Now it’s time to let it go. And we do so with the month-end abstract of course. March left us with two, to split between all of us. Evenly, so don’t be claiming more than your share. They look like this:
This wouldn’t have been half as good without the stippled coloration, which I believe is a breast feather from a male wood duck – see here. I would have liked to have gotten closer, perhaps used one of those drops as a lens for the feather underneath it, but it was a little ways offshore and I didn’t feel like getting wet – it is still March, you know, and certainly was then too, since this was shot on the 1st. Sure, you can mutter all you want about a lack of dedication to my art – as long as you’re one of those who’ve actually bought a print.
And then there’s this one:
If your memory of previous posts is sharp (or you’ve been there yourself,) you should know what this is, but as many times in the past as I’ve posted something that really stretches the definition of ‘abstract,’ I think this one fits pretty well. I probably should have inverted it to make it even more so, an impressionistic painting, but I left it this way just to support the idea that it’s a reflection.
I don’t actually have a final tally on the number of images uploaded for March, because of stupid shit, but it’s significant. The spring’s off to a good start, anyway…
Tried to log into the blogsite yesterday morning to post some further stuff, and couldn’t get in at all – this was disconcerting since I’d been logged in for the previous post less than 6 hours earlier. My efforts produced nothing, and since I couldn’t log in I couldn’t update anything on the program end, and so spent waaaayyyy too much time with the hosting service’s AI troubleshooter, pretty much just making things worse. I’m trying to be objective here and not jump to conclusions, but objectively, when I finally got a real human on the line, they corrected most of what the AI fucked up within minutes.
I still can’t log in properly, but I can now get in through the backend and post a little, and do some routine maintenance stuff. We’ll see how long it takes to get things back in order.
So if you came here and got, well, anything but a proper website, I apologize – I have no idea what failed, and if I did anything, it was completely without trying or even knowledge. Which is to say, I doubt I did anything.
Right now I’m rebuilding the three posts that got wiped out when I restored from a backup that had taken place before they posted, so bear with me. I even did the Latest Images updates, and they got wiped too. Insert a plethora of the choicest cuss words in here, and make up a few while you’re at it, because I certainly did.
[Technically, this was not written on the proper day, since I was trying to login to write this one when I discovered the problems with the site that destroyed the entire day, but we’ll just gaslight ourselves into believing it was and history will never be the wiser.]
It’s an interesting holiday today, with a fascinating history that I strongly suggest you check out, since it’s too convoluted to go into here, but it’s Dark And Moody Day, and so, we have some photos that were specifically chosen to fit in with this holiday and not at all contrived.
You may recall my mentioning the ‘Haunted Tree’ on the property, though at the time I had no good illustrations of it, but I set out to remedy this because you all deserve it, for all the support you provide. First off, during an lightly overcast day:
I mean, you can see why we call it that, right? This is the arboreal equivalent of that old gothic house on the moors, even in this light, with the vines and Spanish moss and that convoluted trunk and knees. If a tree was going to be haunted, it would be this one.
But I couldn’t leave it at that, and tackled it last night by moonlight.
Hard as it may be to believe, this brought out a bit more color, without reducing the idea that if you got too close it might clutch at you. There are a lot of bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) trees on the property, but this one has the most character. If you want to call it that.
And then, while the tripod was set up, I did a version illuminated primarily by the headlamp.
I was trying to get it a little more evenly illuminated and not produce this spotlit effect, and so will perhaps try again later, but now the ‘arms’ or ‘tendrils’ or whatever are more apparent. Funny how the differences in lighting produce different impressions, though none of them particularly inviting.
While working on the monochrome post from a week ago, I pulled several older photos to mess with, and this one didn’t make the video but still deserved a little attention, and since I knew the holiday was approaching, it could serve its purpose for that.
Very muted, all clustered around the midtones without distinct highlights or shadows, seeming to drift out of the smoke – it’s funny how I get the impression that the leaves at lower left are semi-transparent and bleeding through one another, even though this really isn’t the case. But then I converted it to monochrome and boosted the dynamic range to just barely get it from full white to full black:
Still impressionistic, though a little bolder, but also a little confusing now. Suggestive, in many ways, and I suspect it would hit different people with different ideas.
And then I wondered how it would look if I kept it in color but still boosted the dynamic range to the edges. It would look like this:
Richer, certainly, but more pleasant? Still doesn’t strike me as a print, but perhaps an illustration for a specific purpose (a dark and moody one.) Something to point out here, but while I don’t recall the circumstances or conditions of this image, I don’t believe the smokey aspect most visible on the right is silt or sediment, but actually the reflection of the clouded sky from the surface of the water, which is part of what gives it the layers that it has. A cool rediscovery.
And two more for the holiday.
The original was a weird color, since the old style mercury pressure lamps that used to be used everywhere as streetlights was the main light source, and their color spectrum is very odd: to our eyes, the appeared a bit blue-ish, but when captured on either film or digital sensors, they went distinctly green, and I don’t pretend to know why this is. The very thin fog is what produced the rays, and I was smart enough to position myself so the direct glare from the light was blocked. Plenty suggestive, but again, ‘of what’ is probably plenty subjective as well.
And finally,
Perhaps not quite as spooky as some of the others at least, this still has its elements, though a mixed bag. You didn’t miss the heron down there, did you? But what strikes me right now is, the waters produced a nice rippled effect and not at all the soft haze that I would have expected from the 10-second exposure, where they all should have blended together. Had that occurred, it might have been mistaken for low-lying fog or something. Overall, just enough light to make details distinct throughout, while remaining dark and a bit foreboding. A lucky capture, or more specifically (since I was trying for something along these lines,) a lucky guess at the exposure needed.
There – a nice celebration of the holiday and not at all a desperate attempt to squeeze one out for March since I’d been neglecting the idea all month. Cheers! (Or, well, a more appropriate salutation…)
Shot a few hours before this post, 1/320 second, f10, ISO 500 – full resolution inset of image below Originally, I was going to do this about night photography in general, with a subset of photographing the moon itself, then realized that the moon alone had enough for a full post. So other kinds of night photography will be along in a later post, perhaps next week. No promises though.
As a bare minimum for chasing moon photos, I have to recommend a firm tripod and a remote shutter release, because motion blur is easily a big factor at high magnifications. If your camera has a ‘Mirror Lock-Up’ option, use it – just remember to turn it off afterwards so you don’t miss any shots later on from that unwanted delay. The longest focal length you can manage of course.
Full frame at 600mm with digital 1.3 modifierThe moon is really quite small in the sky, and getting any kind of decent detail from it requires pretty strong magnification – a long telephoto lens. But it’s actually easier to snag than many people realize, once you know the trick, and that is, the moon is illuminated by bright sunlight. Shut off all auto-exposure stuff on the camera, since almost invariably it will be reading all the surrounding dark sky and trying to brighten that up, over-exposing the one thing that you actually were aiming for. Instead, we resort to a simple guideline: With clear skies and a full moon overhead, set aperture for f11, and your shutter speed should be 1/[ISO]. For example, if your ISO is set at 250, your shutter speed should be 1/250 second. Easy.
[This is simply a variation of the old ‘Sunny 16’ rule, the guide to estimating exposure for any photo in bright sunlight – the one above is occasionally referred to as ‘Moony 11’ instead. Sunny 16 would actually apply just fine, but the moon itself really is a medium-grey tone, yet most people don’t want it to look that way in photos since it doesn’t appear that way to us at night with our dark-adjusted eyes, so using f11 brightens it a bit.]
This is, however, only for a full moon, and I’ve said it before, the full moon is boring – no shadows, no definition of the craters and ridges and hoohah. Once you get away from the full phase, however, the light is becoming more oblique, reflecting less directly towards us. This means that, for a half moon (first- or third-quarter, if you want to use the astronomical terms,) the amount of light reaching us is only 1/4 what it was for a full moon, or two stops less, so to compensate, we’d change the aperture to f5.6. You can try out this guide, but I’ll admit that I haven’t hashed it out myself (since I’m writing this far too close to the deadline,) and I’ve seen a lot of guides online that are way inaccurate. My initial examination has found no problems with it though.
Full and gibbous moons centered on same region around Tycho crater, not a perfect match because the moon wobbles as well as arcing across the sky Yet, there are no firm guidelines, since the atmosphere isn’t consistent. Getting closer to the horizon increases not just the thickness of the air (shooting at an oblique angle through the shell of the atmosphere,) but the humidity as well, the reason we get such nice colors at sunset so often, and can even look directly at the sun. High altitude smoke and dust can easily be present as well, especially with major fires in the direction of the prevailing winds. These can change the necessary exposure significantly, so the best bet is to shoot several exposures at small variations to capture what you’re after.
Also, remember that the earth rotates so the moon is constantly moving across the sky, roughly its own width in 180 seconds. Don’t let your shutter speed get too slow, or the moon will be blurred from motion – this varies greatly depending on your focal length, but if it’s less than a second, you’re toying with motion blur even with a firm tripod (and virtually guaranteed without one.) Adjust aperture and/or ISO to compensate accordingly.
Using the LCD preview to judge proper exposure. Don’t. Not only do many such LCDs lack the dynamic range to be useful in this context, the brightness can be adjusted too easily, and at night, our eyes are already adjusted for the darkness, so the preview will likely look hugely different from what you’ll see on your computer monitor later.
White balance. Full sunlight, which is the same as “Off.”
Autofocus. Also “Off,” and here’s why. The moon being so small in the sky means autofocus can have small variations in what it considers “sharp,” and since we’re probably after the best detail, these variations can soften things too much when the image is enlarged. So, go manual, shoot a test, and look at the resulting preview image in the LCD on the camera, zoomed in tightly – most especially, look at the terminator, the line between light and shadow (which is where all the details will show anyway.) If it’s not perfectly sharp, tweak the focus and try again. Once you get that tack-sharp image, don’t touch the focus ring again.
[Caveat: if you’ve been out longer than ten minutes, or the temperature is changing significantly, touch that focus ring again, meaning do the focus routine all over. The changing temperature will twitch the lens elements and barrel and actually affect focus, so you’ll have to correct for this.]
Foreground Elements and Creating a Scene. There are only very narrow circumstances where you can achieve such things – most times, the difference between an exposure that will give moon detail and one that will show earthly elements is so drastic you’ll never do it ‘in camera,’ and would have to resort to compositing the image. The main exception is, soon after sunset (or before sunrise) when the sky has a little light and is thus throwing some of it around onto your foreground. This window is narrow, a few minutes long depending on just what you’re after, so be ready. The other circumstance that can work occasionally is a layer of high, thin, and even clouds that filter out some of the glare from the moon (and occasionally throw optical effects,) lessening that exposure difference.
The day of the full moon in summer means that the moon will rise and set while the sky has a decent amount of daylight – less so the closer it gets towards winter because of the shorter days. However, orbital mechanics dictates that the moon rises close to an hour later each night, so if you’re after a rising or setting full moon without that sky glow, you’ll need to be a day ahead (setting) or a day behind (rising) the actual date of the ‘full’ moon; it will usually be full enough to count for photos.
Earthshine, that glow visible on the dark portion of a crescent moon that comes from sunlight still hitting a large portion of the Earth and reflecting up to the moon. Once again, the difference between an exposure to get Earthshine, and to get detail from the crescent, is still drastically different even with the reduced light from the crescent phase. Basically, pick one or the other for detail, but you won’t get both without compositing (and you’d probably still have to edit out residual glare.) By the way, if you’re attempting exposures that will blow out the brighter areas, try to center the moon in the viewfinder as much as possible, because this reduces lens flare by a small amount.
1 second, f8, ISO 3200 Ultra-thin crescents. Because of the very nature of crescents, mostly lit on the side away from us, very thin crescent moons can only be seen in twilight conditions, just before sunrise or just after sunset. I have a goal to get one less than 1% illuminated, which is a tall order: such crescents only occur twice a month at best, usually fewer because of orbital mechanics, and the sky has to be perfectly clear. I’ve caught several at less than 3%, but not yet less than 1.
1/2 second, f11, ISO 1600, 1.1% illuminated Lunar Eclipses. Fun to watch, interesting to capture especially during totality. There is no useful guideline towards a proper exposure because it varies so much approaching and receding from totality, and even totality depends on where it falls in Earth’s shadow and atmospheric conditions. The best advice is to bracket exposures wildly – and pin down focus tightly before totality hits, because you won’t be doing it afterward (sometimes it’s hard enough to even locate that ‘blood moon’ in the viewfinder.)
0.6 second, f6.3, ISO 6400 to capture the star being occulted Locating the moon and knowing the phases. There are numerous smutphone apps to keep you apprised of the phases, and many of them give altitude and azimuth at any given time. Of course, Stellarium always gets my recommendation because of its accuracy and versatility, especially when chasing those ultra-thin crescents. Something passing in front of the moon (or sun)? This site seems to be working pretty accurately now, despite my first experience with it.
There’s plenty to play with, but plenty of things to keep in mind as well. Experiment freely on those nights that have the right conditions, take notes as necessary, and above all have fun!
1/13 second, f11, ISO 800, soon after sunset (later to become a total lunar eclipse)
Is this going to go on all spring? Well, so be it – I can cope.
Glanced out the kitchen window while making lunch and saw a bold splash of white where there had been none before. The view of this particular spot on the edge of The Bay wasn’t good from that angle, nor from the back deck, so I slipped out front and went around the end of the garage, which was more than adequate.
This marks the first time we’ve seen a great egret (Ardea alba) on the property – hopefully not the last. This appearance isn’t too surprising, since the great blue herons come by semi-routinely to snack, and egrets like the same conditions. The herons at least rarely stay long, probably because the water cycle in the ponds doesn’t encourage bigger fish, so this is more of a snack stop to them, a quickie mart.
The egret was simply standing there enjoying the sun, so after several decent portraits, I let it be and returned indoors, but this didn’t last long. Catching movement right outside the back windows, I found a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) coming to roost in a tree right off the deck – it could only have been closer had it landed on the railing.
The back door was in direct line with these branches, blatantly obvious. I did a few frames through the glass of the storm door, but that has a tinting film on it; good for not spooking the ducks so we can watch them, and also for softening photos (not good, actually.) So after taking a few ‘safety’ frames through this, I eased the door open while the heron was looking away, and got the end of the lens out into the open for more frames, like this one. The heron realized it was being peeped upon, and shortly flew down to the upper edge of The Bay – notably, with a casual demeanor and not at all with the frantic honking manner that all other herons on the property have adopted when they realize I’m there. This one might actually be a little mellow. Or it might simply have been concentrating on the egret that it was trying to keep an eye on, and didn’t want to stir things up too much.
Meanwhile, the egret had now taken up hunting on the water’s edge. Back around the garage went I.
Now, the egret was passing in and out of the direct sunlight, as well as changing its background while it stalked, so I was attempting to manage the exposure compensation to avoid blowing out the white plumage while still getting the shots, and I missed a little too often. Brilliant white birds, man.
However, this frame might give an indication of why the heron was being circumspect. Or maybe not.
Those lovely willowy feathers off the back are breeding plumage, which I just found out are named, “aigrettes.” I initially thought only the males might have them – this is a typical pattern for many bird species – but no, both sexes have them in egrets. Like the great blues, it’s next to impossible to tell the sexes apart, but perhaps the heron knew a way, and decided not to dispute territory with a breeding male. Or perhaps it simply didn’t care, being a different breed, but they sure notice when another heron shows up on the property, and we always know it too, since there is much honking and chasing when that happens.
The egret did indeed locate something to eat, though I’m using this word loosely.
This is where the light conditions varied too much from my settings, and the plumage started bleaching out. But you’re not supposed to be looking at that – you’re supposed to be looking in the beak at that little wriggly thing that the egret had caught. Don’t be proud of that capture, my friend.
I guess habits die hard, since the egret insisting on juggling this morsel to get it down head first, even though this is barely a swallow. It’s like celery, hardly providing the calories to even get it down! To say nothing of the risk of actually losing it while doing such manipulations. Silly bird.
I got my exposure back on track soon afterward, for a couple of nice portrait frames though.
Now that I have those out of the way, I’ll use them to springboard to a few other frames that I obtained two days ago, and simply haven’t uploaded yet. A great blue heron, perhaps the same one, was at the other end of the backyard pond hunting, and I used its distraction to slip out the door to Walkabout Studios and snag some frames with a decently clear view.
Notice the difference in light color, as this was late afternoon and just before the sun stopped reaching the pond at all (which is still well before sunset, because trees and geography and all that.) The heron was taking stabs at things, but I never saw it come up with anything.
Yeah, I know: we could do without an awful lot of little fiddly branches and stuff getting in the way, and I’m working on that, though man, there are a lot. You can still see that herons have the ability to move their lower beak more independently, by that gap near the edge of the mouth while the tips are closed. Fascinating, huh?
And evidence of the light angle, as the heron moved a little further onto the other side of the tree and started getting into the shadows – within minutes, this light would be entirely gone. But while I was firing off frames, I caught an interesting trait during the sorting, and made an animated gif (pronounced, “jith”) from them.
The heron was only stepping forward here, but look carefully at not just the head, but the cypress knee behind and the weed in front. The head is remaining perfectly still while the heron steps forward, and then between steps it will dart the head forward slightly into a new position before doing this again, bobbing faintly like pigeons do, only much slower. Likely, this helps them spot the subtle movements of potential meals that might be stirred into action by their steps, but I never realized just how steady they could be. Lucky capture.
The heron, by this time, knew that I was leaning around the edge of the latticework flanking the steps back there, and didn’t flee madly either; maybe we finally have one that’s not ridiculously spooky. It would be nice, since to date all have flown off in a panic the moment I’ve become known, regardless of the distance. We’ll see what happens.
Going out early this morning (really early, last-night kind of early,) I found that the Magic Bucket of Variety, AKA my outdoor wastebasket, had lured in another friend.
Initially, I confidently proclaimed this a brown snake, but several of the identifying characteristics aren’t really there. Eventually (while writing this post,) I found the rough earth snake (Haldea striatula,) which is a pretty close match, so we’re going with that.
Meanwhile, let me illustrate this for you. The Magic Bucket sits in a corner of the sunken stairwell to the outside door of Walkabout Studios, nestled in along the door and the brick wall, the bottom better than a meter below any level access, such as the top of the brick wall or the latticework forming the screening above it. The wall extends to just slightly above normal ground level, so easy enough access to and across that, but the corner where the Bucket sits is under an overhang that shields the windows of Walkabout Studios and the heat pump fans and condensers. Tucked in against the house, is what I’m saying, and not particularly inviting to any critters as far as I can tell. It would be easy enough, I suppose, for most of the captures to come under this overhang, sidle along the house wall and windows there, and cut through the latticework to drop into the bucket – I’m just at a loss as to why this happens so often (and the turtle would have had to tip its shell over nearly at a 45° angle to fit through the lattice.) Or are they coming along the top of the brick wall? Or both? And while I had a vague suspicion that they were drawn to the Bucket by the scent of the discarded cleaning materials within, the very reason I have an outdoor bucket to begin with, these scents are typically rubbing alcohol (which should evaporate in no time) and printing resin, with the occasional addition of acetone. I mean, are these really that attractive? To say nothing of the fact that nothing at all was in the Bucket when this guy appeared.
Typically, brown snakes have faint rows of spots flanking a paler spine, and some telltale dark patches just behind the skull, but the rough earth snake lacks spots or indeed most markings, though often having a paler band at the base of the skull, visible here. The bright yellow patches are simply pine pollen, since it’s that season.
I think this one confirmed it for me more than anything, since that pattern of darkness ahead of the eyes and pale rising cheek patches matches every photo at that link above. Which means this is another new species for me, so, cool! And it wasn’t the only one of the night/morning.
On occasion while down distributing corn at the pond edge for the, well, everythings, I’d see a small grey rodent scampering away, one time from practically right at my feet, and often right into the water and even around the base of the Haunted Tree, which now requires crossing a small patch of water to reach. This had me curious, since this isn’t typical mouse behavior, especially the water bit, so I’ve kept my eyes open for any glimpse. Then last night/this morning, while down at the edge just checking things out, I heard a faint plop right near my feet, very like the sound of a small frog leaping into the water, and on carefully checking things out, I caught the eye reflections. No camera in hand, so I remembered the location, backed away quietly while keeping the light trained on my find so I wouldn’t reveal my humanity (fat chance anyway,) and went back to get the camera. Incredibly, the rodent was still in the exact same position despite my trek of nearly a hundred meters, so I was able to get pics.
This matched what I’d been seeing before, insofar as it was usually fleeting glimpses, but size, shape, and coloration at least. I could only manage one slightly variable perspective, no less obscured than you see here, so distinctive ID will wait for another time. That said, the eye, ear, and body sizes, the coloration, and the nocturnal semi-aquatic habits, all seem to indicate that this is a marsh rice rat (Oryzomys palustris,) though that’s only a tentative shot at it right now. If so, this would be another new find, one that I’d never heard of.
All those branches are actually debris cut away from the edges of The Puddle and dumped into The Bay (don’t you love the geography of this place?) to potentially feed the beavers, and since I didn’t have anyplace else handy to dump it. I’ve since noticed that the minnows are delighted with this new thicket, and that’s potentially why the marsh rice rat (maybe) was in there. No way to indicate scale, so let’s say this was half again to twice the size of typical field and house mice, a small handful, but not as large as a vole and nowhere near as large as Norway or cotton rats – in other words, you wouldn’t confidently say either, “mouse,” or, “rat” when seeing one, falling somewhere between the two.
We’ll see if I can get further confirmation sometime later, though it might be hard, since identifying variations in the rodent family tend to be very subtle even with the ability to handle them, an option not likely to present itself. Of course, I could confidently proclaim this a marsh rice rat, and whose gonna know? I mean, I have <5 readers in the first place - how many of them are rodentologists?
So, this is the other video that I’ve been trying to finish up, the notorious one mentioned in previous posts. It did not help in the slightest that, before getting the chance to edit together the clips, I continued to add more to them.
But yeah, the discoveries on the property keep right on happening. It’s certainly not boring in any way. Well, at least not for us…
You can see that I played around a little bit more with editing tricks, doing some brightness improvements where needed and a little magnification and slow-mo. Also bear in mind, I trimmed an awful lot out of the clips to try and keep these things from going too long, though I already know it’s a lost cause to the typical social media crowd, where three minutes is sheer agony – luckily, I have no intention of ever targeting that demographic.
Nutria (Myocastor coypus) can have at least two broods a year, occasionally more, and reach sexual maturity quickly, so how this is going to turn out is anyone’s guess. Besides the corn that we distribute, there are also tons of aquatic plants, primarily yellow cow lilies, that are already popping up in numbers, as well as the wooded areas bordering the ponds that are free pickings, so they can likely find plenty of food without ‘encroaching’ on any areas that anyone should give the faintest shit about – not that that factors into the decision of most mooks that concern themselves with ‘invasive species’ and all that, typically the same ones who throw all their trash into the streams throughout the state and can’t dispose of their motor oil properly, much less drive a fuel-efficient vehicle. You’re getting my point, I’m sure…
The hawks are perhaps next on the video list, provided nothing else pops up that demands more immediate attention (which I’m not going to bet on in the slightest.) A pair has been hanging around and seems to be concentrating on that nest, so, maybe? We’ll see, but I’m trying to keep an eye on them. There’s also a faint indication that the wood duck nest box is in use – trying to confirm that as well.
By the way, I mention the ‘Haunted Tree’ in the video, because we have to name certain landmarks and portions of the property to easily communicate where we’re seeing things and such. The tree is not, to my knowledge, bothered by spirits in any way, but it looks like it could be, which you get a hint of in the video, and I’ll include some better illustrations of this later.
Anyway, a bit more off my plate for the time being. Whew.
A double for today, even though these were both found yesterday – the time to get the post together just wasn’t there, but part of this was because I insisted on fleshing it out a bit, which means, another video clip.
By the way, I kept mentioning getting to two videos, and have recently posted two. Only, the second one wasn’t one of those I was referring to, being a Tip Jar entry instead, and this one isn’t one of them either – I still have another coming. Good thing I’m getting paid handily for this. *
So, Find 56 was in the yard this morning, quite close to the greenhouse.
This turtle appeared to be laying eggs in a nest, but I’m not 100% sure of that; it might simply have been emerging from its winter burrow, but it remained this way for some time, so I was, at least initially, leaning towards ‘nest.’ Curiously, this is almost exactly where the yellow-bellied slider made a nest last year, one that did not appear to come to fruition.
This one was not going to give us any opportunity to check identifying characteristics, but I’m going to call it an eastern mud turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum) based on seeing that it did have a hinged plastron and no apparent stripes on the face, though neither of these is conclusive; it might be a striped mud turtle instead. Either way, we’ll be monitoring this spot for the emergence of micro-tortles, because I have yet to snag images or video of that.
And yes, this seems quite early for nesting, which is typically early summer, so maybe it really was just emerging from a burrow, and it simply froze upon seeing us and took a long time to feel safe to move again.
The other find occurred in late morning, when I didn’t have the camera handy and was running out the door anyway, but in the early evening, we got a much better chance to see it in excellent light.
Green-winged teals (Anas crecca) are not uncommon ducks, like, anywhere in the US, but I simply haven’t had much access to duck habitats for most of my shooting history, so this was a new find for me, and a nice addition to the list of property visitors. How long will it be here? We’ll just have to see.
When we first saw it, it was more backlit by the sun and so the green on the head wasn’t showing at all, but some purplish highlights on the crown were – several duck species have iridescent feathers that change color depending on the light angle. By early evening, the sun was largely behind our viewing location, so the colors showed up a lot better.
The funny thing is, wood ducks are small ducks, and the green-winged teal is even smaller, so they’re minute little guys; the only duck in the region that I know is smaller is the ruddy ducks (last image,) which I don’t think are fond of this kind of habitat, so I’m not holding my breath over those appearing. But, you know, all are welcome.
Okay, now back to trying to finish that last video…
* As in, not at all, but you know, I’m not married to that concept…
Green channel, contrast increaseGreyscale, grayscale, monochrome, black & white, whatever you want to call it. Too often viewed as the realm of the darkroom photographer, greyscale images can add a lot to your galleries and really grab the eye when done well. This is a demonstration of several different digital editing techniques to give your color-free images a bit of an edge.
As before, it’s best if your monitor is calibrated pretty well, since we’re dealing with subtle variations in shade and brightness, and you can’t do this well if it’s not displaying well.
As mentioned in the video, not every image is going to work well for converting, and a lot of images gain nothing from being reduced to individual channels – you’ll have to experiment, and use your own judgment in many cases. While monochrome works best with distinct contrast in the light levels, contrast among the colors can also work, and this is where channel clipping shines the best.
Now, about printing what you’ve created. Be aware that many of the smaller, ‘sideline’ printing places (like drugstores or department stores) don’t do much dedicated monochrome and will usually just print the image on color paper. No big deal, since there’s no color in it anyway, right? And this is only true if the printer is in-spec and calibrated for true neutral – which an awful lot of the sideline printers are not; nobody takes the time to calibrate the printers in the morning. What this usually means is that your nice greyscale image is now a faint sickly green, or blue, or yellow – something decidedly not neutral. To be honest, that same color cast is in their color images too, but it takes a sharp eye to realize it, and many customers simply accept it as-is. If you really want those neutral greys, it’s best to take the images (or send them off) to a quality lab that does a lot of printing. Most recently, the prints that I had done at Printique were top-notch and also packaged properly, beyond properly actually. They see enough volume that they ensure their printers are calibrated correctly.
Now, while we can do this easily in digital, it’s also a nice challenge to actually do in true monochromatic/panchromatic film – yeah, with them old-style film cameras. At the very least, developing B&W film into a negative is surprisingly easy and takes very little in the way of equipment – a little more so if you want to do your own prints, but all of that stuff can usually be found pretty damn cheap anymore. I’ll never tire of saying this, but watching images that you developed yourself unwind off of the reels to dry is far cooler than it sounds.
I finally got around to completing one of the two videos that I had on the docket, but we have to lead into it a little.
The backstory: With the gout of warm weather a short while back, the various amphibians around the yard (among many other critters) leapt into action and were out making a dogawful racket some nights – as in, it was actually painful to listen to from short distances. But there were several varieties of sounds, and I was unable to place all of them, or really most of them. I have found various sources for frog calls, but cannot pin down close matches, possibly because of the differences in recording equipment, possibly because there may be regional variations in calls, and possibly because species do not always engage in the ‘typical’ calls that are recorded. So we’ll start with what was obtained with the audio recorder and the parabolic mic, but I will strongly suggest you keep one hand on the volume control – the peaks are sharp.
Amphibious calls early spring 2026
I failed to remark on it within, but it seems damn near every bit of audio I snag at night has a distant train – I never realized how often they can be heard, always several kilometers off, but it’s a lot. I guess I just tune them out when I’m out there.
Those experiences prompted m to try again with video, especially one particular night that was very warm and the frogs were remarkably easy to spot, which is not often the case; most times, I can be right on top of them, knowing they’re in a particular direction within two meters, and never see a damn thing. So these clips weren’t too shabby (well, except for the instability,) and included several bonuses.
[A note about that wobbliness: The monopod, used most often for the nutria and beaver videos, is far too long to be useful for subjects less than half a meter off of the ground, so I eschewed it in favor of more flexibility. These clips made me realize that this isn’t feasible either, and I’ll have to use a mini-tripod or some kind of short brace, and I’ll show what I ended up using later on when I find something that works decently.]
By the way, my primary source of info is this Herps of NC page, which has recordings for almost all species that can be found, though if you’re inclined to check it out yourself, know that I’m located closer to the coast about in the middle, where the various large rivers give way to the sound. I’ve been misled by the pictured ranges though, so I don’t treat this as gospel, but we can effectively rule out those species that appear only in the mountains in the western reaches of the state.
Now, last year at about this time I was doing the same thing, and made a few tentative identifications of southern leopard frogs, Atlantic coast leopard frogs, and possibly either wood or gopher frogs. The problem is, in the intervening year I’ve only found one of those species for sure, the southern leopard frog, and so I can’t be certain that any of the others are even in the area; I’ve looked carefully, believe me, because with the tantalizing hint from the calls, I’d be happy to add any of them to my photo stock, but there have been no signs whatsoever.
After these, the nights went absolutely frigid and almost all such activity ceased, but it’s warming up again and so I’ll possibly have some further chances to pin down more species. We’ll see…
