Shine On, Harvest Moon

Did you guys notice how bright the harvest moon was? The cats were so
restless, wanting outside. Like they *knew* the hunting was excellent.
I had a hard time explaining to them that the hunting was also good
higher up on the food chain than they were.

But DH & I did go outside and take a walk. Bright moonlight is so
weird. Like looking at the world in a black and white movie. You can
see everything very well, but you can't distinguish colors. Red roses
look black, and the pink ones look gray. I'm not sure this works if you
have other light pollution. I don't know the scientific reason for it.
We saw several cottontail rabbits, a raccoon and an owl.

Christina Websell...

I love posts like this from members in other parts of the world from myself.
I like to imagine it, what it would be like to see cottontail rabbits and a
racoon. (we have owls). I sort of travel the path along with you. It's
the nearest thing I will get to visiting America ;-)
Thanks for sharing.

jXwXeXrXmXoXnXt...

Sherry, that sounds beautiful!

jmcquown...

Good golly, I didn't even notice! Darnit! Glad you had a nice walk. I
love walking in the moonlight. Heh, isn't that a song?

Julie_Snowshoe...

We're in the middle of the country right now with mainly fields on
either side of us. The moon is absolutely beautiful! I wish Selena was
alive, she so enjoyed watching the moon. She and I would discuss all
the things the moon meant to her and tell tales of moon magic, etc. She
was always at her best during harvest moon.

Jo Firey...

It was nice. Just this time of year the full moon shines through our
kitchen window so we could see it sitting in the family room.

I've seen several hawks the past week at the park. So they must be
migrating now too.

John F. Eldredge...

The reason that you see in shades of gray in dim light is that there
are two kinds of nerve cells in the retina that detect light. Cone
cells detect color, but require relatively bright light. Rod cells
detect only brightness (black/white/gray), but can function in
relatively dim light. The part of the retina where the central focus

jXwXeXrXmXoXnXt...

And just to make this on-topic, cats have tons of rods and relatively
few cones. So they can see a lot better than we can in dim light -
remember that the next time you're stumbling to the bathroom in the
middle of the night, and the cat steps right in front of you, assuming
that you will see him/her!

Because they have fewer cones, their color vision isn't as good as ours.
I forget the details, but the colors they see are less saturated than
what we see. They may also have a smaller palette - I believe they don't
see red (and therefore, red-based colors), or at least not very well.

is located has mostly cone cells, which is why a dim point of light
may be visible when you look slightly to one side of it, then
disappear when you look directly at it.

Even here in the light-polluted Bay Area, the moon was bright and
quite lovely.