When I had this as a weekly topic last year, there were times when I was struggling to have something to feature, and punted it once or twice, though at others I had subjects waiting in the wings, and overall didn’t do too bad at all for finding something new for every week. I like this way better though, in that I can feature things as I find them and not stick to a schedule.
Poking around late last night (as in, right before it became “today.”) looking to see who was about and not finding much of anything, I finally spotted a patch of paler green within the foliage of the large Japanese maple in the backyard. It was about the right hue for an anole in night coloration, but didn’t look quite right for it, and a close examination confirmed this: it was not an anole.
I was delighted at this, because it’s been – holy shit, has it been ten years? – since I last photographed one, so I’m sure you’ll understand my pleasure. This is a rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivus) coiled up asleep in the leaves, because that’s what they do – they’re very arboreal, and growing up we always called them green tree snakes, since you’ll rarely find them on the ground at all. This perspective simply wouldn’t do, however, so I crawled underneath the tree to see more of it.
I made a small mistake in doing so, however, because I was used to stalking the anoles at night and they pay little attention to the headlamp bobbing around or the flash going off. But snakes don’t have eyelids and thus sleep with their eyes open, and from experience, I’m fairly certain that a distinct change in light wakes them up right away. Normally, this is throwing your shadow across them, but here it was likely the light passing in and out of the shadows of the leaves, so this little guy was awake and starting to seek a safer place as I was underneath framing the shots.
And little it was, even smaller than average, as we can see because I couldn’t let it go at these, and had to get some scale and better detail images.
The muscles of most snakes are impressive, but rough green snakes can suspend themselves way out from minimal purchase, or in this case, abandon the established support of my hand to throw its hindbody out for a different grip to try and escape – you can see the tailtip curled over one finger, while it looks like I’m demonstrating knot tying. Naturally, this is going on in my left hand while the camera is held in my right.
Overall length was probably a little over 30 cm, but they can easily get better than twice this, and twice this girth so, you know, huge.
Here I’d finally convinced it to use my hand as support – for a moment, anyway. Even at this size/age, you can see the scars from past encounters, though I’m inclined to think ‘songbird that wasn’t happy to find it within the leaves’ and not your typical predators of snakes, since it wouldn’t have survived most of them. And the scars were not likely from battles with its own prey either, since those are slugs and spiders and so on.
I did a lot of frames, partially because it was moving around so much I was never sure that focus was correct, but also trying for a decent portrait. I would have liked to have captured this one with the tongue out, but it held the pose for less than a half-second. Meanwhile, notice the tail extended out to the left.
And the last one, for giggles, since it had now coiled its tailtip over its own head, actually holding it there for a little bit, perhaps secure in its grip.
I released it back into the tree where I found it after this session, and it slipped deeper into the foliage and out of sight quite quickly. Will it stick around in the immediate area? Will I see it again? Can’t predict that, but I’ll keep you posted.
So I did go out this morning just before the peak of the Lyrids meteor shower (which was supposed to be around 4 AM locally,) and fired off a lot of frames. Stars were visible but not distinctly so, leading me to believe either the humidity was very high or a faint haze was obscuring the sky (which is the same thing I guess.) I was largely watching the area of sky I was aimed at the whole time, and wasn’t seeing anything happening, until a two-minute exposure close to when I was going to wrap it up. I saw the meteor clearly and was pretty certain that it was within the field of view of the camera, and sure enough, it was visible as a faint streak.
This is full-frame, and it just barely shows at this resolution. See it? No, not that dotted line near top center – that’s simply four stars nearly in a line along the plane of movement (likely the base of the constellation Corona Borealis, The Crown, just to the right of Bootes, The Fatass.) Try looking instead at the bottom of the frame to the left. This, by the way, constitutes about half of the visible sky from the backyard here, with straight up being at the top of the frame – I could shift below this and turn the camera to landscape instead to get the rest, but that also aims towards the town lights and so gets brighter and less distinct because of that. At full resolution though, the meteor looks like this:
There it is, that vertical streak just left of center. Since this was aimed at longer exposures, the aperture was f8 (ISO 2000,) and so not ideal for capturing the faint ‘shooting star’ type meteors like this one. Like these, actually – there’s a second in there that I didn’t see at the time, to the right, just barely discernible because it’s not following the same star paths. I enhanced contrast significantly to bring them both out better:
Really brings out the noise of ISO 2000, doesn’t it? I was normally firing off frames of 15 seconds, f3.5, to bring out the fainter and brief traces that might occur, so the higher ISO was intended to help with that, but I don’t think 2000 is useful, really – it’s certainly messy. But you should be able to see that second one anyway.
Immediately afterward, bolstered by the one I’d seen and a couple other suspicions of faint, quick ones, I switched back to 15-second exposures at f3.5, and captured some more streaks even when I was seeing nothing. Here are two of them in the same frame, opposite corners of the full-resolution inset:
Except, these appear in subsequent frames as well, slightly further along their paths, indicating that these were both satellites and not meteors – it was getting closer to sunrise and so some of the satellites were able to catch sunlight again.
I have yet to examine all of the frames at full resolution, and might for giggles, but who cares about pissant little streaks like those above? I was after nice brilliant fireballs, and I haven’t seen one of those in years. So much for this storm.
Now, part two, of which I will tell you right now there are no images to illustrate, so we’re stuck with prose. Just as I was getting ready to detach the camera from the tripod, I heard a sharp crack from the direction of the pond, and thought, The beavers just took down a small tree. So leaving the camera where it was, I walked over there slowly since I was already wearing the headlamp. Initially, I just saw two heads with reflecting eyes slinking past, dark and low in the water, just inside the lily line. I wandered further, looking for stumps or fallen trunks and finding none, but on returning to the apron where we throw down the corn, I saw again a head cruising through the water (well, there was a body attached too, I just couldn’t see that.) In typical beaver style, it did a back-and-forth pass, ensuring that nothing dangerous seemed to lurk (only seeing the glare of the headlamp in my direction,) and came up to shore about four meters away. This was a big beaver, biggest I’ve seen since this one, and jet black – I’ve never spotted this one before.
Curiously, for the size of the body, the head was fairly small, and I’m slightly inclined to think it was a pregnant female, but that’s more an impression that an experienced naturalist’s opinion – I’ll stick with ‘she’ though. She began scarfing down corn from the shallows just offshore, quite nonchalantly, while not too far away, roughly the border of the pond and The Bayou (so, 20-30 meters,) another beaver slapped the water loudly, twice. She never even twitched. I had of course gone down without the camera or camcorder, so I was only observing.
Then she started working closer, and I was beginning to get concerned – not because beavers tend to be aggressive, because they’re not, but because anything can have a bad reaction if startled, and she was closing to about two meters, close enough for her to feel threatened if she suddenly detected that I was there looming overhead. This did give me a chance to measure her entire length against landmarks though, and it was in the realm of 70 cm nose to tail (having checked later on with a tape measure,) estimated weight at least 15 kilos. I waited until she had abandoned her one feeding spot and started edging to the side, and I gently moved one foot, a tiny scuffing sound. She became alert and moved off slightly, and I did it again a little louder. This was enough to send her into a turn and dive, not frantically, but playing the discretion card, and I was able to go back to the tripod and collect the camera.
This causes me to relate two anecdotes about beavers from the past. While I was working for a humane society, we had a moderately-sized beaver come in with a leg injury, largely superficial, but the vet recommended a warm compress twice a day to help with any potential infections, and since I was part of the Beaver Project at that time, it fell to me to administer this. Bearing in mind that this is a perfectly wild animal in a foreign environment, the beaver would allow me to pick it up and sit next to it on the floor of the kennel, one hand holding the warm towel around its injured forelimb – the worst reaction was to try and push my hand away. I’ve been in far more danger trying to clip the cats’ nails. However, by the end of the week, the noise of the dogs nearby was beginning to take its toll and the beaver was getting visibly agitated, so we halted the compresses and elected to release it back where it was found. Rather than taking off like a shot the moment its carrier was opened, it ambled out and over to the streambank nearby, slipping into the water with all casualness.
Then the other side of the coin. A few weeks later, a former employee heard her two Brittany spaniels kicking up a fuss on the back of her property at night, and went down to investigate. It turns out they had cornered a beaver, a big one, and it was very angry. She got too close without realizing the situation (given the darkness and likely a handheld flashlight in the pre-LED days, not hard at all,) and the beaver decided she was as much a threat as the dogs, attacking here viciously. Her legs got seriously torn up, requiring (if I recall correctly) over a hundred stitches, and she told us she couldn’t get away from the beaver and had to pick it up bodily to hurl it away. Thankfully, this was also before rabies had moved into the area, even though she probably received a booster anyway (we all had preventative rabies vaccines if we were handling wildlife.) So, overall, beavers are mellow and not prone to aggression, but can get that way if provoked – it’s always a bad idea to assume any lack of danger from wild species.
Though I am glad this attack occurred well after I was tasked with going into a kennel and handling one closely…
While some consider it trite, there’s still a fascination and popularity with the effect of moving water in images, and so, here are some pointers for tackling this on your own.
The primary bit, of course, is a slow enough shutter speed to have noticeable water motion to blur it out, but of course, everything else being sharp. This generally means shooting from a firm tripod, though I have admittedly gotten away with some frames handheld, with a relatively short shutter speed (like 1/10 second) and, the key bit, an image stabilized lens at short/wide focal lengths. I can’t recommend this, since you’ll likely produce a lot of discards, but there are narrow circumstances when you can get away with it.
Still, to do it dependably, you should have a tripod, and this is one of the reasons I schlep one along for stream and mountain excursions. Also helpful is a remote release, with the addition of a circular polarizer or neutral density filters to reduce the light and thus the shutter speed.
Shutter speed. No firm guidelines here, since it depends on how far the water moves across the frame, as well as how cottony you want it. Shortest would probably be 1/10 second or thereabouts, but longer is better in most cases.
Aperture. Generally, the smaller the better, to reduce light and help lengthen the shutter speeds, but this also helps in keeping foreground and background elements in focus with the increased depth-of-field, and that contrast between sharp features and cottony water is what’s usually so appealing about such shots.
ISO. The lower the better, again to lengthen the shutter speeds, though it also helps in creating images that are detailed and clear enough to enlarge well.
Location/conditions. Here’s something that matters a lot. Open or deep shade is preferable by a wide margin, because splashing water in bright sunlight produces momentary reflections that will render as spots or streaks of pure white within the cottony moving water, usually not a good addition. Even dappled sunlight will create hotspots that reduce the effect of the blurred water. Plus the shade helps to lengthen those shutter speeds again. Note that this will make the light more blue, so you might consider going with Auto White Balance, but be warned: this can get badly skewed by the scene if there’s too much green within, for instance. I tend to stick to Sunlight white balance (neutral,) and tweak colors afterward if it seems necessary – often times the blue cast is reasonable and appropriate anyway.
What the bright sun does The other bit that can have an affect is the wind, and/or the movements of leaves and branches. Anything that moves during the exposure will also blur of course, which you may or may not like. Too much, and the images just look overall blurred, taking away the points of sharp focus that we seek. However, a couple of leaves or branches here and there won’t always detract, and may add a little character. To this end,
Bracket exposures, widely if necessary. Without a doubt, shoot several different frames at different shutter speeds, even tweaking aperture as needed or desired. That blurring effect will increase with length of exposure, but it can also go so far as the completely eradicate any definition from the water, producing just fog, and you may or may not want that. Meanwhile, exposures too short will limit the effect, sometimes to the point of escaping notice. Experiment freely, while you’re in location and have the conditions. Unless you’re actually doing this on film, it costs nothing to toss out the ones that don’t work. And if you are doing this on film, keep notes of what exposure you used.
Filtering. Using a circular polarizer will reduce the light by, usually, about 1/4 to 1/2 stop, while neutral density filters can be obtained for much greater reductions in light. While I prefer the ones that are square and can thus be used on a variety of lenses, simply held in place, some of these are not truly neutral but have a faint color cast – easy enough to tweak out in post processing. It’s more of a danger in holding them in front of a lens, though, since you run the risk of bumping the camera and trashing the shot, or even of letting some light past the edges, so use these carefully, or with a holder. These will help with those conditions that are too bright for long enough shutter speeds, but they don’t eliminate that sparkle effect from bright sunlight on splashed water, so they’re not as useful as they might seem at first.
Also, polarizers reduce or eliminate the reflections from still water or glass, since those are polarized by nature – this is part of the value of such filters, but if those are a part of your composition, you can lose them. Such conditions are probably few and far between, however.
Moonlight photography. This is one of the better ways to tackle moving water shots, since the light is so greatly reduced in the first place, as well as moonlight being less likely to reflect from splashes too distinctly; it can still happen though. Doing this for something like ocean waves, lots of movement during very long shutter speeds, will likely produce only fog with no definition at all, so better to have something sharp to contrast with, such as rocks or bridges or a lighthouse, something of that nature. Here, also, the length of the exposure can dictate how dark and moody the frame is, from barely twilight to appearing almost indistinguishable from full sunlight.
Be aware, though, that shutter speeds longer than ten seconds may produce movement from clouds in the sky, and more than 30 seconds (depending on focal length and aiming direction) can cause stars not just to appear, but to streak across the sky as well. This can be useful too, just know that it can happen.
Use it as a background element. One of the creative ways to use the blur is to isolate your foreground subject against the cottony water, including using it for macro work (as long as your main subject won’t move during the exposure.) In this manner, you can use a smaller aperture to capture a deeper subject with higher depth, and still get that short depth appearance from a radically blurred background. It can also add a surreal aspect to a wider scene when used subtly.
Shooting into moving water. For instance, of leaves or rocks on the bottom of a stream. This is tricky, but cool when you get just the right conditions. First off, even shooting into water with a fast shutter speed usually just freezes the distortion of the rippled water, producing a funhouse mirror effect, so slowing down the shutter speed can average out this distortion – you’ll likely still get a softer image, but better than a warped one. However, your shutter speeds should probably be much faster than when used to blur out the water overall, because otherwise your subject will become just a blotch of color. Any ripples that reflect even indirect light will produce a haze across your subject as well. That said, something that disappears into deeper water, like a spread of leaves or the pebbles going offshore, will go progressively softer and more indistinct the deeper they go. Again, bracket wildly when you find the right conditions to exploit.
Definitely a fun thing to experiment with, so when you find the conditions, take some time and see what you can produce. Good luck!
You can expect to find things like this, if you’re looking around. Two short clips, one from last night, one from, damn, ten days ago – I’d been hoping to get some more to go along with it, but there’s been no further sign as yet.
A note about the toads. This isn’t actually mating, since they do external fertilization: the female finds a body of water after the male grabs ahold (amplexus,) and releases her eggs while the male releases his sperms at the same time, so the actual fertilization takes place in the water. The male was simply waiting, though perhaps goading the female to carry on. Why he didn’t seem to have a clue, I can’t say – amphibians are supposedly very attuned to the sounds of potential mates, and spadefoots and southern toads sound nothing alike. Listen, what anyone gets up to is their own business and I’m not judging, but as Hall & Oates says, “If you’re in it for reproduction, you ain’t gonna get too far.” I think that’s how the song goes…
Meanwhile, the ducklings first appeared with mom at dusk, slipping under cover before I could get upstairs to the camera and long lens. Last year, at least one mother duck (probably more) had used Turtle Island as a nice overnight roost, but that’s too far under water now to serve, which is a shame because it was a safe spot; I witnessed a raccoon hunting on the pond shores at the same time that I was watching this expanded brood. So she might have decided there wasn’t a good place to sleep within my sight, or she might simply be cycling around the roost spots, because that does seem to be a trait.
Did these emerge from our own nest box? I can’t be sure – I’ve never seen any activity at it, but it tends to be subtle and brief when it does occur, the female entering and leaving within seconds, so it’s possible that I was missing it. I have plans to make a small indicator on the outside of the box when there’s sufficient weight inside, but that won’t happen until after nesting season now, and I’d have to take it down and put it back up again, not an idle chore.
For giggles though, go back and watch the duck portion of the video again, this time watching the surroundings. See all those little starlike points of light among the foliage and debris? They’re all reflections from spider eyes, likely the fishing spiders, and yes, there are a lot of them. Most are tiny, way out of proportion to the brightness of the reflections at only a few millimeters in body length, but yeah, scads of them. Truth is, you can really only see this if the light source and your eyes (or the camera) are close together – I see it constantly with the headlamp, so who knows how many you might be missing? Spiders are all over the place and generally have no affect on people, but folks are often shocked to see just how many.
You know you’ll see more duckling clips when I get them, so keep checking back. I’m doing routine night patrols myself.
These are just a few recent images that demonstrate one of those factors I struggle with, in this case, trying for ‘that portrait’ of a wood duck. And I’m doing this because, while I just now got a video clip of some other species entirely to feature, I also have background noise that will prevent doing the voiceover for a while. So we have this instead.
Anyway, the wood duck (or one of them, anyway) that likes to claim territory and harass the others:
This particular position really brought out the iridescence of the wing feathers, a pretty rare thing in my observations, and this is probably intentional (for a completely misleading interpretation of ‘intent.’) First off, it only happens in bright sunlight, which the ducks tend to avoid, and those blue feathers are most often obscured under the others. They are, likely, both a display for mating and an indication of what species they are when they’re flying, leading the others in a flock away to safety (rather than, for instance, having them follow the hawk that just dove in to try and snag one for a meal.) However, attracting the attention of predators is a bad thing, so the feathers become notably muted and drab when in shadow, and wood ducks are good about remaining in shadow. Meanwhile, the head itself, so often a display of its own iridescence, isn’t catching the light correctly to show it at this angle.
Now we jump a mere second later, as the female that was being chased off by this one splashes into the water:
The male is in largely the same position, just turned ever-so-slightly, but the gleam from those blue feathers has now about vanished. They’re not covered, just at the wrong angle to diffract the light in the previous manner. And still no glow from the head.
Now, I wasn’t keeping track of who was who at the time, because it’s actually pretty hard when they’re nigh identical and keep dodging back and forth as wood ducks do, but the next pic is only 30 seconds earlier, and I think it shows the same territorial male coming up from the water towards a different male onshore:
If you look closely, you can see that the beak is open on the one in the back. No nice blue wing feathers, but the iridescence on the head of the rearmost one is now showing a bit, indicating that only minor changes in angle can radically change how these ducks appear.
Which is why I’ve been pursuing ‘that portrait’ for a while now. Not only does it take bright sunlight, which the ducks appear within only briefly, but just the right angle to bring out the best colors, and this occurs so fleetingly that it can vanish before I’ve tripped the shutter. To say nothing of having a decent setting, background, position of the ducks, and of course sharp focus. In a species that I have to work quite remotely from because they don’t tolerate human presence at all. Excuses, excuses, yeah I know, but these are one of the more challenging subjects that I’ve tackled, and a lot of it has to do with, they only look really good when they’re just so…
Another holiday is upon us, which should be an easy one to celebrate because, you know, we’ve all been there. Today is Laugh At What You Were Proud Of In Your Youth, the day when we all look back on our accomplishments or finds of the past and say to ourselves, “You naïve, ignorant fool!” In the case that I’m showcasing here, Younger Me was, um, just four days younger, when I posted about a pic of the pond edge that showed up to twenty turtles basking. What a maroon! This is what we were seeing this morning:
Just to blow the previous record out of the water (heh!) there are forty-four turtles in this image. Don’t believe me? Like before, clicking on the image above will take you to a full-resolution version so you can see for yourself, and if that isn’t enough, this link takes you to an annotated one: green for confirmed turtle heads, orange where only their backs were visible, and blue for those in the water. And in case you think I was fudging things a little to drive the count up, these were all confirmed by comparisons to other images – there are no cypress roots being mistaken for turtles in there.
Don’t miss the nutria bebbehs in there either, eating together alongside the favored taller cypress knee that we now call the Matterhorn, again, simply to have an easy reference when we’re spotting all the wildlife with binoculars.
A quick reminder that the Lyrids meteor shower is set to peak on the evening of the 21st-22nd, even though it’s technically going on right now – this is apparently a shower with a long period but a very distinct and sharp peak, so your best bet is early morning on the 22nd. The thin crescent moon will have set by roughly midnight while the peak is somewhere around 4 AM EDT, so give it a shot. What do you have to lose but sleep? And perhaps your patience. Your lack of a stiff neck. And your lens cap in the dark.
[We now have folding lounge chairs that will allow us to lean back with a better sky view, so perhaps we can avoid the neck thing, though I imagine I’ll be pursuing these on my own.]
Don’t stay up all night, because you’ll need to be well-rested for all of the elaborate celebrations of Earth Day on the 22nd. Still, keep it mum, because we’re aiming for it to be a surprise. Did you really think Artemis II went around the back side of the moon for no good reason?
And on the 24th, the Hubble Space Telescope turns 36 years old, still going strong despite the various advanced ‘scopes that followed. That’s a Friday, so no worries about partying too hard. Let’s see, what was I doing at 36? Come to think of it, let’s not go there…
[I did, idly, wonder how my photographic output compared to Hubble’s, realizing that a) I didn’t even have a serious camera until well after it launched, and b) it’s been in near-constant operation from the start, with high demands on its time. So while I can lay claim to something near 110,000 digital images, 5,800 slides, and dog knows how many negative images, this probably doesn’t hold a candle to Hubble’s output. Except, a pretty good number of its images are extremely long exposures, like hours or days at a time. And do stacked images count? How about the fact that nearly every image it produces is a combination of several, since the sensors are not RGB or color in any way, and rely on the filters used in front of the sensor and post-processing? This is a rabbit hole I’m already regretting…]
But anyway, do something for April.
Done right now, just for this post – nothing to see though
Looked out through the screen door to Walkabout Studios this morning (did I mention that I have a screen door now? I’m very pleased with it,) and spotted something sticking up from the grass right in my line of sight, not six meters away. It looked more obvious than this, because once it saw me opening the screen door (did I mention?) it ducked down a little.
Pretty subtle, right? That was the idea of course. The head was raised much higher when I first spotted it, and if you asked me to sketch or describe the head shape of this particular species, I probably wouldn’t get it right, but the moment I saw it, I said, “That’s a box turtle,” and of course (did you doubt it?) was absolutely correct.
To be more specific, a largish female eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina,) which was great to see since this is the first I’ve found on the property, or indeed anyplace in North Carolina since 2023, southeast of here. They’re strictly a land species, and tend to like more wooded areas while we’re borderline swampy, but apparently she was fine with it. The curious location and facing direction had me wondering if she’d placed a nest someplace near my back door. I’ll keep my eyes open – we haven’t seen any obvious nesting behavior from anyone yet, despite the multitudes of turtles in the pond.
The brown eyes denote this as likely a female, by the way, but I didn’t pick her up to examine the plastron, which is another hint: the males have a distinct indentation, a concavity in the center, while the females are largely flat – I’ll let you puzzle out the reason why. She was a decent-sized specimen, too:
There’s something else that only shows vaguely here, while other frames show in more detail, and that’s the ridges of the carapace scutes, the ‘scales’ or shell sections. It’s hard to tell since the most recent ones are indistinct, but they develop a new ridge every year, so she appears to be from ten to fourteen years old. Her inner ones, the early years, are quite broad, meaning she was growing quite well for the first nine or so years of her life, but there are a bunch of very fine ones at the outside edges, the recent growth years, so it appears she’d slowed down – which might be perfectly normal, since she’s about as big as they can typically get.
I let her be for a short while, and checked up a little later on – she saw me approaching from a distance and was craning her neck to see better, though she’d withdraw almost entirely once I got closer. A few minutes later, I saw her plowing determinedly through the grass and weeds (we let the backyard go, because we don’t need a huge lawn and the critters greatly appreciate it,) and about a half-hour later, there was no sign of her anyplace, having either made good time getting out of the yard or finding a spot that concealed her from me – but that would be impossible, you know that.
As intimated, I’ve been deeply involved in numerous projects here, keeping me away from blogging and not a lot of photography, either. So let’s catch up a little with pics from the past week or so.
We’ll start with an update on the bebbehs, the latest crop of nutria (Myocastor coypus) young, which have now expanded to five.
It’s rare to see them all at once, and even rarer to have a nice clean view – I think I have a couple of video clips, but quite often, as soon as I’m getting them all together, one or another decides to scamper off someplace else and at the very least remain out of the frame. So this isn’t great, but they’re there. And in case it isn’t clear enough at this resolution, I have an annotated version:
There – see them all now? We observe them often enough that we can slightly distinguish them now by behavior, though not by appearance. There’s a runt, which we can tell when compared to the others, as well as being slightly shyer and more hesitant, and a supremely bold one that seems to be bothered by almost nothing. Then two others seem to like playing together. That’s about it right now, until we microchip them and get them into the satellite network…
With the rise of water levels due to the beaver dam, Turtle Island and several other basking spots have been reduced or vanished altogether, so the numerous turtles in the pond are making do as they can (at least until I find a way to make them a new basking spot someplace.) This means the apron where we spread the corn becomes a crowded beach in the mornings when the sun gets high enough.
This is trimmed down to a panoramic to fit within the blog parameters, but clicking on it will take you to a full resolution version so you can see in detail. There are at least 20 turtles lined up here, primarily yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta) with a few eastern painted turtles (Chrysemys picta picta) sprinkled in there for seasoning. When you go to the big version, note that the third one from the left is hiding behind a tuft of grass, but you can see the shell and a head peeking out. Also look at the eighth, which has something appearing above the dome of its shell – that’s possibly the head of one hiding behind, though I didn’t count that one. The last one on the right, nestled in among the cypress knees and roots at far right, is pretty blurry, I’m supposing from the aspherical nature of the lens used, but I did confirm that this shiny spot is indeed another turtle. And this doesn’t include the ones that were still using Turtle Island, as well as others in spots of opportunity. They’s a lotta tortles in the pond, is what I’m saying.
And now, the ducks. The other evening we’d been prevented from distributing more corn because the ducks were out there all day long, possibly because they were waiting for us to distribute more corn, but it seems self-defeating to scare them away to do it. So this resulted in a lot of activity as they scavenged for what little they could find.
It might sound like we’re starving the poor things, and at times The Girlfriend frets about this, but they have a varied diet that the pond provides all on its own, so this is more a bonus dessert to them – they’ll cope. Here, three male wood ducks (Aix sponsa) are examining The Point, the same place we just saw the nutria bebbehs, for leftover morsels.
The males are appearing without females fairly often now, almost certainly because the females are on the nest or leading their progeny around – it was about this time last year that we first started seeing ducklings. But for some reason, the males seem more territorial now than before, and squabbles and chases are a routine occurrence.
Yes, the one on the right is chasing off the other ahead of it. This rarely lasts more than a few seconds and a few meters of chasing, though occasionally it gets more energetic. They can’t hold a candle to the Canada geese, though, which will frequently chase one another around in circles or take flight to continue the pursuit down through The Bayou. I’ll feature them a little later on.
While the light was good, I fired off a few more portraits.
Still trying for the really slick portraits with the fetching background – they don’t congregate in good light very often or for very long, and I always have to be shooting from a significant distance (usually the upstairs bathroom, like here,) so it’s an ongoing quest. But I get a few keeprs here and there.
The yellow cow lilies (Nuphar lutea) seen in the background here are rapidly taking over the open water, though the activities of the nutrias and beavers seem to be keeping them down slightly. Meanwhile, I really want a portrait with a nice clear reflection, but the ducks are usually swimming through the patches of bright light and so the ripples are always present, doing things like doubling up the eyes.
For the past several weeks, we’ve been seeing just one pair of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) hanging around at times, a little more complacent than the wood ducks so they’ll faintly tolerate us in the yard if we’re far enough off. Then the other evening, they were joined by another male, hanging around in close proximity like part of the family.
This illusion wasn’t quite complete, because every once in a while the male of the pair would chase the other male, but only for a meter or two, and otherwise they would be foraging together. And occasionally, with others as well.
That’s the mallard trio, with a wood duck pair in the water, and last year’s juvenile with this year’s bebbeh nutrias all foraging together (the dark hump at far right is the bebbeh.) They’re largely quite tolerant of each other, only needing a little bit of personal space and otherwise not caring at all – even when the corn is scarce. The wood ducks tend to give the largest adult nutrias some space, waiting for them to finish and leave before descending on the shores themselves, but not always – I have a video clip to feature at some point.
I also snagged a rare moment, as a male wood duck goosed the larger male mallard to get out of the way.
This was actually surprising – wood ducks are timid around the other species on the pond and virtually never dispute anything with the mallards, while the mallards won’t hesitate to chase off the wood ducks to a safe distance (again, about a meter – it’s not antagonistic at all.) I’m sorry I wasn’t shooting video at the time, The mallard didn’t turn around to retaliate, either.
Last subject, but in reverse order because I want to close with the portrait. While The Girlfriend was preparing a standing planter for new herbs yesterday, we discovered a large green treefrog (Dryophytes cinerea) had gotten inside, and we’d suspected it had trapped itself. I moved it to a ginkgo and got some pics, but by early evening it had made its way back to the planter. And by today, it had chosen a spot right alongside the back door to hole up for the day.
See that dark vertical line behind the frog? That’s the edge of the back door itself, a scant few millimeters from contacting its back, that I had already passed through several times before spotting the frog there. Yet it remained, totally unconcerned with the activity, sporting its nice little bronze color that’s an uncommon (but not too) variant in their coloration.
The portrait was much better, though.
The frog hadn’t liked being handled and tried to squirt out of my hands several times, so it was with some effort that I got it to the ginkgo, a safe place with shelter from the sun. The pose here is all its own though, as it regarded me with some enmity for displacing it from its nice quiet little planter home. Or maybe not. But I like the portrait anyway, and yes, this particular ginkgo (we think it’s a dwarf variety) really is this thick.
Zoo, aquarium, and animal park photography can be exceptionally frustrating if you’re trying to make your images look like they weren’t shot at such place, meaning, keeping all evidence of enclosures and fencing and all that out of the pic. While I never recommend trying to misrepresent your photos and claim that they were shot “in the wild,” there can still be times when you want nice images of exotic or rare species without the distractions and implications of the enclosures. Here are a few tips in that regard.
Wear black. For the simple reason that this is less likely to show up as a reflection in any glass that you’re attempting to shoot through. Additionally, a small, lightweight black cloth can help by being thrown over or held in front of anything else that might be generating reflections.
Have a friend. To hold said black cloths, or an external flash, or even to attract the attention of any critter who is disinclined to look up for the portrait. They, of course, should be wearing black too (the friend, not the critter – you might have a hard time with the latter.)
Other soft cloths. Specifically to wipe away the smudges and grunge from the side of the glass you can reach – don’t use your black cloth for this.
Rubber lenshoods, preferably the collapsible kind. These can be held right against glass or fencing to cut those stray reflections from the near side, which might even include your own flash.
Off-camera flash sync cord. Another place where your friend can come in handy. This is to allow you to position the flash to illuminate your subject best. Lacking the friend, you can often get by with a flexible bracket that allows you to position the flash as you see fit. Bear in mind that you may be trying to see under overhangs, but also that you want to avoid flash reflections and glare from the back side of any enclosure, which direct flash is very prone too.
The zoom lens is your friend. For flexibility in framing, of course, but also to help fuzz out the fencing that is visible, that you might even be shooting through. Having a variety of lenses is best, and know that the longer the focal length (or the greater the magnification,) the more you can blur out foreground and background elements with a short depth-of-field.
Now some general shooting tips.
Above all, follow the rules. Don’t use a flash where it’s prohibited, don’t go climbing on things that aren’t intended for such, don’t try to coax an animal with food or any other objects. Not just to avoid getting kicked out, much less injuring yourself or an animal, but to set a good example. People may be seeing us as experienced and/or knowledgeable (dog knows why,) and are generally inclined to mimic what they see others doing. It’s better that we show that something is not worth doing “just to get the shot,” rather than behaving like an ass.
Be respectful of other people. They’re all there to see the same things you are, so don’t hog the best perspective, and don’t take up space with a tripod where it might trip or block people. Let the kids hurtle around as they are wont to do – if you want silence and privacy and all that, there’s a great big world out there where your stalking and patience skills can be put to use.
Personally, I sometimes set up my tripod purposefully lower so that anyone that wants to take a peek can do so much easier, and have even detached my camera body to let someone else attach theirs to use my long lens. I also, when it seems warranted, offer insight into a species that I’m fairly knowledgeable about (I don’t interrupt people, but if they seem genuinely interested, I’ll offer a comment or two.) People that are also aware enough and apologize for their kids or even blocking a subject for too long are always treated graciously – again, set an example.
Curved glass – just forget about it. You’ll never get past the distortion and reflectionsShoot straight on through glass. Meaning, flat to the front of the camera, or parallel to the film/sensor plane, whatever. Glass bends all light coming through at an angle, so anything shot at an angle will be distorted, usually much worse than what our eyes see because the lens is much wider and receiving light from a broader perspective. This can be enormously tricky, since many subjects won’t be cooperative and within view when you’re aiming straight. Go ahead and get the oblique shot when you can – just never assume it’ll be a keeper, and exercise patience to get that straight-on view whenever you can.
Get right against the glass or fence whenever you can. This will minimize distortion, block reflections from dirty glass (you usually can’t clean the back side,) and fuzz out as much as possible through the shorter depth-of-field. This will also make it harder for your own flash to bounce back to you.
Shoot through the fencing openings. Well, duh, but what I mean here is, when you have to shoot through fencing, center your camera in the opening – the fence peeking in at the edges may be defocused enough not to attract attention, or more easily cropped out later. The longer the focal length, the more defocused this will be, and well as simply missing the fence altogether from the narrower field of view. If you have the choice, black fencing is better than the typical zinc-grey, though you usually don’t have the choice. But also look around carefully to find gaps you might exploit, for instance along the post or around a gate.
All three images shot through the fencing, but progressively closer with higher focal length. This is the winter coat of an arctic fox, by the way – the summer coat is dirty greyUse that articulated LCD to your advantage. If your camera has the ability to aim with the LCD and it can rotate and pivot and all that, use it; hold the camera up high above the fencing, or down low at ankle level for the direct portrait – whatever it takes. Don’t, however, put it into an enclosure. Also be aware that, as you’re trying for a specific angle, you’re holding the camera irregularly and perhaps don’t have the same security of grip.
Use depth-of-field to your advantage. As noted above, DOF drops with magnification, but also, it drops with difference between focal distance and foreground/background. In other words, to fuzz out the background, wait until your subject is closer to you than to the background, so your focus goes shorter. However, when trying to get an intervening fence out of focus, the subject being farther away works better. Naturally, a larger aperture (smaller f-number) helps significantly in shortening DOF.
Know that some background patterns, specifically brick walls and lighter-colored fencing, will remain recognizable no matter how short your depth is. Also, any highly contrasting items will show up as well – so, aim away from posts, bowls, and other such elements.
Experiment with that flash angle. You may not realize how badly it will reflect from other surfaces, or fail to properly illuminate your subject, until you see the results, so this is one of the few decent uses for chimping (looking at the LCD preview of the image afterwards.) Also, some species have iridescence that only shows up at specific light angles.
UrghWatch your background. This is especially true in aquariums that have glass backs to the tanks so they can be surrounded, but be aware of the other visitors with garish T-shirts that are back there (that may be illuminated even more by your flash.)
Creative angles. Most notably, a downward angle on your subject can eliminate the ugly background from the enclosure walls/sides, or you might even disguise such by shooting through gaps in foreground clutter. Tracking a moving subject until it gets against a complementary, or properly contrasting, background can improve things dramatically – you might even stack a few of the same species together and give an idea of a herd/flock/troop/parliament with only two or three individuals.
Watch for the abstracts. Two species together but facing in opposite directions, extreme closeups of eyes (especially through foliage – so dramatic,) the intricate details of feathers or hides – all much easier to achieve with captives, and easier to disguise or avoid the backgrounds too. Be creative and have fun.
Get there early. For two primary reasons. The first is, most animals are more active in the early hours, especially when the days get hot, so you’re more likely to capture something interesting. The second is, you’re more likely to beat the crowds. After a while, you won’t even be able to get close to the popular subjects. Have patience, though – crowds often happen in cycles, and with the right timing, you can rotate around opposite their presence.
However,
Light angle can make a huge difference. This is where knowledge of the layout of outdoor enclosures can be handy, because certain times of the day may produce deep shadows right where the critters congregate, while others may suddenly give you that excellent portrait lighting. If you’re only after a couple of subjects, you can sometimes plan accordingly, though if you’re after a broad variety, you might be there all day and cycling around to use the light to advantage. When you get that lovely catchlight in the eye of the binturong, however, you’ll know your efforts were worth it.
Know your species. Overall, spring is the best time, because mating usually occurs then and the animals try to look their best, so breeding plumage is at peak. But also, the new warmth has more species active before the heat of the day, or the summer, hits. That said, species that change coats have different appearances in different seasons, and for a few of them, deep winter is best. Meanwhile, fall can be useful in the background foliage, or with species becoming more active after the heat of summer and before they tuck in for the colder months. No one day or season will work for every critter in any given park, so cycle your visits as needed.
People watching can be fun too. Capturing the various interactions, or attempts thereof, from the visitors can make a nice tableau, though of limited use unless you obtain permission. Often enough, it’s just entertaining to see the reactions and hear the comments, from both the kids and the adults – there are definitely times when I wished I’d had a recorder running. At the same time, some species do develop specific reactions to visitors, which you can capture if you’re ready for them. Be on your toes.
That should be enough of a start, anyway. When you go, go prepared, and make the most of your visits. And use them as learning opportunities for future visits as well.
