ThomasONeil

Looking up from the 86th floor observatory of the Empire State Building.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 9:58 PM 0 Comments

In my visits to New York City, I haven't spent much time in Queens except at the abomination known as LaGuardia Airport. So I hopped on the 7 train today and rode it to Flushing Meadows. My first stop was Queens Botanical Garden, a modest facility compared to the New York and Brooklyn gardens. Entry was only $4, so it was priced appropriately.

It did have a few things I haven't seen elsewhere, including something called a White Fringetree. But roses have started to bloom in New York and tomorrow is Mother's Day, so I start with those. Click on the image to see additions to the New York slide show, starting with the roses.

After the garden, I continued on through Flushing Meadows - Corona Park and saw the Unisphere and some other stuff that must have been really cool during the 1964 World's Fair. Maybe not soo cool now.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 11:06 PM 0 Comments

There is a butterfly exhibit until May 28 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. I don't have my big camera and macro lens with me in New York, so the Canon S95 had to do. I was happy with the snapshots I got. Click on the image to see the butterflies, or click here for all of my New York photos from this year.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 10:45 PM 0 Comments

For the third straight spring, I'm in New York City for an extended assignment. So of course that means flower pictures. I made it to Brooklyn Botanical Garden today for Sakura Matsuri, whatever that is. I never really figured it out, but there were many people, many in costume, many with a Japanese theme. Fortunately they hadn't trampled all the flowers yet. The azaleas, peonies and rhodos were in full bloom.

I'll keep adding to this gallery, flowers and otherwise, through May and perhaps part of June. New York Botanical Garden has a Monet garden exhibit opening May 19, so hopefully I will be able to make it up there for that. Click on the image to start the slide show.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 11:46 PM 0 Comments

Back in 2004 I visited the new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in Chantilly, Va., a branch of the National Air and Space Museum. One of the major displays was the space shuttle Enterprise, which was used for unpowered test flights in the 1970's. On April 27, 2012, I happened to be in lower Manhattan as the Enterprise flew (on the back of a 747) up the Hudson River on its way to Kennedy Airport and eventual permanent display at the Intrepid Museum in New York. The Enterprise is being replaced in Virginia by the shuttle Discovery.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 11:10 PM 0 Comments

Early April isn't the ideal time to visit the parks in the southern Black Hills. The wildlife babies aren't running around yet, and the landscape is still brownish. But I'm still working in Chicago most of the time and my annual 7-week trip to New York City is coming up soon, so I figured today was my last chance before summer to check my trail camera in Wind Cave National Park.

The camera clicked off 3,600 images in my four-month absense. It turned out that only 125 of them had anything interesting in them, and the rest were triggered by shadows and wind. There were images of elk, deer, coyotes, grouse and ravens, none as good as my last batch. The first image below is probably the best of the bunch and shows an elk on Feb. 27 with a thick winter coat. There was still plenty of battery power remaining so I moved the camera 200 yards east, which hopefully will catch the elk and other critters as they come up out of a ravine. I'm guessing my next check will be in September.

The thousands of false triggers did tell me something – it was a warm, open winter. There weren't more than a couple inches of snow at any time, none after Feb. 11. Daytime temperatures were usually above freezing, and it was 80 degrees as soon as March 10, 90 degrees on March 30!

After I took care of the trail camera, my next stop was a campground in Custer State Park where I had spotted some bighorn sheep earlier in the day. Four rams were in the campground, grazing and loafing. I snapped pictures for perhaps an hour, but after a while all four were laying down and acting drowsy. It's the wrong time of year for butting heads. Click on the images to see the respective galleries. There are only three new images in the updated trail cam gallery, but even though I was only there a few hours I got carried away and posted 34 images (mostly bighorns) in a new park gallery.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 9:33 PM 0 Comments

I made my annual eagle pilgrimage to the Mississippi River last weekend. I arrived at Lock and Dam 18 near Burlington, IA at about 1 p.m. to find the viewing platform and adjacent parking lot closed due to construction. So it was down to the boat launch in the recreation area, where for the first time I can recall, they were actually launching boats. It has been so warm this winter that there were just a few ice cubes floating in the river.

There were a lot of eagles in view, but most of them stayed well out of camera range. I took some distant shots, and a few turned out like the first one shown below. There were a several eagles roosting above the road on the way out of the recreation area. When I bought my car three years ago, I got a sun roof specifically to drive down this road and get the second shot. Click on the images for larger versions and to launch the slide show.

I continued on south to my other favorite Mississippi River location, the Keokuk waterfront. It was mostly cloudy, but with better light the next morning I "rushed" down to the waterfront. Unfortunately it's very difficult to rush through Keokuk because there is a stop light on just about every corner. Fifteen stop lights later, I finally arrived and got some decent shots. I headed up to Burlington mid-day and got a few more distant shots over the water, and closer but infrequent flight shots as the eagles made their way back to roosting areas.

This was the ninth straight year I've hit Keokuk/Burlington to see the eagles. On a scale of 1-10, this year was about a 6. This works best when the weather is cold enough to freeze the river and concentrate the eagles around the open water below the dams. Just looking back through previous years, I think 2008 was the best recent year.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 6:02 PM 0 Comments

Once again, snapshot opportunities were limited in 2011 as I was afflicted with employment for the second straight year. Candidates for Photo of the Year included New York City scenics, bighorn sheep large and small, and various other critters. The winner was snapped in April at the Sertoma Butterfly House in Sioux Falls, SD. No, the image is not upside down. I think the orientation is one reason I like this shot.

I've never picked an insect before, so this is a first. This is also the first winner snapped with my 100mm macro lens, which I bought with good intentions many years ago but haven't used very much. The prize, as usual, is an all-expense paid trip to Keokuk, Iowa to hunt for wintering eagles. It's on the schedule for two weeks from today.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Sertoma Butterfly 2011

Here are my POY selections for 2002-2010.

Junior I 2002

Gentoo Penguins 2003

Little Brothers 2004

Bald Eagle 2005

Blue Jay 2006

Eagle with fish 2007

Great Horned Owls 2008

Custer SP Bighorn 2009

Keokuk Eagle 2010

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 9:20 PM 0 Comments

New 2012 calendar for sale at Lulu.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 6:12 PM 1 Comments

On my way out of the Black Hills today, I finally found one (1) member of the Bighorn species, a lone ewe grazing near the Custer State Park Visitor Center. I hung around for a few minutes to see if more of the flock would appear, but they didn't. So I guess the sighting of the day was a couple of coyotes roaming the fields. (Or was it my first-ever ID of a prairie chicken?) Click on the yote image to start the slide show.

After four months living in downtown Chicago, I was struck by the magnificent desolation of South Dakota, especially this time of year when the bikers and other tourists are long gone. I-90 across the state was devoid of traffic. When I was photographing the eagle, I was parked on the shoulder of a state highway for 25 minutes and zero (0) cars came by in either direction. If you want to get away from it all, South Dakota in winter...or late fall if you want to get technical.

Trickster

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 11:19 PM 0 Comments

While checking on my trail camera, I took a few snapshots around Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park. An eagle I'm sure I've seen many times before was one of the main subjects, along with some pronghorns, turkeys, and prairie dogs. Update: On 4/10/12, I drove past this tree, which is (was?) my favorite dead tree. It looked as though it had been hit by lightning because the top was shattered and the were big limbs on the ground. No sign of the eagle, so apparently the both of us are going to need to find a new favorite dead tree.

I've been looking for Bighorn sheep in the usual locations in Rapid City and Custer SP, but haven't found them. I've got one more loop through the park Tuesday morning, so this photo group might not be complete yet.

Roosting


Snacking

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 11:57 PM 0 Comments

Way back in July I planted my new trail camera in Wind Cave National Park. I was finally able to retrieve the images today and was happy to see almost 1,300 images on the card. Upon further review, it turns out that the first 500 images were snapped between 2 and 3 hours after I left the camera on July 2. Good thing I didn't wait until July 3! All of the daylight shots in this slide show were taken on that first day. The nighttime shots were scattered over the following three months.

It was a good location, but it was hard to get to (and hard to find again without my GPS) so I moved it to another promising location a few hundred yards away where I saw elk grazing and resting today. The batteries were still at 78% and the memory card will hold tens of thousands of images, so maybe I will leave it there until June. Click on the images to start the slide show.

Smile!


Sneaking through

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 11:51 PM 0 Comments

After several months getting situated in Chicago, it was time to take a break and head off to New Mexico. Usually Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge is about the sandhill cranes, but this time it seemed like the cranes were't very accessible and the snow geese were. So most of the images are of snow geese. I also went south to White Sands National Monument. The clouds were very interesting that day.

Click on the images to start a slide show.

Bosque del Apache


White Sands

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 10:12 PM 0 Comments

Short stroll along the Chicago River yesterday.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 12:23 PM 0 Comments

My move to Chicago is almost completed. Although I have been working here for a month, this was the first weekend I've been in the city. I took a stroll across downtown and through Millennium Park to the Field Museum.

I also happened to have a new camera, a Canon S95. My G6 is still a capable performer after X number of years (6?) but it is not very pocketable. The S95 is not the tiniest camera available, but it is much thinner than a G6. But it appears I have to upgrade my software. I had to jump through some extra hoops to edit the images.

I met a fellow South Dakota transplant at the Field, a Tyrannosaurus Rex named Sue. From ground level she really didn't seem that huge for some reason, but from above you get an idea of her scale. Click on the image for a larger versions.

Here another photo from the stroll, Buckingham Fountain, before it started raining.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 6:46 PM 0 Comments

I went out to the Black Hills this weekend to plant my new trail camera along a previously successful elk trail in Wind Cave National Park. On the drive through Custer State Park, I caught sight of a flock of bighorn ewes with four lambs among them. It was an unexpected sight because the last I heard, the local flock has not been reproducing since a 2005 pneumonia outbreak. Hopefully this is the start of a recovery. Click on images for larger versions to go to the full slide show (20 images).

Two lambs racing through the woods


All four lambs

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 11:05 PM 0 Comments

I have a little travel tripod about six inches long that comes in handy for shooting dark indoor spaces or outside at night. Here's the interior of St. Patrick's Cathedral. This is a 15-second exposure, which is why the people in the aisle look like mist. (Click on images for larger versions.)

Here's another attempt at a Grand Central Station blur. I didn't want everyone to be mist, so this is a shorter time exposure of 1.6 seconds.

There are some rose sculptures on Park Avenue. I tried some time exposures but it turned out that just using flash worked best.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 10:26 PM 0 Comments

I didn't have a plan for Sunday in New York, so I decided to walk south until I got tired, then take the subway back to the hotel. I didn't expect to cover the 4.5 miles from 50th Street down to Battery Park, but I did.

Along the way I saw a few unusual things, such as a girl with bright pink hair and pink tights, set off with a stylish black cape and long black boots, walking back to her building with breakfast in hand. Quite an ensemble. Most people, even those with pink hair, would just throw on some sweats for a Sunday morning run to the bakery.

There were some other strange and colorful sights along my route. A girl with blue hair (not nearly as stylish). A guy in Battery Park dressed up as Lady Liberty, taking a break from posing with tourists, talking on a cell phone. A guy getting off the subway dressed up as a plastic army man, 100% bright green including his hands and face. (Full body spandex, not paint.) A British police constable riding the Wall Street bull (see below). Then there was the line of TV cameras staked out in front of 71 Broadway. "DSK?" I wondered.

My instincts were correct. The Gothamist reported that residents received the following notice:

"We want to inform you that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF Director who is under indictment in New York, is currently staying at 71 Broadway. Mr. Strauss-Kahn is here as a guest of a leaseholder. We were not consulted before the leaseholder invited him in, but we have been assured that he will only be staying here until early next week."

I didn't see DSK out looking for croissants, unless he was dressed as a girl with pink hair.

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 3:25 PM 0 Comments

I don't know what it was like down here last night, but today around Ground Zero is a hive of activity. In the daylight hours, overcast but not unpleasant, I saw no overt celebrations over the death an evil man. But everyone seems to be in a good mood, particularly the policemen and firemen. A new tower rises to the heavens. Click on the images for larger versions. I'll be updating the New York 2011 album throughout the eight weeks I'm here.

1 World Trade Center

Tulips at nearby Liberty Plaza

# posted by Tom O'Neil @ 5:31 PM 0 Comments