa Cruz Art League* that he served as President in 1953, and the Santa Barbara Art Association.

I call this 14 x 11" oil on board Death's welcome. I recognize that this sort of subject matter is not for everybody but as both a deadhead and cancer survivor it resonates with me.

I have looked at quite a few of his allegorical works and to me, this is by far the most powerful I have ever seen and somewhat reminiscent of K. Kollwitz's later work. 

I really like this painting. Might not hang around very long.

Santa Barbara Antique Show

 

Coming up soon!