Posts Made By: Fred Lusk

My wife wasn't too happy to learn that there are bugs on her flowers.

Ivan...

Beautiful image. There's a lifetime of photo ops in Yosemite, from the big to the small.

Did you happen to see Horestail Falls on the east buttress of El Cap? It usually lasts only a few weeks each year, but with the recent rain and snow it might go longer. Five weeks ago it was the best I had ever seen it.

Fred

The parrots are my favorite. The Fresno Chaffee Zoo has a large Tropical Rain Forest exhibit that you walk through. The parrots and other birds are not otherwise caged, which makes photography so much easier.

This type of parrot is called a Military Macaw.

Zooming in on the "Devil Bird."

Excellent. That's one of the best shots of this view that I've seen. You were fortunate to get still water for that reflection. Most of the times I'm at that spot there's enough riffle on the surface to mess it up.

WOW

That's an excellent image. The detail is amazing and getting both insects at once is a real treat. So, I guess the mantis wasn't intested in participating in Nat Geo's Bug Wars.

I have also seen it naked eye, but only under near perfect skies. The two places I have done this are both in California's Sierra Nevada: Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park (7200') and Courtright Reservoir east of Fresno (8200'). I can't recall ever seeing it under suburban skies even with optical aid and even after midnight when the light pollution is somewhat reduced.

For Prof. Dever to state "The Bible would have us think that all Israelites embraced monotheism relatively early...." indicates to me that he hasn't read much of it.

I live in Fresno, but I know SoCal pretty well due to family and business (civil engineering) connections. I also lived in Ventura from 1981 to 1986. Building anything around Gorman is absurd.

What is the status of the EIR? How are they going to overcome the obvious difficulties with traffic congestion on I-5? Do they have a sustainable water supply, etc? The project will certainly have a number of significant environmental impacts. It seems to me that almost every project like this comes up with mitigation measures that satisfy the lead agency (thus getting the EIR certified), but it seems awfully difficult here. However, developers are well connected and amateur astronomers are usually not, which doesn't bode well.

Unfortunately, light pollution usually rates low on the radar screen of government officials, so it takes a lot of effort to "raise their conscienceness." You may want to get ahold of Tuscon's light ordinance that was developed to minimize light impact for Kitt Peak and see if that can be imposed on the development in case it proceeds to completion.

Beautiful.