Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Second day of autumn








Yesterday was the first day of autumn. The autumnal equinox occurred at about 0150 local (Mountain Daylight Time). The equinoxes (vernal and autumnal) are the two points in time and location where the sun appears to be at the halfway point in its twice-yearly N-S (autumnal) or S-N (vernal) journeys through the sky. The equinoxes also mark the two days of each year when the temporal division of daylight and darkness are most nearly equal. The "ends" of the sun's annual journey through the sky are the solstices. The farthest south point and shortest day happen with the winter solstice just before Christmas on the first day of winter. When the sun reaches it's most northerly point on or about June 20, the summer solstice is, you guessed it, the first day of summer. In about 180 days, as the sun retraces its route northward, the vernal equinox will mark the first day of spring and another roughly equal distribution of daylight and darkness.

Of course the sun doesn't really move through our sky. The Earth travels around the sun in an elliptical orbit which takes 365 and a quarter days to complete. As Earth zips around the sun it rotates once every not-quite 24 hours, and our planet rotates around a vertical axis which is tilted about 23 degrees from straight "up and down" which is defined as the plane of the ecliptic, or the plane where on average all of the planets orbit the sun.

The combination of our orbit about the sun and the tilt of our rotating planet is what makes the sun appear to move N-S and S-N throughout the year.

This is stuff we all know, but it's worth thinking about periodically. Many people will stridently tell you otherwise, but it's easy to observe and provides a proof against pseudoscience that we can all enjoy and use to help keep us grounded in a world that sometimes seems to have gone mad.

One of the delights of the day was observing the hawk pictured above. The experten over at iNaturalist have identified it as a Cooper's Hawk, and it may well be, but it doesn't look like one to me. A smallish Accipiter surely, but is it a Cooper's? I'm skeptical but given the fact that I'm no Ornithologist James Simpson, I'm willing to be convinced. Gorgeous bird regardless. And given the perch it took almost certainly a chickenhawk!

Couple of rough autumnal bideos...





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This morning I'm going over to the big city (Scottsbluff, Nebraska -- population 15,000) hospital for to have some steroids injected into the areas near some ailing nerve roots. I'm hoping for a significant reduction in pain and a speedy return to normal health and mobility. I will, of course, take what I get.

I hope you're all enjoying the season and blessed with continuing good fortune amid the normal turmoil of life.

10 comments:

  1. Being the third day of Autumn, the beet factory should clear your sinuses as you pass Gering.

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    1. Lots of stinky beets in the air. Pre-sugar does not smell sweet!🤮

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    2. Is it as bad as being near a pea vining operation?

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    3. Kind of depends on your location I guess. Also I've never been around much pea production so I can't compare the two. As for sugarbeets, around the fields and collection points it's just the smell of dirt and plants and harvesting. Around the processing plant though, the stench is just as strong as a rendering plant. Different smell and not as objectionable to me but still very powerful, cloying, and disagreeable.

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  2. Beautiful bird.

    Thanks to Napoleon, there were many acres (hectares?) planted in sugar beets near where I lived in Germany.

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    1. My Grandma Helen was a German-Russian lass who hoed many zillions of heck-tacres when she was a sprout. Being German-Russian her German-speaking parents and her older siblings were all born in and emigrated from Russia. Never spent a day in Germany. And Helen was born here in America in 1922, so she never saw Germany or Russia. Nevertheless she hoed beets just like her peers in Russia and Germany. She was born in Sugar City, Colorado, which might provide a clue to the sugarbeet puzzle. It's a fascinating crop, requiring lots of inputs and therefore high production costs, but it also has a high market value. I'd never want to raise them but it's fun to watch!

      Those birds are pure delight. Unless you happen to be Accipiter prey...

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  3. Love your hawk photo, and the pairs sure look good! Happy Fall!

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    1. Just about everything has done well around here this year. It's one of the good years. Thanks Brig, and happy fall to you!

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  4. I like how raptors pay such close attention to what is going on around them. Marvelous birds. We have lots of turkey vultures here in the Baraboo, WI area, and we also have a LOT of Bald eagles, and those vultures are a sheer delight to watch fly. They are land based equivalent of albatrosses.

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    1. They're all fascinating and enjoyable to watch. We've got lots of turkey vultures too and they put on some stupendous group soaring demonstrations directly over town this time of year. We have a lot of big blue spruce in town and I always wonder if the vultures nest in the tops though I've never tried to find out.

      Thanks for stopping by Scott!

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