Estate Find XXXII: Always have fresh batteries

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While occasional Estate Finds are kind of lackluster, others serve as the first time that I’ve witnessed something cool, and this is one of those – though be warned, it’s also graphic and features nothing but snakes.

red-bellied water snake Nerodia erythrogaster and eastern kingsnake Lampropeltis getula a lot closer than they should be
Yes, both of these species have been featured before – but not like this (geez that sounds like clickbait.) Doing some tasks out in the back yard got sidetracked for quite some time when I heard a commotion, and luckily the batteries in the camera were fresh because it was time for video, and a lot of it. The clip is long (24 minutes,) and bear in mind that I cut an awful lot out. Part of me thinks that I’d be doing a disservice to aspiring wildlife photographers by featuring only two minutes of highlights with no indication of how long such things take, and part of me sends a hearty, “Fuck your dismal attention span,” to social-media gluttons who think a thirty-second video is ideal.

The subtitle refers to spending an inordinate amount of time to capture interesting behavior, which is what it takes often enough; the first example was here, though this one counts too. I ended up with 80 minutes of video clips, a lot of them just waiting at the ready should something really start to happen. And I was also remarkably lucky in that conditions were pretty conducive to getting clear shots without great discomfort or lots of shenanigans; at one point I was regretting not having switched to a longer lens on a tripod where I could maintain a more discreet distance, but eventually realized how much I likely would have missed with the limitations of such a setup (the lower angle allowing leaves to obscure more, for instance.) It worked out pretty well.

I was suspecting that I’d handled both of these specimens before, here and here, but I’m pretty certain that the red-bellied water snake is actually another, since it lacks the truncated tail tip that can be seen in those linked photos. And since there are at least two kingsnakes visiting, I won’t bet heavily on the other either, though it was the right size.

While getting all of this together, which took hours of editing and prep, I learned how to do subtitles, but also discovered that the timestamps on the video files (in UTC times for reasons unknown even when the camera displays otherwise,) are when the file is written, not when the recording starts. Technically I should have been subtracting the length of the video from the timestamp, but maybe next time. However, this time I tried out something that I’d been meaning to, which was adding a second video monitor and switching the project preview window over to that, so I could see details of the clips larger than a smutphone display as I was working on them. This helped tremendously, despite the hit to my desk space (meaning I’ll only be doing it for video editing.). The preview window is the one at top right in the image below, now able to be seen full-screen.

screen capture of Kdenlive program
Overall, though, one hell of a show, and I don’t regret the time spent.

Just because, part 56

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Heard the distinctive calls of the Mississippi kite (Ictinia mississippiensis) while working at my desk, which is somewhat unusual – I’m never at my desk they don’t call very often, usually wheeling overhead silently. So I went out with the long lens and eventually snagged a nice shot of one perched in a tree nearby.

Mississippi kite Ictinia mississippiensis perched in treetop being harassed by blue jay Cyanocitta cristata overhead
The bird passing overhead is a blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata,) a pair of which were very unhappy about the presence of the kite, to which the kite paid little heed; this does serve as a great illustration of the size of Mississippi kites, though. The behavior of the jays was such that I would have said there was a nest nearby if it had been anywhere near that season, which it is not. But then again, jays are pretty territorial overall and have been making a fuss the past few days anyway.

Curiously, this appears to be the first time that I’ve ever featured a blue jay, which seems quite odd to me until I recall that they were almost never seen where we used to live, why, I couldn’t say. But the very thought made me dig out one of the earliest digital photos that I have of them, just shy of 20 years old now, a couple of recently released juvie rehab patients being clumsy with a tray of mealworms – I just loved the expressiveness of the frame.

two juvenile blue jays Cyanocitta cristata, one overturning tray of mealworms

It’s all cycles or something

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It’s been interesting living right on the edge of an ecosystem, and I know that makes little sense because we’re all within an ecosystem no matter what, but what I mean is, we can observe the behavior of the wildlife that uses the ponds throughout the year, at all times of the day and night, and so patterns emerge. We have yet to determine how regular they are, but we see shifts going on.

great blue heron Ardea herodias returning to main pond after having been absent for weeks
This morning we saw the arrival of a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) for the first time in weeks, which also made me realize that the green heron has not been around either. I understand this for the most part, since the shielding of the water’s surface by the duckweed and cow lilies makes it nigh impossible for fishing birds to actually see prey, plus the fact that nothing larger than minnows are within the main pond in the first place. But I took advantage of the visit all the same; the heron seemed wary and I didn’t try to get closer and chance scaring it off.

great blue heron Ardea herodias standing at mouth of channel between main pond and The Bayou
I shot a bit wider here for context. It’s hard to see clearly, but to the left is a flat patch of open (though obscured) water near some trees, and this is actually the narrow channel between the main pond and The Bayou; the kayak fits through behind the two thin trees close together, between them and the tree with the dark foliage behind them.

Last night we left the light over the kitchen sink on overnight, since a cluster of at least six tiny juvenile green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus,) none of them bigger than a finger joint, were using the window as a hunting ground. I missed the shot where four of them were all on the same small pane of glass, but at least did a handful of frames as they scampered about enthusiastically.

tiny juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on window pane
It would be a nicer portrait if it wasn’t as filthy (the frog or the glass,) but whatcha gonna do? Okay, sure, clean the glass inside and out while they’re not there during the day, if you’re anal about it, but the frogs are still going to be ratty since they’re mildly sticky at the best of times – they’re kids.

By the way, the ruckus with the grey treefrogs that I mentioned last night? It went on the entire time that I was recording, and is interspersed liberally with the voiceover track – the only saving grace to this is that the natural background noises of the video clips has been retained too, so the frogs just kind of blend in unless you know the species well enough to know that you shouldn’t be hearing them this perpetually (or at all) during the day. I’ll tell you how bad it was: I always start recording with 4-6 seconds of silence for the noise reduction filter, to have a baseline of the ‘microphone hiss’ to be deleted from the track, and couldn’t actually achieve four seconds of silence. Little bastards. The noise gate function, which removes sounds under a certain decibel threshold (like intakes of breath) works fine – for periods of otherwise silence. So when I’m not talking, all is quiet, but every time I’m speaking I have a background of breeks punctuating every sentence or two. You’ll hear it tomorrow, since I saved the video for the Estate Find of course.

It hasn’t rained for days…

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… but now that I have some serious video that I need a voiceover for, it’s raining. We did this on the last one, didn’t we?

Literally a meter from the door

Yes, it’s/they’re more likely female I think, but whatever. Just shut up.

pair of noisy copes grey treefrogs Dryophytes chrysoscelis calling during rain
Actually, the white thing is a bucket catching rainbarrel overflow, so I popped the second one into it and carried them both down into the yard well away from my door – we’ll see if this works…

* * *

EDIT: No, it did not work – before I even finished this post, they abandoned the bucket and crossed the yard to get back to the rainbarrel. I mean, we’ve had eggs and tadpoles in the same buckets, they seem to believe they’re fine for such purposes, but noooo, they gotta have the rainbarrel as a perch while audio is being recorded. Dumbasses, nobody ever listens to these, it’s not your ticket to fame…

Some night finds

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Just a couple of things found while poking around at night, nothing earth-shaking.

The orphaned white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) fawns were mentioned in the previous post, and we found that they are not only regular visitors, they sleep over from time to time. These were taken from the vicinity of the door to Walkabout Studios.

pair of orphaned white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus fawns overnighting on property
Notably, this is not with the long lens, but the 18-135 at 135mm – they were perhaps a little over ten meters away, and likely confused by the headlamp since they normally don’t allow even a slightly close approach. The grazing one even required me to make several distinct noises just to get it to look up.

pair of orphaned white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus fawns overnighting on property
Focus is only by the reflections of their eyes in the viewfinder, so it’s not precise, plus I was shooting wide open at f5.6 so depth-of-field isn’t there either. Still, they remained without fleeing, even when they prevented me from checking the denizens of the various Japanese maple trees that evening, including the one at the edge of the frames here.

I could poke around out front, though, and made another discovery.

monarch Danaus plexippus larva feeding on orange milkweed Asclepias tuberosa
I was wondering who cropped the occasional flower heads from the orange milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa,) stupidly never thinking of it being a caterpillar – I kept believing the deer were doing it, and have been routinely treating this cluster of plants with deer repellent. But this is exactly what the flowers are here for, since this is the larva of a monarch (Danaus plexippus,) the species we were hoping to attract.

monarch Danaus plexippus larva feeding on orange milkweed Asclepias tuberosa
We purchased these flowers a couple of months ago and they seem to be doing fine. Hopefully they’ll go to seed, but either way, we may be adding a lot more – doing our part to help combat the monarch decline. With luck, this larva will make a chrysalis on the plant or nearby, so I can monitor it.

By the way, those bright contrasting colors (for both the larvae and the adults) are indeed aposematic, “keepaway” warnings to predators, since the species is toxic to eat – and they get their toxicity directly from these plants. Well, not this patch specifically, but the milkweed family in general.

I looked, by the way, and this was the only specimen that I found, which is curious, but might only mean that I’m terrible at spotting them.

And one that wasn’t hard to spot, despite being minuscule.

unidentified crab spider Thomisidae hunting on blooms of black knight butterfly bush Buddleja davidii
The black knight butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) that came with us from the old place absolutely exploded this season, as did the almond tree – both have doubled their mass since transplanting, approving heartily of the conditions here. We made a small mistake with this one, in that we didn’t know there was a thriving calla lily plant right next to it until it bloomed this spring, and they’ve been fighting for the same space. But the butterfly bush is doing its job in attracting not just the pollinators, but the predators of pollinators, including this tiny crab spider (Family Thomisidae.) I’m not sure it could have a more contrasting coloration against these blooms, but whatever – it usually sits nestled down between the blossoms anyway. I’d have to look very carefully, but the only pollinators that I’ve seen at these flowers are far too massive to serve as food for this guy, though presumably it knows what its doing, and this is far from the first time that I’ve seen tiny crab spiders on the plants.

That’s all for now, but I have a ton of video clips to edit for this week’s Estate Find, and I should get another post or three in before then.

Estate find XXXI

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Falling back on my ‘safety’ choice this week, since nothing exciting or unique presented itself, even when I went out looking. I might have had some lightning, had it not started raining just as I was heading out.

After spotting a very young fawn on the property some weeks back, we saw no young deer at all, though we suspected that at least one of the deer visiting for the corn was a parent with her fawn stashed away safely somewhere until it was old enough to be weaned. Yet we went for quite a while with no sign of any young’uns, then a singular appearance with mom, and then nothing. Until about a week ago.

adult female white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus with adolescent fawn
These are, naturally, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus,) and there were actually two fawns, but of course one of them wandered out of my ability to frame them together as soon as the camera was in hand. As alert as they appear here though, they weren’t very concerned with my presence up on the deck, and soon continued foraging; I even missed one of them attempting to nurse with mom discouraging it.

After a few minutes, I did something incautious and the fawns spooked, bounding away for only a short distance, probably discouraged from this paranoid behavior by mom who was still foraging industriously. They regrouped in another portion of the lawn (a term I use loosely since we let the backyard go unchecked.)

adult female white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus and her two adolescent fawns looking into camera
Actually, to get them all looking up simultaneously, I had to make several whistles and clicks until they got too curious, otherwise I always had at least one with its nose buried in the tall grasses. And again, this didn’t last long.

adult female white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus with her two unconcerned adolescent fawns
I’m not 100% sure of the actions of the one fawn here; while too many people would claim it was going for a kiss, I suspect it was trying to sample what mom was eating, which she did not oblige. The fawns’ behavior was split between a certain air of independence, sometimes wandering quite far from mom, and the typical neediness of a juvenile. Someone that knows deer better than I could potentially use this to pin down their age.

Speaking with a neighbor recently (okay, texting,) we found that she had a couple of orphaned fawns visiting her backyard regularly, believing that the mother had been hit by a car and died off the back of her property. We might have seen one of them a little earlier, since a lone fawn had come by to forage among the ducks’ corn.

slightly older adolescent white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus fawn looking into camera
This one was clearly larger and thus older than the pair still with their mother, the spots fading away. We knew enough about their habits to know that they don’t go independent that quickly, tending to stick together at least until breeding season in the winter, so we’d wondered about mom. There’s no easy way to tell them apart, save for a young adult doe visiting over the winter that had different enough coloration to distinguish her from others. Despite their overly-generic appearance, we’ll still try to monitor them as best we can.

By the way, this was written a few hours ahead of posting, so the photos were uploaded in July and thus beat the previous record by (at least) four images. I know you’re as excited as I am…

Last chance for July

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It’s that time of the month again – you have until midnight to get what you need from July, because after that it’s gone. We tried to warn you…

And that means it’s end-of-the-month abstract time, though I think I’m abusing the definition of that word again. But here it is anyway, free of charge, so file your complaints appropriately.

raindrop near sunrise reflecting light with starburst
After one of the heavy overnight downpours (which we still did not receive enough of,) the morning was sunny but drippy, and the sun reflecting from this raindrop caught my attention, which I then exploited with a small aperture to get the starburst. With the gap between the leaves, it has a kind of magical, E.T. vibe to it. Or at least it does to me – you derive what you will from it.

That’s the more abstract one. The less abstract one, that I like a lot better, is this:

sunbeams coming through humid hazy air over end of pond
Certainly more scenic than abstract, but the sunbeams in the morning haze/fog were doing their thing, and I maneuvered to get the sun peeking through. I like the impression that it gives, which is a bit inaccurate from what the backyard really looks like, and that’s fun when you can accomplish it.

I noticed before starting this post that, with only four more photos uploaded this month, we would tie with the highest number ever uploaded in July, which is pretty good considering how slow it was at times. So here are the other two necessary, from the World Snake Day trip that netted no snakes.

inlet off of Pamlico River in Goose Creek State Park
Again, more scenic than abstract, even with a little creative cropping, but I like it when vistas become so simplistic – it’s actually hard to accomplish most times.

We go much more abstract for the last, though:

lichen and moss on tree trunk solely in Blue channel monochrome
For a while in the main gallery I had an image that looked like an ancient map, actually lichen patterns in tree bark, but the image quality wasn’t really up to snuff and I removed it. Ever since that time I’ve wanted to redo it, but never found the same subject in as great a state as that first. This wasn’t quite it either, though converting it to component channels and selecting only the Blue channel helps the abstract nature at least. It’s also an image whose Brightness Curve is remarkably even and runs the entire range, full black to full white with a peak quite well centered in the middle. Still, it could be better, and I’m remaining on the lookout for the opportunity.

I’ll be a little busy today for a while, so I’m not sure if I’ll get the chance to add to this and break the upload record or not – we’ll see I guess. I mean, i have plenty of other images I could simply dump here, but you know I don’t like just throwing things up.

Down on The Bayou

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That’s capitalized that way because it refers to a specific area; we have three ponds, interconnected, and the southernmost one (which we only own half of) resembles nothing more than a bayou, so that’s how we refer to it. Up until this morning, I’d only seen it from the marshy banks at the northern tip, which allowed a limited perspective, but today I took the kayak down into it for a better view.

Now, a note about this: While the three ponds are interconnected, it’s loosely. The upper pond connects to the main one behind the house by a narrow channel that we built a small bridge across, that if it weren’t for the bridge I might be able to navigate with a kayak, but only just. One of these days I’ll simply put the kayak in from the bank. The main pond behind the house is relatively easy to launch the kayak into and I’ve done it a couple of times, but it’s shallow and entirely visible from the banks so there’s not a lot of reason to. This connects to The Bayou by a very narrow channel that I watch the ducks navigate, but I was never sure that it wasn’t more of a marshy border area than a channel. Today I determined that it was indeed very shallow, enough to prevent paddling through it but the kayak could be ‘poled’ through by pushing against the bottom (which is thick enough mud that wading it would be quite difficult.) Yet I made it through, and took a few pictures while down there.

view across the lower pond 'The Bayou' from a kayak
There’s not a lot to say about these, so I’ll just be clarifying which way we’re facing, in this case south deeper into The Bayou. The main tree in this pic was probably the one seen in that linked post above. Most of these are bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum) and quite large, the canopy of which prevents a lot of sunlight entering at any time of the day.

view across the lower pond 'The Bayou' from a kayak
Deeper into The Bayou but still facing the same way. I didn’t poke the paddle down to see how deep it was, but judging from the lack of yellow cow lilies, it was deeper than the main pond behind the house. Though this might only have been from the minimal sunlight.

view across the lower pond 'The Bayou' facing north, from a kayak
This is turned around now and facing towards the main pond; the channel that serves as the link isn’t really visible at this low angle, but sits way back there under that shadow to the left.

view of bald cypress Taxoodium distichum trees in lower pond 'The Bayou' from a kayak
If it wasn’t such a bear to get the kayak in there, I’d do this more often – quite a peaceful and evocative place. I like the single cypress paired with the absolute cluster of them here, and don’t ask me how this occurred.

towering bald cypress Taxodium distichum tree at edge of lower pond 'The Bayou' from a kayak
No easy way to show scale, or even to measure it myself, but this is a monster tree – or maybe not, and it only seems that way because it’s visible bottom to top, unlike most of the others. This is pretty close to the connecting channel now, but that’s out of view off to the right.

blossoms of white water lily Nymphaea odorata found on lower pond 'The Bayou'
Going a little fartsy here, but these white water lilies (Nymphaea odorata) were conspicuous in their solitude – this is the only example of them that we’ve seen on any of the ponds. The Girlfriend wants me to transplant these to the main pond, and I can’t blame her, since these are much nicer looking that the yellow cow lilies, but they may not be able to compete well. Still, we might just buy a handful of them and try to get them established.

Notably, I saw no ducks, no wildlife of any kind, while down there, which was curious. That was a large part of the reason why I ventured down there, but that’ll be a topic for a later post, or perhaps a few of them. For now, we get scenic pics.

Blatant disregard

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We have relatives over this week, so there hasn’t been a lot of time to find anything new, but while sorting, I did remind myself of this image, obtained the same time as this Estate Find, and set aside to be forgotten.

green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus in awkward pose on bamboo
I mean, how could you resist this pose? The determination, the struggle against adversity?

This is here, by the way, in lieu of recognizing the holiday that fell today, which is Create Meaningless Content Day, a holiday that I find insipid and certainly something that I strive never to do, so we’re skipping the holiday this month.

A wee bit closer

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After confirming that we had Mississippi kites (Ictinia mississippiensis) living in the immediate area, and strongly suspecting that they’d raised a brood within a few hundred meters, we’ve been seeing them off and on, mostly wheeling overhead – the few times I’ve seen them perched, they didn’t remain long enough for me to get any photos of them. Until this afternoon, anyway.

Mississippi kite Ictinia mississippiensis perched on dead tree
A pair were hanging out and talking to one another, and one perched a couple of times on a dead tree within easy sight. The first time around, the bird flew off as I was trying to clear the condensation from the long lens, since it hadn’t been ‘primed’ by leaving it in a warmer location just so it wouldn’t do that – it’s been stifling hot and humid here, like most of the east coast, and lenses left indoors where the air conditioner could maintain a living temperature will of course fog up immediately upon hitting the outside air. But I left the camera nearby as I tackled a few tasks, and a short while later a kite regained the dead tree and I was able to fire off a few frames. The exposure compensation is set to +1 full stop, accounting for the brighter sky, and this is a pretty accurate rendition of what could be seen. Now, the bird could have been facing more into the light, but this is what we have for now.

It was also talking up a storm, and I wish I’d been prepared for video to record it, but you wouldn’t want to see what handheld long lens work looks like (or maybe you do.) So I have just one frame where it wasn’t facing directly away from the camera as it chattered.

Mississippi kite Ictinia mississippiensis calling from perch on dead tree
At some point in the future, I hope to feature at least the recording of their calls, but I’ve never heard them calling at all when flying, only when perched, and that’s relatively rare – we’ll see what happens. It’s cool to see them remaining in the area at least.

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