I had an unexpected photo opportunity while walking around campus today, and snapped this raven with my phone's camera. I wrote it a little verse for it in the caption. Not a haiku, mind you. I live by the forum rules, too.

Well, this isn't a fishing post, but when all the fish are under four feet of ice and snow, we have to look elsewhere for entertainment. Elsewhere... like up.

Intense sunspot activity for the last week or so has painted faint bands of aurora across the sky in Fairbanks pretty much every recent night that we could see them through the clouds. Mostly, these slow-moving pale green stripes aren't anything to get excited about in Fairbanks. Last night, we finally had the right combination of a clear sky and a more intense aurora, and I had my camera out on the deck at the right time.

The display was pretty good for half an hour or so, but the most intense activity lasted just a couple minutes. Green and red waves swirled rapidly overhead like someone was mixing them with an eggbeater. I didn't catch that on camera, but I did catch some of the shimmering green waves that followed. After the most impressive action, I went back to work and enjoyed the diffuse green glow out my window.