Visibly different, part 10

“So, Al,” you ask, eyeing me shrewdly, “why do so many of your initial Visibly Different images come from Florida? Is this, like, a thing with you?” But I scoff loudly, because it is no more a thing with me than holding imaginary conversations is. There are three reasons why comparison images start off from Florida, really. The first is, I took several annual read more

Profiles of Nature 34


Week after week, the Profiles keep coming, so if you believe in karma you must have seriously fucked up in a past life. Don’t blame us.

This week we have Chichimecacihuatzin, which we’re fairly certain is just a stage name, since she is an interpretive pole dancer her version of Waiting for Godot apparently has the gentlemen throwing down the green with the read more

Profiles of Nature 30


Now, at least, the numbers are back where they’re supposed to be, and should remain that way provided The Manatee doesn’t show up again. This week we get to meet Boaz, which is a feat in itself since Boaz is goddamn sick and tired of fame already read more

Always with the lizards and pollen

Yeah, I know: trite, trite, trite. But if I didn’t post my latest efforts, someone might believe that I was avoiding such subjects, like some kind of hipster. And I’m far from having a manbun, believe me.

So, briefly, we’ll review some of yesterday’s photos – some from the botanical garden, and some from the sprawling estates of Walkabout Studios.

The read more

On this date 31


This week, we start off back in 2010, with a juvenile eastern fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus,) quite small yet still a couple of times larger than the subject from a few days ago. It looks like it was taken at night, but fence lizards aren’t really active read more

Drawn to scale


I’ve mentioned in two previous posts about a trip to the NC Botanical Gardens, a session The Girlfriend and I did before their closing, and I would have warned you about the closing had I had more than a day’s notice myself. Note that this just applies to the gardens proper the nature trails out back remain open.

Anyway, I was hoping to see at least a Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis,) read more

We’ll start with the reptiles


Yes, I know that’s not a photo of a reptile… or, is it? Your challenge is to find the six reptiles in the frame.

All right, don’t bother, unless you’re masochistic – there are no reptiles visible in the shot. I just picked up an ultra-wide lens, a Tamron 10-24mm aspherical, and I’m showing it off because I’m quite pleased with it. The ‘aspherical’ read more

Checking in

It’s been a little longer between posts than intended, but this only means that truly major, insightful, earth-shaking stuff is coming soon (yeah, yeah, I know save the sarcasm.) I’ve had a couple of projects going, and have been commenting in other locations, such as Sean Carroll’s Preposterous Universe blog, or maybe it’s S=k. log W, read more

Amateur naturalism, part three


Our next topic in the series is reptiles – you can also refer back to the posts about insects and birds if you like.

Reptiles (and amphibians, which I’ll also refer to here but will use the same term for each just for convenience) are perhaps the most misunderstood of animal classes, which is unfortunate because they’re actually pretty cool. They become more prevalent with warmer read more