I worked in Morgan, Vermont for many years. I would often take my break time, at or around 12 noon, and photograph the skies over Seymour Lake. They were always different, yet seldom clear. These are some of them in an iPhone Memory video. The lake is about 10 miles south of the Canadian border.
Seymour Lake, Morgan, Vermont Noon Thursday, April 27, 2023
I think I have made it through winter. There have been many misadventures and much bad weather. My car lost its brakes twice, I had to be pulled out of a ditch that I went into when pulling off the road during a whiteout. The new furnace is wonderful but the times we live in require $1,000 fuel deliveries. I don't know how I got through it all. But I am optimistic: there probably won't be anymore snow. I am even going to try scheduling my summer tires very soon (the first of May is traditionally when we all switch off our winter tires).
There have been very few signs of spring at my house. There are unidentified small birds flitting about. Lucy says she has heard owls hooting in the woods. I have heard what I call the summer song of the chickadees and seen crows moving back to the woods from the village, where they like to overwinter. My apple orchard still has not bloomed, but it's probably still too early. The pussywillows, below, finally appeared April 18. Jody has photographed a queen bumble searching for a nesting place. I have started going back to church in person, and Jody and I even went to a restaurant for breakfast like the pre-COVID days. We ate outside. But we were out.
Pussywillow in full bloom on April 18.
Today at Seymour Lake in Morgan, I saw the season's first loons! A pair of them. From the top photo of the lake you can see how dark it was at noon when I saw them. So my photos are simply awful but they do document that I saw the birds. They are devilishly hard birds to photograph because they dive so deep and swim so far underwater.
I'm tired of reading, bread making, movies and TV. I need life! This is the first day that I have had anything worthwhile to post since February vacation (back when I wasn't tired of making bread). I hope all of you are enjoying a spring full of life, bird song, and insect buzzes.
This was the view at the Morgan Store Wednesday morning when I stopped for breakfast. The lake still isn't frozen because of the warm winter, so heavy mists rise each morning. Wednesday was a half-day of school and we are now on winter break.
We have a large flock of Bohemian waxwings at school (conservation rating: uncommon). We enjoy watching them; they are bright, lively, and raucous. This week we had one day of perfect blue skies, so I sat in the car under them, freezing, and zoomed in close for shots. The shots actually were not any better than on the awful overcast days I shot them … except for one serendipitous capture.
During summer in Alaska and western Canada, scattered Bohemian Waxwings may be seen perching on spruce tops and flying out to catch insects in mid-air. In winter these same birds become sociable nomads, with large flocks wandering the northwest in search of berries. Sometimes they stray as far east as New England, but in most areas their numbers are quite variable from year to year (the name 'Bohemian' reflects their unconventional and seemingly carefree lifestyle). However, in some cities in the prairie provinces of Canada, Bohemians can be found by the thousands every winter, no doubt lured by the plantings of mountain-ash and other fruiting trees.
I'm in northern New England.
By the way: it's a snow day today! Huge snow here!
The interior of the house was glowing pink, so Lucy and I went outside to relax after an awful day at school. It was the kind of day when you ask yourself why you are doing this job. Within five minutes, the sky changed so quickly that it was breathtaking. It was so centering that it healed me. But then, Lucy checked the porcupine that is living under the barn and all hell broke out. She never attacks animals, but she does vigorously warn me with an alarming bark and sometimes, like tonight, with her hackles up. I knew what she was excited about, so I praised her vigilance and told her it was fine. I wish I had gotten a photo of her happy face while she told me about the intruder. The porky this year is simply huge. It's so huge I'm surprised it can even walk.
45 seconds later
To the left: the flume of May Pond Brook
To the right, seeing Lowell Range through the trees
Stick season is what we call the time from now until … whenever. Some say until snow. Some say all winter. But it has begun in earnest. All I know is that I am grieving the loss of summer. The furnace is ready. The studded tires are on the car. Food and supplies are put in.
Tilia cordata Little-leaf basswood Small-leaved linden Lime tree
Jody's daughter was doing a project on trees and spent some time in my woods finding different ashes, beech, and striped maple. She also wanted linden, but I only knew of one at the animal shelter in Orleans. But this linden is not native. It does, however, bring to mind all of the lime trees in the British novels that I love.
There is also a storm coming in, which justifies this for Skywatch Friday. 😉
Over New Haven, Connecticut Sunday night, September 25, 2022
That is, basically, what my daughter, Anna, saw over New Haven Harbor as she stood on the second floor porch of her house on Long Island Sound. I made a GIF of the extremely short video because it hurt my eyes and the GIF does not (I don't know why). Anna's iPhone could not handle the data from the sky well. We quickly learned that this was a SpaceX Starlink satellite train. Each satellite has a life of only 1-5 years. A SpaceX rocket had taken off in Florida that day and was deploying dozens of Internet satellites 500 km over the earth. Humorously, just before I found this information, Anna derisively mentioned it was probably some Elon Musk "thing" that she saw. And so it was. The trains have been seen, and videoed, all over the world, but we had not heard of it until Anna showed us.
The video below is the most interesting and informative one that I found about Starlink, but it was produced in 2019, so it is out of date. However, the astrophotographer clearly explains this controversial project.
14:55
The video below is more technical (2019, also). When I watch information like this, I learn what I am able to understand and ponder the rest for the future. I admit that I love the mathematics involved. Be sure to tell your children and grandchildren that they will be set for life if they become mathematicians. 😉
15:36
I have not been able to learn if the individual satellites, like the ones Anna saw, are physically tethered to each other when in orbit or at launch.
One and a half hours later, Anna sent us three videos of storms that came in off of the Sound. She was hoping to get a lightning video, but that didn't happen. I merged the three to one, below.
00:00:15
Perhaps some will enjoy and appreciate a GIF of our favorite astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, which one child of mine used to express her understanding of Starlink:
It was a beautiful, cold day on Thursday. All of the rain was swept away by these bright clouds that flowed over us all day. The cemetery is not at the peak of the hill so you cannot see the Green Mountains on the other side. That sight will be for another day. Summer is truly over now; you can feel autumn everywhere.
There has been heavy fog in the mornings this week because of cold nights and warm waters. Willoughby Lake is six miles from my house, and I drive by twice a day on school days. This morning, the fog was lifting by the time I got to the lake, but it was so heavy at my house I felt like I should stay home.
Mountains:
Haystack Mountain: the smallest peak on the left, the little lump.
Mt. Pisgah: the one on the left next to the lake. The mountain between them? I can't remember it's name!
Mr. Hor is on the right of the lake but is invisible.
The mountains and lake form Willoughby Gap and can be seen from many areas of the state for miles around. For me, it's like a beacon home.
This is the village of Morgan looking towards the east. Morgan Church is on the left, the store and post office — where I frequently get my breakfast — is in the middle, and the ambulance corps (for the eastern part of the county) is on the right. My school is so close that we often take walks to the store with the kids for some air and movement. Seymour Lake is between the store and the mountains. The clouds came in yesterday and blew out the heat with rain and wind. It never got to 60°F (15.5°C) today. Tomorrow will be perfect weather.
I think these are cirrus clouds. Perhaps somebody can confirm that. It was taken at sunset on August 10, 2022, and were coming from the southeast. "Red sky at night, sailor's delight" was absolutely true. In fact, until today, it has been perfect weather. Thursday was a big disappointment because of the weather: it was my last free day of summer vacation. Today I'm back in school. 😢
Last Friday, I said I was going to learn about cloudspotting (that's what they call the process of identifying clouds). By Monday, I decided to quit. It's hard! There are no people, like at iNaturalist or Bugguide, to confirm your photo IDs and give advice.
However, Lucy and I were sitting out late Wednesday afternoon and lovely clouds were slowly moving overhead. I decided to try time-lapse on my iPhone; and I loved the result!
I sent the video to Adobe Creative Cloud, which is free. (I think it is free. I have not seen any subscription charges at my bank. Sometimes these subscriptions seem to slither into my life without me knowing.)
I signed into Adobe and then created a new project by clicking the big purply-blue + button at the top left. Then I chose "Convert to GIF" under the video choices. I uploaded my video, chose "medium" size (the default size), and landscape (because the video was landscape), downloaded it, and here we have it! By the way, I have made one other GIF of Lucy and Nell and it was simply awful because I chose large. It is my shame on Twitter.
After that success, I had the patience to try to identify the clouds. They are Cumulus humilis. I think. They match the description and the photos that I have linked here.
I'm now motivated to try again for next week. Learning happens in frustrating fits and starts. It's a good lesson for me to remember when my own students return to school late this month.
During my research for this, I learned that you can join the community science project Cloudspotting on Mars and identify Martian clouds from photos from the rovers.
I have decided that I will be studying clouds for Skywatch. I have wanted to point up and say, "Oh! See that ---- cloud?" I can basically do that for the three that we all learn in school but there are thousands of clouds that can tell you what is going on around you. That's what I want to learn. I have found a site, What's This Cloud?, that I will use. (They have a free ebook of clouds here.) Of all the clouds that I photographed this week, this one tickled my fancy the most: high cirrus clouds that went over on August 3rd, two days ago. Cirrus clouds are high and made of ice. I hadn't remembered the ice part.
Cirrus, Cirrus fibratus, and other species, I am sure.
“If a circle forms ‘round the moon,‘Twill rain soon.”
The circle that forms around the sun or moon is called a halo. Halos are formed by the light from the sun or moon refracting (bending) as they pass through the ice crystals that form high-level cirrus and cirrostratus clouds. These clouds do not produce rain or snow, but they often precede an advancing low pressure system which may bring bad weather.
“Trace in the sky the painter’s brush, The winds around you soon will rush."
The “painter’s brush” are cirrus clouds. These are high-level ice clouds that often precede the approach of a storm system.
“Mares’ tails and mackerel scales Make lofty ships carry low sails.”
Mares’ tails are cirrus clouds, called this because they sometimes resemble the flowing tail of a horse in the wind. Mackerel scales are altocumulus clouds. They appear broken and scaly. Neither of these cloud types will bring rain or snow themselves. They do, however, precede an approaching storm front by a day or two.
“Trace in the sky the painter’s brush, The winds around you soon will rush."
The “painter’s brush” are cirrus clouds. These are high-level ice clouds that often precede the approach of a storm system.
Sure enough, today, one and a half days after I saw those clouds, it is raining.
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