Just once, part 19

May 8, 2024May 7, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

The singular appearance of this one herein may solely be my own fault – or it may not. But that’s why you come here, right? For the definitive answers?

This is a species of fairy wasp, of the Family Mymaridae, potentially of the genus Mymar, and it looks this vague and indistinct because it’s really tiny. I mean really. As in, the body length is in the range of half of a millimeter, so we’re at the limits of resolution for the lens I was using, which was the reversed 28-105. I was photographing other subjects in a macro aquarium when it landed on the glass in front of me and I could just make out a speck moving around, so I refocused onto it for this image. Only afterward, examining the image at full resolution on the computer, did I realize that I had found something really weird. Because yes, those are its wings, not even apparently sufficient for a fan, but given the minuscule mass of the insect, sufficient to propel it around.

I only know the size of it this accurately, which is not terribly so, because in the same session, I photographed a newborn Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis), both seen here at full frame, and I was able to obtain an acceptable measurement of that with my calipers, very gingerly; the eyes are less than 2mm across, closer to 1. Those wings, of course, helped to pin down the Family at least; the Mymaridae are parasitic wasps, which means they lay their eggs into the larva of other arthropods or even, like this Family, into the eggs of those, hatching out into the developing young and eating them from the inside. Not as cute now, is it? Okay, maybe you never thought it was cute to begin with…

So, have these remained unseen since then because they’re pretty scarce in the area, or because I have never sat down and peered nearsightedly at every little moving speck that is within reach? That’s a good question, though I can say that the latter is true enough; I tend to forget about these until reminded again. Since I found this one at this time of year (realizing I could have posted it a day after its tenth anniversary, last week,) I should be looking again, though whether I could get any better images of it now remains to be seen (heh!) – the details of it are small enough that light refraction starts to play a significant role, and even under the microscope I may not achieve a lot better detail without image stacking. Which I need to be trying anyway. Excuse me while I go out and stare at surfaces a couple centimeters from my nose…

This weekend

May 7, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Or specifically, this Saturday (May 11^th,) is World Migratory Bird Day – sorry I didn’t let you know sooner, but if it were really important to you, you’d already know anyway. So I’ll take this opportunity to throw down some migratory bird pics from earlier.

Down at Jordan Lake the other day specifically to get some audio recordings (which you’ll hear later on,) I was following a particular bird call when I came across these three, who let me approach far closer than I expected. They didn’t make the calls that I was following, however, not a sound at all, which doesn’t help with identification. Here, they were standing as if stranded by the incoming tide and unwilling to get their feet wet. They were quite small and acting like juveniles, but it’s too early in the year for that, so I had to assume they were adults, potentially still in breeding plumage. I didn’t think they looked much like the spotted sandpiper that I’d photographed earlier, only forty meters or so from this spot, but that was the best I could initially say, since I’ve never studied to tell the various sandpipers apart.

It’s things like this that actually delay some posts, because I already know that distinguishing sandpipers can be a bear and I often don’t feel like doing the research for a post, not at all helped by my obsession with being correct – I know, that sounds funny when you see some of the posts where I’m vague, but I really do make the effort. And it would seem that these are least sandpipers (Calidris minutilla) – the size, patterns on the wings, lack of white spots above the eyes, and yellow legs seem to point in that direction, and their reluctance to wade seemed to cinch it. Like the spotted, quite common, I just haven’t been seeing any up close enough for decent pics until this year.

And these really did allow “close.”

This was at f8, so not particularly short depth-of-field, but not long either – it’s the high magnification from the focal length of 600mm, used at only about five meters or so, that gives the shorter focus, but it stayed locked onto the head, which was what I wanted. Nice detail from the forehead feathers and the beak.

In fact, as I stood there, not at all camouflaged or doing anything more stealthy than standing still, a couple of them started preening, completely unconcerned with my being this close. I’m not even sure I’ve seen Carolina wrens that blasé with my presence, like they thought their covering sniper had me locked in the crosshairs or something. Unlike the other shorebird that I stalked while out there:

This is potentially the best portrait I have of a killdeer (Charadrius vociferus,) because they’ve been really spooky every time I have the camera in hand – this seems especially true around Jordan Lake, but they encounter plenty of fishingfolk, partiers, and dogs around there, so I can’t really blame them. This one arced back and forth around me, out over the lake, and paused only briefly on the shore, flying off loudly before I even drew close enough to pose a threat, I would have thought; does this mean they’re really cautious, or there were other reasons that this one was taking flight back and forth? Can’t say. But the scientific name is appropriate at least, because they really are vociferous, calling loudly (and recognizably) virtually every time they take off – and I was out there with the audio equipment, so why didn’t I record it? Sitting here now, I can’t answer that question.

Anyway, get out and chase some birds Saturday. I just cleared most of my reserve bird photos from the folder, so I’ll have to get new ones myself. We’ll see what transpires.

Two decades ago…

May 6, 2024May 5, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

… on this very day, I was testing out a reverse periscope in Florida while my brother visited.

Here’s the deal: I really wanted some underwater pics in situ, but couldn’t afford an underwater camera. At that time, digital cameras were just appearing on the market – I remember one photographer in our wedding photography group just getting one, and everyone else asking about it – and specialty, underwater cameras wouldn’t be along for a few years yet. So the options were very expensive film cameras like the Nikonos line, or cheapy little things with a fixed lens, worthless for macro work. So I’d constructed a periscope to see under the water while the camera remained above, out of PVC pipe, a truck side mirror, and a sheet of clear acrylic for the port. The camera was my old trusty Canon Elan IIe and the Sigma 105mm macro; the lenshood fitted well into a reducing coupler at the top.

What I found with initial tests was that it was quite buoyant, and wanted to bob up out of the water, so it was anchored firmly to the monopod for better handling (necessary anyway because it wasn’t actually attached to the camera or lens otherwise.) The focus range was limited because the distance to the subject had to be a minimum of 50cm or so, just accounting for the periscope body itself, but then sediment would prevent seeing a lot beyond a meter. And lighting was an issue as well, not to mention subjects that would let this looming contraption close enough for decent pics anyway.

Then, there were the issues of the overall color cast provided by the hue of the water itself, magnified by the simple property that red and yellow wavelengths get scattered quickly by water, and as you can see here, refraction effects from the surface making strange light patterns. Given that I was already using an aquarium to photograph aquatic subjects, allowing more versatility in lighting and preventing subjects from slipping away, it didn’t see a lot of use. After moving back to North Carolina, I had absolutely no use for it because the water clarity anywhere in the state, well, isn’t – NC has the worst suspended sediment of any state I’ve snorkeled in. Now, I even have a decent, digital, underwater camera, and it’s seen almost no use underwater because it’s pointless around here, and the few times I’ve been elsewhere in appropriate conditions, I’ve found nothing to pursue. It does, however, serve as something I can carry along without worries when kayaking.

This is one of the first test shots though, taken in the pond at the apartment complex where I lived, and it came out halfway decently. In order to coax something close enough to the port, I dropped a couple of bread balls into the water right in front of the periscope, which worked quite well; the resident minnows were pleased with it, and enough of them faced the lens for a nice shot. Those are all minnows in the frame, by the way.

I have to take the opportunity to point out that the top pic shows my routine snorkeling haunt in Florida, which is the Indian River Lagoon, a mostly-saltwater sound behind the barrier islands. Cruising along on the far side of those rocks netted me so many interesting critters for the aquarium, as well as spotting numerous manatees, dolphins, sea turtles, stingrays, cow-nose rays, and I think a manta that leapt from the water. Once when snorkeling, I paused my forward motion abruptly and a tiny unidentified fish appeared from under my nose, realized it was now exposed in open sunlight, and darted back underneath my belly again; it had been cruising along with me, sheltered from view, possibly treating me like a manatee of something.

I also have to note that I considered including what I’d taken ten years ago on this date, but that was absolutely nothing. I have to make sure I take some photos today…

Pending further developments

May 2, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

So, I said earlier that the cicada hatching this year wasn’t going to be an onslaught, and now I must amend that because, damn.

First off, the hatchings solely on this property have exceeded expectations, and I’ve spent several nights out there documenting the events – it’s been dozens of individuals, easily, centered on three distinct areas. One of which was an old maple tree that had actually been removed something like seven years ago, but sprouted new saplings from the trunk, and my guess is the cicadas were still feeding on the active roots. There’s a region out front, though, that I can’t really fathom what tree they were feeding from, but they definitely sprouted up in the front garden.

So with this opportunity so close at hand, I was attempting to capture a few distinct things, and one of which was their actual emergence from the ground. I made multiple attempts over several evenings, sweeping all the leaves free from the soil and even setting up a worklight to illuminate the ground at a low angle so any movement should show clear shadows, but found absolutely nothing, even when new emergents were climbing the fence right alongside me. I have given up on that for now, unsure what I’m missing.

The next task that I set for myself was obtaining a positive ID of the species, which has proved harder than imagined. You can see the huge difference in coloration, and this is only between newly molted versus developed, hardened adults. Many of the 13 and 17 year cicadas look almost identical, and while I was able to narrow it down to only the 13-year species (Brood XIX,) getting beyond that has been tricky. There are two specific characteristics that help tell them apart, which is an orange band between eye and wing root…

… seen here quite clearly, and then, the color of the belly scales…

… and this is the part that’s inconclusive. BugGuide.net has been a lot of help in this regard, specifically in providing a link to a video that helps tell them apart. One species has orange belly scales, and the other has orange-and-black-striped belly scales – neither of which looks quite like this. You will note that both of those specimens are from Durham County, which is right here, and from 2011 – thirteen years ago. So it appears both species are emerging simultaneously.

[The image above is definitely a female, however – that’s the ovipositor visible in the center.]

The key, though, has been the song, which started only today, and it’s completely unreal – the description of a “UFO landing” gives a pretty good impression, even though all we really have are movie ideas of what this should sound like, shamelessly copied off one another. But given that song, I have to say these are Riley’s 13 year cicadas (Magicicada tredecim.) It was off in the distance here, but much more distinct when I went over to pick up something about 30 kilometers off, where they were being positively inundated by them.

This was one of many such bushes and trees, and the cicadas littered the ground and parking lot, easy to simply snag one; that specimen had less of the dark banding than mine, but the call was the same as this area, so I’m sticking with Magicicada tredecim. The ground in places, by the way, was liberally pocked with their emergence holes, and some lines of those could be made out, likely following tree roots.

One thing I’ve noticed about this species that’s quite different from the annuals has been their preference for molting positions. While the annuals seem to prefer just being vertical on tree trunks, this species often tries to go out branches to the ends, and/or hang upside down to molt.

Several specimens, emerged from the ground but not molted yet, were seen going to the tops of the fence posts, waving their forelegs in the air in an apparent (and vain) search for branches, then turning around and heading back down again. They’re also remarkably clumsy, falling frequently (especially on the trips back down) – I could be standing out there watching for them to emerge from the ground and hear, every five minutes or so, another one hit the leaves as they lost their grip. They wasted a lot of energy between these. And they’re easy to spot in flight since they have a rusty-hue to the wings, but much slower and clumsier than the annual cicadas in flight as well.

We’ll do a couple of closeups.

This is with the reversed 28-105, my extreme macro lens, and shows their three simple eyes quite well, and two antennae of course – this is full frame. Let’s see a bit at full resolution:

Because I can, of course. And that’s really a lot of damn eyes (technically, ommatidia.)

And with all that, the attrition rate is noticeable too, though exactly how high it might be can’t be determined – this is why some species produce gobs of young at a time, of course.

This was on the crossmemeber of the fence by the busiest hatching spot, while directly below was this:

I initially believed these were remains of the same individual, but three compound eyes can be found, indicating that they’re at least two cicadas. Given their positions so close together, I’m favoring them falling victim to the mice in the area.

[Immediately after this I found the copperhead, only a few meters away.]

And as threatening as this looks, I think the cicada was safe – certainly nothing happened in the hour that I was out there for this session. The green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus) knew its limits.

There are a few more things I would like to get, and perhaps I’ll arrange a time-lapse video of the molting, which will take some setting up – tomorrow, I’m aiming to capture those eerie songs. But yeah, it’s been a busy season. And I have to note that, I believe on the previous emergence 13 years ago, I was helping someone about 20 kilometers away and witnessed a mass emergence, kicking myself because I didn’t have my camera with me – at that point, I had never watched the molting taking place nor seen so many cicadas at once. So now I’m making up for that, with their own offspring. Cool.

Rethinking my habits

May 2, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

So I was out poking around Walkabout Estates early this morning, or late at night – whatever, just after midnight – and had gotten a few pics of a subject soon to be featured. I was walking alongside the house right next to the AC condenser when I heard a sharp rustle to my right. I stopped immediately, as always, and looked carefully to see what had caused it. It wasn’t hard to make out.

Yes, that’s a copperhead, an eastern copperhead to be precise (Agkistrodon contortrix,) the only venomous snake in the region, and the first that I’ve found within a ten-kilometer radius – not exactly thrilled to find it within five centimeters of Stately Walkabout Manor here. This is especially so given that, having found only a handful of snakes on the property in the 10 years that we’ve been living here, and none of them remotely dangerous, I am routinely out in sandals or bare feet – tonight it was kind of an outdoor slipper, only a degree better than nothing. Much as I hate the idea, I might have to change that habit.

I had the bright headlamp on, but you can see how well they camouflage and I wasn’t really looking down at my feet anyway, though I do when I’m out in any wooded area that seems likely. This was home – I didn’t think it necessary. Had the snake not coiled suddenly and rustled the leaves, I might never have seen it, and I was walking on the path that’s just over a meter from this spot.

Yes, this is defensive posture, “coiled to strike” as overdramatic accounts will put it, though more often it results in the snake simply beating a hasty retreat. Let’s have a closer look at that head, because it’s great.

I had the Mamiya 80mm macro affixed, so I had a little working distance, and naturally this is cropped significantly – I knew the safe distance, and also knew not to do anything further to provoke it. I’ve been around enough snakes to be pretty mellow about it, even the venomous ones, so of course I was taking photos – the camera was right there in my hands, c’mon! Meanwhile, look carefully at the pinestraw and such in this image, and realize that the snake is a lot smaller than it seems in my photos.

Each of us could have gone our merry way, but I figured that copperheads were one species that we really didn’t want hanging around (especially given my own habits.) I considered my options for a moment, then fetched a broom and an old aquarium that had a proper lid. And the duct tape.

The snake was remarkably easy to get into the aquarium, though it jerked in alarm as I laid the aquarium on its side right in front of the snake, and struck at the broom half-heartedly when I started nudging it – then slipped into the aquarium without any further hesitation. This allowed a little better idea of scale – not a lot, admittedly – but the overall length was roughly 40 cm, certainly under half a meter. That’s about average for the species, and the head could have hidden under a quarter.

I woke The Girlfriend to let her know what I was doing and put her phone alongside the bed, just in case, then drove out to a nice secluded area to release the snake. Which was more difficult than capturing it, to be honest, but that’s not saying a lot, and there were certainly no dicey moments. The snake just didn’t find the area outside the aquarium to be an open invitation – not at all surprising, considering what it had already gone through.

Eventually, I had to tip the aquarium all the way up and slide the snake out, where it sat in mild confusion, requiring me to get the broom again and nudge it on its way. This gives a good view of its namesake, the unpatterned and deep coppery color atop the head, distinguishing it from most other species; even the ones often mistaken for copperheads have markings on their heads.

Even after nudging it, again, to send it on its way, the snake was reluctant to simply dash off, but this gives us a good view of all the markings; note the ‘airbrushed’ appearance of the markings, nice gradient tones within, and a shape like Hershey’s Kisses. Also note that the darker part of the pattern is thinnest along the spine, while the non-venomous snakes in the region all sport darker bands that are wider on the spine than on the sides. The color actually varies only moderately from this, but the base tan is pretty distinctive. What isn’t visible in any of these photos (and not the best way to distinguish them anyway) are the slit, vertical pupils like a cat – all of the non-venomous species in the area have round pupils (except, perhaps, the coral snake, which only occurs coastally and you usually can’t make out the pupils anyway, but it’s not like they’re hard to pick out.)

A word about the taxonomy, because like many other species I’ve featured here, it’s changed since I first started writing about them. There used to be a northern copperhead and southern copperhead in the area, and the way to tell them apart was by examining the patterns near their tail, since the southern variant would have ‘detached’ patterns, not meeting on the spine – you can just make out here that they’re offset but still in contact, which would have made it a northern. However, these have been changed and, according to Wikipedia, both northern and southern variants are now considered eastern. Because, you know, biologists are bound and determined to put “eastern” into every goddamn species name on the east coast; it’s almost like a Tourette’s thing.

Anyway, that was my evening, slightly hearkening back to my animal rescue days, though I’ve had much more thrilling moments during those. I was, and am, more concerned that I really need to be watching my footing around home as distinctly as I do out in the woods. Sheesh.

Meanwhile, the last few posts have been a bit snakey, haven’t they? I’ll try to get to some nice cuddly bugs soon…

Just once, part 18

May 1, 2024April 22, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Today we have another mildly surprising one to have only one example of, since they appear throughout the eastern seaboard at least and I’ve handled them four or five times other than this. This is an eastern hognose snake (sometimes ‘eastern hog-nosed,’ but Heterodon platirhinos applies throughout the world.) Medium-sized as far as snakes go, they typically run from 60-100 cm in length and 2-3.5 cm in girth, more ‘stocky’ than ‘slender,’ but the coloration isn’t the best way to identify them, since it’s wildly variable across their range. That said, the upturned nose is only possessed (on the North American continent, at least,) by two species of hognose snakes, so that works best.

They are a remarkably docile species, but often don’t appear to be docile when you first find them, because they have two distinctive and melodramatic defensive displays, and my goal is to get these on video some day. The first is to flatten out their head and upper body to twice their normal girth, coil up, and hiss loudly, often vibrating the tail when they do this (which is a common trait of many snake species, not just the rattlesnakes.) Unlike cobras, however, this flattening is not as confined to the head and ‘shoulders’ but stretches further down the body (see here, which is the other species but also constitutes a ‘Just Once’ appearance.) This display may well protect them better even from the “kill all snakes regardless” idiots, because it looks far too dangerous to even approach.

If this fails, however, the snake turns to Defensive Display Two, which is to literally roll over and play dead, notable in that if you roll them upright, they’ll immediately turn belly-up again, similar to that garden hose that never wants to coil properly. Occasionally, as linked above, they play this to the hilt for dinner theatre, another thing to capture in video.

My subject here, however, couldn’t be convinced to do any of this even when picked up, and resolutely appeared as tame as a pet, which made my attempts to show these displays to a student fail entirely – oh, the snake knew what it was doing all right. They are entirely harmless – to people, at least, though they actually possess a venom that works on frogs and toads. Some people might still find this a reason to be wary, which is perhaps a reflection on their own self-image, but since not one of the hognose snakes that I’ve found has made the faintest attempt to bite, even the injured one, I’d say that poison ivy is something to be dreaded more than these guys. This image was taken while the student held it, mind you, and this one didn’t even shit on either of us, which is the more common defensive action of most snake species. And as aggressive as they appear, it’s only their anatomy: like many snakes, they have a protective ridge over the eyes that gives them the appearance of glaring, but snakes don’t have any expressions at all and don’t communicate in that manner, so they always look like this. Even when asleep, since they don’t have eyelids either.

Anyway, here’s hoping that I remove this species form the ‘Just Once’ category before the end of the year. Wish me luck (or skill, or observatory acuteness, or whatever works for you)!

Love is in the weeds

May 1, 2024May 1, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Went over to the neighborhood pond tonight because the frogs were sounding off exuberantly while I was chasing another subject back home (which you’ll see soon.) By the time I wrapped up what I was already doing and gave the headlamp a quick charge, the frogs had quieted down a bit. A spider was the first thing I photographed, but the second thing that I captured was a pair of eyes watching me from the woods, down low and too close together for a deer. With the help of the headlamp and by taking the softbox off the flash, I snagged a decent frame.

That’s a raccoon of course, or North American raccoon if you want to be specific (Procyon lotor,) but wasn’t a goal for the evening. Mind you, I’ll take plenty of pictures of raccoons if they’ll let me, but that’s usually far from the case, and this one was down a steep embankment and already spooked by my presence – I’d get nothing better than this.

The frogs remained mostly hidden – a couple of bullfrogs on the shore, and calls from both green treefrogs and Copes grey treefrogs wherever I wasn’t, but nothing presenting itself beyond what I’ve gotten a million times before. And then I spotted the snake.

This is typical for the area, especially in the water, because this is a northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon sipedon) – the first of any snake that I’ve seen this year, which seems odd even to me. I did a few frames, almost sliding down the steep bank into the water in the attempt, then passed further on in search of the frogs again.

On the way back past, the snake was no longer in evidence, but then caught up with my position as I was paused while observing an eastern American toad (Anaxyrus americanus americanus.)

In fact, there was a toad right by the water’s edge near me, while this snake began nosing closer, and I suspected she’d picked up the toad’s scent. All of this is taking place perhaps just over a meter from me; the snake itself was about half-a-meter in length – respectable, but far from the larger specimens which are twice that.

Sure enough, the snake started heading distinctly in the direction of the toad, and I was only armed with the Mamiya 80mm macro – no zoom, limited framing options, so I had to back off a bit and start adjusting the flash unit and exposure. It did not help that I’d shot dozens of flash images over the past couple of days and the batteries were starting to wear down, taking a bit longer to recharge between flashes. As a result, when the snake took a very abrupt shot at the toad, the frame that I captured was inadequate and not worth showing here. Not to mention that the toad leapt off and the snake missed anyway.

The snake did not give up, and nosed around the area for a while, just beyond my sitting position on the bank, before suddenly deciding to move further along. This image shows the way to distinguish the northern water snake from the nearly-identical banded water snake, because the markings of the northern break apart in the hind portion of the snake’s body; the bands remain intact for the banded water snake.

No sooner had the snake moved further along shore than another appeared, following behind. You can see the markings on this one are brighter and redder, which generally means little – there are a lot of variations within the species, to say nothing of time between molts when the colors get duller. But this one was enormously interested in coming ashore right exactly where I was – which leads to the video. Shot, unfortunately, on my piece of shit smutphone – I had not come armed for video, which takes a steadycage, a video light, and an external microphone to make it all worthwhile, even though it is many times better through the Canon 7D than through my Samsung. But this is what I got for the evening, anyway.

I worked further along just ahead of the second snake, and sure enough, found the first up on shore and just hanging out rather obviously, I was now sure that the first was a female and in season, and the second was a potential suitor. I also saw a third in the water nearby, but that one vanished after only a glimpse – not sure why it disappeared.

The brighter male wasted no time in coming ashore, and the female actually turned to face him, so quickly that I thought she might be about to chase him off, but she froze as the male began tracing his way down her body towards her tail (her head is buried in the weeds towards the top of the frame.) I’d seen this behavior last year, and am not quite sure of what it means, but I suspect it may be the way that the male ensures that he’s working with the correct snake before engaging in coitus; last year’s example eventually involved three snakes, and I imagine things might become confusing, but this is only a guess.

In short order the male reversed his path along the female’s body and they soon engaged. I shot no video of this part because a) that portion of their bodies was mostly obscured by weeds, and b) the smutphone is a very basic one (I have no need for anything fancy and won’t bother spending the money,) meaning that it has a wide angle lens that requires getting very close to a subject for decent details – three times closer, at least, than the Mamiya macro requires. I figured I’d try not to disturb them too much and just fired off a couple of frames on the Canon, then let them be. It was a worthwhile session for such a casual trip to the pond.

Straightening up

April 30, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Just a handful of photos, some a few weeks old (from before the eclipse, even,) right on up to today, because I felt the need to update some.

We’ll start with another semi-abstract, taken on the day of the previous month-end abstract (though that post had already gone up.)

This is the favorite Japanese maple, a small one that’s remained potted but has the thickest canopy of any tree I’ve ever seen, even though it’s just over a meter across. This was while it was still in the greenhouse – it got moved out once I had returned from Ohio – and just after watering, so you can see some of the drops. The reddish edges denote new growth that quickly fades into uniform coloration.

And some updates on other plants, because I know you’re anxious to hear how those are going.

The almond tree, that started spontaneously in our compost pile some 12 years ago, is doing very well this year, in part because I started treating it with deer repellent even before it started to bud out. It now has quite a selection of developing almonds – which it had last year, but something stripped them off before they were ripe. This year, however, they’re remained untouched are are getting big; that’s my hand in the background. Though I have no idea what a ripe almond actually looks like – I need to research that soon.

The fruit trees in the back, moved from the greenhouse the same day as the Japanese maple, are kicking it as well.

This is one of the lemons, probably the largest so far, which means that it’s likely my bebby, one of the ones I pollinated by hand (well, by brush) while it was blooming within the greenhouse. This tree produced a whopping yield last year, so we’ll see how it goes this year.

In contrast, this is one of the lime trees:

We determined last year that these really were Key limes (Citrus × aurantiifolia,) and they pie they produced was fantastic. The blossoms are not very big, less than a third the size of the lemon blossoms, and don’t last very long, but you can see that a couple appear to be germinating. It becomes more evident elsewhere on the same tree:

I’m no botanist, but those certainly look like they’re developing, and they’re going to seriously weigh down that thin little branch. But they did the same last year with no damage, so we’ll presume the tree knows what it’s doing. Last year’s yield was about 15 limes, I think (for trees that we’d purchased as half-meter saplings that spring,) and this year already looks far better, so we’ll see how it goes.

And The Girlfriend’s cherry tree is kicking, too.

This was taken a couple of weeks ago, as the cherries on the Yoshino cherry (Prunus × yedoensis) tree were just fully ripening, and I expected them to be wiped out in three days as usual. However, they’re still quite present today.

This also shows that one of the emerging cicadas used the cherry tree as a molting spot – you’ll see more of those guys shortly. But I can’t say why the cherries went untouched this year; I’d credit it to the deer repellent, but we were applying that early last year too and the cherries still got wiped out. I have found two discarded pits (not a whole lot smaller than the cherries themselves – the tree is ornamental, not for produce,) but that’s been it.

A few days back, I happened to spot something new in one of the rose blossoms.

I mean, the property hosts plenty of green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus,) but this is the first I’ve seen using the roses in this manner. Granted, this is the first year we’ve had four exuberant rose bushes in pots on the back deck. This is a juvenile, about half size, and not terribly good at blending in, especially considering that it would match any of the hundreds of leaves better, to say nothing of the dense Japanese maple seen earlier, not two meters away. We’ll go in closer.

This might even have been the one I found on the screened porch two nights earlier, and removed to the base of one of the pots where the water reservoir was, in case he needed it. The treefrogs are notorious for finding their way onto the porch but not back off, and more than a couple have died tucked into screened corners, so I try to remember to do routine patrols at night. But this guy may have had the right idea now, since its food would come right to it.

[Side anecdote: A few days earlier, I’d been watering the roses when a honeybee appeared and attempted to partake of the ripe blossoms, but this was easily the stupidest bee I’ve ever seen. Unable to fathom looking for the center or even following the scent, it delved repeatedly into the spaces between the outer petals, came up empty, and tried again only a petal or two further in. Then it abandoned that blossom out of frustration and chose another, doing even worse in this case and starting from the bottom. I watched for about two minutes of this, on multiple blossoms, and the bee never achieved any kind of success. And we wonder about colony collapse…]

One last, the big finish:

Spotted one night while out patrolling with the headlamp, this one maintained this action post while I got situated for a good shot, something that rarely happens; usually, they realize something is going on and align themselves vertically on the post (or plant stem, or branch,) to blend in better and hide their outline. Don’t ask me what’s covering the frog – it was like this when I found it. The perch, by the way, is actually a support pole for a wind sculpture, the same one seen here – it’s been notably popular with the wildlife.

April’s been bugging me…

April 30, 2024April 29, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

… and it needs to go now. But we have a consolation prize, in the form of a ladies’ Speidel watchband and a lovely month-end abstract to go along with it:

I’d like to say this was intentional and it wouldn’t have been hard to accomplish, but this is simply evidence that I accidentally hit the shutter release as I was finished taking a few frames of pre-sunrise twilight, and the camera was moving slightly as I did so. Probably works much better with the faint pastel colors than it would’ve with a truly vivid sunrise. As to exactly how it produced such a mix of typical motion blur and fine, sharp details (look at the weeds near the bottom of the frame,) I really don’t know. But I assure you this is in-camera and not Photoshopped, or even GIMPed.

The next one was wholly intentional, though:

Even worse, this is only evidence of the misting bottle, but what else are you gonna do with roses? Stop and smell them? Sheesh.

Though I did think to try the same frame out with channel clipping – this is what it looks like in strictly the blue channel.

You could say, “There wasn’t even any blue in the image!”, but there is of course: white is a combination of all three color channels at full brightness, and you can also see that the edges of some of the petals go distinctly pinkish, which is produced by adding blue. And you could say, “Why isn’t this all blue then?”, but this is how such things display; when you’re looking at single channels, the only information there is brightness levels, though I suppose I could GIMP it into Blue, but the purpose was high-contrast monochrome, and this fits. The Blue channel is very often the blotchiest, and you can see evidence of this, but most of the detail came out pretty sharply this time around, and so it won the chance to appear here. W00t, as they no longer say.

Prepare for the onslaught!

April 27, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

There – now that I’ve mimicked damn near every news source out there, I can now say, don’t bother, and there will be no onslaught.

But, the emergence of the 13 year perdiodical cicadas has begun around here.

This is (most likely, anyway) one of the Brood XIX, 13-year cicada species, from the genus Magicicada, but right now I don’t think I can narrow the species down further than that – one of four, anyway.

Here’s the deal: There are annual cicadas, which is what most people see every summer, generally emerging in July and August, dark green with slightly paler eyes. They have a single-year lifecycle, hatching in late summer or early fall from eggs laid in crevices in tree bark, then making their way down to the base of the tree and underground, to remain there and feed on the sap from roots until emerging from the ground the next year in mid-summer, molting into a winged adult immediately after – those are those brown husks found on trunks and walls and such.

But there are also long-term periodical cicadas; same basic cycle, but the underground part lasts for years – in this case, thirteen. They emerge earlier – about this time, really – and have distinctly different coloration and body shapes. Because of this long cycle, they only appear every thirteen years, which helps them avoid over-competition with other species. This year, and the thing that the news has been harping on, there is another species of 17-year cicada (identified as Brood XIII,) also genus Magicicada, emerging at roughly the same time. However, there is likely only a very small portion of the country, like middle Illinois, where the two species will overlap, and the numbers seen there may be notably higher. But that’s not happening here.

Because they emerge much earlier than the decim, annual cicadas, they likely won’t even overlap in notable numbers with those, having either mated successfully or been eaten by the time the decims emerge, so even the songs aren’t likely to be heard in unison.

The Girlfriend spotted the first one, at top, late this morning, and then I started checking out the property and found five more, all clearly having emerged within the past twelve hours – many of them were in the immediate vicinity of their discarded exoskeletons, but all of them were dry and had fully extended wings, just warming up enough to get active. I will endeavor to try and find some either emerging from the ground, or getting ready to molt into adulthood – even though I’ve done that whole sequence before. But digging their way out would be cool to photograph. I’d have to be extremely lucky, but now’s the time to be watching for it.

Three were found clinging to just one of the rosemary plants, so I have a suggestion of where to look, anyway. And I’ve already seen them flying, appearing to be much slower and less agile than the decim cicadas, but with a distinctive rusty color-cast to the blur of their wings. They are also slightly shorter but notably narrower than the typical species, at least around here.

Maybe later on I can pin down a precise species, because I know you’re clamoring for it. For now, we’ll just see what I can find.

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