On Friday 9/29, it was the second full Moon of the month. This full Moon was a Supermoon because the Moon was at the nearest point in its orbit of Earth during the full Moon. Harvest Moon refers to the first full Moon in the fall equinox, which was on 9/23/23. It’s called the Harvest Moon because the light of the moon would aid in the gathering of the harvest. In addition to the moon, Jupiter and Saturn were able to be seen. Jupiter was just under 386 million miles away, with all 4 Moons aligned perfectly for a picture. Saturn was just over 829 million miles away. The air was cool and appeared to be rather clean of pollutants, which helps with the details on the Moon. Photos below are from Friday night. Enjoy!
On Friday, around 11:20am I received a message in the Milwaukee RBA chat that there were 5 American Flamingos in Port Washington. Obviously, everyone went nuts on the group chat trying to figure out if this was real or not. Meanwhile, I was at work, so I immediately started cleaning up my tools and locked everything up for the day. I figured worst case; I would just turn around if it wasn’t real. About 40 messages later, several texts to friends, and 20 or so minutes, I was able to confirm it! 5 American Flamingos at South Beach in Port Washington, WOW!!! I was already halfway through Milwaukee when I received confirmation, so I’m glad I left right away. When I arrived, around 12:20pm, the parking lot was already full and there were at least 50 people on the beach, half of which were just local residents, who were in awe as well. Everyone there couldn’t believe what they were seeing! There was 3 adults (pink) and 2 hatch year (gray) birds. They were only about 40′ offshore which was even more crazy! They were so close and did not mind all the people. While I was there, they were mostly resting. They would occasionally lift their heads and walk around but that was about it. I had heard that they were eating some kind of food, but I’m not sure what it was though. They also took baths and preened. Then at 5:12pm, they took flight and have not been seen since. These birds were blown into the US from hurricane Idalia and made their way up to us through the south winds this past week. What an epic day in the bird world of Wisconsin! The photos below were taken on Friday 9/22. Enjoy!
I spent a couple weeks driving around the county parks looking for deer. I follow the Wisconsin rut report and communicate with a bunch of my friends, who are hunters, to get a fairly detailed timeline of what to expect. This year, at least for the Milwaukee area, the second weekend of November was peak. At this point, the buck would walk right out in the open, with almost no attention paid to people. It is quite awesome to be less than 100′ from some of these massive animals. During the weekdays, I go out after work and drive around until 5ish, when it gets too dark for pictures. On the weekends, I start before sunrise and stay out until I don’t see them any longer. Sometimes though, they are moving all day long! I saw at least 20 different buck (of all sizes) and over 20 doe. This is my second year doing this and it is a blast! The photos below are just some of the pictures I took. I have the different buck grouped together, kind of in order. All 20 are in this post. If you would like to see more of the photos I took and edited, click on the “White-tailed Deer” link below, and you will be taken to the gallery page. Enjoy!
