Saturday Morning Meanderings … Birds to the Medal of Honor

Background, Year 10

Like most days, I woke up shortly before 5 am this morning, but the 30 mph winds and downpour made the idea of going out with my camera into the forest seem crazy. Thus, given Molly is out of town, I found myself with a free early morning all by myself. Sitting down on the living room couch I decided to learn more about a true American hero, Desmond Doss. Mr. Doss is the only conscientious objector in the history of our nations’ history to win the Medal of Honor.

Photo: Courtesy of the US Army Medical Museum

During the Battle for Okinawa in World War II, Desmond Doss, who was a combat medic, under severe enemy fire “saved the lives of 50–100 wounded infantrymen atop the area known by the 96th Division as the Maeda Escarpment or Hacksaw Ridge”. Doss saved most of those lives after his division had withdrawn from the area, He stayed behind and repeatedly went forth from the ridge’s edge onto the field of battle which the Japanese controlled. Doss found wounded soldiers (even some Japanese … the enemy), treated them, pulled or carried them back to the edge of the ridge to finally lower the wounded over the cliff by rope to safety. There is a rather gruesome movie directed by Mel Gibson about Mr. Doss named Hacksaw Ridge. However, I watched this morning a YouTube show featuring the hero himself.  Here is that TV Show from 1958 about Desmond Doss a 7th Day Adventist … hero and conscientious objector, This is Your Life (YouTube link for email subscribers). It is so worthwhile to watch this show and learn about a combat medic who would not even touch a gun. However, this is NOT an anti gun post, but rather a post about the courage of convictions.

Okay this blog is supposed to be about birds, but every so often I need to go off topic. Remember my post about Mongolian Throat Singing?! However, back to the birds.

I’ve spent a lot of time up in Sax-Zim Bog over the past few days. The combination of grouse and migrating hawks have made for excellent birding opportunities. In fact, Merlins follow the migration south. On several occasions in this week I have watched Northern Flickers being repeatedly attacked by Merlins.

From this week’s birding meanderings …

Broad-Winged Hawk

Ruffed Grouse

Northern Flicker

I hope you enjoyed my going off topic this morning. This has been a memorable week with good birding, watching a bull moose at sunrise and a great northern lights display. That’s it for right now from the Northwoods.

Knife River Ravine Northern Lights (videos!)

Year 10,

One week ago I was camped out at Crisp Point while working my volunteer lighthouse keeper’s gig near the far eastern end of Lake Superior, and Lady Aurora danced for me (see my post … Lighthouse Keeper’s Dance). This week Lady Aurora decided to dance for me near the western end of Lake Superior. I am a lucky guy! My location was deep within the Knife River Ravine one mile inland from the big lake. I hope you enjoy the lady’s Northern Lights dance. I did!

Note: I tend to edit my Northern Lights images in post processing to better reflect what I saw with the naked eye. With respect to last night’s dance I removed much of the green color my camera chose and made the Northern Lights more white. Most images were taken at an ISO of 3,200 for 2 seconds (Sony A6300, Aperture 2.0 and Rokinon 12 mm manual lens). The real time Northern Lights Videos are at the bottom of this post.

The Green Glow (around 10 pm … an indication the dance was about to start … the horizon often glows just before the start of a good Northern Lights display)

Northern Lights Rays

Firestorm (the lights were flickering on and off every second … and moving around in the sky)

Some Light Painting to Better Show my Environment (see the boulders in the river)

Around midnight I returned home. The Northern Lights were calming down. I took this photograph 150 yards from the end of my driveway.

Northern Lights at Amity Creek / The Deeps

And the movies! Yup, here are two real time videos I took with my Sony A6300 (not time lapse images stitched together). My Sony is not an expensive camera. It dates to the year 2016, and I was using a Rokinon 12 mm manual lens set at 3,200 ISO and Aperture of 2.0. My vantage point is I am standing in the middle of Knife River!

Lady Aurora’s Dance #1 (video link 1 for email subscriber)

Lady Aurora’s Dance #2 (video link 2 for email subscriber)

As with my still images, I did very little post processing of my two videos … some noise reduction and color correction to make the Aurora Borealis less green to better reflect what I was seeing with my naked eye.