Fruit fly shaped cloud, West Desert, Tooele County, UtahFruit fly shaped cloud – Nikon D810, f8, 1/2000, ISO 500, Nikkor 18-200mm at 46 mm, natural light

I’ve mentioned here on my blog a time or two, or dozens of times, that when I am in the field I pay attention to everything around me and that doing that helps me find birds and wildlife. Well, it isn’t just birds and wildlife that catches my eyes.

Sometimes I see shapes that look like other things in rocks, pinnacles, cliff faces, the hills, and the clouds when I am scanning the countryside.

On Friday I was looking for birds high in the sky and low on the horizon when I turned my head and spotted a fruit fly shaped cloud. I had to stop and take a series of photos before the fruit fly shaped cloud morphed into another shape. If I drew a cartoon of a fruit fly it might look just like the one I saw in the sky last week.

Seeing familiar objects or patterns in otherwise random or unrelated objects or patterns is called pareidolia. It’s a form of apophenia, which is a more general term for the human tendency to seek patterns in random information. It is something that we all experience from time to time.

Do you see the fruit fly?

I know this for certain… I would NOT want to run into a fruit fly as big as this cloud was. That would scare the tar out of me!

Life is good.

Mia

Click here to see more of my Miscellaneous photos which are basically images that I have taken that just do not fit into one specific category.