by Justin
Seattle has tons of mouthwatering food just waiting to be tasted! I went to Pike Place Market and it was amazing. The best thing about it was all of the fish lying around. Yum! One stall had a rubber monk fish rigged up to …
Did you know that I went on a 1 night cruise for my 10th birthday last month? The ship’s name was the Ruby Princess. We traveled from Vancouver to Seattle. The Ruby Princess was more like a huge floating deluxe hotel than a boat. It had …
Hawk Watch was super cool. I went to this awesome place two times. Hawk Watch is a program run by falconers and scientists to help preserve the Ramona Grasslands and benefit the education of the public about hawks. During our visits we saw five flight demonstrations and fourteen birds of prey. The birds that I saw were: 2 Peregrine Falcons, 3 Gyrfalcons, 1 Kestrel, 3 Red-tailed Hawks, 1 Harris’s Hawk, 2 Screech Owls, 1 Barn Owl, and 1 Great-Horned Owl.
There are four morphs of Red-tailed Hawks (normal/light morph, dark morph, juvenile, and the elusive white morph; only one white morph Red-tailed Hawk has ever been seen). A confusing thing about Red-tailed Hawk morphs is that the juvenile Red-Tailed Hawks don’t even have red tails! Red-Tailed Hawks get their signature red tail after one year of age, if they make it that long (it is a major achievement if they are able to survive their first year, which is why falconers usually capture juvenile Red-Tailed Hawks to help them make it through their first year and then re-release them into the wild).
The Kestrel is the smallest falcon in America (the Bornean Falconet is just lighter than the Kestrel, but the Bornean Falconet eats Cole Tits that are the same size as them).
The Barn Owl isn’t a true owl like the Great-Horned Owl and the Western Screech Owl.
The Harris’s Hawk is the only Parabuteo (or hawk that hunts in packs) in the world.
The Gyrfalcon is the largest falcon in the world. There are three morphs of Gyrfalcon. Brown morph and white morph are in my photos below, although there is also a grey morph that wasn’t at Hawk Watch.
Speaking of Gyrfalcons, during the flight demonstration part of Hawk Watch we got to see a Gyrfalcon grab a pigeon wing off of a string hanging from a drone. Other flight demonstrations that we saw were performed using a Harris’s Hawk (Huxley) or a Peregrine Falcon (Poncho).
Hawk Watch was amazing (this post is dedicated to the falconers and scientists who put together Hawk Watch)! I had lots of fun photographing the hawks and please feel free to enjoy my pictures.
The beautiful mountains of Alpine are home to a very fun activity. Recently, we went to Sky Falconry (click here to learn more) and met Denise and Kirk, two falconers who know a ton about birds. During my visit I got to take their female Harris’s …
The Doge’s Palace is an impressive historic building with a humongous set of brick and marble walls. It is located in St. Mark’s Square next to the Basilica San Marco. The Great Hall has intricate multi-colored mosaic ceilings and shiny gold accents. Many of the paintings …
Verona is a beautiful city not far out of Venice. We got there on the Frecciarossa; a bright red high speed train.
When we got there it started raining, so we hopped on a road train and took a tour of the city, starting and ending at the Arena of Verona (built in the 1st century, which makes it about two thousand years old).
During our visit we went into the Duomo, a beautiful church with two huge organs.
We also went to the Castelvecchio, a huge 14th century fortress with 7 towers and a huge bridge, with large walls, crossing over the river.
Even though my pasta at the place I had lunch was way too cheesy… my gelato at Gelateria La Romana (learn more about this place in my other post A Whole Lot’O Gelato) was at the top of my yum-o-meter! Verona is unique Italian city that is well worth visiting.
I was out for a bike ride on the Silver Strand in Coronado, and found a seagull by a dog park. When I noticed that it was flopping around, we called SeaWorld and three people and a truck came out to rescue him. They got …
Murano is a totally awesome island in Italy. It is home to the famous Venetian glassblowing; I got to see a cup and a horse being made. I also got to try glassblowing myself. At first I was nervous because I did not think that …
I have taken lots of slow shutter pictures in my life. A slow shutter picture is when you set the camera’s shutter to open the light path for one second or more. It creates amazing streaks of light shooting through the pictures like lasers. If you want to see more of my slow shutter pictures, check out my “The Boats of Venice” post to see the streaks of light from the passing boats at night. I decided to use our Blue Noble Christmas Tree (with bird ornaments and ornaments that came from where we travelled, although you cannot see it here because the light does not let it in) to take these slow shutters. Christmas trees don’t move, so this probably wouldn’t have worked without this technique that I learned from our friend Michelle Knaier. This technique requires you to move the camera in a circle and/or move the zoom in and out while taking the picture. Here are a few of my pictures. I hope you like them.
I think Vittorio Costantini is the best glass blower in all of Venice (he is better than all of the glass blowers in Murano combined)! He makes birds, bugs, and fish using a blowtorch on the main island of Venice. The blowtorch is so hot …
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