Category Archives: Year 10

Knife River Ravine Northern Lights (videos!)

Year 10,

One week ago I was camped out at Crisp Point while working my volunteer lighthouse keeper’s gig near the far eastern end of Lake Superior, and Lady Aurora danced for me (see my post … Lighthouse Keeper’s Dance). This week Lady Aurora decided to dance for me near the western end of Lake Superior. I am a lucky guy! My location was deep within the Knife River Ravine one mile inland from the big lake. I hope you enjoy the lady’s Northern Lights dance. I did!

Note: I tend to edit my Northern Lights images in post processing to better reflect what I saw with the naked eye. With respect to last night’s dance I removed much of the green color my camera chose and made the Northern Lights more white. Most images were taken at an ISO of 3,200 for 2 seconds (Sony A6300, Aperture 2.0 and Rokinon 12 mm manual lens). The real time Northern Lights Videos are at the bottom of this post.

The Green Glow (around 10 pm … an indication the dance was about to start … the horizon often glows just before the start of a good Northern Lights display)

Northern Lights Rays

Firestorm (the lights were flickering on and off every second … and moving around in the sky)

Some Light Painting to Better Show my Environment (see the boulders in the river)

Around midnight I returned home. The Northern Lights were calming down. I took this photograph 150 yards from the end of my driveway.

Northern Lights at Amity Creek / The Deeps

And the movies! Yup, here are two real time videos I took with my Sony A6300 (not time lapse images stitched together). My Sony is not an expensive camera. It dates to the year 2016, and I was using a Rokinon 12 mm manual lens set at 3,200 ISO and Aperture of 2.0. My vantage point is I am standing in the middle of Knife River!

Lady Aurora’s Dance #1 (video link 1 for email subscriber)

Lady Aurora’s Dance #2 (video link 2 for email subscriber)

As with my still images, I did very little post processing of my two videos … some noise reduction and color correction to make the Aurora Borealis less green to better reflect what I was seeing with my naked eye.

Crisp Point Lighthouse is NOT on a Bird Migration Highway

Year 10,

I have served as a Crisp Point Lighthouse keeper for many years during the Fall Bird Migration. Most folks knows of the major North American Bird Migration Highways: The Atlantic or Eastern Flyway, The Mississippi Flyway, The Central Flyway, and The Pacific or Western Flyway. However, each of these major flyways is made up of many smaller “bird highways”. Although Crisp Point is only 10 miles “as the crow flies” from Whitefish Point, very few birds are ever seen near Crisp Point. Take a look at this map, and you’ll understand why. Birds don’t want to fly west from Whitefish Point along the shores of Lake Superior when much better options exist to fly directly south along Lake Michigan or Lake Huron (another post of mine about migration highways). In five days of lighthouse keeping at Crisp Point I saw very few birds. However over the past week the official migration counters employed at Whitefish Point saw thousands and thousands of birds (only 10 miles distant). Moral of the story … look at a map of your local and regional area. Pay attention to “migration highways” … rivers or large lakes. Chances are these spots will optimize birding during the twice yearly migrations.

Here are a few shorebirds I did see on one “keepers” walk … Sanderlings and a Semi Semipalmated Plover.

And a couple of final photographs of the lighthouse …