Sunday May 6 - a white box with a black hole

We had stopped the car to look at some activity:

This is a nesting box - for Bluebirds - but being "courted" by an American Tree Swallow.

And since Sunday this image has haunted me, as "the square peg in the round hole".
From wiki:
"England under Seven Administrations, 1837, "Sir Robert Peel was a smooth round peg, in a sharp-cornered square hole, and Lord Lyndenurst is a rectangular square-cut peg, in a smooth round hole."
(I actually saw it as a round hole in a cube box but that is incidental.)

So misfits, if you will, but tenacious:

 - 2 different dragonflies.

An ornamental Dragonfly

And then what might appear to be a broach - but is not.

And it happens not just to flies.

Lots of beings don't fit.

And although there 12 months in a year, it is more like 13 moonths. And here is why:

Count the markings on the shells and then compare:

Obvious, isn't it. So if you are a square, be determined to be your best.

Wise Old Bird

Black saddlebags full of dragonflies?

I was amazed by the number of nearly identical dragonflies flitting about me at Carden yesterday. I tried counting them and maybe 15-20 indivudals within 10m of me for minutes at a time followed by intervals with just 1 or 2 flying patrol. Around 2-3 pm they vanished for about an hour before returning as before. The car thermometer read 22C.
On 1 photo I think I see a black saddlebag. There were no callico or halloween pennants apparently.
Here are a few images beginning with the clearest, sadly not good, observation of a blackbag:

The sharpest image is this one:

A word about the shots. I worked from fixed focus most of the time at 3-4m. Sometimes I was able to focus real time on one but pressing the shutter was usually too late. Otherwise, it is the old story: of you want to marry a prince you have to kiss a lot of frogs.

 Note that dragonflies have 4 wings which are controlled independently.
Fascinating creatures - wob

Carden Festival Sun

Vicki and I were busy yesterday - but nothing compared to organizing the Carden Festival.
Big thanks from me to Mark and Tom, the tips of the melting icebergs that I met personally. Please pass my thanks along to the unknown-to-me majority of helpers and doers who oil the ancient joints and make the
many varied programs proceed smoothly. I saw some very good bird houses and painted owls so there was
also much patience and ability on both sides on display.
I offered to show visitors the sun through an H-Alpha solar telescope, donated to the Orillia Astronomy Club, and answer some questions about the relationship between the sun and earth. There was some interest in the connection to northern lights/aurora borealis.
Here are a couple of impressions from the early morning:

Eventually the grass would be flattened in a semi-circle around the telescope as the vistors looked at promonences and sunspots from 8:30am to 4:30pm.

I showed a sequence of solar images from the past 4 days to give a feeling for what was being seen and how the sun was rotating:

Today I downloaded some H-alpha images that match what we saw yesterday:

And who enjoyed these moments? Grand daughters and grand women and in between!

The solar activity that we saw is rotating around for a possible frontal impact on earth in 5 to 10 days - no promises, but if you do not look you won't see anything either! So here you can see the phases of the moon
And this is what aurora might look like from Orillia - better from a dark site like Carden, or the Torrance Barrens:

If you want to check the current solar activity you might look here. And if you are interested in SOHO and some of its instrumentation and results and how astronomers can "see" the far side of the sun (There is also a layman's explanation here.

Do not forget yout sunscreen - I didn't but did forget to put it on - OUCH!
From the not so wise old bird.

Oh yes, I forgot that an alien visited me:

I think a saddlebag. wob