Snowy Weekend

Well, we finally had a decent snow. Not as wet as I would like, but you take what you can get. I went on a hike Sunday up at Mammoth Cave. The roads in the park were very clear, considering the amount of snow on the ground. I hiked a decent sized loop on the south side of the river - The Green River Bluffs Trail, the Echo River Spring Trail and the Mammoth Dome Sink Trail. I had my gps going but did not zero it at the start, so I am not sure of the distance. I was comfortably dressed for the weather and it was a swell hike.

You can tell I like, or fall back on, leading lines.







I saw quite a few Deer out on the trail. The longest lens I had with me was around 100mm. Fortunately they will let you get quite close before they spook, and I had room to crop.






Trails Illustrated
Mammoth Cave NP Trail Map
(Amazon Link)

This is a nice plastic map. I have been using versions of this map for years. It survives canoe trips and rain showers. You could come to the conclusion that I have been dunked a time or two when I mention that it survives canoe trips; I have no comment on that.

On the Way to Work

I was driving to Cave City for a service call and there were some nice low-hanging clouds. The damage from the ice storm last year sometimes distracts from the photos.

I am Wet!

Shanty Hollow; and I'm getting wet!

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BELOW:
Nolin River, right below Nolin dam. There is a bird in the first four shots. I fired up the zoom for shots two, three, and four.

Later as it was getting darker (and foggier) you can start to see the influence of the street lamps from the parking area.

Again there is some tree damage from the ice storm of last January.

30 second exposure






30 second exposure


30 second exposure

Southern Flying Squirrel, Maybe

This little fella was eating out of the bird feeder when I got home - he has been around before. One night, I thought he must be a bat as he was spread out on one of the big feeders (it was very dark at that feeder). Anyway, tonight I happened to be carrying my equipment into the house and had the camera and tripod in my arms.

This shot is at ISO12800, exposure time 1 second. It was much darker than it looks. I was using f8 to give some depth of field as focusing was tough. I took several shots, but he kept moving during the exposure. He was surprisingly unafraid and hung around until the heat pump kicked on. Apparently he does not mind people or dogs, but does not care for heat pumps.

This shot was processed with the Lightroom 3 beta. Lightroom 3 is doing a much better job of high iso noise reduction than Lightroom 2.

I did some goggling on nocturnal squirrels, and came up with the southern flying squirrel - no guarantees though.