We had a lunar eclipse last night, well everybody had a lunar eclipse. Thing is, last night wasn't cloudy! The Man of the Place and I got to see the whole thing!
I've borrowed some photographs from Dean at Mostlymacro after first getting his permission. The camera equipment I have here at Whitelees wasn't up to the task. There are always beautiful nature photos over at Dean's blog.
A lunar eclipse seems to take a whole heck of a lot longer than a solar eclipse.
It was interesting to watch the full moon get nibbled away by the shadow of the earth.
I really enjoyed popping through from time to time to the east window of the house to see what phase the eclipse had reached so far. We opened the window so that we could get a clearer view with our telescope (gift from my mother) and we could hear one of the local barn owls hunting. Barn owls make a "peep" call as they hunt. This owl got VERY close to the house. In fact, I was half expecting to see it as the calls were so close. I am glad to merely hear it. I thought that with the loss of the old barn up the road a couple of years ago, we had lost our barn owls.
Henry started to get a little freaked out by lunar eclipses and owls calling. I teased him about going all medieval on me and went on about ill omen and bad juju.
My rational head knows that it is just a naturally occurring event and that it doesn't forecast doom however this morning when I went to go feed my chickens, I discovered that Rocky the rooster was gone. He had died at some point yesterday.
He was fine yesterday when I was outside working in the garden. He was crowing and scratching about like a normal chicken. This morning, he was a colourful pile of feathers in the corner of the chicken run. I guess it was his time. He was about five years old. At least two of your daughters are still here. Goodbye Rocky, you were one beautiful Welsummer chicken.
7 comments:
Sorry to hear about poor Rocky. Rest in peace dude.
I actually missed the eclipse. For some reason I had it in my head that it would be visible later in the evening here. But, it was around 5:30 our time. Oops!
Oh well, my camera isn't good enough for moon shots anyway.
What do you know! A couple of centuries ago, or even not that long, Rocky's death would have been attributed to unnatural events like the lunar eclipse ;)
One of my blogging friends posted great photos too, he just has a point and shoot, but used a tripod. I guess that's really the secret. That is, if you live in the country. Because in the middle of Paris, there's always streetlight flares and it is never dark enough.
Hope you Mom is getting along fine
Gorgeous shots!
Interesting timing on Rocky's part (not that he planned his demise) I've also heard legends that someone has died if you hear an owl hoot...I can see where these thoughts come from
do you think the barn own was complaining that somebody else got to Rocky first?
"Whoooooo did this!!??"
Wow, those pictures are great! It was very cloudy here, so no eclipse for us!
Hi Peggy. I saw your link at Susan's place and thought I'd drop by and say hi. I'm glad I did.
The clouds obscured our view of the eclipse, which saddened us because the kids were looking forward to it. In the end, we followed it on the Internet. It wasn't the same, but they'll remember the experience all the same.
Thanks for posting these. Dean is very, very talented!
All the best,
Carmi
Jay - thankfully lunar eclipses are more frequent that total solar eclipses.
Claude - The thought did cross my mind. Mom is doing great. Thanks for asking.
Susan - The old legend was that if you SAW an owl during the day, it was an omen of death. Perhaps yours is a regional variation.
Extreme - Rocky was bigger than the local owls. I think it was natural causes. He was pretty old.
Gawilli- Shame you had clouds. There is always next time.
Carmi - Thanks for visiting. Come back again soon. Your site is excellent (I checked)!
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