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Observations for 2020 August 16


Down by Fan & Mortar saw an osprey gliding upstream. It perched on on the top of e of the trees beside Link's runoff channel for a while, then suddenly launched itself toward the river. Unfortunately, it came up empty. It then cirlcled around a bit, and we thought it might return to the tree, but it headed upstream. About five minutes later, it reappeared low over the river, headed downstream with a small catch.

Up at Daisy, nothing much different. The duration of the eruption was short, although the intervals were just over two hours. Lots of Side Boiler activity in Splendid, and I left just as the activity switched to Main Vent.

The One Burst Grand eruption managed to have both a Turban delay and erupt almost outside the NPS prediction window. Just two minutes in. The delay was around 5h10m and had several small boops, so I wasn't surprised when it immediately dropped.

At Beehive, the wind was directly toward the walkway the whole time the Indicator was erupting. Just as Beehive started, the wind shifted to spray the walkway and platform on the other side of the river, and stayed that way for the duration of the eruption.

Went to Three Sisters Spring to watch Mugwump for a few hours. It was erupting about every twenty minutes. Most eruptions were minors, where there's one big burst and some other boiling, and the whole eruption lasts less than ten seconds. Did see a couple of major eruptions, with multiple big bursts, and a lot more overflow that lasts for a bit under 1/2 minute. The last one we saw was the best of the day, with a flood of water coming done.

Myriad #1 also had a couple of small but heavy boils during that time.

At Grand the Turban interval went long. Grand's pool was full, and over about 45 seconds, there were six to seven small boops. There were never really any waves, despite what Grand was doing. Then the pool dropped and stayed that way until Turban started about six minutes later. I was making notes when I looked up to see the pool back to full, with waves. No boops this time, but instead got a quick start with a nice bursting bubble. The rest of the eruption was a pretty typical One Burst Grand, although it lasted almost twelve minutes. At first it looked like Vent & Turban were going to continue, then suddenly Turban got a lot stronger for about fifteen seconds, and then abruptly quit. So much for any afterplay and an afterburst.

Finally, it was time to wait for a sunset Castle eruption. The rainbows were just starting to be visible at the top of the water column from our vantage point.