Cayce Rules Rock City

Posted by dkrashb on July 4, 2013

Cayce mid-air (Photo by Patrick Murray)

Cayce and I have come to an understanding. I understand that I am below her in her pecking order. She understands that I will wear tall boots to avoid having chunks of my legs removed. It’s not a particularly equitable understanding. But it’s an understanding none-the-less.

This is a new development in our relationship. When I just occasionally appeared in her life, she treated me like a guest. She frolicked and flew and ate chunks of beef out of my hand without so much as an aggressive blink.

Launching Cayce back to John (Photo by Patrick Murray)

Now that I’m appearing on a regular basis, she seems to have decided I need to be put in my place. And that place is below her place. It’s not like she’s every caught me eating her food (not into raw beef, thank you very much). But, familiarity bred contempt. Or at least attitude.

When I am backstage at the Rock City Raptors amphitheater, I have to be careful not to stand too close to her enclosure. She sits on a perch on the inside of the door and reaches through the mesh to peck at whatever part of me is in reach. During our part in the program, she runs at my legs and attempts to peck me. Given that her beak is designed to tear open flesh, there is the potential she will draw blood–in fact, she’s bloodied John’s legs on more than one occasion (he also has the joy of being lower than Cayce in the pecking order).

Cayce changing direction mid-flight out of pure orneriness (Photo by Patrick Murray)

This has led to my latest fashion statement: cowboy boots and shorts. She can bite my boots all she wants and I can’t feel a thing. However, Cayce is a sly one. About the second time she encountered my counter measures, she reached high and nipped at the exposed flesh above my boot.

Apparently having to reach above my boot was quite irritating to her. Her next antic was to turn and bit the inside of my arm between my sleeve and my glove in the middle of a program. And that wasn’t enough for her. She’s also taken to biting the hand that feeds her when she takes her food out of my hand. I used to just stuff a piece of beef into a loosely held fist and let her stick her beak in to retrieve it. Now I have to make sure I keep my hand circling her beak when she twists her head–otherwise she clamps down on my hand.

A small mark inside my bicep post-program (Photo by Dale Kernahan)

Oddly, I’m somewhat flattered by this attention. It’s as if she’s decided I’m part of her human flock and order must be established. I feel I have moved from the casual visitor to someone who belongs, even if it’s at the bottom of Cayce’s hierarchy.

What that little nip looked like 2 days later (photo by me in an awkward pose with my iPhone)

I just wish “pecking order” weren’t quite so literal. Although, I do get special pleasure out of answering anyone who asks about the bruise on my arm with a casual, “Oh, a Black Vulture bit me.”

Cautiously feeding Cayce (Photo by Patrick Murray)

See Rock City

Posted by dkrashb on July 3, 2013

Cody getting ready to fly

(All photos in today’s post by my husband, Patrick Murray.)

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I have 3 parts to learn to take on the assistant’s role in the Rock City Raptors program. In reality, the assistant normally has 5 parts. However, to make it easier on a newbie like me, we will work around 2 of the parts when I’m subbing as the assistant.

One of the parts we’ll skip is with Cody, the Red-tailed Hawk. Cody is even less reliable than Theo when it comes to flying. Dale and John joke during the show that they have a radio transmitter on Cody in case he decides to go “See Rock City” when they fly him, but it’s not really a joke. He’s been known to take off in the middle of a program and fly off into the trees if something has upset him. Things that upset Cody can range from someone standing up unexpectedly in the audience to a wild hawk flying by to a sudden whim.

Cody makes the flight

The odds that he might fly off are increased if Dale isn’t his target. Dale seems to have a special bond with most of the birds. Cody is no exception.

When it’s time for Cody to fly to Dale during the program, Dale takes a stance that communicates “Fly right here!” with every fiber of her body. It seems to work most of the time–I have yet to witness Cody flying anywhere other than straight to Dale.

If determining where Cody will fly to is a problem, deciding whether he will fly at all is another. The morning conversation goes something like this:

“Are we flying Cody today?”

“Well . . . we’ll see if he starts vocalizing.”

Then, as the first program starts, “Are we flying Cody?”

Dale makes the call based on whether Cody is exhibiting high energy behavior, I guess. I haven’t asked her exactly what it means when Cody is making noises that makes it more likely that he will fly.

Cody looking like he’s overcome his fear of hunting

There is a backup plan for when Cody isn’t going to fly. On those days, Dale walks through the crowd with Cody on her glove while a video of flying Red-tailed hawks plays. It’s not quite as exciting as seeing Cody fly in person, but it’s less stressful than trying to convince Cody he wants to fly in the middle of a program.

I will not be walking through the audience with Cody on my glove. Cody baits even more than Theo. And, Cody is a Red-tailed hawk with giant talons that would do much more damage if I put my bare arm in the wrong place trying to help him back on the glove as I did with Theo.

I appreciate Dale and John’s concern for my safety. I also appreciate their willingness to let me practice during low-risk times like carrying Cody from his outdoor perch back to his enclosure before the audience shows up. I just need to learn to watch out for the stairs!

Tisen relaxing on the couch after spending the morning at doggie daycare while I was playing with the birds

Theo-logy

Posted by dkrashb on July 2, 2013

Theo sitting calmly while I walk and talk

(All photos in today’s post by my husband, Patrick Murray.)

I have 3 parts in the Rock City Raptors program. The first is with Screech Owls (see yesterday’s post). My second is with Theo, a Barn Owl. Theo doesn’t always want to sit on the glove. He baits. A lot. When he baits, he spreads his wings and flaps.

Now, a Barn Owl looks small and innocent when you see him sitting quietly–head to tail they are about the same length as a crow. But when he spreads his wings, which can be over 40” long, he suddenly becomes an enormous bird.

Part of my job is to keep him from hitting anyone when he baits. )Anyone, that is, other than me. I’ve taken quite a few wing beats in the face of late.)

Theo and I facing the same way

This can be rather tricky when you’re making sure you say all the right lines and stepping through a crowd with an owl on your glove. To ease me into the part, at first I just did the talking while Dale walked through the audience with Theo.

This past Saturday was my debut at talking and walking with Theo. He baited a few times, but I held him high enough that he couldn’t hit anyone.

The only real mishap was when I looked away for a second to find a place to step other than on the feet of an audience member. When I turned back to Theo, it was just in time to see a something that looked suspiciously like a giant wad of wet owl poop falling directly toward the man seated below me. I tried to do a check to make sure he didn’t get hit without missing any lines. I’m not sure if I checked thoroughly enough, but I didn’t see any splatter–with owl poop, there will be splatter.

Theo in flight

Since Theo is a finicky flier, we decided not to have me fly him this Saturday. I handed him off to Dale so she could fly him with John.

We had done an educational program for a group of students earlier in the week and Theo had baited and baited and baited like he couldn’t wait to fly. He smacked me in the face repeatedly as I tried to adjust my hand to get him in a position where he would settle down.

At once point, he got himself upside down and when I reached over with my bare hand to help him up, he accidentally grabbed my arm. I was proud of myself for not panicking–I managed to extract his claws from my flesh with only a few minor scratches and the audience didn’t seem to notice.

Then, once it was time to fly, he suddenly sat back and relaxed on the glove like he would be content to sit there all day and nap. So, it seemed like a good plan to hand Theo off to Dale to fly him. He did fly for her at Rock City. He flew like a champ.

Theo coming in for a landing on Dale’s glove

Baby, You’re Not Quite a Star

Posted by dkrashb on July 1, 2013

Me making my way carefully through the crowd with Buddy and Jerry

Today’s photos are by my husband, Patrick Murray, shooting with the Canon Rebel T4i.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been in training on Saturday mornings. I am learning how to be the assistant in the Rock City Raptor’s program so I can cover for a vacation.

The problem, of course, is that I cannot both perform in the program and take photos. I was quite happy that my husband made some time to come up and watch a program and take some pictures.

John with Gilbert, the American Kestrel

It’s amazing how quickly things get confusing back stage–a DVD player failed a couple weeks ago and was replaced by a smaller one. There are 2 DVD players and the one that failed was on the bottom. The new, smaller one is now on top. All of my notes refer to top and bottom. This means having to do a mental flip-flop when I try to remember which machine I need to do something with. It’s irritating how this small change can put my brain into what computer geeks call “thrashing.”

But, after many Saturdays, some things are starting to come together. I am now, for example, able to walk around with both Buddy and Jerry on my glove and get through the Screech Owl script without forgetting much of it. I’ve now managed to walk through the audience, stepping over people sitting on the steps, and stepping up on what can be slippery rocks without hurting myself.

John with Artie, the Barred Owl

Although, I did fall before the show because I was carrying Cody (the red-tailed hawk) next to a wall and was following instructions to keep my body between Cody and any objects that he might hit should he decide to bait (fly up from the glove), which he does frequently. In my determination to protect Cody, I forgot that I was about to go up stairs and fell up the stairs. Cody, ironically, stayed calmly on my glove through the whole thing.

I have a few days worth of Pat’s photos (I did quite a bit of post-processing), so here are just a few from the first few birds in the program. The last image is a post-show image. At the end of the program, I take Buddy (one of the screech owls) out and let people touch him.

This is probably my favorite part. Since I don’t have to walk through the crowd, make sure the microphone is picking up my voice, or worry about saying the right things at the right time (so I cue someone else to do their part), I can really enjoy the looks on people’s faces when they touch an owl for the first time.

I also get to hear their stories and answer their questions in a more one-on-one kind of basis. What’s really cool is hearing people comment about how much they enjoyed the program and, especially, the new things they learned.

Buddy wowing the crowd one last time

Super Moonrise – At Last

Posted by dkrashb on June 30, 2013

At long last, the super moon rose last Sunday evening. I suppose it wasn’t really the super moon–after all, the moon was officially full nearly 12 hours earlier. But whether you count it as the full, super moon rise or something less than that, it was dramatic.

At first, I was afraid the moon would not be visible at all that night. The low-lying clouds around the horizon threatened to ruin the view altogether. We watched and watched and suddenly a reddish glow started to show through the clouds. The glow turned from a faint hint of red to a full moon with a silhouette cloud in the foreground in a matter of moments. I barely had time to breathe before the scene before me was changing.

The moon disappeared behind a strip of clouds

After a quick exposure adjustment, I managed to capture the red-glowing moon.

A second moon rise in the same night

It rose a second time–or at least it looked that way. It passed through a stretch of clouds, appearing to rise all over again, when it crossed over the top of the cloud bank.

As it rose above the last trace of clouds, I switched lenses. I’m not that excited by close-ups of the full moon and I was shooting with a 100-400mm plus a 1.4x extender. There’s not much you can do wide with that combination. I switched to the 24-70mm lens instead. It was a good decision. The extra bright moon over the Market Street Bridge was far more interesting than a close up of the rock. Plus I got some serious topics to study up on as a result.

A helicopter forms a bright streak in the foreground

Switching to wide angle brings the Market St Bride into view

Sun Before the Moon

Posted by dkrashb on June 29, 2013

A rising cumulous cloud forms a silhouette in front of the setting sun

After shooting the moon from the Market Street Bridge the evening before the full moon, I got to share the view from the common room in our building with a group of photographers from the local photographic society chapter. A neighbor of mine and I organized a bit of a field trip. Since the common room has a wonderful view of the river and of the anticipated location of the moonrise, it seemed like the perfect choice of destinations for photographers interested in capturing the full super moon rising over the Tennessee River.

The setting sun highlights the low-lying clouds at the horizon–they don’t bode well for the moonrise

The thing about the moon is that it’s not particularly cooperative. It really can’t help it. It just has a lot of dependencies. It’s light is determined by the sun. It’s visibility determined by the clouds. It’s appearance above the horizon dependent on the objects between the moon and the viewer. When you consider that there are nearly 239,000 miles between the earth and the moon, I suppose it’s a wonder that we are able to see it at all.

Back on the other side, the cloud stretches tall in front of the sun

But the first problem is figuring out when to expect it. There are tons of places to find out the time of the moonrise, but none of them are ever right for exactly the place where you might be standing at that given time. Not unless you happen to be in the same spot the time of moonrise was calculated from.

The second problem is figuring out when the sun will set. The opportunity to capture the moon in full glory while the surroundings are still visible becomes increasingly difficult as the moonrise falls later and later relative to sunset.

Wispy pink clouds decorate the Northern sky

On this particular night, the moon would not rise until a good half hour after sunset. We, of course, scheduled our field trip to begin much earlier. We probably should have taken the group on a tour of the riverfront while we waited for moonrise to approach. However, we got to talking and snacking and decided to find a spot to shoot the sunset instead. Finding a perch on an outdoor staircase with a view of the setting sun afforded some nice views of the clouds forming in front of the sun.

As the sun fades, the pink haze turns darker

The sunset is no more reliable than the moonrise from a photographic perspective. The clouds were interesting, but didn’t quite result in the super-dramatic sunset one might hope for as a prelude to a rising super moon. After shooting the sunset long enough to end up with many wasted images, we returned to the opposing view to watch for the moon. The setting sun cast a warm glow across the Market Street Bridge and set some of the clouds aglow as well.

While it may not have been the most dramatic of sunsets, it still seemed photo-worthy.

A saucer-like cloud captured my attention

Super Moon

Posted by dkrashb on June 28, 2013

Moon faintly glowing through Walnut St Bridge

I made it back from Monaco and Nice just in time for the super moon. The super moon refers to when the moon is closer to the earth than usual, resulting in an extra large moon. The point when the moon is full is the point when it appears the largest. I’m not sure if this is because the moon is actually the closest to the earth at that point or just the effect of it being a full moon. In any case, I have now chalked up a couple of years of experience shooting full moons. I remember the words of advice I got from a fellow photographer when I first started shooting full moons. They were, “Don’t.” He went on to explain that the full moon is too bright to make an interesting image. It simply looks like a flat, smooth circle with some gray areas in it compared to the much more pock-marked, three-dimensional moon one can get when shooting a crescent moon.

Moon over the heads of unsuspecting lovers

I experimented with this advice. I found that he was absolutely right that if you just shoot the moon, once it’s much more than half full, it becomes a very flat, uninteresting rock. However, I also found that if you shoot the moon rising at the the horizon or going through architectural features or clouds as it rises, it’s much more interesting. Since this discovery, I have attempted to pay attention to when the moon is full (or close enough to full) and where and when it will rise in the hope of getting interesting moonrise images. I’ve gotten a few I like, although there’s always room for improvement. The hardest part about shooting moonrise is how fast it goes. While the moon is usually quite late appearing in the sky compared to when the official moonrise is supposed to start, once it appears, the period of time when it’s most interesting to shoot lasts only a few minutes. The moon moves so quickly that you have to watch your shutter speeds–too slow and you start to get motion blur from the movement of the moon.

Moon over the bridge

On this night, it was a pre-cursor to the actual full moon. While the moon was fullest the next morning, it was still close enough to full to get a full moon effect both the night before and the night after the moment of total fullness. I decided to walk out to Market St Bridge in the hope of catching people walking in front of the moon on Walnut St bridge. Unfortunately, low-lying clouds along the horizon prevented the moon from being visible until it was too high for people to be in front of it. When it finally appeared, it was barely a glow through the haze with the sun still relatively high in the sky (although it was headed towards sunset). It was still beautiful, though.

Wide view of moon, bridge, water, and boats

Good Eating

Posted by dkrashb on June 27, 2013

The moon over Nice as we entered the restaurant for dinner

After the first long day of the conference in Monaco, a group of us made our way back to Nice for the evening. One of our group was familiar with a restaurant in Nice where he had had his anniversary dinner a few weeks earlier.

He was an interesting guy. An American fluent in several languages in and of itself makes him an anomaly. Reminds me of the old joke: What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks 1 language? American.

He was living in Europe for about the third or fourth time and moved from groups of people from Italy to groups of people from Germany to groups of people from France with an ease that I envied. Going to dinner with him was an experience. He was able to understand food in another language.

An old church just outside the restaurant in Nice

Translating a menu is one of life’s biggest challenges. Unless the exact same dish exists in one’s native country and the person who translates knows the correct name in both languages, most translation is lost.

Even when I hadn’t forgotten 90% of the French I once knew, I couldn’t understand a French menu. I knew if it was fish or chicken or beef, but not what they did to it. When I started learning Italian, I didn’t even get far enough to determine whether I was ordering tomato soup or tomato sauce (that led to some interesting surprises).

Sitting with someone who could actually understand and describe what a dish was was quite refreshing. Although, in the end, after much discussion about the menu, we decided to order a 5-course chef’s pick dinner.

Waiting on the train the next morning in Nice Ville train station

This turned out to be a great decision. If I were a food critic, I could probably describe the meal in terms that would make your mouth water. Since I am only a food enjoyer, I can only say that each course seemed to get better. However, 5 courses is a lot, even in France (where the portions are smaller than in the US). By the time we were done eating, I felt like the easiest way back to my hotel would have been to have someone tip over my chair so I could just roll my way down the street.

As it turned out, I might have been right. There were no taxis to be had and we had 4 people going to 3 different destinations. In the end, the two colleagues going to the same place were driven by the owner of the restaurant while the 3rd colleague walked me back to my hotel where a taxi had been ordered to meet him when available. We sat in the lobby a long time waiting for that taxi–it was after 1AM by the time it came.

I was very happy I’d planned to take the train to Monaco the next morning–it gave me 2 extra hours of sleep.

The sun setting behind office buildings at the end of the day in Monaco

Nice to Monaco

Posted by dkrashb on June 26, 2013

Street scene between Monaco train station and the conference

One of the challenges of having a conference in Monaco is getting there. While the conference was relatively small–less than 2000 people–there wasn’t sufficient housing (at least not within most corporate budgets) for everyone to stay in Monaco. As a result, those of us who booked late had hotels in Nice.

The solution was to send large tour buses to the hotels in Nice to pick up those who were staying there and then drive everyone over to Monaco. In the morning rush hour traffic, the drive took a good hour and a half. The bus had little A/C and most of us were feeling like we needed a second shower by the time we arrived at the conference site.

Lovely view while stuck in traffic on the bus

The really sad part of the bus ride was that we didn’t take the coastal road, so we didn’t get to see some of the best views. At one point, we were stuck in traffic for a good 15 minutes while overlooking a lot that looked like it was used for industrial waste. Not exactly the kind of thing you hope to get to see when you go to the French Riviera.

We did get an occasional glimpse of the sea, but it was infrequent.

Looking for things to take pictures of through tinted bus windows resulted in creating some really strong vignetting in the images. I don’t know how much more pronounced this effect was due to the camera being an iPhone vs using a DSLR, but all of the images through the bus windows were the same.

A quick glimpse of the sea from the bus

When at long last we reached the conference site, we got to experience modern office buildings butted up against the rising hills of the landscape. There is not much about Monaco that makes you think there should be office buildings there. It created a surprise effect.

In the end, what i learned from the bus ride was to take the train. The next day, I slept in instead of getting up extra early to catch the 7:15AM bus. I caught a train much later–a 10 minute walk from my hotel. I rode in comfort along the coastal tracks, enjoying views of the sea the entire way (except when we went through the many tunnels). It cost 3.70 Euro to ride the train. The entire train trip took 20 minutes. And, I happened to sit next to 2 other people attending the same conference who knew how to get there from the train station, so I made it there on time without getting lost.

Office buildings in Monaco

Nice Dinner

Posted by dkrashb on June 25, 2013

Almost a view of the beach from a cafe in the afternoon

Are you tired of my Nice-as-in-pleasant vs Nice-as-in-France puns yet? I’ve got a few more up my sleeve . . . 🙂

My first day in Nice, the name of the game was to stay awake. Unfortunately, on my walk around town in the afternoon sun, I got hot. This led to stopping in a sea-side cafe and having a beer. Even more unfortunately, the only food I could get mid-afternoon was a bowl of olives. While beer and olives are actually tasty together, olives are not very filling.

City street – lots of pedestrians

I sipped my no-longer-cold-beer for nearly an hour as I slumped gradually lower and lower in my cafe-style chair. Eventually, I decided I needed to walk or I would be sound asleep on the cafe floor. But once I started walking, I didn’t know where to go. I decided it was a good time to return to my hotel room to check email now that the US was getting into work.

Courtyard on way back to hotel

I sat down on my bed, logged in, and made it through the emails that had arrived. The next thing I knew, I was startled awake by a sunbeam that had found its way through a crack in the curtains. The sunbeam had managed to make its way into my eyes in part because the sun was now low in the sky. I discovered I’d nodded off for a couple unexpected hours.

Views as the sun sets

Concerned I wouldn’t be able to sleep through the night if I didn’t get up and get some dinner, I splashed some water on my face and made my way back down to the seaside. With the wind blowing across the French Riviera, the evening called for outdoor dining.

Back at the seaside area, I stopped and read menus at each restaurant across from the beach, hoping to find something appealing, but even more, hoping to run into one of my colleagues so I wouldn’t have to eat dinner alone.

Courtyard at sunset

In the US, I don’t mind eating dinner alone. If I want company, I sit at the bar and usually end up in conversations with interesting people before the meal is over. If I want to be alone, I sit at a table. In Spain, France, and Italy, there don’t seem to be restaurant bars to eat at. Eating alone at a table seems to be the equivalent of painting a sign on your face that says something like, “I am lonely and desperate and will be amazingly receptive to even the tiniest bit of attention.” (To put it in G-rated terms.)

Dramatic dinner preparation at a nearby table

On this evening, it was my waiter who was overly attentive. He was actually quite sweet, but it got awkward when I wanted to leave and he kept delaying bringing me my check. Once I was safely on my way, I was glad I’d made it out regardless–it was a lovely night to be out walking and I did sleep through the night.

Night lights. Notice the purple glowing man on top of the pole

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