It was an early Spring mid afternoon at Lester B. We had arrived early to beat the snow storm - a whiteout at 100m, I did not know the windchill but with the dampness as well - not pleasant.
My "fellow birders" had flocked together:
We were waiting for "Big Bird" to arrive -
All of us:
We had a great migration!
Wise Ol' Bird
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This blog is http://rhapsodieswiseoldbird.blogspot.com/2023/08/perseid-meteor-shower.html
Perseid Meteor Shower
What is:
Perseid adj, Perseus- a group of stars, rising in the north-east at dusk in August - below the brighter "W" of Cassiopeia
Go to Wikipedia for more description; e.g., Wiki Perseids
Meteor or shooting star: a dust grain which is heated to incandescence by the Earth's atmosphere and glows until it has vaporized.
It is interesting that the ancients associated this phenomenon with the Earth's atmosphere and not with something in space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(disambiguation)
Shower here as in a "meteor shower" and not rain - occurs when the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by a comet or asteroid.
So the Perseid Meteor shower is caused by the particles left from the Comet Swift-Tuttle, entering the Earth's atmosphere at high speeds and glowing until evaporation ends.
Actually it is one of 3 occurring at nearly the same time (mid July to mid August): Kappa Cyg and the Delta Aqu are the other 2 - more below.
When is the Perseid Shower
In 2023 the Perseid meteor shower is active between 17 July and 24 August, with the number of meteors increasing every night until it reaches a peak in mid-August, after which it decreases. This year the peak falls on the night of the 12th/13th August. (Sat-Sun)
( Weather forecast: - currently favours Friday evening/Saturday morning.)
Be aware of heavy dew during the night.
New Moon is on Wed Aug 16
Where is the Perseid shower
If one can locate the band of stars overhead called the Milky Way then the sky is probably dark enough to observe. Follow the band to the left toward the North-East horizon. Find a "W" on its side, Casseopeia, just above the radiant, the point on the sky from which the shooting stars appear to start.
How to observe it
One does not look at the radiant! Rather one looks to a side with the least obstruction from trees, buildings, lighting, horizon, etc. Pick something "prominent" and observes in this vicinity during the night. As the Earth rotates, this area of sky will appear to move westward. Relax and enjoy the view.
https://www.astronomy.com/observing/how-to-observe-a-meteor-shower/
Of course, if you want a "pretty picture" of a shooting star through the Big Dipper, or the Cass "W" or M31, you will have to take photos of that particular patch of sky.
If you choose the Big Square of Pegasus you might catch trails from all 3 showers as well as random sporadics.
I wanted to catch a meteor near the Pleiades one year.
The first night after 2 dozen photos I had this one:
On the next night after over 100 shots - nothing! I wish everyone clear skies and good luck.
What causes it, the shower?
Comet Swift-Tuttle (109P/Swift-Tuttle), a comet that takes 133 years to orbit the Sun, is the parent body of the, at times, epic Perseid meteor shower. It was first recorded
in August of 36 CE by Chinese astronomers, but credit for its modern identification is given to Adolphe Quetelet in 1835. Its meteors are visible from July 13 to August 26.
Some History
The comet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Swift%E2%80%93Tuttle
Messier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Messier
St Lawrence's tears
https://www.natureupnorth.org/justmynature/jrmiller/tears-st-lawrence
K-Cygnid meteor shower .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_Cygnids
(Vicki and I discovered this on our own in 2013 and 2014. It may be related to a Near-Earth Asteroid.)
Delta Aquariid meteor shower
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/delta-aquariid-meteor-shower-2023-when-where-see-it-uk
(another shower with an uncertain - for us! - progenitor)
Saturn - this year/2023 it is not far from the radiant for the Delta Aquariids. In other years
the radiant is to be found by locating the west side of the "square of Pegasus" and following it down to
the only bright star, Formalaut. The radiant is about half that distance - where Saturn was located in August 2023.
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/saturn-at-opposition-closest-brightest-best/
https://earthsky.org/tonight/saturns-opposition-fun-things-to-see
https://www.astronomy.com/observing/see-saturns-rings-at-their-finest/ 2022 and closing
And maybe add an aurora alert?
References:
https://www.space.com/32868-perseid-meteor-shower-guide.
This gives meteor counts in near real time to date/hour
https://www.imo.net/resources/faq/ Frequently Asked Questions on Visual Observations
Frequently Asked Questions on Photographic Observations - is given near the end of the link-
WOB
Don't fire until you can see the whites of their eyes
But what if they don't have whites of their eyes?
Or
How many eyes are there, anyway?
Maybe I should not shoot anymore - but just snap?
I'll only love brown eyes!
WOB
At 8:30 AM we drove over to see the mayor to get our annual life/living verification certificate to "prove" we are alive and worthy of receiving our pensions.
Front Street and Queen Street intersection was flooded to approx 10 to 15cm of water from a heavy rain in the night. I do not know if water levels were ever higher - probably. The Mayor had been informed.
So we are living in the here and now. This is change, changing increasingly rapidly. I think that in the next chapter I'll write just a little about how "we" know, how the changes are measured and to what precision. The problem of predicting still remains but a look back in history indicates we underestimate how rapid this change is occurring.
So recently Crawford Lake has been in the news.
Whether we like it or not, it does contain evidence of the "Hand of Man", or the indication of entering the Anthropocene - choose a name, like epoch, eon, or simply an event.
How will "we" manage?
Was this how the dinosaurs experienced that moment 65 million years ago?
Or will we find a silver lining?
We can and must tell - one finger in the dyke can stop the flooding there.
Actually You don’t use a finger, you use a boat.
WOB
I think recalling "remembrance day" before the day shows signs of awareness, don't you?
So, I am remembering my friends and their families who suffered through the great flooding in Germany 2 years ago - how time flies. But wait. A few days ago the TV was full of the great flooding in Toronto 10 years ago. What? I was living here in Ontario then - I don't recall any flooding - did not happen!
Here is a link to a CBC report
Use this "Toronto flooding July 2013" in a suitable search engine if you need more "proof",
So on that Thursday in July we had 2 friends visiting us - ironically living less than 40km from the flooding that would happen 8 years into the future and they would not experience anything more than a lot of rain.
On this day in 2013 I do not recall rain and my photo diary shows us admiring waterfalls around Bracebridge. Try googling Bracebridge and flooding and you may be
surprised - I was - at the number of years Spring flooding has been a catastrophe there.
My photos from July 8, 2013:
And compare this to an event in April 2019;
Bracebridge is 45min north of me and Toronto 90 min south, approximately.
So what am I remembering? The frailty of humans, their minds, their memory.
And what I wanted to mention in this chapter is Hurricane Hazel! My wife and I experienced this "live" as children - Vicki was actually isolated for a couple of days when highway #7 flooded at the railway underpass - CN? - and where a branch of the Don River crossed the road.
Here is a link to photos of the bridge
They were without electricity, However, in those "good ol' days" they had a wood stove and food, and welcomed neighbours on their island - yes, Jeff, there were turtles on "their" island, too.
Hurricane Hazel entered Canada/Ontario in the evening of October 15/16, 1954.
Here is a link from which the following was taken
"Floodwaters slowly rose in Holland Marsh – a bowl-shaped valley near Bradford – allowing people to escape to the town.[47] Highway 400, which passes through the marsh, was under as much as 10 ft /3 m of water in some places when as much 6 m of water backed up. Much of the crops in the area were either swept away or ruined.[48] After the water pumps failed due to debris, better equipment allowed the Holland Marsh to be drained by November 13."
Here are some photos I took soon after I returned to Ontario in Spring 2010.
Heading south, approaching the Holland Marsh at the bottom (east to the left, west to the right):
All this to the west covered to a depth of 3m of water - it would not be drained until early November. Looking west for the next 3 images:
Now is the Bradford highway really affordable, Doug Ford? The blue water drops represent places of severe flooding:
Some mood music, please:
I wanted to share my experience with my European friends. Shared experiences mean more, don't you think? However, my Indigenous friends remind me that they have experienced flooding, too. They told those who would listen that there was a time when they could walk to Manitoulin - now an island - from what is now the north end of the Saugeen/Bruce peninsula from what some now call Tobermory - the well of Mary, actually located on the Isle of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland. How the invasive species brings names to their brave new world.
I do not have their (Indigenous) story and so can not tell it. However, the invasive species does confirm it:
Geology and Landforms of Grey & Bruce Counties
The Bruce.Grey Geology Committee
Published by The Owen Sound Field Naturalists
page 139: Underwater features - Recent research
Underwater landforms of Fathom Five National Marine Park (Tobermory)
Of course, "we" have abolished memory work in schools since it is a) unnecessary, and b) faulty! And of course we all know, it couldn't happen here.
I had just entered a lane when something popped up and as quickly popped down - was it the heat getting to me?
A moment passed
Two Otter, maybe 15m away from me, curious, very curious,
I was surprised - didn't know what to say. Why did the otter cross the lane?
I did say it was hot - +29°C - so ...
Wonderful,
WOB
Do you recall the furniture type, nested "coffee" tables for TV dinners? I think "our" set had 3 or 4 - the table equivalent of a Matryoshka doll ?
So I did do a blog on too many TV dinners several years ago, Tuesday May 9th, 2017
However, recently this has been coming "home":
The TV is on our lawn - I am safely located on our balcony.
However, one day recently I ventured to this area to look at "who" had possibly been setting up the TV dinners - 2 Osprey eating take outs. I had talked to them but they would not tell me their secrets to success!
Close encounters of the 3rd kind! And 3 - 1 on land and 2 in the bush.
WOB
