Viewed Through a Webcam

Perhaps it was because of all the snow that Mount Fuji had lately, but the trees in the area were looking spectacular today. The leaves had all changed to fall colors (or perhaps they had already been like this, but the lighting was never right?). The clouds also looked picture perfect, with the sky adding an interesting look. The webcam images seemed like a great painting, or perhaps something you’d find on a postcard.

Unfortunately, the color show didn’t last long. No matter, I captured a screencap of it, so you can all enjoy it too:

Though the skies stayed fairly clear for most of the day, the area never looked quite as beautiful as it did in the morning. Still, I did take some more decent shots:

Want to check it out for yourself? View this webcam live (updates every 10 minutes):
Mount Fuji

Though somewhat difficult to see, the diver of the Toba Aquarium has returned! Unfortunately, he spent most of his time on the far side of the tank, either near the viewing windows or completely off-camera (with only the bubbles from his air tank being in view), which made for less-than-stellar viewing.

Anyhow, these first images were the best I managed to get from far away:

(Also notice the puffer fish perching in front of that incredibly large fish. Maybe the larger fish scared him away, because he didn’t stick around for long.)

Most of the others I took were obstructed by the fish swimming by. Then later on, he swam closer to the camera, so I was able to get a couple better shots of him, before he left:

You never know… maybe the diver is back in the tank. Take at look for yourself:
Toba Aquarium

This is new! Since the time I started watching the webcams at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, the Kiwi Cam has always been “Offline”. Today when I tuned in the camera loaded up and I was able to see my first images of the zoo’s kiwi.

She hopped around for a while, seeming eating and drinking, until she finally hopped out through the whole in the back wall. Wow she can certainly move fast if she wants to! Also, she’s a bit hard to see in the black and white images, but as the website says, kiwi’s are nocturnal birds, so it’s best to tune in during the evening hours (after the camera has switched to black and white images for the night).

And just so you know, this particular kiwi was only born on March 30, 2010, which might be why the cam was always offline.

Maybe you can catch a glimpse of the kiwi or another animal at the zoo? Here’s the link:
Smithsonian National Zoological Park

Nothing but troubles trying to save out these screen captures in Photoshop. First, it wouldn’t let me select an area to crop out of the picture, and now, it’s only letting me crop perfect squares, which needless to say isn’t working out so much. I think I need to do a restart.

In the mean time, I guess I’ll be saving these out the hard way lol…

Anyway, enough of that, on to the actual webcam photos. Today’s webcam viewing was a special treat. Snow around Mount Fuji! Okay, so I’m used to seeing snow covering the cap of the mountain, but today, even the area nearby seems to have been covered in snow.

I knew from the first moment I opened the Mount Fuji cam that something was different. Right away I was asking myself, “Are those icicles?”. Then looking closer at the pictures I spotted the snow covered trees and knew I was right.

As the day got brighter, it became rather foggy, so there wasn’t much to see. But as the day progressed, it got much clearer, so the snow became much easier to see. Mount Fuji itself is still hiding though:

For your own enjoyment, view this webcam live (updates every 10 minutes):
Mount Fuji

While watching the Toba Aquarium webcam today I saw a large gathering of yellow fish near the camera. So, I quickly snapped some screencaps of the event, before attempting to locate the proper name for this type of fish. After searching for around 15 minutes, I think I’ve finally found it – Foxface Fish (otherwise known by it’s Latin name, Siganus vulpinus).

So, without further ado, enjoy the Dance of the Foxface Fish:

Maybe the Foxface fish are back together. Take at look for yourself:
Toba Aquarium

Happy Easter everyone! Bet you were expecting to see the Easter Bunny weren’t you? Okay, though he may be out there leaving little eggs around for you all to find, I happened to spot the Easter Squirrel instead. Yes, you read that correctly – the Easter Squirrel.

Anyway, as expected, the wild squirrel cam has proven interesting once more. The creators have even made a nice Easter scene for today to keep us interested.

And as luck would have it, I even managed to spot a squirrel in action. It milled around on screen for a while, grabbed some food to eat, played with the display, and then took off. (The little Easter eggs were filled with some kind of food – I’m guessing nuts, so it’s no wonder the squirrel was sniffing around to see what the fuss was about. But still cute, none the less!)

Maybe the squirrel is there right now. See for yourself with this link:
Wild Squirrels. Weird Stuff.

Found an interesting site today. Ustream has tons of webcams from practically any topic you can dream up. Some of them even have sound too! It’s more like live video feeds from around the world than webcams perhaps. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s a step in the right direction!

One stream that I found interesting was called, “Wild Squirrels. Weird Stuff.” You certainly can’t go wrong with a name like that, now can you? Though I wasn’t able to see any squirrels on the webcam, I did find this amusing:

Seems like a fun channel. I’ll have to keep my eye on it and see what else I can find there.

To take a look at it yourself, use this link:
Wild Squirrels. Weird Stuff.

I managed to get several good shots of the Toba Aquarium turtles today. It’s always nice to see them swim in close to the camera, so I happily snapped some screencaps while they were in view:

Later on, one of the turtles was swimming past the webcam back off in the distance. I took in a series of screencaps and was able to get four decent shots as the turtle crossed the screen:

Wondering if you can spot the turtle today? Take at look for yourself:
Toba Aquarium

As the sun rose over Mount Fuji today, it was evident that there were going to be clouds. But still, with the mountain partially uncovered, I was feeling optimistic about getting some more decent webcam views of the area. This was the view at 5:30am local time:

Just ten minutes later, the darkness had almost completely disappeared, and I was finally able to see more clearly what the day had in store. Other than the lower cloud cover, the air did seem to be fairly clear:

By 8:00am local time, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, though the clouds were still partially obstructing my view of the mountain, it was in such a way that reminded me of the times spent flying above the clouds in an airplane. I thought it was really beautiful, so I grabbed a couple pictures of that too:

How are the clouds looking at Mount Fuji today? Take a look for yourself:
Mount Fuji

Today I managed to capture both the sunrise and the sunset at Mount Fuji! It’s the first day that I’ve managed to stop by at the right time for both the sunrise and sunset times of the day. So, yea, that’s got me pretty excited.

Anyway, this morning, Mount Fuji was looking more than ready for some good screencapping. So, I snapped these pictures as the webcam refreshed itself every ten minutes:

Later on in the day there was some interesting looking clouds in front of Mount Fuji. It was nice to see something that wasn’t a solid wall of fog-like clouds during the day for a change.

Then, by the time the sun was setting, the mountain reappeared so it could be easily captured on the webcam as the skies turned from a darker blue to black as night. Though the lights look especially bright right after sunset (notice the third image):

Want to watch the sunrise tomorrow? (Sunrise at Mount Fuji happens around 4pm EDT (GMT-4), Sunset occurs around 5am EDT) Use this link:
Mount Fuji (Updated every 10 minutes)