From the land of lumpy lizards

Al Denelsbeck

American alligator Alligator mississippiensis in drainage channel in Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, SC
By that, I’m not referring to any of the arbitrary and silly boundaries like states, but the region where American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) can be found, which runs from the coastal regions of the mid-Atlantic US across the southeastern and gulf areas, but more so the further south you get. For this post, we’re simply talking about the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River right outside the city of Savannah, Georgia – there really isn’t any major town in SC that’s close. And we gots lots of gators, because it was a productive pair of days, which partially explains the delay – these posts take time.

But first, a small followup to Migratory Bird Day this past Saturday, where I took – no pictures. It was a bad day for me and I felt lousy, so I didn’t go out to chase birds, but if we count the week preceding, I got plenty, so get off my back man. And I forgot to include a photo with the previous post, so I’m putting it here now.

common nighthawk Chordeiles minor in flight overhead
Yeah, I know it’s not going to win any awards. Given the distance (this is a tight crop from a frame at 600mm focal length) and the brief period that it was visible, this is all I got, but I include it because it’s the only time that I’ve seen a common nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) in flight at all, and perhaps only the third time I’ve seen one in the wild – partially because their name is apt and they’re typically nocturnal insect hunters. I’ve heard them plenty of times, over cities at night, and have handled two during my rehab days; that has an anecdote all its own, which I’m saving until I can illustrate it reasonably well. Which might take a while.

Back to the gators. The SNWR is generally a great place to find them, but it can vary – we’ve been there at times when it was almost impossible to spot any. Not so this trip, for sure, though granted, you sometimes have to be looking carefully.

juvenile American alligator Alligator mississippiensis lurking among lilies in channel
This one, perhaps a meter-and-a-half all told, was nestled among the lily pads and almost escaped attention as an old log or cluster of weeds, which their habits and appearance contribute to, though dog knows what the hell they have to fear at this size – mostly us, I’m guessing, but these traits may have developed millions of years ago when other predators were extant.

Note, when I say “a meter-and-a-half,” that includes a decent body and a long tail – the head, the bitey bit, might have topped out at 25cm, so dangerous to fish and smaller birds, maybe a housecat. As we moved along the drive, we were able to get a different perspective on the same gator.

juvenile American alligator Alligator mississippiensis from different angle
Let me set the scene, just for reference. The main drive through the refuge is bordered, most times, by wetlands on either side, though to the left for the first half, it’s more open water channels between the drive and tussocks of marsh bushes. Directly alongside the road, however, are thick bands of reeds and scrub plants, so even attempting to reach the water on foot would require thrashing through some dense undergrowth, and it’s only the drive’s height above the water (better than a meter) that provides much of a view at all. The gators have what they need in the channels and don’t venture near the drive most times, though in places you can find crossover paths where they wanted to be in the water on the other side. So while stepping out of the car is allowed, it should still be done with careful examination of the surroundings. The gators themselves are pretty wary of people overall and don’t like being close, but on occasion, you can find exceptions.

small American alligator Alligator mississippiensis snoozing in muck at bottom of retaining wall
You saw a closer version of this in the teaser post, but this guy – this fucking guy – was napping right at the base of a retaining wall and was about a meter below our feet, though not a lot more than that in body length itself – the little leaves surrounding it are bigger than duckweed, but not by much. Really, it’s hard to provide anything that shows scale, and all but the smallest gators look almost exactly like the big ones; only subtle cues can give a rough idea, and that’s if you’ve been looking at lots of gators – and paying attention of course. I have to include the image taken by The Girlfriend, as Our Host and myself were getting these couple of frames.

Wendy Hall and author photographing small gator at bottom of retaining wall, by The Girlfriend
Though it’s hidden by the grasses, the top of the retaining wall is right at our feet, and you can get the impression of how far the channels sit from the drive in the background. I found out later that another visitor to the refuge, standing next to The Girlfriend’s Sprog, leaned over much as we’re doing here and accidentally dropped her sunglasses almost directly onto the gator’s snout. The gator never even twitched.

They are, in fact, remarkably lazy critters. Some lazy animals get too fat, but gators rarely do because they’re too lazy to even feed – at least that’s what I maintain. Overall, we saw lots of basking alligators, and a couple idly making their way along a channel (at least half of which stopped dead from exhaustion as we watched) – and one bit of real action. Most of which I missed by being a little too far away.

American alligator Alligator mississippiensis carrying captured fish past common moorhen Gallinula chloropus in channel
This is the full frame, to give an idea of the surroundings and the distance, and the gator cruising through in mid-channel has a mouthful of food, though we couldn’t make out exactly what during its slow pass. I will point out the splash of red in the shadows, which shows a common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) watching the reptile pass. Now we’ll go in for the crop and a slightly better look at the prey.

American alligator Alligator mississippiensis with captured fish
That’s enough to make out the fish fin, but not a lot else. You notice the crappy light quality, which came from getting there too early in the morning (though this beat the heavy crowds of the previous day, especially since it was a Sunday in The South.) While early morning is ideal for observing birds, in the Savannah Refuge it means the first half of the drive, easily the most active and productive, forces you to look directly towards the sun.

Now the mistake, that all of us with cameras made. After seeing this guy pass and start to make his way into a muddy inlet area where the view was even worse, we moved slightly farther along to more subjects. But this one paused at the edge of a bank to gulp down its meal, attracting the attention of a much larger gator that we had seen basking back there, head hidden from sight. The larger one awoke and, whether hoping to steal some food or fending off an intruder, launched itself at the one we see here, creating a few moments of frantic thrashing between the two, though I doubt there was any actual contact. I was a dozen meters away trying to be fartsy.

channel reeds with out-of-focus American alligator Alligator mississippiensis
Given the context of the post, I doubt anyone is missing the background at all, but without a bunch of other gators it might be subtle enough to remain unrecognized for a bit, and sneak up on viewers. This was right the end of a small exit path through the reeds that obviously some alligators were using, but (from the minimal width) only small ones like this – again, maybe a little over a meter, big enough to give you an ouchy if they actually bit, but nothing dangerous.

juvenile American alligator Alligator mississippiensis lurking behind reeds
This looks way more dramatic than it was, because this head was only the length of my foot, if that. As I was maneuvering for this view, the gator realized it was closer to me than it liked and twitched sharply, ready to make a break for it if necessary. I’m pretty sure this is the same one we photographed the day before in the exact same location, who began to venture onto shore to bask before it caught sight of us moving closer and retreated hastily into the water. The appearance changes radically between being wet and being dry.

juvenile American alligator Alligator mississippiensis after retreating into water, by The Girlfriend
Bear in mind, this is in a refuge where they’re used to people being close by – they tend to be a lot more circumspect and wary in other areas. The Girlfriend and I got almost identical photos, so I’m featuring hers here. People from other regions hear about the occasional gator attack, usually on small dogs, and never realize that the reptiles are all over the place in the south – if they were a serious threat, there’d be a lot more reports, but venomous snake bites outrank alligator encounters by several orders of magnitude. Always be wary of course, but they’re really pretty shy critters.

I’m going to have to find out when birthing season is, because I want more pics of the newborns – I only have a handful. This does take a little more caution, though, as the mothers are protective.

juvenile American alligator Alligator mississippiensis floating in water showing stripes, by The Girlfriend
This one was probably a little shy of a meter, old enough to be on its own, but still showing more of the baby stripes that they eventually grow out of. I think it was the smallest that we’d seen, little more than a large water snake in size. Adorable! And you can see how much of their body length is just tail.

A few more gators for interest’s sake – I was going to add some other photos from the trip, but decided to bump them to a new post.

large adult American alligator Alligator mississippiensis with unusually smooth skin
This one seemed to be quite lacking in those distinctive alligator lumps and ridges, at least on the head, and I’m not sure if this is due to advanced age, or genetic variations, or a good moisturizer. Kinda disappointing, really – the lumps add character.

pair of large adult American alligators Alligator mississippiensis basking together on mudbank
dog's chew toy sitting next to basking American alligators Alligator mississippiensisLike the previous one, these were both quite sizable, well over two meters in length and probably a few hundred kilos each – able to capture and consume a deer, if they were, you know, not as abysmally lazy as they are. But there was a tiny detail that I found only while editing, seen at right.

Yes, that’s a dog’s chew toy – or a chew toy, anyway; I kinda doubt the gators bought it themselves, but I don’t live around there. The question is, was it just washed up on the bank, or did a refuge visitor toss it out there trying to induce one of the reptiles to fetch in order to work off a little excess weight (fat chance,) or was it coughed up after the dog that owned it was consumed, or what? So many questions.

Anyway, that’s long enough. More pics coming in another post.

Inspiration?

Al Denelsbeck

multi-level nest box for purple martins Progne subis
This coming Saturday – that would be May 9th – is World Migratory Bird Day, and since I just got a buttload of bird pics, I could either wait to inundate my millions of readers with them, or post at least some of them ahead of time. You know, to serve as inspiration. To set some goals. To gloat like a brat. However you want to look at it. For several of the past years, we were actually traveling to or from our spring vacation locales on that day, so my chances were much more limited than normal even though they were greatly increased immediately before or after that date, from being someplace with a lot more activity (at least, in the manner that I prefer, which is larger, more exotic birds than locally, but the holiday does not require such of course.) This year however, we did a brief trip the previous weekend, so I will be home and perhaps seeing what I can find here that day. For now, we have the photos from that trip, which was to the Savannah, Georgia region.

purple martins Progne subis on ledges of nest box, Savannah GA
We stayed with friends and largely avoided others entirely, so the risk was minimal, plus we had to take advantage of these gas prices for something. Our hosts maintain a couple of high-class nest box condos for purple martins (Progne subis,) so that’s where we’re starting. They do a routine inventory of the activity in the boxes, and we were present for one and got to see the various nests in progress; the whole shebang is on a pulley that lowers it down from its normal position five or six meters up, and all of the boxes have a hinged wall, so it took only minutes to inventory 28 nest boxes and 8 gourds, of which just one had newborns (surprisingly large for such small birds,) but just shy of half had eggs, and all had nesting material – the martins seem to approve.

six newborn purple martins Progne subis in artificial gourd nest
By the way, all of the box and gourd material is synthetic, which some might frown upon but it makes the nests a lot easier to clean and disinfect, which is necessary for the continued health of the birds. Bacteria, mites, parasites, and the like are not the kinds of things to introduce to newborns.

They had a bunch of feeders too, but I never staked them out in the morning to capture the wide variety of visitors – we had plans for each morning, among those being the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. Twice. That’s where everything else here was captured, and it was plenty productive. Our timing was pretty good, too: the following day, the main drive in the refuge was due to close for maintenance. Since this was my prime target for the trip, I would have been very annoyed with myself if I’d gotten down there and found I should have researched better.

male boat-tailed grackle Quiscalus major stalking in pursuit of handouts
The boat-tailed grackles (Quiscalus major) were in abundant evidence, both visually and audibly with their distinctive rattling calls. They’re bold beggars, learning quickly that ‘people’ often means ‘snacks,’ and will hang around very close by in the hopes that someone will provide some food, either accidentally or on purpose, as we noticed when we stopped for our picnic lunch. When we weren’t forthcoming at one spot, however, a big male quickly discovered his own, and I shot some tight closeups to try and make out what they were.

boat-tailed grackle Quiscalus major with found caterpillar of unknown species
The best I can say is some kind of caterpillar, perhaps an inchworm-like larva. Grackles are big but not that big, so its meal was only 15 milimeters at best.

Notice the brilliant iridescence of the ‘black’ feathers, which contrasts against the other most-common denizen of the wetlands along the Savannah River, the red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus.)

male red-winged blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus perched
female red-winged blackbird perched straddling a pair of reedsThe males are easy to spot when the red and yellow wing bands are displayed, though this isn’t always the case, and they can appear solid black – and it’s a black so deep and matte that only the best lighting allows photos to show any kind of detail at all; we were not so graced on this trip, the light being harsh and contrasty, and while distinct lighting can bring out the body shape, it has to be the right angle, and our models (slightly hyperactive as a species) were not cooperative enough. But a few females provided poses too, showing off the huge difference in coloration as seen at right. They build nests suspended in the tall grasses and reeds, and so benefit from the camouflage, while the males likely attract potential predators away from the nest.

I also got lucky and tracked another male as he came in for a landing on a lily pad, getting a sequence of his spread-winged braking approach, and while the camera somehow failed to lock tightest focus on some of the more stationary targets, it nailed this one quite gratifyingly (I am still researching this issue, by the way – I thought I had it largely corrected but this trip indicated otherwise.) Bear in mind, nearly all of these are with the Tamron 150-600 handheld, and many are cropped tighter from larger frames, so when they look sharp, they’re sharp.

male red-winged blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus from rear alighting on lily pads
There was another species that none of us recognized, that we kept getting slightly more than fleeting glimpses of, but no really good views of for a while, and it became a goal to get some decent captures, which eventually happened.

likely male bobolink Dolichonyx oryzivorus perched on marsh reeds and calling
This is a bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus,) which I was very pleased to discover because I’d heard of them but never seen one. This particular one is calling after snacking on some of the ripening seeds in the tassels of the marsh reeds, thus the filthy beak. The coloration is very distinctive – our female host was calling them, “calico birds,” which a rear view helps explain a little better.

bobolink Dolichonyx oryzivorus seen from the rear
But hey – we have a bonus today, because I snagged a couple of video clips on the fly, as it were, bracing the long lens against the windowsill of the truck. Nothing exciting, but the call is present at least.

The real photo targets among the wetlands, however, are the wading birds, and we were not disappointed. Not very far along the drive, the road became flanked by broader patches of near-standing water rimmed with reeds and dotted throughout with lily pads, and these were prime habitat for several species, two of which I recognized, and one I was unfamiliar with, only getting a positive ID upon our return. “Our,” by the way, refers to The Girlfriend, The Girlfriend’s Sprog, and myself – I had aimed to go, regardless of accompaniment knowing that they might not be able to break free of obligations, but both ladies finagled the time because they needed to get out too. Add in our hosts to make five all told.

American coot Fulica americana in water
This is one of the ones that I knew right off, though after seeing some others I got a little less sure, but I was right after all – it’s an American coot (Fulica americana,) and they have really cool feet that I was unable to even glimpse this time around, with webbing around each toe but not stretched between them – someday I’ll dig out an old slide I have that shows this well. We’ll throw down another for the profile.

American coot Fulica americana in profile with reflection and pond lily
And the lily of course. Use the little elements when you can.

The next one that I recognized was proving a little too elusive, appearing only on the far side of the open water channels and mostly just peeking out from the undergrowth (and possibly nests) from time to time. I include two frames combined here just for the record, and to show off their plumage a little, before moving on to better pictures. I said, “better.” Not, “good.” Though if you want to insist, I won’t argue with public opinion.

two frames combined of purple gallinules Porphyrio martinicus in reed beds
These are purple gallinules (Porphyrio martinicus) – really, hard to mistake for anything else once you’ve seen them, and I’ve spotted them a few times in Florida. I do have to wonder how they got away with naming them ‘purple,’ and I have to imagine no women were around at the time to correct the colors to something more specific, but…

Moving on.

common moorhen Gallinula chloropus looking suspicious within the water
This was the one that stymied me, despite looking so much like the others, but it’s a common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus.) Probably the most numerous among the waders, and like the others, quite adept at prancing along the tops of the pads, not the mention practically running across the water itself (with a bit of help from flapping wings) when territorial squabbles caused one to flee another. One of my bigger regrets was not videotaping (videocarding, whatever) some of what we saw, especially the wide range of sounds that they were all making, but let me paint this picture. The five of us were in a crowded extended-cab pickup truck, in a long line of cars wending its way through the refuge, and shots were being done handheld, often from the back of the pickup bed. Stopping in certain places where there was no room to pass meant everyone behind you waited. In short, not ideal conditions to set up a tripod and shotgun mic to do justice to video, but one of these days I’ll return on my own, on a quiet day, and make the attempt.

Meanwhile, another moorhen looking like a sports advertisement.

common moorhen Gallinula chloropus dripping water like sweat
And seriously, you gotta love that vivid, hand-painted look to the bill.

I wasn’t the only one shooting, of course, so I’ll include a few images from the others. The first comes from The Girlfriend, of a snowy egret (Egretta thula) that was foraging around a crossover channel.

snowy egret Egretta thula fishing in shallows, by The Girlfriend
For a few minutes, this one was quite active despite a large alligator lounging nearby – either the bird was stupid, or knew the alligator wasn’t hungry, or it was confident in its ability to avoid any sudden lunges. But the little minnows were certainly attracting its attention, judging from the erratic and rapid motions of the bird.

snowy egret Egretta thula in odd pose while fishing
What attracted my eye most from this frame (this is mine again) is the odd leg and foot position on the left leg; you can see the ‘knee’ – actually the bird’s ankle, so no, they bend the correct way – is still under the surface while the foot is raised. The egret was feeling ahead of itself gently with its feet, trying to stir food up from the bottom, and when the nearby gator started to move again, the egret boldly followed it, seeing what the reptile might have stirred up out of the mud.

snowy egret Egretta thula following behind American alligator Alligator mississippiensis as it drags itself through shallows
Yes, there will be more alligators, but World Migratory Giant Knobby Lizard Day isn’t for a few months yet, so we’re concentrating on the birds in honor of that holiday, plus the fact that I have too many photos for one post anyway.

Our female host was trying to attract my attention while I was a short distance away chasing another subject – yes, you could get out of the cars when safe to do so, and the gators kept to the channels overall, though road crossing spots were visible if you looked. But anyway, she got several frames of this little fellow while I got only one obscured by reeds, which is unfortunate, because I would have liked to have added this one to my stock.

female least bittern Ixobrychus exilis in open site on lily pads, by Wendy Hall
This is a female least bittern (Ixobrychus exilis,) and the only one that I’ve ever seen, so more power to her for capturing it in such good light. They tend to be shy and secretive birds, and are really adept at dashing through the reeds out of sight even when they’re only a couple of meters off. They’re about the size of a crow in body length, but longer neck and legs of course.

She also captured a female anhinga (Anhinga anhinga – seriously.)

female anhinga Anhinga anhinga perched on lw branch alongside water
These aren’t quite as hard to spot, though I have no idea where she found this one because I never saw it myself. They’re the kind of bird that fishes while entirely submerged, popping up only occasionally for air and to startle people near the water’s edge, but can often be seen drying their outstretched wings like some misshapen scarecrow near the water. Their call is this great low groaning croak, like me when I’m first waking up.

Not enough birds? How about a clapper rail (Rallus crepitans)? I know you’ve all been clamoring for a clapper rail.

clapper rail Rallus crepitans before disappearing into reeds
I had seen this from a moderate distance and was misidentifying it, but a proper birder on the trail corrected me. It disappeared into the reeds before I got a close enough or clear enough view of it, so I’m a little surprised Wendy got such a sharp image, but hey, this is why it helps to have a group of people shooting at the same time – someone else ends up capturing things that you miss. Or you may see that as a detriment, if you’re too competitive, but I’m bigger than that. Mostly.

Not so big that I won’t make the last image my own, though.

green heron Butorides virescens looking unnaturally colored in bright sunlight
We’d been out for quite a while and had seen all of the species above, save for perhaps the bobolinks, and I was remarking that we had never seen one of these, which should have been evident giving the conditions. This is a green heron (Butorides virescens,) one of three that we eventually found in two visits to the same refuge – but this is a misleading image, because their plumage really never looks like this. Either the sun angle was just right to cause a brighter sheen to occur, or the camera metering caused a color shift (the white balance was set for full sunlight, so that’s not it,) or maybe a combination of conditions, but the back is typically a deep jade color, tending towards blue in direct light. They’re notorious for remaining out of sight until you’re right on top of them, foraging among concealing reeds and foliage, so this one perched out in the open was a nice find, and I’m glad to nail the detail, even if it doesn’t look quite right.

So let’s see, that’s over 2400 words, 22 images of 12 different species, and even a video clip – I think that covers it for today, and even for Saturday if I get rained out or otherwise unable to pursue the migratory birds on their own holiday. Plus there are still more pics from the trip on the way in a bit.

On this date 19

Al Denelsbeck

great blue heron Ardea herodias in shallows of Indian River Lagoon, Melbourne Florida
Don’t ask me why, because I could have done this at any time, but putting together these ‘On this date’ posts serves as a reminder of what was going on in my life at times past, and it’s fun to find little gems to feature. The image above is used in several of my presentations and in a few posts, and I think it might even have been in the cropping video – I’m not going back through it this morning to see if I’m correct, but you’re welcome to. In the folders, it sits nestled among numerous others that tell me it was shot while my brother was visiting me in Florida, and we were out investigating what the Indian River Lagoon had to offer. It became a lot stronger with some strategic cropping, the version shown here, and now I don’t even want to let people see the original. For the record, this is a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) done in 2004.

Two years later in 2006, I had taken a few hours to drive around at random, doing experiments with both B&W film and digital infra-red on the Canon Pro 90 IS, and I think I might even have been shooting some infra-red film too – they were all about the same timeframe, at least, but of course I have no date stamps on the film.

irrigation sprinkler in digital infrared
original infrared image, unalteredThe Pro 90 actually autofocused in IR, which made it handy for such uses, and the Lee 87C filter rendered the image in a particular shade of washed-out lavender; that’s the original seen at right. Converting it to greyscale and boosting the contrast very selectively gives the version above, cropped vertically to change the impact of the elements within the frame – this one I am sure was featured in the cropping video. Last year for the Storytime posts, the monochrome film version was featured, so you can (kinda) see what it looked like in visible light. Shame I didn’t do a little more research and feature it on the correct anniversary date; wouldn’t that have been so cool?!?!

[Seriously, I try to do things like that, without any particular reason why, and then realize how ludicrous it is to worry about. Exactly a factor of 365 days ago – more or less kinda, because the year is not exactly 365 days long; it’s goofy. But it gives me a topic for these posts, so…]

And no, the camera was actually level (this time) – it’s the ground that’s sloped, in multiple directions.

Now, we leap all the way forward to 2015.

sunset over Jordan Lake
Five years ago today – well, a few hours from now at least, kinda, depending on how you calculate a year – I was out with a student who wanted to learn how to shoot sunsets, and the weather cooperated slightly. More, I chose (and demonstrated) selective framing to make the most out of the patch of sky where the colors were the most dramatic, with very few choices for foreground elements. Seen by itself, it works okay, certainly providing more color than average, but it’s not hard to find more captivating sunsets, which is part of the student lesson: it’s much more a matter of timing and conditions than of knowing how to take the photos, though the latter certainly helps a lot. The tree helps disguise the fact that the sky is not strong enough on its own, and even draws attention away from the plane contrail that would be too obvious otherwise. It’s not hard to have deep black sections in sunset photos, since everything is backlit and the exposure is typically set to capture the sky in midtones, but those black portions provide contrast for the colors and make them seem more vivid. So, hopefully, I provided some useful information for the student – maybe someday I’ll implement an exit survey or something…

Hint, hint

Al Denelsbeck

We did a brief trip this past (extended) weekend, primarily to go grab some pics that could not be obtained here in North Carolina, which means that some photo-heavy posts are coming – just, not right now. But I’ll provide this little hint of what’s to come:

juvenile American alligator Alligator mississippiensis straight down from above
Before that, though, must come the weekly reminiscing pics.

Oh, all right, not to keep you in too much suspense: yes, I did indeed get bitten – but only by an ant. An ant. As in, one. Which is actually well ahead of the game for me.

Just because, part 35

Al Denelsbeck

I know I won’t have the opportunity to do any serious posts for a day or three, but saw this guy hiding in the hosta as I went outside this morning and figured I’d sneak one in – don’t tell the boss. Our secret, okay?

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea sheltering in hosta stems in morning
Yeah, he looks grumpy, but we had a wicked amount of rain the past day, so he was probably up all night partying – no sympathy whatsoever. You know I’m the kind of guy that becomes sadistic when I discover someone has a hangover, right?

Anyway, this is the first I’ve seen one in the same location since the holiday, though I know they never go too far. The shadows give a little hint of how far down he was, requiring a precise angle to get the flash to get down there. It’s safe to say that he would have remained out of notice completely, if it weren’t for busybody nature photographers.

April, I banish thee

Al Denelsbeck

newly hatched blurry mantises
Today’s end-of-month abstract is sponsored by Forgetfulness, where I intended to hit the button that starts recording video and pressed the shutter release instead; between the low light, the wind, and the activity of the newborn mantids (you couldn’t tell?) the photo came out a little less than ideal. Yet it’s a perfect illustration of the chaos and energy of… no, never mind, it’s not worth the attempt to justify. I fucked up, and it looks weird, and it shouldn’t be reinterpreted as any kind of commentary, but I got nothing else from this month that works for an abstract, save for some featureless purple skies when I attempted to photograph lightning that was completely obscured by low overcast, and even this has more going for it. Such is life. Roll May.

On this date 18

Al Denelsbeck

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis on azalea buds with raindrops
So, listen: this time of year is mantis season, soon after the Chinese mantids (Tenodera sinensis) have hatched, and they’ve been a favorite subject of mine for a while now, so we might see a lot of these even in the posts from the past years’ photos – like this one. But c’mon, you can’t fault me for featuring this lovely alien landscape, something that certainly should be the book cover of some science fiction novel. Hey, maybe ‘book covers’ is the theme this week.

This is from 2013, and I believe the first of the local hatchings that I started following routinely. Notable about this (seriously, make a note of it,) is the state of the azalea flowers, which are just coming into blossom – they’ve already been and gone this year. Different weather? Different subspecies that blooms later? Can’t say, unless we talk contract. What I can tell you is that I really like the light quality, and I believe this was the Lumiquest Big Bounce flash attachment, which does a nice job but is ridiculously heavy and awkward, so it’s been stored away. Maybe I need to do some more experiments.

Two years later in 2015, we have more alien stuff.

unidentified tiny bizarre flower blossoms
I have no idea what kind of flowers there are, just that they’re small, no more than 15mm across, but they’re cool looking. These came from a garden party that The Girlfriend and I attended, and I never asked about them, so they could be from anywhere. I didn’t touch them – they look like they’d inject some kind of parasite or spores or something, and I’d begin acting totally out of character, like taking photos of cute things or writing about TV shows…

And a year after that, now we have our romance novel or period drama cover.

Canada geese Branta canadensis flying low over water in panned shot
… but only if it was a short, wide book, because the camera angle was really off and this has been leveled and cropped to correct that – it won’t get better than this. At the nearby pond approaching sunset, I got a nice view of a trio of Canada geese (Branta canadensis) taking off for parts unknown, and panned with them as I fired off a few frames. The low light produced a nice blur from the background as the camera moved, with a little blur from the wings, and I liked the effect. Now all I have to do is learn how to hold the camera level. It may only take another 30 years or so…

For the time being

Al Denelsbeck

What, exactly, does that phrase mean? I mean, we all know how it’s used, but how was it coined? Being what? Can time be anything else? Do we want to know how ‘idiom’ got its name?

Anyway, the point is, I’m going to be a little busy and I don’t know what I’ll be able to produce for a little while, so I’m throwing down (actually, I’m tossing diagonally) a few photos that struck my fancy. The first is from the same outing as here, but I noticed this while sorting. I’ve always known that several of the old dock piling at the nearby pond had nails still protruding from the tops, which never showed down any of the cormorants that like perching on them, but I happened to be shooting from across one arm of the pond and got a better view, though from a much greater distance, so this is a tighter crop.

double-crested cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus perched flanking large nail on piling
No biggie – the nail doesn’t take up all of the piling. And I can’t help but get the impression that the bird cannot relax and settle a little without getting poked in the breadbasket, but they perch in such positions for hours at a time, including sleeping like this, so likely the nail isn’t even noticed – it just seems awkward to us. Well, me, anyway – I’m not even sure you exist.

And then, another mantis egg case hatched, and I did a few more photos and some video clips.

newborn Chinese mantids Tenodera sinensis still hanging from anchors off of egg case ootheca
When I first looked at it, everything seemed quiet, and plenty of newborns were scampering around the case and the branch it was attached to, quickly making their way down to the Japanese maple tree that I’d placed it near. But as I got the rig set up, suddenly another gout of newborns was emerging, and I got plenty of them almost dripping from the case in video. Right now I will probably not do another feature for the blog, but later on I may well combine everything I have to do a more ‘professional’ video clip aimed at bigger audiences (you know, up to five or six viewers) and hone my editing skills a bit. Or I might even wait until I have numerous clips of the entire life cycle and do a complete feature on Chinese mantids. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, a closer look, solely for the Giger-like detail.

newborn Chinese mantids Tenodera sinensis in detail
Slowly, I am discovering how this whole ‘molting’ thing seems to work (and yes, I’ve actually gone looking online for better details and have found none so far, but i’m open to any links someone might provide.) You can see the ‘chaff’ from several previous hatchlings in the center, and the two outermost mantids are in somewhat revealing stages. It is not a full molt at all – the chitin (or whatever; it might even be a yolk equivalent) does not encapsulate the mantis at all, but only seems to cover the lower few body segments, if that. You can see it starting to pull free from the underside. Also, I’d suspected that it anchored the tips of the leg together, making it easier for the mantis to worm its way out of the case, but there’s no evidence of that either, though the antennae do seem to be anchored. I am now vaguely suspecting that the anchoring is done to the hind end of the abdomen, even perhaps the genitalia, because I’ve seen that before from molting arthropods. Sounds pretty uncomfortable to us, but then again, we don’t change out the linings of our lungs either, so…

A word about the difficulties involved in actually trying to capture these details, and why it’s been going on for a few years now. Aside from the narrow time frame to even see it happening of course, there’s the fact that the overall length of the newborns is in the 10mm range, so the ‘chaff’ itself is 1mm or less. The egg cases are placed in environments that are encouraging to the mantids (when I even place them myself, instead of finding them in situ,) and this does not give a lot of options for camera positioning, bearing in mind too that the macro flash rig sticks away from the body significantly and can interfere with the newborns and the branches nearby; the same can be said for a tripod. In order to see the whole process, the mantids have to be undisturbed, which is also a goal for my photography anyway. There’s the random positions of the emergents, the wind, others getting in the way, and even the light angle and contrast can reveal or obscure key details. Finally, there are the demands of high-magnification photography, such as even seeing in the viewfinder whether the focus is bang-on or not (on a squirming and breeze-driven subject,) and having adequate depth, and capturing a key moment. What you see posted here are semi-lucky frames, the ones that show things the best, which are a handful among quite a few that show nothing at all or are simply terrible.

I am going to collect some of the ‘chaff’ that remains to see if I can display them in enough detail for micro-photographs, and I also have an old egg case that I am dissecting to see the interior detail. Those should be along eventually.

Almost totally dry

Al Denelsbeck

So, I went out Monday night/Tuesday morning to try and catch something for the Lyrids meteor shower that we are currently undergoing. For once, we had ideal conditions, or as ideal as I can possibly achieve in this location: no moon, clear skies, and I traveled down to Jordan Lake to get the darkest skies possible within, oh, thirty kilometers or so (which isn’t all that dark, because it sits too close to three cities.) It was after 1 AM, so a better time for such things.

Results? Zilch nada. I saw two distinct meteors in over an hour of shooting, a far cry from the “10-15 possible,” and neither was within the wide field of view of the camera. Examining the frames afterward carefully, I found nothing distinct, and only two tiny streaks that may have been ridiculously small and brief meteors. Not a great show.

4-5 minute exposure of northern night sky
This is a four-minute exposure aimed northward, and you can see for yourself the lack of streaks not in a circular pattern that would signify a meteor. The circular-patterned streaks are merely stars rendered by the rotation of the earth. I could have had them longer and more distinct with a longer exposure, but as you can see, the light pollution was already making the frame a bit bright, and longer would have made that worse, washing out even more stars and certainly all but the brightest meteors.

By the way, this frame contains Polaris, the North Star – it’s the brighter star about 1/4 up from the bottom, 1/3 in from the left side, and at higher resolution than this, the curves noticeably have this as their axis. I feel obligated to point out that Polaris is not the brightest star in the sky – an awful lot of people believe this for some reason, and will get hopelessly lost in the woods some night trying to orient on Sirius or Venus, which might take them entirely in the opposite direction. In my frame here, the brighter stars at upper left are part of Ursa Major, the big bear or the big dipper, whatever you like to call it – I didn’t quite get enough of it in the frame. And yes, I had some kind of smudge or spot on the sensor or lens (upper right darker spot.)

Now, here’s something that I did capture. Maybe. Hard to tell, and hard to prove, I think.

wide angle long night exposure of the plane of the ecliptic
This is full-frame, and pretty effectively 90° away from the previous – not horizontally, but vertically, over the top, because this is showing the plane of the ecliptic, the ‘waist’ stars that sit directly over the equator. These always show the most streaking because they’re aligned with the greatest angle of the earth’s rotation, but you can also see that there’s two sets of curves: the upper set curving upwards have the axis of Polaris, which sits (almost) directly over the North Pole, and the lower set curving downward have the axis of the South Pole of the planet, which does not conveniently have a star perched overhead (no, the Southern Cross only points south, but none of the stars represent the pole itself, and anyway it’s well out of sight below the horizon at this latitude.) But all that isn’t the curiosity, just kind of the lead-in. Let’s take a full-resolution look at a portion of the same frame.

inset of same image potentially showing geostationary satellites
You can see that focus might have been a little bit better – the camera was manually focused on a distant radio tower beacon before re-aiming – but there are several anomalous single points in the frame, and notably all just in this one section. This is very close to the plane of the ecliptic, yet doesn’t appear to be on it to me – a little below. But no stars should have presented a single point of light in a ten-minute exposure, and nothing else should have either. Except perhaps geostationary satellites.

Geostationary satellites have an orbit that matches the rotation of the earth, so in effect they ‘hover’ over one particular spot. Mostly these are communication satellites, so the earth-based antennas can remain pointed in one direction, but some weather satellites and earth-observing satellites fit the bill too. In order to have the orbital velocity match the angular rotation of the earth, they have to be way out there – like 36,000 kilometers, which is nearly three times the diameter of the planet itself (I’ll expand on this further down.) This is a hell of a lot farther than the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) or the International Space Station (ISS,) both of which pass horizon to horizon overhead, when visible, within a few minutes.

I did noise removal on this frame, so none of these should represent any, though the one right in the middle of this frame still looks like a likely candidate; all others are too diffuse to be such. And this really does represent the only place in the frame where such things are showing. It would generally take a long exposure to even see any such satellites, since their distance makes them exceptionally small targets, and this time at night they should be catching only peripheral sunlight scattered through the atmosphere around the edges of the planet. Should they be clustered this close together? Dunno. Maybe, when I’m bored, I’ll sit down and see if these seem to match up to any known satellites.

The one good thing about trying to photograph such things is, there’s no need to compensate for the earth’s rotation, so the exposure can be ridiculously long with only a long lens or a telescope, no tracking method is needed, unlike for just about any other celestial object. The hard part is, knowing where to be pointed in the first place. I might have to play with this sometime later on. For now, we’ll just consider it a possible explanation for those specks.

[Orbital mechanics: So, gravity is always trying to draw stuff towards earth, and there’s no point where it becomes too weak to have an effect – hell, the moon is held in check by it and it’s 384,000 kilometers away. But an object can achieve an orbital stability, essentially ‘freefall’ and weightlessness (or microgravity, which is more accurate) by moving to the side, so the draw of gravity only redirects it in an arc that circles the planet. Low Earth Orbit stuff like the Hubble Space Telescope (568 km up) and the International Space Station (408 km) need to be moving laterally at a pretty good clip to maintain their altitude, and this is in the realm of 27,000 kph. If they went slower, gravity would slowly draw them closer, and if they went faster they’d move further off. For geostationary satellites, their speed is around 11,000 kph – gravity is weaker that far out, so the velocity doesn’t have to be as high, and the balance between speed and distance makes them maintain a position over a single spot on earth, or revolve as fast as the earth rotates – same thing.

And just as a bit of trivia, such satellites were never launched by the Space Shuttle Orbiters, which stayed in the LEO range and couldn’t ever get that far out. It takes multi-stage rockets boosters to place these kinds of satellites in their orbits.]

On this date 17

Al Denelsbeck

thinstripe hermit crab Clibanarius vittatus in home aquarium
So this one marks a milestone of sorts, in that it is among the first images I’d taken with a digital camera. Kinda. Okay, let me explain.

It’s 2004, by the way. Walkabout’s Occasional Foreign Correspondent, Jim Kramer, had gone digital long before I had, and in fact had just upgraded his camera from a Sony F717 to the F828, and was selling the former. To a friend of mine, who needed a little time to get the cash together. Knowing I was in Florida and husbanding my money between shooting gigs, Jim sent the camera to me as a loaner until the buyer had the cash, whereupon I would ship it onward. So I had a chance to do a lot of digital shooting and experimentation until then, and I took horrendous advantage of it. This photo, the one above, was among the first handful of tests upon receiving the camera and ensuring that the battery was charged, before I reset the counter to zero and started ‘officially’ counting. It’s a thinstripe hermit crab (Clibanarius vittatus) collected from the Indian River Lagoon nearby, and shot within my barebones saltwater aquarium. Which was nowhere near large enough to maintain a crab of this size – the shell is not quite the size of your fist – so it was photographed and released, possibly the same day. A little over an hour later, the counter had been reset and I was wading out in the lagoon itself looking for subjects when a heron attracted my attention – that was frame 2.

Now, I’d shot more than a few digital images before this, some with a cheapo camera, and a lot for an event the previous year where I was filling in for an ill Jim (which may pop up much later on,) but this is among the first of my digital stock images. Count it as you will.

Nine years later in 2013, I was back in NC and did an outing for Earth Day.

pair of eastern tiger swallowtails Papilio glaucus on wild azalea bush
And boy, did I have an outing – there are several hundred frames bearing this date, with a wide variety of subjects. I could have made several posts on those couple of hours alone, but we’re just going to go with a representative one here, of a pair of eastern tiger swallowtails (Papilio glaucus) partaking of a wild azalea bush, down at the edge of the Eno River not far from where we used to live.

Let’s have one from just last year.

fledgling white-breasted nuthatch pausing on ground
Ambling around the nearby pond, I was greeted by this little spud while chatting with a friend. As diseased as it looks, everything’s fine – this is just a newly-fledged white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) who doesn’t have all of its adult feathers in yet. There’s a good chance that it had bailed the nest only that morning, and the folks were monitoring from a short distance off as it got its flying skills together, but this gave me the chance for a few closeups.

red azalea bloom closeup with recent raindropsI’m including one not from this date, but the next (in 2011,) because it attracted my attention as I was digging through the stock folders for this post.

We start with the full frame. I wasn’t absolutely sure where this was taken – some events I have memorized fairly well, but azaleas can be found in a lot of locations and I wasn’t sure if this corresponded to a particular image or not. This is the full frame at right, but we’re going to go in to full resolution on a portion in the upper right corner to get a clue – you might call this forensic nature photography. Enhance. Enhance!

raindrop showing UNC Chapel Hill South Building in background
Annnddd that tells me what I needed to know. This was certainly not one of the azaleas in our own yard, because that’s a hall simply known as South Building on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Which means this was taken among the broad patches of azaleas that flank Old Well, a landmark and the representative icon of UNC. So, same time as the image of the landmark at this post (seen more creatively here as well, but that was an entirely different day.)

And of course, it’s Earth Day, and you have fewer excuses about not getting out to experience it, so get cracking! We’ll see what I’ve scared up a little later on.

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