{"id":10917,"date":"2015-01-17T14:03:55","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T19:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/?p=10917"},"modified":"2015-09-10T10:45:31","modified_gmt":"2015-09-10T15:45:31","slug":"herd-on-the-hoof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/2015\/01\/17\/herd-on-the-hoof\/","title":{"rendered":"Herd on the Hoof"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exceptionally Warm<\/h4>\n

Yesterday (16 Jan 15)<\/em> it was exceptionally warm<\/strong> for this time of year.\u00a0A couple days prior,\u00a0the weather prognosticators<\/strong> told us the thermometer would be topping\u00a0out at 60\u00b0<\/strong>. That’s all\u00a0The Sky Surfer<\/strong><\/a> needed to cut out early from work to grab some air<\/strong>. The reason it was warm was that a 20+mph Southwest Wind<\/strong> was transporting\u00a0Texas’ atmosphere<\/strong> up\u00a0our way for a couple of days. My Quicksilver<\/strong> only cruises at 40 mph<\/strong>. So, one “Fun Flight Strategy”<\/em> on a windy day<\/strong> is to fly into the wind for an hour<\/strong> and then turn around and ride the wave<\/strong>\u00a0back to the home field. That’s what I did.<\/p>\n

Be Prepared<\/h4>\n

For this run\u00a0I had a mind to\u00a0dispense with the documentation of the flight<\/strong>. I still have three major<\/span> Sky Safaris<\/strong> from last Summer<\/strong> shot and waiting to be written<\/strong>. It’s not like I needed to add to my work\u00a0stack of stuff<\/strong> to do. But, twice<\/strong> as I was suiting up for the flight I was given the definite impression<\/strong> I needed to bring my camera. If you know how to listen, God will tell you<\/strong> when He<\/strong> has something He<\/strong> wants you to see. As is my inclination, I like y’all to see what I get to see<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0so cameras are the method.<\/p>\n

Fumble Fingers<\/h4>\n

Even though it was relatively warm<\/strong>, I have an SOP<\/strong> (Standard Operating Principle)<\/em> of “over dressing”<\/em> when flying my Ultralight<\/strong>. Once or thrice\u00a0having spent\u00a0an hour+ shivering in the cold with no way to get out of the wind<\/strong> taught me the wisdom of covering up for a flight\u00a0even when it is warm on the ground<\/strong>. I wore\u00a0my battery powered, heated gloves. They work\u00a0great<\/strong> but do make it much more difficult<\/strong> to operate a\u00a0camera. The “camera start”<\/em> button<\/strong> is right next to the shutter button<\/strong> and with gloves on it is easy to hit one when trying to hit the other.<\/p>\n

When I first saw this Herd of Deer<\/strong>, they were to my right<\/strong> and slightly behind<\/span><\/strong> me\u00a0running parallel<\/strong>. They were at a full gallop<\/strong>\u00a0and for a few seconds I was transfixed<\/strong>. They were not<\/strong> running away from me<\/strong>. They were running with me and passing me<\/strong>… Because I had a 20+mph head wind<\/strong> I was only moving about 15\u00a0to 20 mph<\/strong> across the ground. So after it finally dawned on me I had\u00a0a bona fide Photo Op<\/strong> I had to “quickly”<\/em> change power setting and trim and grab the camera. The\u00a0“quickly”<\/em> is borderline sarcasm<\/strong> because at the time it seemed to take forever compounded by the fact that my glove-encased fingers<\/strong>\u00a0started<\/strong> and then shut down<\/strong> the camera at least twice! This was not a scene I was ready to miss, though, and I did my best to capture the herd<\/strong> before it ducked into the hedgerow.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_7696\"<\/a>

Here they have already crossed underneath me<\/strong> from right to left and are galloping flat out<\/strong> for the cover of the hedgerow. You can see their hoof prints<\/strong> and dust trailing<\/strong> behind them. In the distance at the top left<\/strong> of the photo you can see a grain elevator<\/strong> on the West<\/strong> side<\/strong> of Wellington, Kansas<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

They\u00a0Were\u00a0Ditching Me!<\/h4>\n

When I first saw them\u00a0I was in slow cruise<\/strong> (40 mph).<\/em>\u00a0With the 20+ mph headwind,\u00a0\u00a0I\u00a0was\u00a0only getting about 15 to 20 mph<\/strong> across the ground so they were\u00a0leaving me in the dust<\/strong>. I shot the picture above just after increasing power to catch them.<\/strong>\u00a0The remaining shots in the series were taken as I caught up.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_7697\"<\/a>

Here the “tail end Charlie”<\/em> is entirely airborne<\/strong> with legs stretched out. This is how they all bounded<\/strong>\u00a0across the field.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IMG_7698\"<\/a>

Catching up.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"IMG_7699\"<\/a>

The final shot before they reached the hedgerow. I really like the shadow on the road<\/strong> cast by the last deer. You can see the white tail standing straight up<\/strong> and that he had just bound off his hind legs.<\/p><\/div>\n

Every Flight Is Different<\/h4>\n

I hope you found that interesting. I see deer<\/strong> on almost every flight<\/strong> but rarely do I catch them out in the open<\/strong> and never<\/strong> have I had them race me<\/strong> like they did yesterday.<\/p>\n

Blue Skies & Tailwinds!\u2122<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brian FitzGerald – The Sky Surfer<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exceptionally Warm Yesterday (16 Jan 15) it was exceptionally warm for this time of year.\u00a0A couple days prior,\u00a0the weather prognosticators told us the thermometer would be topping\u00a0out at 60\u00b0. That’s all\u00a0The Sky Surfer needed to cut out early from work to grab some air. The reason it was warm was that a 20+mph Southwest Wind […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,11,1],"tags":[26,49,51,35,41,143],"class_list":["post-10917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fun-flights","category-teachable-moments","category-ultralight","category-uncategorized","tag-brian-fitzgerald","tag-flying","tag-fun-flight","tag-great-plains","tag-kansas","tag-wild-deer","category-3-id","category-10-id","category-11-id","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10917"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10923,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10917\/revisions\/10923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fitzvideo.com\/skysurfing2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}