We’ve been well entrenched in Christmas preps since we arrived back from visiting grand baby Alex…between putting up decorations and extra choir rehearsals…not to mention the running around and getting presents for the various charity giving trees we support at the Elks and St. Therese Parish…then add in all the normal stuff like bike rides, groceries, bingo, Taco night, campfires and whatever else have you…well it’s been a pretty busy couple of weeks.

Neil bought himself a new camera…he started with a Nikon D7000 which became Connie’s when he bought his D7100. Anyways…the D7000 was about on it’s last legs as some of the switches weren’t always working as they’re supposed to. In addition…he discovered that there’s a design limitation in the size of the image buffer in the D7100…what that means is when he’s got the shutter set for continuous high speed release where it’s supposed to take 6 frames a second you only get about 7 or 8 frames when shooting RAW (which he does for image quality) before the buffer fills and hence the frame rate slows way down. Not really ideal for getting action sequences of birds in flight or whales jumping or any other fast paced action. So he started looking for a new one…quickly deciding to stay with the DX sensor size rather than the full frame sensor size due to cost…a full frame body costs well over $3,000 just for the body and he would need all new lenses since his are all DX sensor lenses…and he’s not willing to spend that much money. The second thing he was looking for was better performance at higher ISO numbers. While the D7100 is fine up to about ISO 400 it starts to get a little more noise in the sensor beyond that and higher ISOs support higher shutter speeds which support better freezing of the motion of the aforementioned birds in flight.

He decided on a D7500…and also traded his 18-200mm lens for an 18-300mm lens…he’s still got the telephoto we call the Bird Lens of course…but the zoom is his everyday walking around lens and he takes probably 90% of his photos with it…and another 100mm on the long end means he’ll have to pull out the Bird Lens less for routine hiking excursions.

He went down yesterday to the eagle nest…didn’t see much of either of the eagles but mostly wanted to check out the new camera body, new lens, and also test how well the various additional autofocus modes the D7500 has work for action shots like birds in flight.

M15 (Harriet’s mate) sitting on a tree. He left about 5 minutes after Neil got there and he didn’t even have the Bird Lens out yet so this is with the 18-300 zoomed all the way out.

Horses in the field below the nest tree.

Harriet poking her head out and looking around for M15’s return…this was 2+ hours after he left and he never did return before Neil headed out for a haircut.

Cattle egret under the nesting tree. I’ve never been able to figure out why the eagles don’t prey on these…there are dozens in the field and they don’t move that fast so I would think an eagle wouldn’t have any trouble catching one.

Since there weren’t many eagle photos…here are some shots of a group of Wood Storks that were circling overhead. It’s quite a beautiful bird when flying…and from a distance…but up close it’s got a face only a mother could love.

OK, on to interesting things of the week…I found some Christmas related ones for ya’.

First up…here’s some edumacation for you non-southerners…ya know that nut that one makes pies and pralines out of? Well…ya’ll Yankees are forever mispronouncing that word so I found a good explanation for ya.

Say it with me now…the nuts are pronounced pee-khans.

This is how Santa tests reindeer for flight use.

And this is a hipster Nativity scene.

Reindeer deodorizers.

If only…

You know what this is…doncha?

It’s a UFO on tape of course…can’t believe ya needed me to ‘splain it to ya.

Here’s an explanation of the US tax system done by an Economics professor…only he explains it in beer.

I’m not sure what they expected to find here.

Cyas.