Chicken Coop Chatter©
As I've mentioned in the past I'm a sky watcher, and have taken some interesting photos of the sky. Of course you see many of my sunset photos that I post in our closing message each evening, but I also take photos during the day of cloud formations and oddities.
From the time I was a wee kidlet, I would lay in a grassy field, looking up at the sky and imagining all sorts of formations I may see in the clouds. Sharks, Whales and Fire-breathing Dragons are frequent ones, but I've seen Disney cartoon characters and even chickens and other farm critters in those clouds. In some photos I've posted, I witnessed *sun dogs*, which are splashes of rainbow colors near the sun's beam. A phenomena that is rarely seen, but I had the rare opportunity to see them on two different occasions and to get photos on one of those occasions.
You can view my photos and information about *Sun Dogs* at the link: http://justfowlingaround.weebly.com/stories/sun-dogs
The Lenticular Cloud in the above photos is another of those rare opportunities and I was able to photograph it several times, as we were traveling down the road. Fortunately my camera has a fast enough response to take the photos without blur.
These clouds usually form around mountains, hills or large buildings when the air flow is obstructed. These can be seen on occasion at the top of Mt. Hood in Oregon and Mt. Rainier in Washington state and other high mountains in the Cascade range. The one in my photos was taken near Mt. Hood, but still a fair distance away hovering over the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, in Oregon, and not often seen in low lying areas or valley's but still likely formed as the clouds moved over the mountain into the plateau below.
The Lenticular clouds have often been the explanation for UFO sightings because of their saucer-like shape. Pilots of small planes avoid flying through this type of cloud because of the air current, however glider pilots seek out this type of cloud because of the turbulence to carry them farther and higher than other types of air currents.
I'm a mere observer of the sky with interest enough to research and identify what I may witness, but for technical and scientific information, you may want to do a search for *Lenticular* clouds.
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