Article in Northern Express

I was the featured artist in the Northern Express Weekly on October 8, 2012.  Here is the article.
From Northernexpress

June 2012 Newsletter

Here is a link to my latest newsletter http://www.tomhaxbyphotos.com/Newsletter/June_2012_Newsletter.htm

Magee Marsh Birding

Thursday, May 3, 2012 - After a short work week I headed to Magee Marsh near Oregon, Ohio for the annual warbler migration.  This is my second trip here and I think I got a few good photos. That is at the end of the visit as I write this, but the journey was memorable. I departed Cadillac, Michigan at about 4:45 in the afternoon. I knew that there would be storms that I would pass through because the storms had moved through Cadillac at about 2:00 that afternoon and the sky was looking quite dark to the south as I headed in that direction. I caught up with the storms in Clare, Michigan and stopped a short while later for dinner. Although I had outrun the storms, they caught up to me as I was getting a bite to eat. Back on the road, I again rain into heavy rain, lightning ,  some gusty winds and even a little hail on the east side of Lansing, Michigan.  It was a warm and sultry night in Toledo, Ohio as I stopped at a hotel for the night.

Prothonotary Warbler

Friday, May 4, 2012 - After a quick breakfast, I headed to Magee Marsh at about 7:00. In the past I have found it difficult to find the correct turn into the Marsh. I remember one year wandering the levees and dikes with my heavy 500 mm lens and gear. That was not productive. This time it was easy to find. Just follow all of the other warbler watchers. My guess is that this would be a good time for the birds because of the warm southerly breezes all during the previous week. There were quite a few. Yellow warblers,

Great Egret

Palm warblers, and a Pronthonotary warbler. I will be the first to admit, I am not very good at bird identification. So, I listen to what others are seeing.  Here is the Prothonotary warbler. Very, very difficult to get this photograph as there was a group of photographers following this bird as it moved through the trees.  Wanting a break from trying to focus on warblers darting through the trees, I saw a great egret, standing motionless in the marsh. What a pleasure to have a bird sitting still.

Grackle

Yellow Warbler

Black and White Warbler

In the middle of the day, a large thunderstorm moved in. Fortunately, I checked the radar on the smartphone, and headed for cover, just before huge drops of rain started to pelt down. After a half hour the rain stopped and it was back to the warblers with a few other birds thrown in. There were quite a few Black and White warblers and this is one of my better captures. Then,  the Yellow warbler as the variety was at Magee Marsh is just amazing. To finish off the day, it was a bird of a different feather. This time a grackle. These are actually very photogenic with the green head and the bright eye.  This again was a pleasure to photograph as it was not nearly as active as a warbler.  Well there were a few other birds, such as this one which I do not really recognize, perhaps a red-winged blackbird? After a lunch of a few crackers with peanut butter I was famished. So, I headed a restaurant called Cinco de Mayo - on the 4th of May! The food was great and the beer was cold. I was wondering what birds would surprise me the next day. 

Red-Wing Blackbird?

Saturday, May 5, 2012

To Be Continued ..................................

As a mermber of the Nature Photography Network (NPN) I have been posting photos in their online gallery for comment by some of the best photographers in the world. To see all of my galleries go to http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/ic.cgi?a=up&pi=tc_tom&ns=1   I will be steadily adding to this and other NPN galleries.

April 2012 Newsletter

http://www.tomhaxbyphotos.com/Newsletter/April_2012_Newsletter.htm  http://www.tomhaxbyphotos.com/Newsletter/April_2012_Newsletter.htm

Utah Trip

This is a little after the fact, but I had the opportunity to travel throughout Utah for 5 days in March. Will start a chronology of the trip soon. Here are a couple of the photos from the trip.

February 2012 Newsletter

My February 2012 Newsletter is now online at http://www.tomhaxbyphotos.com/Newsletter/February_2012_Newsletter.htm

Thanks for all the nice comments so far.

A few new photos

Here are a couple of new photos from this past September 2012 and this past weekend at Sleeping Bear Dunes.

What We're Missing

Our modern civilization has literally obliterated our night skies with light pollution and most people don't know what they are missing. Where does one go to escape the multitude of outdoor lights in order to have a clearer view of the night sky? Night lights are everywhere. Shopping mall parking lots, car dealers, grocery stores, streetlights, night-lighted billboards, security lighting around our homes, business signs, stadium lights, decorative lights, car headlights and traffic lights. If you drive around at night, unfortunately you will need your headlights and will need to heed traffic lights. However, it does not take long to see the lights.

What we're missing are the aurora borealis (northern lights), planets, the milky way, comets, constellations, meteor showers, and bright moonlit nights as they can, and should, appear to us. One can only imagine what our ancestors, before the proliferation of night lighting, saw when they gazed at the night sky full of stars.

There have been a few times in my life when I looked up at the night sky and stared in amazement at the stars above. It took my breath away the first time I looked skyward while in the remote mountains of New Mexico. The same feeling of awe and wonder overcame me in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Where did all of those stars come from, I wondered? True, viewing the stars at low elevations, as I had done most of my life, is not the same as the view from the mountains. However, even at lower elevations, in a remote area of the Sleeping Bear Dunes, I have experienced some amazing night skies.

As the sun enters a period of increased activity in 2012 and 2013 which will lead to more frequent and intense outbreaks of the northern lights, I cannot help but ask the question: How far do I have to go to escape the bright lights in order to more clearly see the aurora dance across the night sky? Where can we go to gaze at the multitude of stars in a truly dark night sky to look into the universe beyond our small world?

We just keep our heads down as we venture outdoors at night. Why bother to look skyward, because although we may think that we see the stars and night sky as they should be, we cannot because the skies are no longer dark and starry.

My one wish is that for one night of the year all of the unneeded night lights would be turned off. Then, we would only have to step outside of our homes and look up into the night sky to see what we've been missing.