Catching the Rainbow

 Yesterday as I was leaving my apartment, I looked up and saw part of a rainbow.  So of course I had to get a picture of it.

I like it better when the sky is gray behind it because it stands out more, but having a nice sunset sky works too.  Sadly, I couldn't get too many pictures of it because it was fleeting.
 

Catching the Yankee Lady

 So yesterday I was mulling about the idea of doing something but I didn't really feel like it.  I put in a pretty full day on Saturday.  As I was sitting in my room, I heard a pretty distinctive sound and looked out the window.  I saw the Yankee Lady taking off.

So headed over to Willow Run to catch her as she landed.  I went to a spot where I could catch the approach for the 27 runway.  As I was waiting, I caught this guy.

And then the Yankee Lady appeared but she ended up landing on the normal runway (forget the number).

Anyway, it made for some nice pictures.

She comes in for the landing.

One more shot and then I went back home.

I heard the Yankee Lady again, so I headed back to the airport.  This time, I caught a Cessna Citation coming in.  I think I may have taken a picture of this plane before.

I was in position to catch her landing.

And I think I got a nice picture in the process.  I also solved my dilemma of what to take a picture of.
 

Return to Crosswinds Marsh

 After a stop at the airport, I decided to take my dad down to Crosswinds Marsh.  I'm not sure if he's been there or not and it's a pretty neat place that I should visit more often.

I was actually hoping to see an eagle there.  When I looked over to the nest, I didn't see one.  As I scanned the area, I saw this guy.  I wasn't sure it was an eagle until I saw it's white head.

One of the nice things about Crosswinds Marsh is that I can also do some aluminum birdwatching.  I wasn't paying attention to Flight Radar, so I don't know where this A321 was headed.

As I went back to the eagle, I heard a ruckus.

And it turns out it was a flock of Sandhill cranes leaving.

A pair of them.

And then a flock of Canada geese left.

so then I went back to the eagle.

And I caught an even larger flock of Sandhill cranes.

I like this shot.

A pair of them taking off.

Another angle as they passed.

And then I went back to the eagle.  I wish I had a bigger lens.

I think I would have needed about a 1200 mm though and I'm still not sure that would have been big enough.

One more shot of the eagle before leaving.
 

A Stop At the Airport

 So after catching the Algoma Sault, I decided to stop at the airport.  I saw that I would catch at least one 757.

The first 757 I caught was a flight from Orlando.

Or the World of the Mouse as I like to call it, because it is home to Disney World.

Disney World is in Orange County, Florida and Disney Land is in Orange County, California.   I wonder if that was by design?

Anyway, the sky looked pretty nice.

The clouds looked pretty cool.  But I've heard that these might still be smoke from the Western wild fires.

Next up was an A319 from Miami.

I went to the other side of the airport because I wanted to catch a different plane.

But it wasn't this A321 from Salt Lake City but I still had to get pictures of it.

This is the plane that I wanted to catch, it was a Sun Country 737 coming in from Bullhead City, Arizona.  The Bullhead City Airport was home to the helicopters from Airwolf.

A CRJ-900 coming in from Charlotte.

One the other runway was an ERJ-175 from O'Hare.

And then there was this 757-300 from Atlanta.

It was pretty cool to see this plane, especially since I haven't seen too many 300s in the past months.

This particular plane has the nickname of flying pencil because it is so long and thin.

As I was getting ready to leave, I noticed that I had one more 757 coming in.

Since I love these planes, I had to catch it.

It was a 757-200.

And it was coming in from Fort Lauderdale.
 

And the Algoma Sault

 This would be the last ship of the day for me.  There were a couple more downbound but it would be a while before the passed Belle Isle and I wanted to do some other things.  Plus at this point, I had used all the batteries in my drone.

Anyway, the Algoma Sault was coming over from Calumet.

I think she would have been carry stone but I'm not sure.

She was heading up to the Rouge River.

I think she was heading to the part where stone is delivered.

But she could also be carrying pet coke.

Anyway, I couldn't use my drone at this point because I had used all my batteries.

That's not too bad, considering I caught 6 ships and I even hovered for one while I was taking pictures of another one.

I figured I got about a half hour from each battery.  Maybe I might have gotten more if it wasn't so windy.

At this point, it was just as well that I couldn't use my drone because the winds were really starting to pick up.

Unfortunately, I couldn't time my shots to get some decent wave pictures.

The almost beam shot.

And the beam shot.

She continues down the river.

One more shot of her.  She shows her home port and that happens to be her name.