The sky cleared on Saturday morning. Willow and I awoke early and headed out to see the planet alignment of Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn. We looked for high ground with an unobstructed view of the east.
We waited for the moon to rise. By then it was getting light. I could not see any of the planets with my naked eye. I tried several settings on my camera to pick up the planets, hoping I could see them when enlarged on the computer screen, however was unsuccessful.
A couple things could have been working against me. First, there was a slight haze in the east and could have easily obscured the dim light of the planets. Second, it gets light early here at our latitude of 50°N. And finally, I may have brought the wrong lens, opting for a wide angle instead of a lens that could have focused and enlarged a small part of the sky.
It was still a rewarding morning. We listened to chicken drumming and turkey’s gobbling. Four large Swans flew low over our heads, Willow seemed fine, but I was touched. When the sun got close to rising the song birds started up.
Palliser Pass 
mountaincoward
I can’t imagine wild turkeys – with them only being domesticated for meat here and totally non-native, ours are pretty much all penned up!
Beautiful photos – especially the first one – and its caption!
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Jim R
Quite a lot of them here in Iowa. I had about 20 of them under the feeders back of the house one winter day. Two of them were pecking at their reflections in the sliding glass door.
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mountaincoward
all our bluetits are attacking my car mirrors every morning as they keep seeing ‘other blue tits’ – I worry they’re wasting a lot of precious energy at a time they must be feeding young!
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Jim R
Our American Robins do that, too. They also peck at the house windows. I’ve resorted to drawing pictures on white paper of animal faces with big bold eyes. Those are taped on the inside of the window. It seems to work.
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mountaincoward
yeah – people here have silhouettes of birds of prey in black paper on their windows and they say they’re good too…
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underswansea
Blue Birds do that here.
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mountaincoward
it’ll just be the males! 😉
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underswansea
Hi Jim, have you ever ate one? The ones here are particularly bad eating due to them eating spruce and fir needles. I was wondering if the wild ones eating Iowa grain might be better.
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Jim R
No, I’ve never eaten wild turkey.
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underswansea
If they are like the ones here you are not missing much. I’ve even drank Wild Turkey. I prefer it to eating therm! 🙂
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underswansea
Wild Turkeys were introduced in this area during the 70’s and they really caught on.
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mountaincoward
they’re a fascinating-looking bird!
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underswansea
They really are. Their feathers, which are easy to find, are also very interesting.
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mountaincoward
Oddly, after I said we don’t really have them here, I was coming back from a hill walk and a farmer had a group of them in his field by the path!
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underswansea
Wow! Thats something. Maybe they have been introduced to the area. With the amount of hiking you do you would have seen them if they were native to your area.
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mountaincoward
they’re definitely not native to Britain
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Julie@frogpondfarm
Wonderful photos Bob … very rewarding!
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underswansea
Thanks Julie! It was a nice morning.
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