day 4

Tonight I was able to get down to the vineyard pretty early, around 6:30 pm or so. Walked around a bit, parked in a couple of different spots, and waited. Muggy weather, and swirling ozony southerly winds as numerous thunderstorms worked their way through the area, but it never did rain where I was. Had a book in the truck so I read that for quite a while.

No sign of any deer while I was there. That's not to say they're not there, of course, only they didn't manifest themselves while I was around.

Around 8:45 or so I got out of the truck to stretch my legs, went around the backside of the winery building, and sat overlooking an acre of newly planted vines downhill from the building. Nothing at all, and at 9:05 or so took a walk up the vineyard to the barn and then back again. Bu 9:15 it was pretty damn dark, so I called it a night.

Found a site on the web the other night that gives sunrise and sunset times for any location, but also twilight times: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html

Here's the data for today:

U.S. Naval Observatory
Astronomical Applications Department

Sun and Moon Data for One Day

The following information is provided for Lodi, Seneca County, New York (longitude W77.4, latitude N42.6):

        Monday 
      10 July 2006          Eastern Daylight Time        

                       SUN
      Begin civil twilight       5:07 a.m.               
      Sunrise                    5:41 a.m.               
      Sun transit                1:15 p.m.               
      Sunset                     8:48 p.m.               
      End civil twilight         9:22 p.m.               

                       MOON
      Moonrise                   8:11 p.m. on preceding day
      Moon transit              12:21 a.m.               
      Moonset                    4:33 a.m.               
      Moonrise                   9:06 p.m.               
      Moonset                    5:47 a.m. on following day

Full Moon on 10 July 2006 at 11:01 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

Pretty cool stuff. The twilight times roughly correspond to "half hour before sunrise" and at least give an idea of the approximate time it should be light enough to shoot.

I think we're going to try our hand at sniping on Wednesday morning, and see if mornings are any better than these evenings have been.