Created 2-Mar-19
What’s the longest rainbow you have ever seen?
No, I don’t mean longest in space. We all know rainbows are made in the eye, from a particular angle between the original sunlight, the refracted light, and our eye. So “longest in space” might be, say, a quarter of an inch. Or if we consider the separate components of the rainbow: the sunlight, the spherical drops, and the receiving eye – one component, the incident light, is a little over 8 light-minutes long, from the Sun to here, about as far as we are likely to see in the daytime.
I meant, longest in time. What is the rainbow you have ever seen longest? And here I mean weather rainbow, rain rainbow – not what you can see in the spray of a waterfall, or in the spray that falls around you as you stand, ecstatic, on a warm spring morning, spraying a hose straight up and watching the spray rise and fall all around – even a rainbow there, close to the ground!
What is the rain rainbow you have ever seen the longest? These are edge creatures, appearing at the boundary. You need direct sunlight – and spherical raindrops. The ones I see tend to be evanescent, fleeting. Grab your camera, focus, shoot, wherever you are. Then perhaps move to capture a better framing if you are lucky. A rain rainbow means you might be dry, but you will be wet soon. Or, it has been raining, but it will soon glow all around.
This was about the longest I have ever seen a rain rainbow (Or any rainbow, to be honest. I am not patient enough to drag out the other kinds.) It lasted fifty minutes, probably an hour, over the Frog Pond. Long enough for the Kite to appear, sit watchfully on the crest of the redwood, patrol the Frog Pond, pause fixed in the firmament, wings beating, entirely still, searching for voles below. Long enough for the crows to notice the kite, take umbrage at the solitary predator in their territory, and move over to hassle it. Did they think the kite would attack their nest? Small chance. Kites eat voles, not crow eggs. Though I suppose many creatures would take advantage were a crow egg just offered up… Long enough for the ducks to take off, circle with loud quacking and flapping of wings, then angle back down to the pond. And do it again.
And I was taken outside of myself. I had been letting myself feel a bit down, nursing a cold, missing my exercise class, taking care of myself. But I left all this behind, watching the rainbow events.
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
Robert Frost
A Dust of Snow
Crows again.
No, I don’t mean longest in space. We all know rainbows are made in the eye, from a particular angle between the original sunlight, the refracted light, and our eye. So “longest in space” might be, say, a quarter of an inch. Or if we consider the separate components of the rainbow: the sunlight, the spherical drops, and the receiving eye – one component, the incident light, is a little over 8 light-minutes long, from the Sun to here, about as far as we are likely to see in the daytime.
I meant, longest in time. What is the rainbow you have ever seen longest? And here I mean weather rainbow, rain rainbow – not what you can see in the spray of a waterfall, or in the spray that falls around you as you stand, ecstatic, on a warm spring morning, spraying a hose straight up and watching the spray rise and fall all around – even a rainbow there, close to the ground!
What is the rain rainbow you have ever seen the longest? These are edge creatures, appearing at the boundary. You need direct sunlight – and spherical raindrops. The ones I see tend to be evanescent, fleeting. Grab your camera, focus, shoot, wherever you are. Then perhaps move to capture a better framing if you are lucky. A rain rainbow means you might be dry, but you will be wet soon. Or, it has been raining, but it will soon glow all around.
This was about the longest I have ever seen a rain rainbow (Or any rainbow, to be honest. I am not patient enough to drag out the other kinds.) It lasted fifty minutes, probably an hour, over the Frog Pond. Long enough for the Kite to appear, sit watchfully on the crest of the redwood, patrol the Frog Pond, pause fixed in the firmament, wings beating, entirely still, searching for voles below. Long enough for the crows to notice the kite, take umbrage at the solitary predator in their territory, and move over to hassle it. Did they think the kite would attack their nest? Small chance. Kites eat voles, not crow eggs. Though I suppose many creatures would take advantage were a crow egg just offered up… Long enough for the ducks to take off, circle with loud quacking and flapping of wings, then angle back down to the pond. And do it again.
And I was taken outside of myself. I had been letting myself feel a bit down, nursing a cold, missing my exercise class, taking care of myself. But I left all this behind, watching the rainbow events.
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
Robert Frost
A Dust of Snow
Crows again.
2/26/2019 Rainbow over the Frog Pond -- and More
Visitors 193
0 photos
Created 30-Apr-20
Modified 30-Apr-20
2/26/2019 White-tailed Kite Hunts Voles and Fends Off Crows (Sequences)
Visitors 9
41 photos
Created 30-Apr-20
Modified 30-Apr-20
Dan Quinn