On the evening of March 24, 2016, I set out on a Cat Walk, carrying along Fujifilm X-T1 and Fujinon XF35mmF2 R WR lens. I spotted several felines along North Ave., including this one that gets my nickname […]
Tag: animals
The Cats of University Heights: Frenemy
Neighborhood tortoise Morla shares residence with four other animals: Pair of dogs and cats. She has a little house at the end of the driveway, while the the black, whose name I don’t know, moves between the front and backyards. On Nov. 4, 2016, I spotted the feline, as she intently watched birds. Presumably the mammal tolerates the reptile—hence today’s title.
I used iPhone 7 Plus second lens to zoom 2X for both photos. My expectations, with distance to her and head in the shade, were low. But bright green eyes piecing from the shadows make the shot. I present a second, to demonstrate two different characteristics of Apple pic processing. The Featured Image, captured at 9 a.m. PDT, is a 100-percent crop, auto-enhanced in Apple Photos. The second, shot three seconds earlier, is an in-camera HDR composite that’s a little dark for my tastes but reveals more detail.
The Cats of University Heights: Jumper
There nights ago, I spotted a neighborhood feline that’s new to me, lounging in an apartment building parking lot on Campus near Meade. While the kitty goes there often, she apparently resides in a house behind. I nickname her Jumper, because she repeatedly leaped in the air chasing something—presumably bugs. Hehe. Naturally, I missed capturing the activity.
The Featured Image is the last of 20. Lying down, Jumper presents a good view of her coloring. I captured the moment at 6:12 p.m. PDT—about 20 minutes after sunset—on Nov. 3, 2016. Before embarking on the photo Cat Walk, I attached the Fujinon XF35mmF2 R WR lens to the Fuji X-T1, anticipating low-light shooting.
The Cats of University Heights: Fess
My favorite neighborhood cat is an old-timer. Fess (his real name) is at least 12 years-old (that’s how long he has been with his owners). At one time, the Tom Cat roamed a wide territory around Cleveland Ave. and parallel street Maryland. In his youth, he was known to scale fences to poach from other animals’ food dishes.
Now he stays fairly close to home. I often see him, in the driveway of the apartment where he lives, waiting for the master to come home. The gent drives a pick-up truck, and Fess jumps up into the cab when the door opens.
The Cats of University Heights: Patience
On the morning of Nov. 1, 2016, while walking and talking to my other sister on iPhone 7 Plus—not the one when sighting Pee-Pee—I spotted a cat not ever seen before. I was surprised, because […]
The Cats of University Heights: Bonded Pair
This is bit of a double repeat. On Oct. 26, 2016, the series featured the cat on the right as Stretch. Two days later, I spotted the pair together, and in rare occasion captured them both looking out, rather than one of them turned away. BTW, both beasts also appear in March 22, 2016 post “Here, Kitty, Kitty“.
Or am I mistaken? Because further comparing the photos from March and October, the cats do look somewhat different to me. Location is the same, but what is the chance that two different pairs hang out at the same place?
The Cats of University Heights: Blue Too
My wife Anne and I took a “cat walk” early evening Oct. 29, 2016—with Fujifilm X-T1 and Fujinon XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS lens in tow. My hope: For her to see Chipper outside the apartment building where Copper once lived. We walked down Campus from the canyon side towards Madison. Sure enough, he was there and scurried out to the sidewalk for attention. I also could see Blue, curled up in a pet bed.
A few minutes after the petting and head-rubbing shoes started, another Blue cat approached from the apartment building across the way. I backed up into the street to shoot the Featured Image, at sunset, 5:58 p.m. PDT. Vitals: f/8, ISO 5000, 1/60 sec, 55mm. The aperture setting was accidental, left from the last time I used the camera. The photo is a JPEG converted from RAW using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.
The Cats of University Heights: Pee-Pee
On Oct. 26, 2016, while walking down Meade Ave. from Cleveland and talking to my youngest sister on iPhone 7 Plus, I spotted a Halloween cat—being black, of course. 🙂 I asked her to wait, […]
The Cats of University Heights: Hunter
Now here’s a photo I don’t recall shooting, on Aug. 12, 2014, at 6:20 p.m. PDT, using Nokia Lumia Icon. I captured San Diego Comic-Con 2014 using the Windows Phone—and with surprising satisfaction. But my then […]
Meet Morla
This isn’t the first time featuring the neighborhood tortoise—but I have more information about her now. Let me start by calling bogus fairytale “Tortoise and the Hare“. The reptile moves with surprising speed and enthusiasm. I’m not so sure the rabbit would win in a contest.
Today I met the two house-sitters responsible for the tortoise, whom they call Morla. Supposedly she is female and about 25 years old—a youngster, which might explain her energy and enthusiasm. One-hundred-fifty years is not an unusual lifespan for this member of the Testudinidae family. The creature is social, too, and who would have guessed that?
The Cats of University Heights: Mates
Sunday night, Oct. 23, 2016, I crossed Monroe at Maryland, where the street makes a horseshoe that comes back to Maryland at Meade. A few houses down, two cats—almost certainly littermates—accosted me for attention. Were these two ever eager, meowing and rubbing on anything close; including me.
The cross-eyed one leaped to the sidewalk, rolling about and demanding pets fervently. The other did likewise, but never leaving the ledge and rubbing the bush repeatedly with her head. I shot more than 20 photos, using the Fujifilm X-T1 with Fujinon XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS lens, but selected just two from among the last of them.
The Cats of University Heights: Farfisa
Spring 2014, I used the HTC One M8, which is an Android smartphone, with—for two years ago—an excellent, low-light camera. There are many newer handsets that are all the more capable, including my iPhone 7 […]