Last Night 2: Cruise Control

I already used the title ‘Last night’ long ago, so this is a sequel I guess, and I needed an appropriate indicator of how good it will be. This was the most recognizable, appearing on everyone’s list…

There has been a female barn spider (Araneus cavaticus) maintaining a huge web right alongside the front porch for several days now, but she only occupies it at night, as they do, and has kept it above head height so we’re not interfering with it during the day. The other night, I noticed activity from a suitor, and yesterday during the day I thought I saw him tucked away near the upper anchors of the web. Now I know that most of the orb weavers seek shelter at the uppermost anchors, but I guess I’d assumed that the wandering males got their moves on in a single session, the proverbial ‘one-night strand,’ (I’m going to hell, we know that already,) and then moved on or, like, died in the attempt. Apparently not, or at least not every time.

pair of courting barn spiders Araneus cavaticus
We’ll be frank, and say that very few people ever see a barn spider and say, “Oh what a beautiful spider!” and this includes entomologists and those spiders that have gone into modeling. The most complimentary thing that can be said about them is, they look like a meatball that rolled under the fridge and was found a few years later, after the civilization that arose upon it went extinct. Nonetheless, booty is in the eye of the beholder, and our paramour here was hard at work trying to convince his chosen one to let him break one off. This, to our eyes, mostly consists of playing a complicated game of pattycake. But he was at a disadvantage, as you can tell if you look closely.

pair of courting barn spiders Araneus cavaticus
[You know I do that on purpose to make you stare at the creepy pics, which certainly keeps my readership numbers up.] Yes, he’s definitely missing a few limbs there, though there’s at least one hidden in back, visible in other photos. You might think this would make him less desirable, but a) she probably dismembered him herself, because spider courtship be that way; b) who knows what actual traits spiders really look for in mates – it could be insane persistence in the face of fragmentation; and c) do you really think barn spiders can afford to be the slightest bit picky? I mean, c’mon, they’ve looked like this for decades – they’re not breeding for beauty.

Another aspect of this photo is that the female (which is the larger one, not that I’m making any comment whatsoever about this fact,) is facing the camera directly, and you can see four of her eyes if you look close. Go on – you know you have to.

I had considered trying to video this whole process, but the combatants lovers were well over my head in an awkward position and seemed to be taking a long time just playing pattycake, so I decided getting out the tripod and video light was not worth the effort. Lucky you.

Moving on, but not in any way ‘ahead.’

Just outside the margins of the backyard pond, I found a thin glistening trail that was actually extending as I watched, and bent close thinking it was an earthworm. It was not, in fact sporting an anatomical trait I’d never seen before, and I ended up collecting it (circumspectly) for a detailed photo session.

Yes, The Girlfriend is a real person and not a figment of my imagination. Assholes.

shovel-headed flatworm Bipalium kewense
That broad head certainly had me going, and it maintained this distinct shape the whole time; it was the key to identifying it. But before we get that far, I have to point out that this little specimen could stretch out well over 20cm, and was as sticky on the underside as any slug, if not more so, and without knowing what the hell I’d found (suspecting some kind of leech from being right outside the pond,) I made sure I wasn’t touching it. It brought along several strands of pine straw and a few dead leaves as I collected it into a film can, but I eventually convinced these to part company as I ‘posed’ the wormlike-thing on a cluster of leaves.

shovel-headed flatworm Bipalium kewense on millimeter scale
Of course, like most of my photo subjects, it showed no inclination to cooperate and stay on the leaves, so we have portions of my desk appearing. I was dumb enough (shocking I know) not to get the millimeter scale out before I started the session, so I was juggling and wrangling my subject as I tried to pose it with the scale and get the camera back in hand before it slithered off across my desk and made me buy a new one.

top of 'head' of shovel-headed flatworm Bipalium kewense
I made the effort to examine the head closely for any signs of sensory apparatus, a mouth, earlobes, and so on, but this was in vain because the species barely has a ‘head’ to speak of. This is a shovel-headed flatworm (Bipalium kewense,) a type of land planaria that is an invasive species in this country and feeds on slugs and earthworms. As such, gardeners tend not to like them, because earthworms are good for the soil but these guys aren’t. And they have toxic internal organs, somehow collecting tetradodoxins within, so nothing eats them either. Not more than once, anyway.

underside of 'head' of shovel-headed flatworm Bipalium kewense
I wanted to see a mouth, so I got out the macro aquarium (again, later than I should’ve) and managed to get the flatworm to climb the glass long enough for a pic of the underside of the ‘head,’ though not long enough to get all the lint and grunge out of the image. I was aiming in entirely the wrong location, however, because their double-duty mouth/anus is located in the center of their underside. And if that’s not creepy enough, they cling to their prey, evert their pharynx, and bathe their meal in chemicals that make it dissolve on location, sucking up the results. Yeah, no, this research last night did not provoke any weird-ass dreams at all.

Now, to cap it all off, I still have this specimen in the film can, because I’m undecided yet on whether I will try for a photo of the mouth itself, or even feed it an earthworm to photograph (or video) this whole process in disgusting detail. It’s not too late, so feel free to send me words of encouragement and suggestions of angles and lighting and so on. Anyone can photograph bunnies, but someone has to get the fun stuff.

On this date 37

I have to note that, as I’m sorting through the images to decide what I’m going to feature, I see enough interesting photos not on this date that I think I’m going to have to revisit this practice again – perhaps not next year, but certainly at some later point. Maybe I simply won’t make it a weekly practice.

infra-red image of author's car alongside freeway
To start off today, we have an entry from 2006, when I was playing around with infra-red again. The image is okay at best, but it represents to me an attempt to salvage the day. The Girlfriend and I had driven a significant distance to see an airshow in Norfolk, Virginia, but between a late start, a missed turn, and absolutely horrendous traffic outside the air base, we eventually gave up entirely without even gaining entry; the most we witnessed were some F-15s doing low passes at high speed over the road we were gridlocked upon. So at one point on the return leg, I just parked the car along the freeway and did a few exposures. That’s my old car there, which I still miss, with The Girlfriend hidden in the passenger seat. You can see the streaks of some cars in the middle distance, due to the longer exposures needed for IR, and of course I tweaked contrast significantly to bring out the range better.

I also learned from that experience, and next time around, arrived very early, with a bit more success.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis in dark displayNext up comes from 2014, an outing at the NC Botanical Garden, as a Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) peers over a drying flower head. The species used to have the common name of ‘green anole,’ appropriately enough most of the time, but this one was easily the darkest phase I’ve ever seen, appearing nearly black. The color changes generally express mood, but I don’t know what mood this is portraying, and the behavior that I was seeing was typical. This one first appeared back in that year, but significantly after that date – I really can delay a lot when getting around to posting, and to be honest, I have worse examples sitting in the folder right now, waiting for me to get off my ass and write them up. However, I prepare these posts ahead of time, so it’s possible that at least some of them have already appeared because I managed to write another post that published before this one was scheduled. I could edit this to reflect that event, should it actually have come to pass, but this is more fun, plus I have some space alongside the image over there to keep filling. So, is there a post dated yesterday, or even today but appearing in the lineup ahead of this one? If so, then I managed to squeeze another out after I wrote all this. Aren’t these fascinating insights into editing?

unidentified tree hung with Spanish moss Tillandsia usneoides in Colonial Park Cemetery, Savannah, Georgia
Slightly out of order, we roll back to 2013, a tree in Colonial Park Cemetery in downtown Savannah, Georgia that I liked for its fartistic merit. I took a lot of photos that day, but like this one partially because of its strength, and partially because I don’t have to upload another image since I’ve featured this before.

And I went out of order for a reason, because in 2018, we were back in the Savannah area again.

seagulls above Cockspur Island lighthouse off Tybee Island, Georgia
Now, this isn’t the amazing coincidence that it undoubtedly seems, because we have taken several trips to the region at about this time, with the intention of being able to see sea turtles hatching – not that we have ever been successful. But since we have friends down there, it’s also an excuse (like we need one) to go visit them, though after getting chased out by hurricanes twice, we’ve largely discarded this practice. This is a reflection of the drastically different way The Girlfriend and I view trips. I can toss things in the car and leave with less than a few hours worth of consideration and preparation, taking things as they come even if it means having a hard time finding accommodations. The Girlfriend has to plan months in advance most times, ensuring that reservations are made and so on. Thus, her method gets hit hardest when weather events occur, while I’ll just switch days off and head out a week or two later. There’s good and bad in both approaches, but it also means that, on occasion, I’ll do a trip by myself, just to get out.

Anyway, this is Cockspur Island Lighthouse, on the inlet a little inside of Tybee Island (which has its own lighthouse, but they have different purposes.) I was timing shots to get very distant gulls in the photo, and then cropped this one to emphasize their participation in the composition. We’ve seen this before, too.

Anyway, let me see if I get to/have already gotten to another post…

I like these bushes

unidentified crab spider genus Thomisidae hiding within blossom of Black Knight butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
If you have the faintest interest in doing arthropod photography, you could do a lot worse than getting yourself a butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii) or three. They’re readily available most anywhere, come in a variety of colors, and most importantly, have a very long blossoming season while attracting a significant breadth of insects, as well as hummingbirds on occasion. This year, I have three, soon to be joined by a fourth (if I ever get around to transplanting it from a neighbor’s house – yes, with their permission.) But by far, it’s been the Black Knight variety that’s been the most productive, and I haven’t even staked it out for a long period to really do the job right.

Several examples of the species above are found routinely on the blossoms now, tiny little crab spiders that I’ve never tried to pin down the exact identification of, but genus Thomisidae anyway. They’re seriously outclassed by a lot of the pollinators that arrive, but they’re finding enough to eat – for instance, they’re the perfect size to prey on mosquitoes, so they’re certainly not going to starve.

unidentified crab spider genus Thomisidae on blossom of Black Knight butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
If you’re familiar with butterfly bushes, you know that they bloom in elongated clusters of several dozen to several hundred little blossoms, each only 4-6mm across, so you can guess the scale of the spider – from normal viewing distances, they simply look like chaff. The ambush bugs, while still quite small, are notably bigger, but the largest predators that I’ve found are the mantids.

juvenile Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis perched on butterfly bush Buddleia davidii with raindrop on back
Earlier in the year – this was taken in June – the juvenile Chinese mantises (Tenodera sinensis) would stake out the plants, usually sitting just beneath the clusters waiting to snag a meal or twelve, but as the mantises grew larger, less able to hide among the leaves, they abandoned the bushes and let others take over. Though while we’re here, check out the raindrop on the mantid’s back above.

juvenile Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina perched on new blossom cluster of butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
Carolina mantises (Stagmomantis carolina) hatch later in the year and are much smaller than Chinese mantises, so they maintain a longer stalking season on the bushes. Aside from their size, a key identifier is the abdomen curving upwards, often quite sharply as seen above, other times not as much.

juvenile Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina posed on butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
[Boy, let me tell you, it’s getting tedious putting in these photos. Each one has the subjects identified in common and scientific names, which hardly trip lightly off the keyboard, so each photo has practically a sentence for the embedded description, but this is very helpful to any image searches for such species.] This is a particularly vivid specimen, even when camouflaged this way, and might even have been the one that I later watched stalking a skipper. I really should have sat down and staked out the bushes for a while this summer – that’s why I got them, really – because now we’ve passed the season when the mantids would be using them, even the Carolina mantises now in reproducing adult phase and not hanging around on these particular plants.

But they weren’t the only ones that liked the bushes. Back in July, I spotted a lacewing egg and went in for a tight closeup, getting more that I imagined.

dried butterfly bush Buddleia davidii blossom showing lacewing egg, unidentified 'inchworm,' and molted leafhopper exoskeleton
That’s the lacewing egg at the top, the white thing on top of the threadlike stalk – that’s how lacewings lay their eggs. But lower to the right, we have the molted exoskeleton of the leafhopper nymphs that were partaking of the plant’s sap, while to the left, the camouflage behavior of an unidentified ‘inchworm’ caterpillar, doing a great job of looking like a twig; neither of these were spotted until I examined the photos afterward.

And finally (so far, anyway) we have a brief visit from a sphinx moth.

snowberry clearwing Hemaris diffinis at butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
I had the camera in hand for just one visit from a snowberry clearwing moth (Hemaris diffinis,) though I’ve seen at least one other visit, and in my experience the clearwings seem to prefer the butterfly bushes – there’s a shot from another location coming up later on. With their long proboscises (or proboscides) the clearwings make short order of the tiny amount of nectar that can collect in those blossoms, taking less than a second for each, so the hovering moths flit their way around the blossom clusters fairly quickly, and nailing focus is challenging – this post contains the best photos that I’ve taken of them to date. But their season isn’t over yet, so maybe we’ll see what happens a little later on in the month. In the meantime, this post features a previous incarnation at the old house almost exactly seven years ago, attracting far more attention than this years’ plants. I just take that as a challenge.

Viva Variety

I’m wondering how many people actually remember that show

Anyway, we’re counting down (no we’re not) the backlog of photos that I’ve got prepped in my blog folder, that I’m skipping around non-chronologically among in an effort to not have back-to-back posts of insects, and so on. Today, we’re doing a follow-up with the tadpoles… kinda. Because these photos were taken four days ago and the development has progressed much further in the interim, but back when I obtained them, some flamboyantly-dressed psychopath was threatening our fair city, and I had to take care of that first. I’m sure you read about it.

In the last post featuring our resident amphibians, I remarked that all of those that I saw were in the same stage of development, but such was not the case this time. I captured three, and they were all quite different.

unidentified tadpole showing newly-developed hind legs
One was noticeably less developed than previously, sporting a pair of limbs that were frankly embarrassing, so of course I’m going to show them off for all to see here (“all” being the three people who might actually be reading.) And despite my efforts to show scale, those limbs just about disappeared in the broader shot, so we’ll have to go in closer.

closeup of newly-developed legs of unidentified tadpole
For all the motion that they displayed, these might as well have been tattooed onto the tail – only on rare occasions did they appear to flop freely away from the body, without any muscular control whatsoever. But I do like that they still possess their own collection of pigment spots, which are interesting in their own right. The tadpoles appear, in all normal circumstances, to be a uniform dark brown, though if you obtain the right viewing angle, the transparency of the belly skin can be apparent. Up close and under the light of the flash, the skin is revealed to be spotted randomly with patches of pigment that will shine gold at just the right light angles. This means something, but I’ll be dipped if I know what it is.

Then we have what I was expecting to find.

unidentified tadpole with further developed hind legs
This one was demonstrating not just more defined limbs, but actual muscle control, occasionally giving little push kicks with those limbs to assist with the typical fish-like tail motion that propelled it through the water. Adding the the effect was some visible development of the webbing on those hind feet.

visible webbing on developing hind limbs of unidentified tadpole
The substrate at the bottom of the tank, by the way, is typical beach sand, just to give you the impression of their diminutive size and my remarkable abilities at macro photography…

You’ll also notice that the leg is being held in a useful manner, tucked up as if it could support weight (not yet) rather than flapping around behind. Though even when settling to the bottom, the tadpole was resting its weight entirely on its rotund belly.

And then we have Mk III, the sport model.

unidentified tadpole with well-developed fore and hind limbs
Now featuring all four limbs in good development, this one was getting ready for its emergence. Not only were the limbs being held in typical supportive positions while resting (ever so briefly) on the bottom, the tadpole was now swimming in froglike fashion, almost as if it was attempting to jump through the water rather than swimming, with the tail now hanging limply and without effect. And curiously, even though I’m almost positive that they’re all from the same brood, the size difference was visible and the reverse of what I expected.

two unidentified tadpoles, likely of the same brood, showing size difference at different stages of development
I do not know whether to credit this to feeding prowess and/or genetic predisposition, or (what I consider more likely) that the body reserves were now dedicated towards muscle development. I don’t presently have an aquarium large enough to hold developing tadpoles for several days, where I could observe a few individuals to get a more complete timeline of their progress, and by now (four days later, as I said,) these specimens are all drastically different. Like the mantids, I have no way of telling individuals apart – the tiny branding irons that I ordered never arrived.

In that previous post, I figured the tadpoles were too big to be treefrogs and speculated that they were green frogs instead (the adults would just fit within your palm,) but seeing how small the one is as the limbs are well-developed, I am likely wrong about that; these could be treefrogs, though I won’t guess whether these are greens or Copes greys.

And just to give you an idea of how well developed that last one was, I left the macro aquarium alone on my desk for a short while, considering that I might examine the moss that I’d also collected for evidence of tardigrades (a photo goal for a long time now,) and the four-legged specimen released himself of his own recognizance; I found him outside of the tank, sitting nearby on my desk and trying to hide within a face mask. Upon his somewhat-tricky recapture, he showed a loathing of the water, wanting nothing to do with it, and I had to ferry him back out to the pond in another container. Even when I deposited him into the pond with its good protective cover, he headed straight for the sides and climbed out, though he waited impatiently right at the edge for me to get my vast ugly bulk out of the way. I am sure that at this point, he (and numerous siblings) are traipsing their tiny little bodies about our lawn, just to make me tiptoe through the backyard for a while.

On this date 36

So we’re gonna talk briefly about coincidences today, because they must mean something! Or not. Almost certainly not. But remember last week when I featured the golden tortoise beetle (Charidotella sexpunctata,) and said that it was only the second time I’d ever seen one? This is the first:

golden tortoise beetle Charidotella sexpunctata in orange defensive mode
Taken on this date in 2013 – funny how I photographed them a week shy of four years apart.

Or likely not, because most arthropods have active seasons for certain behaviors, so it may be that there are only a few weeks out of the year (or even less) when I’m most likely to see this species as adults anyway. But that’s not half as dramatic, so we’ll go back to isn’t that weird!?

Another one, out of chronological order, for which I apologize not at all. Get over it.

pink rose blossom with raindrops
This is from 2011, The Girlfriend’s favored rose bush which I inadvertently uprooted a few years later when I pulled away a section of fence that it had grown through. She liked it because of the lemony scent, and we spent no small amount of time trying to find another like it, with The Girlfriend’s Sprog eventually succeeding a few years ago.

Now we go to 2014:

orange rose blossom with raindrop
Definitely in a rut here – I should start doing whiskers on kittens or some damn thing. This is not a lemony one, but another we’d purchased as a gift for someone who didn’t really deserve it, and now I’m slightly irritated. Still, I could do yet another wet rose pic today I suppose, if the weather cooperates, but I can’t get motivated over that as a yearly routine somehow.

Okay, that’s it for the coincidence bit. Moving on.

great egret Ardea alba in distance framed by tree branches
Definitely a fartsy kind of day, it seems – don’t know what that’s about. But I kind of like the framing of this one, just playing around with the egret who visited the nearby pond for a few days – it seems to be almost an annual thing, and never lasts very long.

And finally, an entry from last year, still being fartsy. I’ll stop soon, I promise – there’s nothing worse than someone pretending to have vision or style.

pair of dragonflies silhouetted against pond on thorn bushes
Wait! This is the same pond as the previous entry! What are the chances? Well, considering how many thousands of frames I’ve taken there, pretty damn good, is the official tally. I’m pretty sure this was from one of the many evenings I went over near sunset to see what the sky would bring, having no luck thereof, so I grabbed what I could. And you get to suffer for it. I wouldn’t stand for that, if I were you…

He’s a grower

I know, I’m attributing gender to an amphibian, long before adulthood even, but it made the title work better.

I’ve got more arthropods to feature, but we’re taking a short break to show off another find. It should have been a few days ago, because it would have been more distinct then, but no, I was being lazy…

tadpole possibly green frog Lithobates clamitans showing newly-formed hing legs
The backyard pond went very dormant for a while, nearly all evidence of life vanishing from it, and I wondered what the cause was; there was nothing specific that I could bring to mind, but it might have been contamination from the neighborhood pond nearby, since it seemed to occur right after I deposited a juvenile painted turtle and the water from its holding tank therein (the homeowners, or at least one of them, have taken it upon themselves to treat the pond for weeds, without any indication that they know what they’re doing, but with a noticeable appearance of a lot of dead turtles, so I’m fairly comfortable saying their dosages are incorrect.)

But recently, I noticed that we now had a batch of largish tadpoles within the pond – large enough that I doubt they’re either of the treefrog species, but suspect the green frogs (Lithobates clamitans) instead; there were at least three that resided in that pond for the past few years, and though I have seen no evidence of them recently, now we have tadpoles, so…

And as shown here, they’re starting to develop their hind legs, ‘starting’ being the key word. Not something to be proud of, yet.

tadpole possibly green frog Lithobates clamitans with newly-formed legs
These were taken in my macro aquarium, with some degree of difficulty. Capturing a few was easy-peasy, but for unknown reasons they all eschewed the nice, clear, unmarked (largely) glass at the front of the tank to go snuggle up the the cloudy, scratched, curved plastic of the rear, so getting them to pause up close to the glass for maximum clarity was actually taxing. I thought it might be my presence, or the lighting, or the green photo I was using as a backdrop, but when I turned the tank around, they stayed with the plastic side, so it seemed to be a dislike of the glass. Got me.

newly-formed hind limb of tadpole, possibly green frog Lithobates clamitans
Like I said, a few days previously when I first examined them, the legs were still more pathetic, if you can imagine that, but even now they flap along in the wake of the swimming motions like tinsel dangling from a cat’s ass. Muppets have more muscular-looking appendages. It’ll still be a few days yet before the front limbs appear, rather suddenly if past experience is any indication, and not too long after that, they’ll venture forth onto dry land, and I’ll try to follow up then.

But while I was doing macro work with the tank, I had to do a closeup of the mouth.

mouth detail of tadpole, possibly green frog Lithobates clamitans
I’m not bothering to look up details of tadpole anatomy (see above re: laziness,) but I do know that tadpoles don’t have gills and gulp their air with frequent visits to the water’s surface, so perhaps we’re looking at some degree of gill-equivalence here. Or maybe they’re just scrapers that help them scour food from plant surfaces and rocks. I don’t know; jump in if you like, I’m just doing the visuals.

With the water sample came along way too many mosquito nymphs, so I did a couple of detail shots of those, too.

two stages of mosquito nymph
There are actually two different stages of the same species’ development shown here – I believe, anyway. The upper one is in profile and is very close to emerging from the water as a feeding, annoying adult, showing the developed compound eyes, the pale developing legs and wings curved around, and the breathing ‘snorkels’ at upper left. While the bottom one is much younger, with little recognizable because this stage is dedicated to entirely different habits. I went in close for one of these, too.

mosquito nymph detail
There! Everything becomes more adorable as a baby, doesn’t it?

Maybe at some point I’ll do some video (probably about the same time I do some real research,) but for now I can tell you that those little gold things bottom center were in constant agitation, and are likely filter-feeders. Seen head on, or kinda from the top down, the eyes are the dark spots to either side, likely quite rudimentary because they’re only used to avoid danger by thrashing away without any real swimming skill.

Yes, we should not be breeding any mosquito larva in the pond, and after this, I did a bunch of net skimming to pull out as many as possible, followed by a treatment with the biological mosquito bombs, which are not supposed to harm the tadpoles, or indeed anything else, and to the best of my observations they fulfill this claim. I’d love to get more natural mosquito predators in the pond (like dragonfly nymphs,) but so far they have not been convinced to breed there often enough. I still may do some more detail shots of their emergence as adults, as well as egg-laying and hatching, but keeping the mosquitoes down in the yard takes a higher precedence, really.

Do svidaniya, August!

Really, the month’s pickings for abstract images is slim, even for my liberal and imprecise definition of the word (‘abstract,’ not ‘month,’) so we have this little number. But I may get some shooting done today, so perhaps I’ll have an addendum post show up later on, because this is embarrassing.

possibly smooth sumac Rhus glabra seen from directly above
I’m identifying this as a smooth sumac tree (Rhus glabra,) but under duress and with lots of subtle tics and twitches to indicate such. I just happened to see the layout as I passed over it on a footbridge and could shoot straight down into the crown.

By the way, if you think I’ve misspelled the title, that’s because Cyrillic spelling doesn’t translate to English precisely and there are several variations, but it’d be far more confusing to say, “до свидания, August!” – even I can’t read that. You know, linguist that I am.

Callback

pearl crescent butterfly Phyciodes tharos perched on leaf
I’ve had this one sitting in the blog folder for a few weeks, waiting for me to feature it, and now seems as good a time as any, since I missed the really cool date to do so. If by ‘really cool’ we mean, ‘might have been a neat coincidence if it weren’t for the fact that we could never know, but were far too late regardless.’ You know, that meaning.

Y’see, way back in the early days of building my stock images, I snagged a shot that I particularly liked, featured here; nothing fancy, but seemed (to me at least) to have a simple charm and nice contrast. So when I saw the same species again in a similar position, I grabbed it. I knew it didn’t have the strength (or whatever) of the first, but it was a nice reference back. And then, when about to do this post, I decided to check the original, which was done on slide film back when I lived in Raleigh, and I knew it was shot at the head of the Neuse River. The labs often included a date on the slide mount, but that would only tell me when it was developed, not when it was taken – EXIF info in the jpeg files is one of the nicer advantages of digital. I was curious to see if it was anywhere near the same date, which is not as farfetched as it might seem, since the species is only going to be active for a few months of the year anyway.

Alas, the date on the mount is 6/29/00, so it was taken sometime before then – probably within two weeks, given that I developed my slides pretty quickly and I was doing as much shooting as I could in that time. But that’s still a ways away from August 8th, the date of this one, so we missed the 20 year anniversary by several weeks. Damn.

But then, because the contrast was nice and I was experimenting, I decided to play with the color channels again and convert it to monochrome.

pearl crescent butterfly Phyciodes tharos in monochrome red channel only
This was done by converting the image into the Channels and using just the red one – the method to do this with Photoshop and some of its derivatives can be found here, while the GIMP method can be found here (I should update that web page with this I suppose.) Did a great job of making the butterfly (which is a pearl crescent, Phyciodes tharos) stand out more, but without the color comparison the contrast is high enough to make one believe it was a white butterfly instead.

But the first was still better.

Why don’t we check out the lake?

Later in the morning yesterday – much later than I should’ve – I decided to take a quick trip down to Jordan Lake, see if there was anything happening down there. I had no intentions of spending a lot of time, and in fact was planning to meet someone for lunch, so, whatever I could find in 90 minutes or less (or it’s free!)

Not too shabby, for all that.

pair of osprey Pandion haliaetus wheeling overhead
I feel like I need to keep reminding people (dunno why,) but nature photography is very unpredictable; even if you know the habits and habitats of any given target species, even if you plan meticulously, you can see nothing worthwhile for your efforts. Or you may just snag a few good frames with only trivial preparation. A flight of turkey vultures was wheeling overhead, taking advantage of a small thermal (rising warm air mass) on the edge of the lake, but among them, slightly higher in altitude, were a pair of osprey (Pandion haliaetus.) As I watched, they converged in banks briefly, and I was already backing off the focal length to get them both in the frame.

But that’s too small to see detail, so we’ll go in tighter on that one on the right.

osprey Pandion haliaetus banking
The day was a bit hazy, with a largely boring, colorless sky, but I got lucky with the timing on this one and had a bit of blue to work with, while the sun remained low enough to get some acceptable lighting on them as they banked. Early and late sunlight hours are almost always better for the birds, since the birds are most active then, as well as providing light angles that work for our vantage underneath.

A great egret (Ardea alba) cruised in and landed nearby, but stayed in a cluttered region that sucked for photos, then flew a little ways away when I tried to creep over to a better vantage. But, this allowed me to get better angles.

great egret Ardea alba peering over snag on lake
This is a fairly tight crop, because the suspicious expression comes through better this way. It would be easy to believe that I was the target of this look, but I was quite a distance away, farther than when it had first landed, plus it wasn’t staring, but examining the area. Impressions can be misleading, even if fun.

Soon afterward, a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) revealed itself in the immediate vicinity, and since I didn’t see it fly in, I am presuming that it was very close by but hidden. That’s it over on the left, trying to look like a stick (and you can see how well their coloration works now.)

great blue heron Ardea herodias and great egret Ardea alba sharing hunting ground by snag on lake
Now you know why the previous tighter crop worked better, because there was nothing I could do about that boat ramp in the background. It might have been better had it not been painted bright yellow, but I guess someone thinks boaters should be able to find it in foggy conditions or something. Very typical: no consideration of the nature photographers at all.

For a few minutes, it appeared that the two species were quite fine sharing the spot, but this was, again, the wrong impression.

great blue heron Ardea herodias chasing off great egret Ardea alba
By the way, a word about photography habits. While I might give the impression here that I was closely observing their behavior the entire time, in truth I’d watched for any initial drama, fishing behavior, or good poses, then turned my attention elsewhere. The big lens is too heavy to maintain ‘on target’ for long, plus the narrow field of view means you might miss something happening just outside the frame. Not to mention that I was still looking for more interesting shots, perhaps overhead, perhaps out over the open lake more. So I had to hastily re-aim when I heard the warning croak of the great blue – but I still had exposure compensation on for the brighter sky shots that I was taking in the interim. Thus this frame was mildly overexposed, and has been darkened in post. I’m not happy about all the clutter around the great blue, and if I’d been quicker might have had a better composition a moment earlier, but whatcha gonna do?

Because, keeping my eyes open and watching the entire area for activity netted me the frames that I was happiest to get for the day.

juvenile bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus passing overhead
This is what a juvenile bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) looks like – kinda. I mean, it’s one phase; their appearance differs from year to year until their fourth, when they take on the classic adult coloration that we all recognize. Except, this looks like a mix between second and third year plumage, with some indications that it’s in the process of molting. So, someone else can fill in the pertinent details.

By the way, this one has been lightened in post, since I spotted the eagle as it was passing close to the sun (because I’m alert as hell, boyo,) and even though I had exposure compensation dialed in for shooting into the sky, it wasn’t set for shooting the sun, so the eagle was more silhouetted than seen here – I just brightened the darker areas and left the sky alone. And I was glad I listened to that inner voice that told me something was different, because the eagle appeared not far from the vultures. There are some subtle differences in silhouette/body shape, but more distinctly, they have different flapping patterns; vultures tend to flap to gain altitude, but otherwise glide as much as possible, while eagles are more constant flappers, gliding in patches.

Another pic in closing, for the detail.

juvenile bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus overhead showing talon detail
Actually, I just liked seeing those talons tucked up in there, and the fact that it never seemed to close its mouth. Allergies, man – I can relate.

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