Birds in Flight

Today is yet another Saturday where rain or threat of rain has kept me off my bike. This has been a rainy spring as 11 out of the last 15 weekends have had some kind of rain. Hopefully I will be able to get a ride in tomorrow. 

While I sit inside today I have had time to process some photos of some birds in flight I took down at the Edwin B. Forsythe bird sanctuary.  It's a quick hour drive from where I live and usually worth the trip as there are always a lot of birds there feeding in the marsh. This time there weren't as many herons or egrets as usual but there were a lot of terns flying by the road and managed to get a good shot of one in flight as shown in the top of the post. 

There was also an osprey hovering over the road. There are 3 or 4 osprey nest in the sanctuary but this is the first time I saw one flying around. Click on the picture if you want to see it up close. Since it is a slow flying bird I was able to get it in perfect focus and the lighting was good. 

For some reason there were a lot of turtles walking around so I had to be careful not to run over them. 

There are always seagulls and I manage to capture one with a crab in its mouth. 

 

I just wish the lighting was better as the colors are washed out. With my camera on rapid fire mode I took a lot of pictures most of them not worth showing but shooting a lot of photos is the only way to get a good photo of rapid moving wildlife. I am improving my technique so am getting a better ratio of keepers but there is still a good amount of luck and timing involved. 

This picture of a red winged black bird was mostly luck as I was just taking a picture of it sitting on a guard rail when it took off. Luckily my camera kept it in focus and because of was shooting at a high shutter speed it came out pretty sharp. These birds fly really fast so these are not birds that are easy to track in flight. 

I still have room for improvement but enjoy the challenge of this type of photography so will keep trying until I get it right. 

Bridge NOT Out

I led a ride from Yardley this past weekend that went over the Lamberville/New Hope bridge. The bridge was close to pedestrian and car traffic earlier in the year. Last year during some other work being done on the bridge they found that a 4 inch diameter pin was failing which could have caused the bridge to collapse. We go over the bridge on a regular basis so I'm glad the fixed it before it fell into the river. As part of the repair they refurbished the walkway. It's now wider so you don't have to duck into beams to let some on pass you. 

I had a full ride with a few riders that I haven't ridden before. Most of the new riders seemed to like the route and the ride and said they may join me again on my next ride. I don't really believe them because I have a lot of new people come on my rides but very few of them come back. Not sure why. Sure we are a little sarcastic but are a friendly bunch. 

It was a little cold at the start but ended being a beautiful day with no rain for once. We didn't even have any of my normal bridge out crossings or dirt so one of my better rides. This was one of the hillier rides I did this year but felt good so now that it is getting warmer I may venture a little further up the Delaware and explore some of the hills on both sides of the river. 

In other news. I did a ride around the Manasquan Reservoir today and can report that the reservoir is now full as you can see from these pictures of the visitor center

 

and from Georgia Road.

 

So I guess all the annoying rain we have been getting filled all the rivers and reservoirs. 

It's Always Crappy When We Go to Round Valley

I haven't been to Round Valley since July 2023. This is a ride we do every year or two because we like the view of the reservoir at Round Valley. However 90% of the time the weather is cloudy and crappy so the picture of the reservoir looks like the one above. At least it didn't rain like it did during my Vincentown ride. There were a few drops along the way but nothing that could be consider as rain. The one good thing about the cloudy weather is that it kept is cool. In fact I had my arm warmers on for the entire ride. 

This was Laura's ride so we used her route from Hillsborough. It's 47 miles and hilly. The worst hills are the three getting into the reservoir which someone named years ago as Papa, Baby, and Mama bear. Not sure why. These are not very steep but are a couple miles long in total so it is just a grind. Everybody knows these hills are coming but there are 5 miles of rollers before you get to them and so it hard to know when they will start. I have ridden to Round Valley enough to know that the climb starts when you see the big wall of grass on the right which is one of the dams that forms Round Valley. 

I felt good on the rollers at the beginning of the ride and made it up the three bears with out feeling stressed I was a the back of the pack but not too far off the front. We made our usual stop at the parking lot of the reservoir to take a picture of the crappy weather. The reservoir was a lot fuller than last time. 

 

As the picture above shows the water was so low that the boat ramp didn't even reach the water and there was grass between the rock wall and the late. Today the water was just a foot or two below normal as the line on the rock wall on the left shows. 

After going around the reservoir we made our normal stop in Whitehouse Station at he Brooklyn Grill. It's probably a good place for breakfast or lunch but just an okay rest stop. 

We had a strong tail wind on the way back which made the ride home easier especially since it's more rolling than hilly on the way back. We did make a quick stop at Solberg  airport on the way back as we saw two marine helicopters land their. Not sure why they were there. 

I felt strong at the end and in general feel good this year riding so may do some more hilly rides in the future.  

 

Wet and Messy

 

Although I don't ride when it rains I sometimes will ride when there is a slight chance of rain as long as it doesn't look like there is a major rain storm coming. The weather this spring has been more rainy than normal and even when it doesn't rain we have had a lot of strong winds during the rides. I did manage to make it out the past few Saturdays but rain this past week prevented me from getting out for my normal Wednesday ride or even an after work ride. 

At the beginning of the week the forecast for Saturday looked like rain but the forecast improved during the week. By Friday night the rain looked like it would be gone by early Saturday morning and it was. I got a good portion of the posse to join me for a ride in the pinelands. It was cloudy during the start and getting a little darker. To be honest I expected a few miles of light rain based on the radar forecast but I didn't expect it to last for more then 10-15 minutes. 

Somewhere 6 or 7 miles into the ride there was a little light rain but it was a minor nuisance. Then somewhere towards Brownsmill the rain pick up a little. The rain itself was very light and not too bad as my glasses and garmin only had a few drops on them. The problem was the roads were really wet so the spray from the road and Pete's read tire was getting me wet and messy especially from the shorts down. As well as the line up the back. 

By the time we got around Mirror Lake the rain had stopped and after another 20 minutes there was sun and blue skies. So the rain was annoying but I'm glad I got out for the ride. 

Once the rain stopped the roads quickly dried and by the time we got to the rest stop in Vincentown there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We had a tail wind on the way home so even though it was a 55 mile ride I felt pretty good.

There was one more result of the rain morning rain. There was a large puddle on Warner Rd. I have ridden this road quite a few times and don't remember it ever being flooded and not sure why it did this time since it didn't really rain that much. I guess since we didn't hit a bridge out on this ride we had to ride through some water instead. It was probably close to a foot deep as it was almost up to my peddles. The only way through was forward so we all got a little wet again.

This is a picture Pete took as I rode through the puddle. 

This wasn't the wettest or dirtiest that I have been on a ride and I'm sure this won't be the last time I get rained on. I just wish we have a few picture perfect days ahead so I don't have to take as much time cleaning up after a ride.

May Flowers

Last week was mostly sunny and warm so I decided to take a day off work to go to Longwood Gardens to see some spring flowers. The last time I was here was about 10 years ago during the Christmas season so didn't really get to see all the different flowers and fountains. 

There were a lot of tulips in the main garden as they are in season now.

As well as a lot of poppies  

the center of the poppy is interesting and complex

 

There are also a lot of fountains 

and waterfalls

 

Which are spread out through the gardens. But of course the mail reason to be visit Longwood gardens is for the variety of different flowers. I spent a hour or so wandering through the different conservatories. I focused on some close up macro photography.

 

There are a lot of different ways to get close up pictures of flowers. Getting the right composition, lighting and focus takes a lot of practice and there are more than one way to do it right. I'm getting better but still have a lot to learn. Still it was fun to walk around the gardens for a few hours on a warm spring day

 

New Wheels

Rainy days are still making it hard to ride when I want to. I did get out last Saturday for a hilly ride in the Sourlands and a decent midweek ride on Wednesday. This Saturday was suppose to be the Spring Fling but it was another rainy Saturday. Because of that I listed a ride for Sunday out of MCP. There were few problems with this ride. First there was a problem with the website again so that a few people were not able to register since the register button went away for some reason. It eventually came back but I just told the people who emailed me to show up to the ride whether they could register or not. I ended up with 11 people who said they were coming to the ride although one of them thought the ride was suppose to be a 9:30am so I ended up with 10. 

The MCP picnic area was actually closed for some police training. Luckily they let us park on the grass by the entrance as it would have been hard to call everybody and tell them to park some where else. 

I had planned a 46 mile ride to Columbus and back. It's mostly a north-south route. I chose this route because the winds were going to be blowing 20mph+ with 40 mph gust from the north west so I wanted most of the route to be in the cross wind as opposed to having to head directly into it. 

It was cloudy and windy at the start and we had a tail wind pushing us out. Even though I was riding with a few people I didn't know or haven't ridden with much the group stayed together and was well behaved. We made our stop at the general store in Columbus and then headed back. This is where the wind became a problem. It was mostly a crosswind but the route purposely zig zagged  so we had a few short stretches heading in the the wind. Unfortunately the last 4 miles was directly into the wind and it sucked. However it was better getting out in the wind than not getting out at all. 

The ride did give me a chance to test out my new wheels on my Feather. The front wheel had a divot in it and with a little more wear it probably would have worn through the divot. The rear tire might have had a couple of hundred miles left in it but I decided to change them both as part of my spring maintenance. After years using black tires I decided to go with ones with a red stripe. I like the way it looks and I think it makes the bike more visible so will probably stick with colored tires in the future. 

Speaking of new wheels I actually went to the NY auto show on Tuesday. I had to go up to Armonk for work and decided to stop by, the show, on my way home. My trusty Baja is still going strong but it is 23 years old and so I just wanted to see what is out there in case I need a new car anytime soon.

There was an interesting variety of cars. You have a choice now of the type on engine, electric, hybrid or gas. My favorite electric cars where the Nissan Airya and Chevy Equinox EV.

 

There was also the Hyundai Ionic 5 which is more sporty and car like.   

Then there was the new ID Buzz from VW which is an electric version of the old microbus. 

It was actually really nice and had the most head room of any car I have even been in.  It is over 70k so not an option for me. However if I was going to spend a lot on an electric SUV it would be the Lucid Gravity. 

 

It's got 450 miles of range is well design and is beautiful inside an out. I like that the frunk turns into a love seat. 

I also looked at the hybrids from all the main car companies. The CR-V, Rav-4 and Rogue are nice but I think the Hyundai Tucson is the best of the hybrid SUVs. Then there was this from Fiat.

It was made out of plastic and probably weight just a few hundred pounds. I'm sure the wind we had today would have blown it over. 

It was fun seeing all the cars and at least now I have a better idea what's out there if I ever need to replace the Baja. 

April Showers Bring Road Closures

Last weekend was a rainout and so was this Saturday. So even though Sunday was cloudy and cool I decided to list a ride late in the week from Cranbury. The reason I decided to do it out of Cranbury is I wanted to get a few hills since I haven't done much of that this year AND also to see Jim who also had a ride out of Cranbury.

I had some problems listing the ride as one of the normal buttons on the website didn't work so wanted to talk to Jim and see if it was me or the website (it was the website). I only had a few takers for the ride but I'm glad I listed it. We did this route which is a variation of my normal Princeton loop from MCP or Cranbury. It has enough hills to help me to start building my hill legs. 

As we climbed up Bunker Hill I saw a flashing sign saying that the Griggstown crossing was closed. I didn't think it rained enough to cause flooding. Luckily when we got there the fence was across the causeway but there was no water on the road so we climbed over and under the fences and made our way across the canal. 

I made it up the hills and felt okay but it doesn't really feel like spring yet. So although I'm glad I pushed myself today I hope the weather gets warmer soon so theses rides feel a little better.

Spring Recovery

Now that I'm back from vacation I'm able to get more riding in. After a long and cold winter I'm looking forward to putting more miles in and getting back in riding shape. Spring is a time of rebirth so I'm looking forwards to the flowers that come with it and the warmer days that will make for longer rides. We have had a good amount of rain in the last month and the Manasquan reservoir is starting to recover as you can see by the picture at the top of the post. Here what it looked like in November.

Here what it looks like by Georgia Rd now.

 

Here what is looked like in November.

 

It still has a way to go but it looks like its about halfway to normal. 

I have a number of rides I do from my house and use this rides gauge how I'm riding. A few days after getting back from vacation I did a 25 mile local ride and felt surprising good so decided to lead a B ride (Okay its a B- under the new guidelines) from Allentown. It was a warm but windy day but still a good day for a ride. We only had two minor problems on the ride. I'm not talking about the bridge out 

as that is just a given on one of my rides. We did have to straddle the beams to get over but no one complained (much).

We did have a problematic flat tire that took a while to change. There was a issue with tire being hard to get off and on the rim along with a tube where the valve stem kept unscrewing as well as a cartridge inflator that broke. With tubes and inflators from different people we managed to get the tire on and inflated. One of the advantages with riding with a group is that if you have multiple failures of equipment you have a better chance of fixing the problem than if you ride by yourself. 

The second problem was the wind in the final few miles. We wrote right into it on our way back to Allentown and got spread out a little. Still we I did 41 miles and felt okay at the end of the ride so it felt like a step towards doing longer rides. 

This weekend was summer like on Saturday. I ended up staying over at our condo on the shore on Friday night to try and get a view of the partial solar eclipse happening at sunrise.

 

The clouds were just starting clear at sunrise so I didn't think I got a good picture of the eclipse until I had a chance to download the pictures on my computer and take a closer look. Like the June 2021 partial solar eclipse I got lucky and managed to get a bird in the shot. Unlike last time the picture I got was actually better than it looked like in person.

Since I was down the shore on Saturday morning I decided to do a reverse Belmar ride and start by my condo. I actually got Jim and Jack to join me and we did a ride out past Manasquan reservoir. Jack and I also did a warm up ride along to ocean to Asbury and back before the ride. 

It was another windy day so I was happy we were going into at the start instead of having to fight our way back at the end of the ride. The route went out through some local neighborhoods and past the shark river on the way out. There were a few scenic spots and interesting landmarks along the way. After that we pushed our way into the wind until we rounded Manasquan reservoir and then got pushed back to the beach. 

We stopped at the Allenwood General Store which had a bathroom, good muffins and a picnic table to sit on so I may try to find ways to stop here again. 

When we got back to the beach is was close to 80 degrees and crowded with cars and people. After the ride I hung out at the beach with my wife for a couple of hours before heading to our favorite place for a good dinner. 

Spring is finally here so looking forward to the warmer weather and longer rides that come with it.

The March 14th Lunar Eclipse

As I mentioned last time I was able to see the latest lunar eclipse during my vacation. I had to wait to I got home to share the pictures since I didn't have the time to process the photos until now.

A lunar eclipse is not as exciting as a total solar eclipse, in fact it is pretty slow and boring for most people. It usually takes about an hour or so from the beginning of the eclipse until it becomes total. Then the totality lasts around a hour. After that it takes about a hour or more for eclipse to be over. Most people who care usually just come out for the total part. Few people want to dedicate 3 or 4 hours to the eclipse. Of course I'm one of the few people who actually enjoy these events and don't mind sitting around and watching them. 

Fortunately where I was in Jekyll Island it was 60 degree and clear skies so sitting out at night wasn't a problem. This particular eclipse started late at night. The eclipse began at 1:09 am and lasted to until 4:47 am. I was hoping to be able to sit out on our balcony to watch the eclipse but the moon was too high to be visible. This wasn't a problem as I sat out on the patio by the pool which was close to our room. 

I went to bed just before 10pm and got up just before 1am so got a few hours sleep before I went out. I sat out on the patio with my camera on a tripod and took a set of pictures of the moon every 15 mins to document the eclipse. I didn't bother bringing my telescope on the vacation as I didn't want to bother lugging in around. This just meant I had to keep adjusting the tripod every time I needed to take a set of pictures. 

The initial pictures I got of the full moon were probably some of the best shots of the full moon I have ever taken as you can see below. 

At about 1:10am noticed the shadow of the earth starting to cross the moon from bottom left to top right. I took a set of pictures every 15 mins until the total eclipse started. 

It was a little strange sitting outside late at night by myself. We were by the beach so I could hear the waves hitting the beach but it was otherwise quiet. Since I was in Georgia and near a marsh there was still a possibility that there were alligators around so kept scanning the area for any kind of movement. I wasn't really that concerned but a person alone late at night sitting on a patio is the perfect opening scene for a movie like "Attach of the Mega Gator".

By around 2:20 am the moon was almost fully covered by the shadow of the earth.

Then about 10 mins later it went into total eclipse.

Of course unlike a solar eclipse the moon is still visible when it is totally covered by the earths shadow. This is because there some light reflected off the earth and back into space that illuminates the moon even when it is in the earth's shadow. This is called earthshine. The amount of earthshine varies depending on the distance between the earth and moon and sun and the relative angles between them as well as the amount of dust in the atmosphere. 

This means that each lunar eclipse is a slightly different each time. This one like the last one I saw the moon was very dim. The moon had it's usual red glow but it wasn't as deep as last time. The top right corner was almost white which was a lot different than other eclipses I have seen. 

Because the moon was so dim I really had to decrease the shutter exposure to 1/4 of a second so the images of the total eclipse aren't as clear as I was hoping for. I also had a moisture problem. It was very humid by the beach so the lens kept fogging up. I had to clean it off before taking photos. Next time I will have a dew heater to prevent this problem. 

After about an hour of totality the earth's shadow slowly retreated from moon 

I kept kept taking picture documenting the progress

Until the full moon appeared again. 

It has been a long time since I was purposely up this late at night. I thought I might get tired just sitting there staring at the moon but I actually enjoyed it. There are very few times that the weather will be this good for a lunar eclipse so I'm glad I made the effort to stay up and experience it.

 

Spring Break Part II

CLICK HERE for More Picture from my Trip

The second part of our spring break trip involved heading further south to relax in some warm weather. The original idea was to find a hotel on the beach so we could relax on our balcony or beach and veg out. However as we were researching hotels while planning the trip, 6 months ago, we found some houses on or close to the beach that looked more comfortable. 

The thing that sold us on getting the house was having our own private pool. The house we had in East Windsor had a pool and although we have and indoor and outdoor pool in the community we live in my wife misses having her own pool. We did have one day of rain but the weather got sunnier after that. The house was a couple blocks from the beach in Panama City and was a comfortable place to spend 5 nights. I did work a couple of days as my wife enjoyed the sunshine and floating in the pool. We had not been to this area in Florida before so I did a little exploring in my free time. There are a number local and state parks in the area. 

At  St Andrew Park I spent a little over an hour near sunset photographing some birds. I got a good close up of a heron who was trying to steal a fish from a guy fishing off the jetty.

 

There was also a blue heron nearby

 

As well as a Pelican

I spent some time doing a hike at a local conservation park which didn't have any animals 

 

but did have a deep red swamp that was interesting.   

I also spent some on the beach and got some more bird pictures like this one of a sandpiper

and this one of the raptor (jet fighter)

 

We didn't make any plans for the last few days of our vacation and figured we would play it by ear depending on the weather. Since the weather didn't look good in Panama City we headed east and ended up in Jekyll Island in Georgia at a Holiday Inn at the beach for a couple of nights.

 

 

Although I didn't plan this trip to see the lunar eclipse it turned out to be a clear night where we were so I spent the middle of the first night viewing the eclipse. 

I will post some more pictures once I get home and have time to process them with better photo editing software that will bring out more details. I will say it was warm clear night so I didn't mind sitting outside for the entire eclipse.

Jekyll Island turned out to be a nice beach to spend a couple of days so we may be back again if we come back this way. I also think I found my next car a Caprice Classic pickup truck. 

 

After Jekyll Island we spent a couple days driving back home. It was a nice relaxing break in some warm weather. Although I got a lot of hiking in I didn't haven't been on the bike in a couple of weeks so look forward to getting back on the bike as the weather warms around here.