Estate Find 55

There were about 2-3 minutes today when seeing this was actually possible, so The Girlfriend and I are extremely lucky to have been there when it happened. But as we were walking the property and discussing where some trees would be going, I spotted this microspud booking as fast as it was able across the gravel driveway.


This is easily the smallest turtle I’ve ever found, read more

Tip Jar 10: Shutter speed

So, shutter speed. What is it? Should we fear it? Was it bestowed upon us by aliens? The answer to two of these is, “No,” so let’s look at the remaining one, and add in how to avoid the stumbling blocks.


Basic answer: shutter speed is how long the camera is admitting light to the sensor or film. Except not really – it’s how long it can read more

Madame Mesquite

And so, part two of the visit to Mattamuskeet National Widlife Refuge, focusing entirely on the one species that made a cameo in the first. The foreshadowing of the day came early on, when we saw a pair of birds far in the distance crossing the road.


This is cropped from the full frame at 600mm, so suffice to say I wasn’t identifying them based on what I saw in the viewfinder, read more

Matt Amos Keat

It’s taking a little longer to get to this than intended, because other things keep happening, and I’ve decided that there are enough images to go along with it that I’m going to split it into two posts this is the first. So let’s go out to Lake Mattamuskeet, North Carolina.


The Girlfriend and I have been planning to do this trip since we moved to the new read more

Signed and notarized

Yesterday we went on a nice little day trip, and consequently I have just a few photos to put up, but first, we have last night’s news, which is, now it’s official:


Yep, the first appearance of a treefrog, in this case a Copes grey treefrog (Dryophytes chrysoscelis) means that spring is officially here. Sure, we’ve seen some spring peepers before this, read more

Tip Jar 9: Curves, part 2

And now we get into the second aspect of using the ‘Curves’ function for image editing, and that’s color management. I’m being my usual long-winded self here, so bear with me – if you can’t handle the length, there are TikTok morons that you could probably relate to.

Something that I didn’t go into within the video is, what constitutes excessive editing, read more

That would do it

I mentioned in the previous post about the possible explanation for the raised water levels in the pond, and The Girlfriend and I went out in the kayaks today to check things out. I would say the mystery is adequately solved.


That’s the edge of the kayak peeking in there, as it sat against the top of an impressive beaver dam, one that measured better than six meters in length read more

February responds defiantly

Perhaps having read my previous post where I dumped on February for being so dismal and rainy, it responded by producing a quite nice day today, as in, no jacket required, so take, take me home. The handful of leftover pics I had slotted to throw up here are now superseded by the ones I actually got today, and there’s just a few, so settle in.

We need to start with, the weeping willow (Salix read more

Hope you don’t want February, ’cause we’re out

Or at least, we will be in less than 24 hours. Indeed, this one almost snuck up on me, since I wasn’t aware of how fast the month was passing. I had the beginning of March pegged for removing some of the plants from the greenhouse, and that’s tomorrow. Sheesh.

We also know what that means, so let’s see what we’ve accomplished on the abstract front, shall we?


I read more

Can confirm

On Monday, we had clear enough skies for me to go out and check on the condition of the sun, or more specifically, the sunspots thereon. I could not actually make any out in the viewfinder, nor on the monitor when I had unloaded the card.


I considered myself a victim of bad timing, since we’ve been having so much activity in this form for the past couple of years, and the reason read more

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