You have endowed the lowly robin with much of the majesty of you eagle photos! Very nice...

Chris

I walked around the base in 1956 at 10 years old (no camera then). The Army was practicing mountain rescue that day. Lots of rappelling and stretchers coming down from the top. Your excellent photo also reminds me of the Devil's Postpile in the Sierra Nevada, California, also a basalt formation belonging to the same guy.

Chris

From Portland down to 10 miles SE of Salem Oregon: 1.5 hours on Sunday, camped out. Returned by back roads soon after totality (10:45 or so), stopped to jump start a car with a dead battery, stopped to look at a waterfall, back home in Portland by 2 PM. Not much traffic, no eclipse-apocalypse here.

[quote=lamontcranston]In the late '60's I was flying throughout SE Asia and picked up a Nikon F, a Nikkormat and a few Nikkor lenses, (35mm, 50mm,105mm, and a 200 mm) in Japan during a layover there. Those cameras served me well for the next 30 years. With the advent of the digital age I sold the Nikon F with lenses and kept the Nikkormat with the 50mm 1.4. I've still got it and everything works like new. I should get rid of this last survivor but I hang on to it to remind me of many fun times it has accompanied me on my travels.

Fine pictures of a mint condition Nikkormat! Mine is a bit more beat up, and my son used it for a few years so it had a kind of second life. Now I have it back. I have a D5100 now, and occasionally use the old Nikkor lenses on it. Cheers!

I loved seeing these pictures of the old Nikon cameras. I still have my Nikomat FT-N (Japanese for Nikkormat; smuggled in by an airline pilot for me in 1968). It was my only camera up to 2000. I think it is the most beautiful camera I have ever seen or owned. The Nikon F was similar in looks, but the succession of view-finders and flash adaptors made it look more and more kludgie as new models came out. The 50mm f/1.4 lens is great. I also have the 35mm lens shown in the group picture.

Getting even more picky, the red circle is on Keeler Needle; The Whitney summit is touching the right edge.
The photo is nontheless excellent.

Very interesting green hexagons on the building tops show up well in the third picture. Very nice set.

Wonderful pictures of magnificent animals. I visited the bison range in 1974. What a unique place. I also loved the pronghorn antelopes I saw there.

Your magic works equally well on a Mallard as on eagles and ospreys! Very interesting background.

It is interesting to think about the turning loop and wye. It must serve mainly a psychological need to have the engine facing forward. I remember riding the Pike's Peak cog railroad in 1956, its last year under steam power. The locomotive boiler was angled to be level on the average grade of the line, and of course could not have sucessfully run in the reverse direction. On the San Francisco peninsula the commuter trains never turn. They just run backwards on the north-bound runs. They do have an operator's cab on the north-most car to control the locomotive that's always on the south-most end of the train.

A different twist to this is the cab-forward locomotive developed for the trans-Sierra run of the Southern Pacific. Because of the extensive miles of snow sheds, the smoke stack was located behind the cab which then required that the trains be turned around.

Your excellent photos show the locomotive valve gear in great detail. I love the working parts of these locomotives. I once built a "working" Baker valve gear for an N scale model locomotive. It was so much work I only did one side...

I was there in 1956. That route was operated by the Denver and Rio Grand Western then. Near where I grew up in central PA we had the East Broad Top. These were two of a very few commercially operating narrow gauge railroads at that time. Both I think have been resurrected as railfan excursion railroads.

"fully fictional" indeed!

Another amazing picture of an osprey with lunch! I am very much in tune with your interests in subject matter, and I admire the technical and artistic skill you bring to your images. The great blue heron is truly great (and blue), although I recently posted a mini-rant about a great blue that ate some fish from my backyard pond. Keep showing us your excellent photos.

I have heard of people covering their ponds with wire mesh screens such as chicken wire, but to me that spoils the enjoyment of the pond too much. Our pond has several underwater shelves for the fish to hide under, so I think keeping the water clear is the most effective thing to do. Also, the least wary of the fish may get picked off, so a bit of Darwinism is in effect. We also have lost a few fish to racoons, but that was when the water clarity was very poor. Our cats may also be a deterrant to the herons. Once when I was buying some small feeder goldfish the store clerk asked me what I was going to feed them to. I said most likely racoons, although I would now add herons. At least the goldfish are cheap, though the koi not so much.

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From eagles to the moon and everything between, your images are always inspiring to me!