European Starling Battles

Chaos! (I count 9, maybe 10 in this frame)

One day back in January I found the motivation to fill our suet feeder. This attracted the attention of a bunch of European starlings, and Erin and I got to see (and hear) a lot of crazy antics by our visitors. Of course, every time I stepped out the door to take some pictures they would scatter and it was really cold so I gave up. About a week later, the starlings "rediscovered" the suet and a ton converged on the feeder. This time around, I set the camera up on a tripod and used a remote trigger to take pictures. Below are a few of my favorites.

Camelopardalid Meteor Shower

Just an airplane, unfortuately

Friday night/Saturday morning was the Camelopardalid meter shower. Predictions said that it could potentially be spectacular, and the weather was cooperative so Erin and I headed out on our back patio a little after 2am to watch. Well, it wasn't as awesome as hoped, but still not bad. Erin spotted 3 meteors, while I didn't spot any. That's what I get for fiddling with my camera.

Of course, the best ones happened before the projected peak according to Astro Bob, which is a shame. I suppose the lesson is to just get out early and enjoy the clear skies (and set my camera up early too...). The good news is that I did capture some pictures of them since I left the camera out capturing continuous frames. None of the meteor pictures are really any good though, and the volume of meteors was disappointing. Making lemons out of lemonade, I did make a startrail so at least there's that. I think this is my best startrail yet. There's even a meteor pretty clearly visible in the lower right.