Got up at 03:00 this morning, to go fly…
Even with the ‘stupid o’clock’ starts, I really envy you guys that get to do that for a living.
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A week of 0400 showtimes, 14-hour days and six nights in a hotel FaceTiming your wife and kiddos for ten minutes and it begins to lose its luster, until it’s Go Home Day and a few days off and realize it’s still far better than working for a living!
ETA: It’s my least favorite time of year to fly, because it’s the beginning of winter in most of the places I’m going, and this Texas boy keeps forgetting to pack thermal underwear, earmuffs and switch to long-sleeve shirts. Won’t make that mistake again after my last rotation.
The airplanes themselves sure do like the cold weather though (assuming they get de-icing). Yesterday I took off from Chicago and had a sustained climb of 6600ft/min @ 250kts all the way up to 14,000’ (with the anti-ice on!). Yeah, I know that won’t impress anyone flying real heavy metal, but it’s fun to see in a Citation when you’re light.
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This makes me sad and angry at the same time. I always wanted to see it land or take off and it was a regular visitor in Leipzig. Next to all the pain and suffering this war has brought to Ukraine it also destroyed this beautiful aircraft 
@Wes That last one is shot with the RF24-105mm at F11. As you can see it’s plenty sharp and detailed but the defraction stars aren’t the most beautiful, especially compared to the RF15-35mm F2.8 but there’s also a 1200€ price difference.
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Exactly. I mean, I’d rather be a billionaire playboy and have my own private jet, but as long as I have to earn a salary, nothing beats this, IMHO.
Troll looks at his Dash-8 100:
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First pictures shot with my new 100-500mm lens:
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Nice blue tit!
And that Mallard drake is beautiful, ducks are my favourite birds.
And is that a… goshawk? (auto correct wants to make that “gosh award”, lol)
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Yeah, there where some hunters with a ferret and two goshawks looking for rabbits in the park. They are doing this regularly to keep the population in check. I talked to them and send them the pictures.
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Really cool, you can see the ‘jesses’ on the legs of the goshawk
I was very interested in falconry growing up, so that’s really interesting for me
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Phew, glad you guys got in first, I very nearly said Peregrine Falcon - they have very similar markings, but now on second look the cere (bit around the nostrils) is more yellow on the falcon and the head is a different shape (less pointy).
We have a lot of raptors and birds of prey in our neck of the woods that we regularly see. Ranging in size from Nankeen Kestrels up to Australia’s two biggest: Wedge Tailed Eagles and Powerful Owls.
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Another shot. This time a Eurasian Coot
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Great shot!
Fun fact for the non-Germans: we call it ‘Blässhuhn’, which means something like ‘pale chicken’, because of the white face. About the ‘chicken’ part, well… it isn’t related to chickens, the truth is, when names were given to the animals, the people often just picked a common, somewhat similar looking animal as the base name and attached some word part to it.
So we ended up with the above Blässhuhn, or the Thermometerhuhn (that last one is an Australian bird, and at least it is somewhat related to chickens). Same with non-birds. A capybara is called Wasserschwein (water pig), a turtle is Schildkröte (shield toad), and a porcupine is Stachelschwein (spike pig).
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I keep mixing up the goshawk and the sparrowhawk.
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Up before the sun again.
If I still lived in the Midwest 41 degrees Fahrenheit would be understandable at this time of year but in Southern California it is freaking ridiculous. 
Wheels
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Finishing up on another backyard. This one isn’t done yet, I will be building a bikeshed over where the low orange brickwork is and repair the bin covers.
The brickwork in the foreground used to be regular square pavers. Very neat, but boring. This looks more lively and it’s almost intended for weeds to spring up between the bricks. Client is very happy, and she better be because this stuff is expensive, lots of man-hours go into hauling the stuff, selecting them, laying them just-so, etc.
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Lol, my German ancestry is fine with neat and boring.
Wheels
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Local nature reserve ‘Bislicher Insel’
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