Successful failure

I wanted to get a photo of the comet, but it's down near the horizon, and the reflected light from the town faded it out. So I drove to the centre of the island, far from any human light sources. Sundown caught me on the shore of Buttle Lake.

Last rays of sunlight on Mount McBride, 2083 m.

This was at 9:26 PM. But from this vantage point, the mountains were too high to see anything, even if it were pitch dark. The comet would be behind Mount McBride.

View towards the top of the lake. 9:27.

Dusk lasts forever in the island summer. I returned to a viewpoint over Upper Campbell Lake. The sky was still orange.

I came back to Campbell River and joined a group of comet watchers on Tyee Spit. By 11:30, the stars were out, but down where the comet lurks, a sort of haze faded them out. Before midnight, most of us had given up and gone home. No comet.

But it was a nice evening drive, and I saw three young deer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quería ver el cometa y tal vez lograr una foto, pero aquí la luz de la ciudad la escondía. Decidí buscar un lugar lejos de luces artificiales.

A la hora de la puesta del sol, a las nueve veintitantos, me encontré en el centro de la isla, a las orillas del lago Buttle.

La primera foto es del monte McBride. La cometa estaría directamente atrás de la montaña. Y de todas maneras, el cielo seguía iluminada.

El crepúsculo, aquí en el norte, dura y dura. Por horas.

Regresé a un lugar al lado de Upper Campbell Lake; allí las montañas no cortan la vista, pero el cielo seguía de color anaranjado.

A las once y medio me hallé otra vez en la ciudad, en la peninsulita Tyee Spit, con un grupo de otros buscadores de la cometa. Sí, se veían las estrellas directamente arriba, pero allá donde se debe ver la cometa, una neblina la ocultaba. Antes de la medianoche, la mayoría nos habíamos dado por vencidos. A casa. Sin cometa.

Pero el paseo al atardecer fue lindo. Y vi tres venaditos.

Gotta wait out 2012 to the last gasp

2013, finally. Except in Hawaii; they've got another 18 minutes left in 2012, as of now**.

The year went out quietly for us. Laurie and I sat and listened to a CD of the Mikado, then I treated myself with a pot of ginger tea, and checked in with my kids on Facebook. All very peaceful.

But 2013; what will it bring? It's a year of 13s; 50 Fridays teamed up with the number, another two doubled: Friday the 13th, 2013, in September and December. Will someone decide that's a good excuse to foretell yet another end of the world?*** There are two good dates there! And when was that 2013 comet arriving?

Well, if you believe in bad luck omens, there are also the good ones. I've got mine; today, in a first for the year, in a short burst of 5 minutes, four starlings, one flicker, and a varied thrush all dropped in to visit. I think that's the first flicker or starling I've seen around here since a year ago. And all at once! It must mean something, surely!*

Here's proof, at least of the first two, photos taken without leaving my desk, which would have chased the flicker far away.

Flicker waiting for a starling to get off the suet feeder.

Still waiting. He eventually gave up; the starlings were not sharing.

Starling and suet feeder. The other three were on the ground underneath, collecting the falling crumbs, and keeping the juncos at bay.

The varied thrush ran past twice, pausing just long enough to be identified. The place was too crowded for him.

*I think it really meant that they were hungry. But sometimes I'd rather be silly than sensible.

**Just checked the time again. It is now officially 14 minutes into 2013 in Hawaii. And that's the very last gasp of 2012.

***Not that I'd worry. I've survived a fair number of world ends already.