Get out of the way!

Al Denelsbeck

This is, I believe, the last gout of photos that I wanted to cover before moving on to the beach trip, which will probably encompass several posts. It will be a little reptile-heavy, so prepare yourself as you see fit. Gird your loins, or whatever. Maybe make a pot of tea. Whatever it takes.

juvenile copes grey treefrog Hyla chrysoscelis in local park
We’re opening with a juvenile Copes grey treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) that the Indisputable Mr Bugg was happy to spot during an outing many weeks back, and I’ve given him the chance to post his own images of it but we all know how that turns out. Yes, it’s tiny, but we know it’s a grey treefrog from the pale blotch under its eye, and we know it’s a Copes subspecies because… well, we don’t, actually, because about the only way you can tell is from their calls, and this one wasn’t calling and is probably too young to be thinking about that anyway, but the Copes variety is the only one that I’ve ever found in this area, so we’re going with that with less misplaced confidence than your average preacher.

On the same outing, I witnessed some peculiar behavior from a selection of carpenter bees. It started by finding a solitary one just hanging out on a salvia plant, which was slightly odd because it was a plenty warm day and there was lots of apidaen activity around. I was leaning in to see if it had run afoul of a crab spider or the like (this was the same outing with most of the lynx spiders,) when another appeared, hovering around with some apparent interest in its companion and not the flowers.

unidentified carpenter bees demonstrating odd behavior
The second bee had only a moment to hover very specifically around its motionless brethren, before a third appeared on the scene, with the same focus on the first.

unidentified carpenter bees demonstrating odd behavior
This was a state of affairs that was unacceptable to the second, and in a flash there was a schoolyard scrum taking place in midair, while the first slumbered on (or whatever) peacefully.

unidentified carpenter bees demonstrating odd behavior
It would be very easy to believe that I had witnessed some kind of mating behavior, except that the first was clearly not a queen of any type, and anyway I’m moderately certain that takes place in the hive. Perhaps it was a thwarted mugging.

Another frog.

green frog Lithobates clamitans peeking from duckweed
The same outing was a two-parter as we switched locales, so while the first four photos were in Gold Park in Hillsborough, the next few were in the NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, and in fact, this particular photo is a revisit of one from many years ago that I’ve used to illustrate a lot of different things, but primarily the nature of selective framing. What’s in the frame gives us the impression of the setting, and what’s outside of the frame doesn’t count – in this case, it’s the edges of the pond liner that this green frog (Lithobates clamitans) was hanging out within, a very popular spot for amphibian species. A slow approach will often net you better closeups than can typically be achieved in the very setting that the viewer imagines this to be. Was that sentence tortured enough?

Just in case you didn’t know, it’s anole season around here, “here” being, “within the confines of this blog,” so we have a few more to feature, and they won’t be the last either. Part of this is because I like the little buggers, and would love to get some established in the yard but as yet I don’t think we have the kinds of plants they prefer. So for now, I seek them out in other locations, like below.

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis hiding among banana leaves
This juvenile Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) was wary of our presence as it flitted about the leaves and stems of a favored banana plant – which makes me wonder, because the NC Botanical Garden is specific about using native plants, so this tells me that this variety of banana tree, at least, is from North Carolina, which seems odd. But whatever – I can research that later. For now, we take note of the tail of this one, showing a detail that I failed to observe at the time until the anole was being too spooky to get close to, keeping me from getting a good photo of it. Having shed recently, or presently in the process thereof (is there a beginning and end to such things?) the anole was showing a tattered sock of dead skin down the length of its tail.

Then I went back through the images after getting home, and saw that I had captured some better detail, but hadn’t realized it at the time.

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis with shedding tail
In my feeble defense, I’m usually concentrating on the eyes, since those are what we typically focus upon and so should be the sharpest part of the image, plus I was timing a decent pose from a fairly active small reptile. But that’s just whinging – I should have spotted it sooner.

As you should be able to tell from the lighting here, the sun wasn’t bright enough to provide that silhouette I am now after.

We’ll go a bit older for the last two, all the way back to August 3rd, a couple of images that I’ve had waiting in the folder. I spent a long time only seeing the Chinese mantises (Tenodera sinensis) occasionally in the yard, nowhere near as often as I might have expected given the large number of egg cases that I’d distributed in the spring, but this may only demonstrate that there’s a point where the population hits saturation, especially since I suspect they’ll prey on one another. But one made an appearance while I was armed, so to speak, so I shot it.

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis looking a bit condescending
The dark eyes tell us that this was taken at night, and the sardonic expression tells us the mantis wasn’t too impressed with my stalking skills. At least that’s how I’m interpreting it – maybe it simply doesn’t think much of Canon equipment. In which case it’s a doodyhead.

That wasn’t the only wry look I got that night either, as I found a tiny juvenile Copes grey treefrog (I’m absolutely sure) perched on the flexible downspout; this one is even smaller than the first, and in such a position that I could maneuver around for the portrait.

juvenile Copes grey treefrog Hyla chrysoscelis looking unimpressed
Did you grow up on the Peanuts comic strip? That rippled mouthline is pure Charlie Brown, though the wall-eyed look is more Spongebob. Or maybe Marty Feldman.

By the way, I feel the need to point this out to those who have never had the fortune of handling either. While snakes may be as shiny as this, they are always smooth and dry, often surprising people that handle them for the first time and expect them to be slimy, like a worm or slug. But treefrogs rely on moisture to give them grip (at the very least,) and so really are damp and a little sticky, which the flash reflections bring out accurately enough. Like most amphibians, they’ll become even more so with handling, because a primary defense is to pee on you. Just so you know.

Too cool, part 41: Can’t get much smaller

Al Denelsbeck

I know, I just did a ‘Too Cool’ post, but then I came across this and it certainly deserves to be in here. Neatorama linked me over to an article on Quartz about a rather intriguing accomplishment in macro work, which is that little purple dot in the center of the image below, because this is apparently a single atom, captured with a conventional camera as well.

photo of a single strontium atom, by and copyrighted David Nadlinger, University of Oxford, EPSRC
Photo of single strontium atom, by and copyrighted David Nadlinger, University of Oxford, EPSRC

Really, check out the article, because it tells the details, but just so you know, the gap between the two electrodes flanking that dot on the sides is 2mm, slightly less than the shaft of a cotton swab.

Now, if you’re thinking like I did that this seems a little huge for an atom, which defeats even electron microscopes, well, here’s the deal as I understand it (you know, quantum physicist me.) It took a certain wavelength of laser to illuminate the atom, as well as a long exposure. Atoms are too small to reflect light, or more specifically, for individual photons to bounce off of because they’re little more than photons in size in the first place, and the energy of the photon typically affects the atom. It’s part of the whole quantum indeterminacy thing, because just trying to figure out where an atom is in the first place is virtually guaranteed to alter or move it. In this case, it seems that the strontium atom was absorbing photons into its structure temporarily, essentially converting the photon into energy along the electron shells/orbits/paths, which would bump the electron into a higher shell/orbit. Shortly, the electron drops back into its original position in regards to the nucleus, re-emitting that energy again as a photon, and that’s what the camera was capturing. Only, a single photon isn’t enough to register much on the digital sensor, so it had to keep happening over time, which is why it took a longer exposure. What you’re seeing isn’t an atom per se, but a collection of emitted photons, which may well not be as pinpoint precise as we’d like. There also remains the chance that the effects of the atom curve the photon paths a little, and/or that the ion trap holding it suspended can’t keep it perfectly still, but that’s just me speculating.

This is why science is so damned cool. We’ve known for decades that atoms are too small for photons (“visible light”) to reflect from, and even very small details take an electron microscope, because electrons don’t have wavelengths and don’t need focusing as such. But this guy just thought, Fine, I’ll make it glow on its own, and there you have it. Slick.

Too cool, part 40: Red sprites in incredible detail

Al Denelsbeck

red sprites in detail, photo taken and copyrighted by Stephane Vetter
Red sprites in detail, photo taken and copyrighted by Stephane Vetter

Astronomy Picture of the Day today featured a confusing and abstract image, because it’s something probably never seen in this detail before: a collection of red sprites above an active thunderstorm.

Here’s the deal. Occasionally, waaayyyy above the tops of the clouds on some thunderstorms, there is an additional discharge – actually, two different kinds, the other being blue jets. They’re as brief as the lightning, but much dimmer, and can only be seen either from the side or from an aircraft at high altitude near the storm (which is how they were first reported, from airline pilots.) And as yet, no one knows how they form, but to be honest, we still don’t know exactly what causes lightning either.

It has long been my goal to capture one of these, and there’s a slim chance that I might have caught the vestiges of a couple, not long ago. Yet it takes not just the right kind of storm (that no one has pinned down,) but also the right conditions, seen from a distance to the side without anything in the way, and exposing for a dim display – such conditions are hard to come by. Hell, just pinning down lightning photos is challenging enough.

And then, Stephane Vetter here blows everyone out of the water and does a great deal towards lessening my enthusiasm, because beating this image is going to be well-nigh impossible. Oh, I suppose I’ll still be trying, but there’s no motivation to be the first to capture something like this in such detail. Note the graininess to the image, indicating that a very high ISO setting was required to snag the weak display, as well as no star trails, so the exposure was still relatively brief.

You can also check out the website of The World At Night for more night sky exposures, but be warned: some of these are specialized captures with expanded ISO cameras, and some are simply composites and other shenanigans, something not possible until digital editing came on the scene (you know, the exact same kind of editing that people rant about giving unrealistic expectations about models and beauty – in other words, not possible in normal means or ‘in-camera.’) If you’re getting the impression that the trend towards shamelessly and extensively editing night sky images makes me annoyed, well, you’re right. Might as well dub in a couple extra moons while you’re at it.

All that aside, this definitely ranks as Too Cool, and check out the various links in that post.

Brevity, let’s see, brevity…

Al Denelsbeck

You and I both know I’m not too familiar with the concept, but we’ll make the attempt, okay?

Anyway, I have a buttload of photos that I’d like to feature before I even get to the beach trip, but not enough time to do detailed posts about them, so I’ll toss down some brief descriptions and possibly send the rest over to the Latest Images page. Sound like a plan?

lily pad collection with single blossom
I took this to illustrate that, even if the focus is the lily, we can always do more with the framing. We won’t miss it even all the way up there in the corner, but now it’s an accent to the patterns of the pads.

unidentified water flower against background of amphibian eggs
Another illustration of framing and selective focus; the background dots are a large quantity of amphibian eggs on the water’s surface.

Demonstrating the difference that positioning and effort can make. This is what the Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) looked like when first spotted. Pretty humdrum.

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis in shadows
But then, I carefully shifted around, endeavoring not to disturb the plant at all, to change the viewing angle, finding a small gap in the leaves to work with.

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis from a better angle
Now we have a more personal angle, and the furtiveness and ‘hidden’ aspect gets enhanced, even though they’re really the same location. Certainly better than a dorsal view. These, by the way, date from late July – I’m further behind than I thought.

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis gazing at photographer
A little later on in the same session, the mantis had moved to a spot that was easier to access, and when it turned to watch what I was up to, that’s when I took the shot. Just a simple demonstration of the small differences that are easy to accomplish.

Let’s get a little variety of color in here.

unidentified orthopteran on unidentified flower
I watched this locust/grasshopper fly from the lawn onto a flower blossom, and stalked it carefully to keep from spooking it again, knowing that it would still be wary after the initial scare. This was a frame that I’d considered using for the latest macro photography post, about doing more than illustration, but I passed it over in favor of better examples, so it appears here now. Makes you wonder who was stalking who, right? At least that was my intention.

tiger swallowtail Papilio glaucus drinking from phlox blossom
This one is merely illustration, though illustration of habits and details rather than just basic anatomy, at least, captured as a tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) delved deep into a phlox blossom. As I’ve often observed, there’s a lot of luck involved, but recognizing that the focus had to be on a specific point and that I had a bare couple of seconds to achieve this played prominently, as well. The ability to exploit the lucky circumstances, is what I’m saying – I gotta take some credit.

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis on banana leafOkay, back to green.

I knew that the Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) favored the banana and nearby palmetto plants in the botanical garden where all of these (so far) were taken, so we spent some time looking them over carefully to try and find some – that’s how the previous mantids were found, as well. Eventually, we were successful in finding a half-size juvenile, obviously this year’s brood, who was wary of our presence.

Following it carefully, we watched to see if it was going to provide a useful pose. It is worth nothing that the banana plant that it was perambulating across had huge leaves and was off the immediate path, so getting close or choosing a large variety of angles wasn’t going to happen – which is fairly typical for just about any kind of nature photography. This might look like I’m right on top of it, but it’s a tight crop from the Mamiya 80mm macro, and I was better than a meter away from it. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but the anole was only about 7cm in length to begin with, tail included – a ‘normal’ view would have had it almost disappearing against the huge leaves and stems and their assorted shadows. And ‘shadows’ is a key word here, because eventually, it jumped across to the right spot, and I was able to change position adequately.

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis shadow against banana leafAlas, my timing was just a bit off, and the anole had crept forward enough to put its head in shadow before I could get set to capture the silhouette that I was after. So this isn’t really the print-quality fartsy shot I had tried to achieve, but at least serves to illustrate thinking of a more creative approach.

The toes, of course, are the same size in each photo, but show up a lot more impressively in this one because of the contrast. There’s also the curious idea, which just now hit me, that the anole is holding a leaf up to its face with the forelegs, perhaps a member of the Witness Protection Program, or maybe just tipping some ants down to its mouth. I probably spend too long looking at my own photos…

But here’s another little observation: the textures of the backlit leaf are an element all their own, and I’ve shot such before just as abstracts. Now, though, I have a brand new goal of trying to get an anole silhouette in such a way that the leaf textures and the anole’s shape and position coincide, the curves matching and accentuating one another. I’m not expecting to nail this one anytime soon, but it’s the very awareness of these factors that will make me watch carefully for them to occur. Granted, this vigil will likely begin next spring at least, as we’re nearing the end of anole season here.

We found another of the same size that day, who is going to transition this post from green to brown – the frame below isn’t exciting, but the pose is adequate and the details are nice.

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolensis in brown display
The coloration is not indicative of a different sex, just a mood display, though I couldn’t tell you what provoked this – the behavior was perhaps a little less wary than the previous, but obviously it’s not trying to blend in here, and perhaps had spotted another anole (that we missed) that it was warning off. I’ve seen such changes occur, by the way, and it’s pretty fast – a second or two if they’re motivated.

Now we move on to a different day and location.

When my brother visited, he demonstrated that his spotting skills were competitively slick as he found this mantis that I had just passed.

Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina posing on leaf
This is a Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina,) about half the size of the more-common Chinese mantis that has appeared more often on this blog than any other species by far. I got slightly more of a scale shot when we let it stalk down his arm, but I should have backed off more to get the thickness of his arm in there, at least – I was concentrating on the mantis details and not thinking about what use I might put it to.

pregnant female Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina on arm
The swollen abdomen outclassing the wings pegs this as likely a pregnant female. The coloration is more widely variable than the Chinese, but the ‘urban camouflage’ pattern here is fairly common.

And I’ll close with a dragonfly from the same brief outing, one that I crept up to after a mating pair proved too elusive for any decent shots.

likely great blue skimmer Libellula vibrans with tattered hindwings
This is likely (as near as I can determine, anyway,) a great blue skimmer (Libellula vibrans,) judging from the eye and abdomen coloration and the dark tips to the wings; this took way too long to research. The tattered wings showed no visible detriment to its flying ability, and if I remember right, experiments done on several four-winged species indicated that the secondary wings were more for added maneuverability than much else, almost being redundant. Which seems odd to me, because the resources to develop and maintain such wings, which are clearly used in flight, could be better spent somewhere else; numerous other insect species have near-vestigial hindwings. But as I’ve said before, I just shoots ’em…

Draconids tonight

Al Denelsbeck

Just a quick reminder, but the Draconids meteor shower is peaking the evening of October 8th and 9th. As usual, the moon is a bit too bright for optimum viewing, but give it a shot anyway. What have you got to lose, except for sleep, patience, body heat, battery power, blood to mosquitoes, dropped keys, and possibly your virtue if you’re out there with someone else? Plus you can do a couple of moon shots to see what I mean about shooting something less-than-full, or some longer time exposures of the landscape by the light of the moon. Go for it.

I just features them

Al Denelsbeck

I can only guess that entomologists have a bigger lobbying body than I would have expected, because today has been named National Green Lynx Spider Day by the American Association of Let’s Make Every Damn Day a Holiday. While I find this a frivolous method of celebrating nothing at all, it is a national holiday and I accordingly have the day off, so far be it from me to shirk my patriotic duty. My friends frequently maintain that if there’s anything you can say about ol’ Al, it’s that he’s patriotic. And honest too.

Luckily enough, I have a few relatively recent photos of green lynx spiders (otherwise known as Peucetia viridans,) so this is not a stretch. Yes, I know I said something about beach pictures, but there’s a proper time and place for things, and they’ll have to wait.

green lynx spider Peucetia viridans perched on older flower
Green lynxes are ambush spiders, usually picking flowers with leaves that they blend in with well and hanging out until some stupid bug gets too close. Average size for the females is just under 30mm body length – decent-sized but not huge. At this time of year we’ve hit breeding season, which means fatter ones like that seen above are likely females about to produce an egg case, while thinner ones have either done so already (in which case ahaha you’ll see it very close by) or they’re males. They can certainly spin webs – most spiders can, regardless of their hunting technique – but generally any coordinated effort is for a nursery to protect the newborn young.

dragline webbing of green lynx spider Peucetia viridansWe’ll go in close for a second to see a detail that I missed at the time, but found in editing. You’re seeing the tip of the abdomen here, with the spinnerets and a pair of draglines that most spiders maintain, a constant safety harness that allows them to drop away from predators or hazards without losing their place, as it were; is some cases they also serve as invisible tripwires, little warning signals that something possibly-edible is blundering around nearby, but I can’t say for sure if the lynx spiders use them that way or not. Even in bright sunlight they can be near-impossible to spot, but go out early on a humid morning when the temperature has dropped below the dewpoint and you’ll see just how many spiders there might be in any given area, since the webbing collects dew and thus becomes visible. Seriously, you’ll probably find a buttload (ahaha) of webs everywhere.

By the way, as I fill up a little space alongside this image before moving on to the next, the webs of the two species of black widow spiders in the US are very strong, almost feeling like wire, and I’ve found them twice in this manner – the resistance as I put my hand against the strands was distinctly noticeable. Thankfully they don’t feel the need to rush out and bite everything that disturbs their webs.

green lynx spider Peucetia viridans likely ready to make an egg case
From her swollen abdomen and the fact that she’s not in position near something that would attract her food, I’m speculating that this one is not far from producing her egg case, but I have yet to capture this in progress, from any species really (except a snail.) I have no idea when it typically occurs, though ‘overnight’ is a wild guess, nor how long it takes; I really need to stake out an expecting mum and watch for it, but we have none close enough to maintain such a vigil – I haven’t seen one in the yard. The images here were taken either in the NC Botanical Garden or at Gold Park.

green lynx spider Peucetia viridans with egg case
And this is one with her egg case; you can see how much girth she’s lost after producing it. This is not the same spider, but was shot in the same location on the same day, not two meters from the other, but the sun had gone behind a cloud when I tackled this one. I’m not sure what makes for the bumpy/spikey appearance of the case, but it might simply be from the anchoring web strands. In my experience, the egg cases are pale green for the first day or so after being made, then turn a dead-leaf brown and remain that way. It will be several weeks before the young hatch, and the mother will hang around on the case or nearby the entire time, and run interference for the young for a while after hatching.

male and female green lynx xpsider Peucetia viridans possibly in courtship
Now, I’m not exactly sure what I captured here, but I have strong suspicions that it’s a courtship in progress, with the male at top; he was definitely monkeying around near the back of the female, and looks to me here like he’s gathering in webbing that she’s producing. There are a couple of things that make me pause, however. The first is, she appears to be already well along the path to motherhood (though I know you should never assume, much less mention, anything of the sort,) so if I’m correct he’s late to the party. But she made no moves to chase him off either, or eat him or hit him with a frying pan or call HR. Secondly, the reproductive organs of the female are not located anywhere near that spot, but well underneath the spider just aft of the thorax, close to the legs (well, duh.) It is, in fact, the dark spot seen on her underside below as I went around to the sunny side, which made the exposure better but hid too much of the behavior.

underside of female green lynx spider Peucetia viridans showing epigyne
The male spent some time finagling around up there, but never engaged in anything resembling copulation, possibly because he never received any receptive signals from the female – I dunno. It’s another thing that I should have captured on video, but it’s not as easy as simply saying that. Focus is wildly variable at macro magnification, requiring a steady subject and camera, and the position that I was in to capture these, slightly above my head on a tall flowering plant, was already awkward; a tripod would have been out of the question, and the breeze was swaying the plant back and forth too much to maintain focus. There are better conditions to pursue such things within.

I close with a not-green-lynx-spider, but an unidentified crab spider, genus Thomisidae, because I’m a rebel. During the same session in the botanical garden, I finally managed to spot a crab spider after much searching; the area is often ideal for them, but this year hasn’t been indicative of that at all. This one is tiny, only millimeters across, and I have several frames where focus was off, mostly from my own swaying. No, this is not unprofessional unsteadiness, but a purposeful motion like praying mantids use to appear like a plant in the breeze and disguise my true nature. So there.

unidentified tiny crab spider genus Thomisidae

Storytime 40

Al Denelsbeck

ganesha idol found on shore of Jordan Lake
This is one of those entries that I don’t actually know the story behind, but it at least suggests that there is one…

On the same outing from the previous post, the Insurmountable Mr Bugg and I opted to climb down a less-than-wheelchair-friendly route to the water’s edge where I knew we’d have a better view of the sunrise – that is, of course, if the sunrise wasn’t shrouded in clouds, which it was. The region is a nice enough beach, but requires a little bit of an awkward descent down to the water level from the road some seven or eight meters above, along a heavily eroded near-cliff face held in place by tree roots – not your ideal picnic area, in other words. Yet, as we got down there, we found this idol of the hindu god ganesha sitting on a small rise facing the water, a little ways down the beach.

First off, the condition of the statue says that it’s seen better days, and may have been sitting there for quite a while, or may have washed up and been placed there by the finder. It’s hard to imagine that it was put there intentionally as some sort of observance, but who knows? On another outing many kilometers away on the same lake, we’d found what appeared to be a food offering on the beach, too early in the morning for anyone’s lunch and arranged too neatly to be a randomly-forgotten snack. Is this common? I have no idea.

ganesha is a god of good fortune in the hindu pantheon, and perhaps best known as the remover of obstacles, but also as the patron of arts, sciences, intellect, and wisdom, so there is a bit of irony in this post pleading near total ignorance. And given that this area of the lake showed little debris at all, and what could be found was mostly in the form of fishing line and the occasional soda bottle, it’s a pretty random object to appear there. I’ll leave it up to you to piece together the full story.

Bad light and good birds

Al Denelsbeck

tree stump on still morning on Jordan Lake
Some weeks back, Buggato and I did a sunrise session down at Jordan Lake, which was an undeniably mixed bag. While we haven’t had rain in forever (seriously, like one five-minute shower since Dorian blew through uneventfully,) the morning was still too cloudy to see the sun at all until well after sunrise, so no rich colors and frameable prints on that end. But before the breezes of the day had begun, I took the opportunity to frame an old stump against the inordinately still waters – a stump that I’m almost certain I’d photographed 14 years earlier. Compare those horizon lines and tell me what you think.

The waterfowl, however, were more than adequately present, if difficult to photograph in the weak light, and we spent some time stalking them as they flitted back and forth between ideal spots along the lakeshore.

great egret Ardea alba on shore of Jordan Lake
Several great egrets (Ardea alba) were milling about, and allowed us to get within a useful shooting distance, for a long lens at least. They seem reasonably used to people in this particular area, so all we had to do was remain quiet and move slowly. By the way, this occurred within about a half-kilometer or so of this photo (and this,) so I’m not complaining one bit.

We even got a few flying by which, again, wasn’t helped at all by the lack of sunlight, but I snagged a couple of useful frames nonetheless. Notice that now there was enough of a breeze to stir the lake surface.

great egret Ardea alba flying past over Jordan Lake
This one I happened to like because of the way the head lined up with the wing. Sometimes, you get a cool frame simply because you’re taking the opportunity to fire off a bunch as your subject is being cooperative. I usually recommend the opposite, which is thinking about the shot and planning for it as much as possible instead of relying on chance, but there’s no way I could have timed such an alignment of head and wing, or even seen it clearly enough in the viewfinder.

We were hoping to spot some bald eagles, and I thought I might have seen one alight in a tree around the point, so we made our cautious way over there, eyeing the trees carefully. As we got almost directly underneath the spot where I’d seen it land, we’d found absolutely nothing, and I figured I’d either misjudged its location or it had slipped off around the bend while out of sight. And then, right smack in front of us in the shallows, an osprey (Pandion haliaetus) slammed into the water in pursuit of a fish; I had been right about the location, but not the species (I told you it was dim,) and the osprey wasn’t at all concerned with our proximity. I’d missed the initial action but brought the camera to bear as quickly as I could, and was rewarded with the takeoff at least.

osprey Pandion haliaetus breaking from water with captured fish
And then, to set a pattern that was to hold for the rest of the session, the autofocus failed to track worth a shit, and I have several close frames of an incredibly blurry bird, before it finally found its mark again and locked back on. I might credit this to bad centering on my part, but the camera is usually set for wide-field, multi-point focus in such situations and my subject tracking isn’t that bad. This isn’t the first time either; something’s going on, and I’m hoping to find out what eventually.

osprey Pandion haliaetus shaking off water from recent capture
Note the water droplets – at least the occasional frame comes out right. Osprey, and indeed many other diving birds, often climb out for a few seconds and get a bit of altitude before doing a full-body shimmy to rid themselves of excess water, which someday I’m going to capture on video. Judging from the flatness of the feathers, that isn’t what’s happening here; it’s just residual drippiness.

The sun did eventually struggle free from the clouds, panting and exhausted, but it was a while before the light was strong, and while this was happening, none of the birds around us were inclined to cross either the limited colors of the clouds nor the brief appearances of the glitter trails on the water. I watch for that kind of thing, but nooooo….

morning sun barely peeking through clouds
Eventually, after finding too little to sustain us in that region of the lake (except for some fartsy shots,) we headed a short distance off to another promising spot, the same where a great egret had landed in the trees right over my head (that’s linked a couple of paragraphs above – you never bothered to click, did you?) Knowing that a particular cove often played host to herons, egrets, and osprey, we carefully scoped out the area as much as possible from a distance, then slowly made our way deeper into the cove. We’d spotted nothing, and I eventually started out into the shallow water to get a view into the treetops overhead, to see if anything was hanging out there. I wasn’t seeing much, but glanced to the side and abruptly froze, hissing at Mr Bugg for caution and silence, since an osprey was perched in plain sight right at the edge of the cove.

osprey Pandion haliaetus perched in hunting position
This shot is full frame at 600mm, with the osprey being 20-25 meters off; there was no question that it could see us, because we couldn’t have been any more obvious out in the open water. It just wasn’t concerned about our presence at all, at least at this minimal distance. Communicating in very quiet whispers and moving with due caution, we started creeping closer at times, firing off a ridiculous number of frames. The following are all cropped a bit for better detail.

osprey Pandion haliaetus searching for fish
You might think that it’d be keeping a wary eye on us and our suspicious behavior, but it was more intent on finding breakfast. I’m used to osprey wheeling around overhead and spotting their food while on the wing, but this takes less energy, I admit. And they might prefer to do this when the wind is stronger and thermals can hold them aloft with little effort, which may not have developed by this point in the morning.

osprey Pandion haliaetus watching photographer for a moment
Out of dozens of frames, this is the only one where the bird is definitely looking right at us; other times it might have been in our general direction, but it’s clear from the head and eye angle that it’s paying more attention to the water below. Though in one instance, as a turkey vulture wheeled overhead (which puts the lie to the speculation that the thermals were insufficient, so this appears to be just a lazy bird,) the osprey eyed the sky for a few moments, obviously more concerned about the vulture than about us.

osprey Pandion haliaetus watching turkey vulture overhead
Several times, its attention seemed to indicate a potential launch for food, and we sat at the ready, arms aching from holding the big lenses up to our eyes, while the osprey faked us out. But eventually it took off and circled overhead casually, with my autofocus locking on less often than it should’ve. At length, the osprey dropped into the water and came out with a fish, and then circled the area several times; I finally figured out that it wanted to return to its perch, but didn’t feel safe with us present (despite having sat there for a measured ten minutes while we danced in the water,) so I motioned us back under the tree canopy a bit. But during that time, we were tracking its movements and firing off frames, and I managed to get one that was okay, but not ideal, while it held the fish in its talons.

osprey Pandion haliaetus passing overhead with captured fish
Knowing that it would be out of commission for a little while as it consumed the fish, we wandered off to another area to see if anything else could be found, as we were near the end of the session time. Finding nothing, we did one more quick peek at the cove, and discovered that an osprey was back to wheeling over the water; I couldn’t say for sure if it was the same one or not. We ended up running over time as we tried for more frames, hoping to get the moment of capture. I got so frustrated with the autofocus wandering at inopportune times that I switched to manual, because the tiny tweaks needed were far less than the tracking motor was taking the focus, even though I cannot honestly recommend trying to manually focus on a circling bird, unless you like apoplexy.

This next one is again full-frame, so you get the idea of how close the osprey passed overhead, and I don’t feel bad about focus and tracking on this one because, this close, that’s a lot of movement to stay on top of.

osprey Pandion haliaetus passing close overhead with fish
Even after I unloaded the card and was looking at these on the large monitor, I was wondering if the damn bird had somehow dropped the fish we’d seen it carrying, but then I realized it was a trick of the light on an unimpressive catch; the fish is there, if you look. But to assist, here’s a full-resolution inset of the same frame.

inset of frame showing osprey Pandion haliaetus talons and fish
Knowing the size of ospreys (I’ve handled a couple during my rehab days,) I don’t think that fish tops out more than 8cm in length, so barely a snack. But those talons are impressive, aren’t they? If you go swimming in these waters, it’s undoubtedly a bad idea to do so in trunks decorated with little fishies.

Overall, the session was productive enough, I have to admit, despite the lack of sunrise, and this post catches me up a little on the backlog of photos and stories that I’m working through. Thankfully I’m not trying to do this on any schedule, because I’d be constantly wrecking it, but they’re still coming, in due time.

The age of aquarium

Al Denelsbeck

Still doing the terrible title puns, of course – hey, you do 1600+ posts and see how your titling efforts hold up. This has nothing whatsoever to do with taking delight in terrible puns, not at all…

We’re going to go back several weeks here, to a period just after the New York trip (First, second, and third posts.) I had collected several dozen freshwater snail shells and a handful of little aquatic critters while there, but never devoted the time to photographing them on location, as it were, so they came back down with me. Then, while checking out the nearby pond with my brother, I spotted another curious aquatic arthropod, and went back a couple days later and retrieved it – this was atypical luck on my part, since most times when I spot something that I have no way of collecting at the time, I never see it again on subsequent searches.

But let’s not jump ahead too far – building the right momentum within a post is an art (notice that I said nothing about my skills, or lack thereof, at such art.) We’ll start with the NY critters.

perhaps juvenile crayfish
My brother felt these were juvenile crayfish, which I cannot dispute since I have no idea what juvenile crayfish look like; all I know is they look a lot like the amphipods that I used to find all the time in Florida. Only those were saltwater denizens, while this is fresh. Getting a decent picture was somewhat hampered by the staining of the tank’s glass, but much more so by the hyperactivity of the little spuds – attempting to catch one during its brief pause usually consisted of almost pinning focus down before they flitted off again. All of these photos, by the way, were taken with the same macro aquarium found here; I can’t stress how handy such a thing is.

The critter, by the way, is only a few millimeters long, while the substrate is/are the shells that I mentioned, probably averaging about 12mm or thereabouts. There is a wide variety of coloration to them, which will appear in some later post, possibly during the winter slow season.

While chasing images of these and others, I noticed that a little bit of debris in the tank, what appeared to be a stem fragment or something, was moving rather purposefully. It was minuscule in size and not terribly close to the glass, so my images aren’t that impressive (I mean, even less so than normal,) but here it is anyway.

unidentified aquatic larva with protective 'cocoon'
Bear in mind this is no longer than the amphipod/crayfish, but seen at this magnification, the pattern of its camouflage is a bit more obvious. By eye, it just appeared to be random flotsam. Or jetsam – I don’t know how to tell them apart.

unidentified aquatic larva peeking from 'cocoon'
When I attempted to shift the shell it was perambulating across closer to the glass, naturally it ducked into hiding, but eventually peeked out enough to get a hint of gross detail. I never tried to identify this, since what I have is so sparse on characteristics that might assist, so I’m only guessing it’s a larva of some kind, one of many that constructs a case made from available materials to protect itself from marauding nature photographers, which only half worked. After leaving it alone for a few minutes, it simply vanished, but that’s not as mysterious as it might sound given the huge number of hidey-holes among the shells.

I also captured a few regular NC residents, which have appeared here a few times before: the giant water bugs, or electric light bugs, more accurately known as Belostoma flumineum.

giant water bug Belostoma flumineum eating its own kind
Yes, they’re doing what you think they’re doing, if you think they’re eating their own kind, or being eaten by their own kind (depending on which you focused upon.) I’ve never kept them for very long in the macro aquarium, but they’ve shown little hesitation in immediately making themselves at home, which means ravenously finding anything that they might consider edible. It’s a bug-eat-bug world out there.

When one paused against the glass, I took the opportunity to illustrate the curious underside, which likely aids in their respiration.

underside of giant water bug Belostoma flumineum showing trapped air
You can see that the tip of the abdomen is breaking the surface and is likely gathering air in that way, perhaps trapping it against the underside of the abdomen with what appears to be tiny hairs to assist this. I’m speculating ignorantly, of course, because I’m just a photographer, not an entomologist; one of these days I’ll actually partner up with someone who has the knowledge, and together we’ll become this unstoppable crime-fighting duo. Or something.

Now let’s get to the star of the show.

water scorpion genus Ranatra profile
This is a water scorpion, genus Ranatra, which is as far as I could pin it down right now since BugGuide.net is kinda thin on distinguishing details among the ten species in the region. The body length, from the tip of that Jughead nose to the snorkelass, is in excess of 40mm – quite impressive to see at the surface of an overflow pool. And that proboscis announces that this is not a vegetarian. Nonetheless, one of the giant water bugs didn’t find this too threatening.

giant water bug Belostoma flumineum perched on back of water scorpion genus Ranatra
While both are predatory, they remained like this for some time, neither appearing concerned about the other (and don’t ask me where that blue fiber came from – it just happened to be in the water and there wasn’t much I could do about it without disturbing things, even if I had seen it before snapping the frames.) Perhaps there is some form of professional courtesy, a recognition of Hemipteran peers, that prevents them from preying on one another.

water scorpion genus Ranatra preying on giant water bug Belostoma flumineum
Or perhaps not. After finishing the initial photo session, I turned off the bright focusing light that I had over the tank and turned to the computer to download the images; some time later I glanced over and found this, so, you know, maybe bug brains aren’t all that sharp, hard as that may be to imagine.

“Hey, Al,” I hear you say, “how about we finish up with a detail inset of that last frame?” Well, seriously, I was gonna spare you that, but since you’re asking, I guess you’re up to it. So here’s a nice closeup of the water scorpion and its prey. Because you’re so insistent.

detail inset of water scorpion genus Ranatra and water bug Belostoma flumineum
I mean, I can’t blame you for asking, because those eyes (of both species) are pretty cool to look at, and the water masked any milkshake-slurpy sounds that may have been emanating. Meanwhile, is that algae or fungus or something? I honestly don’t know.

I have a lot more images on the way, but they’re of totally unrelated subjects, for better or worse. We’re getting there.

Coming soon to a blog near you

Al Denelsbeck

sunset off Oak Island, NC
Since I still haven’t outsourced posts to Korea or anything yet, we have to deal with me having enough time to write up something more than vapid blather like, you know, this, but more is coming, I promise. In the interim, I throw down this photo from sunset. No, the nearby pond was not having an especially windy/choppy day – this is from a weekend beach trip that The Girlfriend and I took. Unfortunately, it was remarkably hot, so we did a little less than planned, but I can’t say the trip was wasted in any way, and I have more than a handful of shots. Watch this space for further developments.

1 … 155 156 157 158 159 … 321