In Which I Take a Nice Camera for a Ride

Bike parked in rack at Regina Hall. It took me a long time to try to get this shot, but here I am in the cracked mirror of Francis. About to start on my way, wearing the Nikon.

I had to meet a student on campus today so that he could use a newspaper camera to shoot a basketball game.

I brought my good Nikon camera, too, just to practice a little, and I wrote about that in another blog.

So when I got ready to head home, I decided to document my 4-mile commute in a bit more detail than usual, using the good camera. In short, the things I saw fit into four categories:

1) Creatures of the road. Before I left campus, I noticed a hawk sitting on the cupola of Warde Hall. I shot it from the campus side, but it seemed to be facing away. As I headed down the drive beside Warde Hall, I was almost accosted by another form of wildlife: There were some angry tree rodents. I’m not sure why they took issue with me. Maybe having a hawk up high makes them nervous, although how scampering around and making angry tree rodent noises at me helped solve that problem is a mystery—if anything, I would think they were making themselves more visible to the bird of prey. Anyway, after shooting the squirrels (with a camera), I also photographed the hawk from the street side of Warde Hall.

First squirrel, above, is in mulch-covered garden surrounding crab apple trees at Warde Hall. He or she merely eyed me balefully. The two below (they are two different squirrels) sprang up a tree beside the drive, and proceeded to heckle me as I photographed them. Hey, squirrels, I have a right to be here too. And I"m bigger, and I'll live decades longer than you, so neener-neener-neener to you.

Two views of the cupola hawk.

 

2) Signs of the season. There was a man putting up decorations on his garage on Eastern Avenue, but I was too shy to photograph him. But here are some other decorations I saw.

Santa on Elmhurst Drive across the street from MMU. Tree in lawn (below) near Kenwood School.

3) The stark, bare trees of late fall. It’s starting to look a lot like winter. The ground is not yet frozen, but leaves are history. I prefer trees with their foliage, but the bare branches have their own stark charm, too. Some of the trees along the ride.

I like green leaves, but the shape of bare trees, like roots reaching into the sky, is pretty cool, too. And you can see nests like the one below. The tree that held this nest had five large ones in it, made we wonder who the tenants in that bird apartment building had been, and if they had any amusing sitcoms made about themselves.

A few oak leaves cling to tree at Kenwood School.

A couple of tree reflections in pond at Rockwell-Collins.

4) Some transit signs. I took the shortcut through a weedy lot at the end of F Avenue just south of 42^nd Street, and wondered at a bike leaning against the golf course fence. And I photograph new traffic control measures at the corner of Collins Road and F Avenue. I e-mailed the city about that corner, which has become more difficult to cross, and their e-mail indicated they are putting in these video controls. That might be good news for bikers—I know the ones at the corner of Prairie Drive and 29^th Street seem to “read” bikes OK, so I’m hoping that this corner will again be easy to cross.

Why the bike, against a golf course fence? I don't know. But crossing the path beside said bike did bring some tyre leaves to my bike (below).

New traffic control on F Avenue at Collins. Set to see bikes, I hope. City informed me in an email that it probably will be set to see bicycles in a certain lane "zone" that may be marked later on.

Most snow is gone, melted in rain Thanksgiving Day--but a few mounds of dirty snow are left at the edge of parking lots, and I think they are morphing into interesting shapes as they slowly melt.