Pining Away
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
“On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.”
Phase 1: Four Pines Trail
D, D2, and S marched uphill on a mild evening, as the television weatherfolk might say. Mild weather tonight. Basically, it was room temperature, with an air-conditioner’s breath of wind, and a memory of mosquitoes buzzing somewhere other than here. It was almost like being inside, but with flowers and a sunset view, and a refrigerator 700 feet uphill from the living room.
A few years ago when we first encountered the Four Pines trail, nestled as it was in the intersection of two quiet streets and a graveyard, hardly a soul had set foot upon it; tonight it was crowded with humpday hikers, along with dogs, bees, atmospheric haze, sunflowers, grass, and a goodly smattering of rocks on the ever-widening trail, a trail widening like a widening gyre, turning and turning under a stampede of hikers who stomp down the margins, not down the middle, because there are rocks in the middle, God forbid.
Well the trail intersects a lot of others: the Mesa Trail, Kohler Trail, Enchanted Mesa, Skunk Canyon, etc., so you can get to where you need to go; it’s also a lot less crowded than Chautauqua Park. So, yeah.
D2 suggested Four Pines because it wasn’t Shanahan Ridge. We have, admittedly, overtrodden that trail this season, so this was a welcomed suggestion; or more eloquently and longwindedly, “our fearless adventurers welcomed this suggestion vicariously.” (Even if they actually meant vivaciously.)
Nice thing about the hill is that it starts quickly and doesn't mess around, rising the aforementioned 700 feet in a mile or so, and then you’re on Kohler Mesa—or so you think. A glance at the elevation profile shows it’s not particularly flat. And I see from the map now that my phone’s battery apparently gave up before we finished.
We had a few questions along the way, and some “BNO Firsts.” Not, I might add, for the faint of heart.
Phase 2,3: Four Pines Auxiliary Bench
At the base of a side-trail, just far enough past the dog waste disposal unit, we found a bench. This became the venue for the evening’s gustatory phase.
Sandwiches, libations. D brought brownies, which he made with walnuts and two eggs instead of one (for that elusive cake-like texture). These were perfect, except we could have had a few more.
Some birds flew around, magpies chasing bugs. We watched people trundling up and down the trail, just over yonder.
Evening fell, and some bats flew around, flitting everywhere, nimble and agile, snarfing mosquitoes. All creatures great and small having their gustatory Phases 2, right alongside the mediocre creatures, like us.
Questions of the Night
What are the layers of the atmosphere?
Did those any of those rich dudes actually reach “space"?
What about the magnetosphere?
Can you smell that dog waste disposal unit in the exosphere?
What is the origin of the term “bat**** crazy?”
Firsts of the Night
Sometimes, things happen during BNO that we’ve never experienced before, or at least, not that we can remember. When this occurs, we grandly, obsequiously, ostentatiously proclaim it a “BNO First.” We had a couple of those “firsts” tonight:
Tara, a candidate for City Council, regaled us (or rather, regaled D, who was the only eligible Boulder voter in attendance tonight) with her policies and aspirations. We ate brownies, nodded politely, and dodged mosquitoes. Because of this, and because none of the other candidates have bothered to regale us, BNO officially endorses Tara for City Council. And that is a BNO First.
As noted in the movie “Shakespeare in Love,” people want “comedy, love, and a bit with a dog.” Tonight we had a bit with a dog. Well, two dogs, actually. You get the idea. This is also a BNO First.
All in all, another successful BNO.
Photographic Notes
I shot about 150 frames in total, mostly trying to capture bats in flight. I started with aperture-priority, resulting in a shutter speed of 1/200s—not fast enough for bats in flight. Later I switched to shutter-priority, fixed at 1/1600s and auto-ISO, focusing on some distant trees, and pointing my camera like a shotgun (because there wasn’t time to aim through the viewfinder). I rejected 50 that were blurry, noisy, or empty (no bats), and ended up with 28 images that were “sharp enough,” albeit noisy and with zero detail:
The most interesting image was a shot of a bat, a tree, and the planet Venus, and the best composition was a shot of a bat swooping past a tree:
Not great images, but good practice and fun to experiment.