I’m just going through old photos on my laptop and found this.
I remember taking it after just moving out to the island and buying a bike to get around and just exploring. I haven’t been on a bike for about 10 years before so it was mostly me almost crashing into everything for a good 20 minutes before I decided to stop.
I was giving the Northern Waterthrush that has been seen along Carpinteria Creek a chance to show up (which it didn’t), and as it was getting dark I walked back to my car and saw the moon rising over the Santa Ynez Mountains.
I took two shots, one exposed for the moon and one exposed for the trees that framed it. Here are the uncropped images:
Recognizing that you don’t know or care about how Wingspan works, I have to take advantage of the mention to talk about it anyway.
Because I love it. Elizabeth Hargreaves created a wonderful game that does justice to birds and birding while being an engaging enough game to rope in both experienced gamers and newbie gamers like me. My partner in crime is more of a games-and-puzzles person than I am, and we’ve played Wingspan fairly obsessively since it came out, upgrading each time an expansion has been released.
She’s way better than I am, and historically wins about 75% of the head-to-head games we play. But lately I’ve gotten noticeably better. With her giving me pointers and purging myself of some bad habits (not focusing enough on bonus cards; playing low-point-value birds late in the game to buff an engine that won’t be run enough to justify it), lately I can win most of the games I play on the tablet one-on-one vs. the “automa” on max difficulty, which was very much not the case before.
It’s all about forward motion, and to a lesser extent on cross-habitat powers. It’s essential to figure out a habitat (or even two, sometimes) that can be essentially ignored, receiving high-point-value and pink/white-power birds. And then it’s key to build out the one or two habitats you’ll actually be running to maximize efficiency and properly balance the three key resources (cards, eggs, food). The other thing (which I learned from following Elizabeth Hargreaves on Twitter) is flexibility: the biggest mistake she sees people making (and it’s one I’ve made, and still make, a lot) is clinging to a strategy when the cards are against it, failing to change course to take the best path the game is offering.
Okay. Whew. I feel better now. Thank you for letting me share.🙂
