Closer than last year

… or the previous one, for that matter.

I’d mentioned earlier that I’d primed the yard with egg cases of the Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) – seven of them, to be exact – and this morning I found the first of them had produced progeny. Unfortunately, read more

Not through lack of trying


The topic for the day is “snow,” at least, anywhere in public among North Carolina natives. I honestly can’t say if I’m overstating or understating the anxiety that’s been present all I can say is, from a New Yorker’s standpoint, this barely counts as snow. The surfaces are too warm to retain it so the roads are only wet, maybe read more

And yet, some activity

As the previous post indicated, we get our warm spells, which mostly bring rain, but then again, there’s a chance of snow predicted for Thursday night. It will almost certainly be trivial and not worth photographing, but that’s what conditions are like right now.

Today (as I type this, though it will certainly post the following day,) I had the first serious free time in a week or so read more

Get out of the way!

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.


We’re opening with a juvenile Copes grey treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) that read more

Brevity, let’s see, brevity…

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?


I read more

Macro photography, part 13: More than illustration


Once again, we’re going to delve into this deal where I tell you to work on mastering something that I haven’t mastered myself – do as I say, not as I do and all that. Except, I don’t really believe that anyone masters anything in photography there are simply different levels of skill, so let’s use the word ‘improve’ read more

At least a less dim one

It has been a couple of weeks of things just not going quite right – not particularly bad, mind you, or at least not all of them, but very, very few things working out as intended, planned, foreseen, or whatever. Even things that I took great pains to try and prevent from going south, which is frustrating to no small degree (and I feel the need to point out that, in most of these read more

Storytime 26


I had prepped this one as a potential illustration for the last composition post, but decided to use it instead for storytime – not much of a lateral shift, I know, but this one bears a little explanation. Taken a few years back at the old place, within the towering pampas grass that we had there, I spotted a very large Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) deep within, read more

Back to, um… the same as before


As I said, it’s now time to resume my regular subject matter, but I’m not saying I’m back to normal because I don’t think I ever was. Meanwhile, I have to squeeze in just a couple more photos for this month, because the winter was so slow and because trying to beat this record is going to take some effort.

Anyway, poking around the neighborhood pond by headlamp very early read more

Storytime 16


So, to the undoubtedly-voluminous number of readers who come in first thing in the morning on Fridays to find the Storytime posts, I apologize – I am quite late today, mostly due to having a really shitty week. But partially due to my subject here, and so this is going to be the most current Storytime post to date, since these images were taken only minutes ago.

I read more

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