Now in daylight

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Naturally, I wasn’t going to leave the snow pics at just some night time exposures – not when we got such a decent, scenic coverage. It’s been a few years since we had a proper snow, and my basic attitude is, once a year, for photos’ sake, and that’s it.

frozen pond on Walkabout Estates
Nothing too scenic here, just the northern portion of the backyard pond – the wood ducks from last week had been hiding out right under those branches straight back on the opposite side, but they’d vacated a day or so before the storm. You can see a hint of blue sky there, since the clouds broke by late morning and the sun was out for the afternoon – I think it’s crystal clear out there right now (it’s 10 PM as I’m typing this,) and I might try to do some time exposures to show both the snow and the clear skies, but I have to get motivated to get even colder, and I’m not sure about that.

small tussock in middle of pond devoid of turtles
The turtles were disinclined to come up and bask in their favored spot, despite the sunshine. Huh.

And while I’m linking to past posts, I provide an update on one from long ago:

bird nest balance sculpture almost hidden under snow
Same sculpture, or decoration, or balance-thingy – I’ve never determined what to call these, but The Girlfriend has several. This one has not yet served as a perch for the anoles, and I don’t expect it to anytime soon.

snow-covered yard balance decoration
No anoles peeking out of the ass of this one, either.

snow-covered camellia Theaceae bush still showing bright red flower
There are a couple different varieties of camellia (Theaceae) bush around the property, and the flowers of most immediately wilt when the temperature drops below freezing, but this one seems a bit hardier. No bees, though (weren’t we just there?)

The magnolia (Magnoliaceae) trees on the border of the yard were heavy with snow like most other things, but they have deep green, slick leaves and were receiving bright sunlight, so on occasion (like every ten to twenty seconds,) they would dislodge the snow from a selection of leaves and cause very localized blizzards.

magnolia Magnoliaceae leaves dislodging burden of powdery snow
Despite the sun, the temperatures stayed pretty low so the snow wasn’t getting wet, and the falls were all powdery and blew in the wind – including straight into the camera lens (and of course, down my neck.)

stretch of Spanish moss Tillandsia usneoides bearing clumps of snow
Here’s something you won’t see too often: Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) with patches of snow – the ranges of both simply don’t overlap very much. Though as I’ve heard it, the Florida panhandle got its own blizzard with this one, which is extremely rare, and most of the residents are likely in a state of shock – the remainder are bitching loudly because they moved south specifically to avoid such occurrences.

bird feeders being patronized by a variety of avian species
The Girlfriend put up these bird feeders about a week ago, fretting for a day because the birds hadn’t found them yet, but this soon changed. Before the storm there was plenty of activity, because the birds knew it was coming, but they also wasted no time after it either. Without being able to approach easily from the sunlit side, I got close enough from the opposite side and managed to get eight in the frame at once, of at least four different species. I need to start a list…

heavy snow cover on back deck of Stately Walkabout Manor
You can see portions of the pond on both sides of the railing bends; the upper, northern portion where the wood ducks were congregating is out of sight to the left, while the channel to the lower portion, the bayou-like area, is just off to the right. Very convenient.

I haven’t looked to see how much snow we got ‘officially’ – it’s always less than it appears, but I’d say 5-8 cm (2-3 inches, for Amurrikins.) Not a blizzard, but it qualifies as a proper snowfall anyway, and it’s not supposed to get very warm at all for the next several days, so only the sunlight will wear it away and that won’t be too quickly, I suspect – it’ll be here for a little while. But we don’t have anyplace to be and can even walk to a grocery store if needed, so we’re good.

More pics will probably sneak in here and there – still debating about going out again tonight.

I apologize, on behalf…

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

… of the host, because I didn’t do it.

If you came here in the past day and didn’t find anything, it’s because my website host switched their content to a new server, which I had plenty of notice was going to happen. And the main site went fine, but the blog disappeared entirely. I left it for a few hours, figuring that it was DNS woes of some kind (even though the main site, under the same domain, was working.) By early this evening it still wasn’t working, and I finally contacted tech support. After the usual script-reading of things I’d already covered, I switched PHP versions while they cleared the site cache – one of those did the trick. Neither one of those should have, since both should have been updated with the switch, but here we are.

Anyway, more snow pics will be along shortly. Those that have already had enough snow should come back in a few days and not look at older posts – we don’t get it often here, so I’m doing my duty, and then I’m done with it too. This was one of the primary reasons I moved from NY…

snow piled on decorative bronze-like herons outside Stately Walkabout Manor

‘Round about midnight

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… I went out to get some pics.

time exposure of snow on pond of Walkabout Estates at midnight
The snow started in a very lackluster manner, just dusting the colder surfaces, and kept that up for hours, but by 11 PM it was getting more serious, and a little after midnight I went out to capture some night exposures. It was quite bright out there, from the low cloud cover reflecting the lights of the town to the streetlight on the opposite side of the house, and of course the snow adding to that. The only thing I didn’t do was fire off the flash to freeze the snowflakes in air, because it was still coming down fairly heavily. But quietly; no wind, no noise at all (because even the roads are empty,) so the only sounds were of my feet squelching in the snow and the rustle of the camera cover as I made adjustments. Oh, and some curses when I fumbled and dropped my RC-1 infrared remote control in the snow. Whaddya want? It’s about half the size of a cigarette lighter and I had gloves on. I found it easily enough, and it’s working fine.

time exposure of snow on pond of Walkabout Estates around midnight
Both of these are of the pond right out back, this one not quite ninety degrees to the right of the previous, same tripod position. I counted off 45 seconds for both, but that’s slightly off, 41 and 43 seconds, ISO 400, f8. No ducks of course, and in fact that hadn’t shown all day – just a heron, looking cold. The newly-installed bird feeders received a lot of attention, however, since the birds knew the weather was a-coming.

I also had to show you what the camera looked like once I came back inside.

snow on camera cover and lenshood of photographer's camera
I was prepared, using the rain cover (okay, not entirely prepared, since I don’t have a snow cover) and the deep lenshood, intended for exactly these kind of uses. You can still see a little snow inside the lenshood from when I turned the camera sideways for vertical compositions, the hood not being quite adequate for that. Had I turned it to compensate, the edges of it would have gotten into the frame, so I kept my time with the camera sideways as short as possible.

More images will likely be along come daybreak, when I can see better to frame more fartistically, and when I might convince some critters to hold still long enough. Sit tight.

Just enough to count

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So, did I get anything else for World Waterfowl Day? Well, read the title.

After a couple of days with no sign of them, the two pairs of wood ducks returned again this morning, being a little more brazen than before in that they ventured much further out into the open pond than previously. However, this did not mean that they treated my presence with less suspicion. The Girlfriend was watching from upstairs as I slipped out the outer door to Walkabout Studios, and knew the exact moment that I came into view of them with the camera in hand. Their whole demeanor changes, not drastically, but distinctly, and they immediately moved back under the cover of low-hanging branches at a faster pace than they’d been maintaining before. Mind you, I was still 50 meters off and had only leaned around the corner enough to get the lens out – they’re sharp-eyed little cusses.

Later on in the day, they were straight out from the back deck, and I eased out the door while they on the opposite side of a tree, but the moment they came out into clear view again, they spotted me and headed right back for cover.

two pairs of wood ducks Aix sponsa heading for cover after sighting photographer
All four of them are in this shot, but you may have to look hard; clicking on it will bring up a version twice the size, though. There are a lot of vines and grasses along the pond shores, some of which will be cleared out before spring, but it isn’t accidental that they headed for this area either – they know how to screw with autofocus, and I’d tweaked the focus ring to get them this sharp, which isn’t enough.

pair of wood ducks Aix sponsa getting into deep shade and under branches
Still, they’re in the backyard pond, and haven’t yet flown off at my presence, so we’re still at a net positive. There will be further opportunities. I’d say that I’d construct a blind, but I’d have to get into it probably before sunrise and remain silent, since there’s too much open yard to cross to get close to the pond edge, and any given location would have a vantage only of small portions of the pond – that, naturally, means that the ducks would avoid that portion thereafter. It’s a lot like meteors, which produce the best displays exactly where your camera is not aimed.

Notice too that the brilliant red eyes of the male are quite muted in this light, which is perhaps an interesting evolutionary development: the first wavelengths to scatter in our atmosphere are in the red spectrum, then yellow, which is why the indirect light in deep shade always has a blue hue. This gives very little light for the eyes to reflect. But they have that bright coloration for a reason too, and even though these four seemed to have already paired up, I’m hoping for some nice courtship displays in the spring, which will almost certainly take place in bright sunlight to show off the colors. I also expect that, should the nest box(es) become occupied, the male will draw attention away from them once the female is on the nest, and may be out in the open a little more. We’ll just have to bide our time, right?

Estate Find III

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Now, this… this one makes me pleased. Actually, psyched.

male wood duck Aix sponsa in backyard pond
Remember last week when I said that cedar waxwings had some of the best coloration of the North American birds? Well, wood ducks (Aix sponsa) have them beat, or at least the males do; the females are considerably less flamboyant, which we’ll see in a moment.

More importantly, however, was that this one, and three more, were all spotted in the main pond, the one that sits right off the backyard, and this was taken just fifty meters from my office door. In fact, I saw the movement from my office window – that’s how convenient this is. The only issue is my desk faces away from that window; tragedy.

The saga so far. Several weeks back I heard a call that was not immediately familiar, but nagged at me, and eventually I determined that it was from a wood duck, soon after confirming that they were visiting the lower pond. This is visible from certain perspectives from the main pond, but only just, and it is not easy to get to the edge of, less so if you want to remain, you know, quiet and inconspicuous. Worse, once the grasses and reeds start coming in, they’ll obscure virtually all view of the lower pond unless I’m right at the edge of it, and knowing how spooky wood ducks are, I wasn’t expecting them to use the main, close pond at all. Still, I had plans to place the nest box right at the edge of the main pond, by the small channel and marshy area that led to the lower pond, in the hopes that this would coax them within sight during nesting season.

male wood duck Aix sponsa moving from bright sunlight on backyard pond
Attempts to get photos yielded just one that provided proof of their presence, though I saw them a couple of times, each defeating my attempts to even lock focus. And then they seemed to vanish. I’m not educated on their habits, and didn’t know if I’d simply caught them on their migratory pass south, but then saw them again just this week. Even better, this angle is shooting mostly north, so the light will always be beneficial – if they continue to visit this area.

There were four: two females, two males, but establishing this actually took a little while, because of their habits.

two female and one male wood ducks Aix sponsa hiding under branches overhanging main pond
This is full-frame at 600mm, and you probably found the other male, but can you see the females? I’ll give you time to look.

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.

.

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Okay, that’s long enough – we at least had the advantage that we’d see occasional movement. But it does give a good idea of what we were seeing, and why the binoculars were needed, and that the debate on exactly how many there were went on for several minutes. Here’s the tighter crop:

image cropped down to showing the two females and one male wood ducks Aix sponsa, under branches overhanging pond
The two females are to the left, facing left, distinguished most readily by the white marking around their eyes. What this also shows is that, outside of bright sunlight, the iridescence of the males vanishes entirely, and the contrasty white markings on the head now serve to break up their profile and make them blend in with the scattered branches and reeds. They seem to know this well, because in observing them for a couple of hours, they rarely left the camouflage of the thicket of overhanging branches, and were wholly disinclined to swim out in open water like the mallards do. The one male in the sunlight, seen in the first two images, only traversed an open space between two heavily shaded areas, and that’s when I was timing my shots. Moreover, I was well back from the edge of the pond, right alongside the house, and he was clearly aware of my presence; getting closer is liable to be a real challenge.

I have a nest box constructed and finally chose a spot for it; now I’m debating on whether to put it there or place it a lot closer to the area where these pics were taken. It will likely be both, as I construct another within the next couple of weeks, the sooner the better to get the ducks used to their presence. Both will be tricky, because the pond bottom is boggy as hell and the boxes should be a meter-and-a-half or better off of the water surface; this would mean driving in a pole near three meters in length, and I have no easy way of doing that on dry land, much less something akin to quicksand. One, at least, will be strapped to a tree, but I don’t think there are any good candidates by this particular spot. I’ve considered doing a floating stand that’s simply anchored to one spot at the edge of the pond, but that’s much more elaborate construction work, and I’m only adequate at woodworking.

One last view:

male wood duck Aix sponsa regaining the cover of overhanging branches on backyard pond
The adventurous male is regaining the cover of the branches near the others here, but this was the only perspective that showed the speckling of the chestnut breast feathers, and more of that fabulous iridescence. Better pics will be forthcoming, as I achieve them.

Note: This post was already completed and scheduled to appear when I discovered that today would be/is World Waterfowl Day – that worked out nicely. Will there be more? We’ll just have to see…

How do I get in the loop?

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Man, I hate finding things out too late, but at least this time I’m not, though it’s certainly cutting it close. I just happened to check out the calendar for Sylvan Heights Bird Park and discovered that tomorrow, January 17th, is a whole new holiday (for realsies): World Waterfowl Day. It’s too late for us to make explicit plans, and while the park is now just over an hour away, it’s been cold as hell and not the kind of weather to do outings of this nature.

That said, we have a decent-sized pond out back, so the opportunity to find something is right there, and there’s also a state park not quite 20 kilometers away too – we’ll see what happens. I apologize for posting this so late, but I literally just found out about this before I started typing. I did, however, already have an image in the blog folder that would work.

male and female mallards Anas platyrynchos pausing during feeding in the backyard pond
It was a few days back when some mallards (Anas platyrynchos) were cruising around feeding in the close portion of the pond, and while they were spending a lot of time with their heads under water, I crept closer. This is just after they realized someone was standing in the middle of the yard watching them; the male has noticeably stood higher and more alert, before they began swimming to a safer distance.

I’m still wondering how I never heard anything about the new holiday until now, and trying to determine how I can subscribe to news of this nature – without, of course, resorting to the utterly worthless bullshit that is social media. But it’s now in my personal calendar at least, so you’ll get far more warning next year.

Chill hawks

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pair of red-shouldered hawks Buteo lineatus perched together on cold morning
Early this morning before the temperature had risen above freezing, the local pair of red-shouldered hawks (Buteo lineatus) had perched together for a few minutes in the backyard, immediately after the female had taken unsuccessful shots at two possible meals, one of them an unidentified bird. We rarely see them together, and so far never as close as this, though we know they’re remaining together – again, not 100% sure they’re a mated pair and not simply siblings, but it seems pretty likely at this point, and we’ll be watching for a nest within the next two months. Due to the size disparity, it is likely the female on the left, and she’s the one that usually hunts in the yard, but as you can see, differentiating them by markings is next to impossible.

As you can also see, once spring comes and the trees leaf out, their visibility is going to become much worse – we’re certainly not going to have this view right out the back door, so I’m happy to take advantage of it now. At the same time, they’re so used to our presence now that they won’t spook unless we get within 10-15 meters, which is a help. Meanwhile, the great blue heron that visits the pond takes off at first sight of us, regardless of the distance, and the mallards are only slightly more tolerant. I’ve seen both species being way more accepting of human presence than this, so perhaps it’s just a matter of conditioning. We’ll see what we can do…

Sorting finds n+10

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It’s funny – I finally sat down yesterday to clear out the burgeoning Sort folder of new images, slotting them into their respectful spots (which includes the trash bin,) and less than 24 hours later, that folder is already up to 71 images. Some of those you’ve already seen, since the occultation photos came in there, but some will show up on Friday.

For now, we have a handful that I rediscovered while sorting and set aside to feature as curiosities. Like this one of the cedar waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) that had gathered a few days back:

cedar waxwing Bombycilla cedrorum showing deceptive shadow
As I remarked then, cedar waxwings have some of the best coloration, but this view of the chin showed something unexpected: a sharp black point, kind of an underside widow’s peak, right under the chin. I thought, What a cool marking!, but other images showed that it isn’t actually present – it’s only the shadow of the bird’s own beak. Oh well.

But while here, we see another frame of the same bird feeding.

cedar waxwing Bombycilla cedrorum looking into camera with indigo berry in its beak
Grasping one of the little indigo berries that the small flock was feeding upon, this one looked right into the camera, or at least appears to, perhaps showing off its meal smugly (or not.) I could have had a few like this, were it not for all the intervening branches that also tended to grab autofocus, but at least here there’s the faintest hint of the deep brown color of the eyes. And it gives an idea of how many images got tossed because of those branches.

After sorting, I also did a tally of the images obtained for 2024, which is below.

Aquatic: 34
Arthropods: 652
Beach: 0 (I think I lamented this earlier)
Birds: 2,458
Invertebrates: 2
Lakes/Streams/Waterfalls: 1,127
Leaves/Plants/Trees: 459
Mammals: 107
Mountain: 35 (I thought this would be lower, but I forgot I went to Tennessee to pick up my brother)
Reptiles/Amphibians: 768
Scenic/Abstract: 332
Science/Miscellaneous: 586
Space: 270 (well, if we count those taken in space, that number is 0)
Sunrise/Sunset: 156

That totals 6,986 – mind you, those are the keepers, so not an accurate tally of how many I actually took, but it’s still lower than other years. Some of them got into multiple categories as well, so reduce by 5-10% if you’re interested in the actual number of distinct images. Oh, you’re not?

But doing this, I found that the first bird images of 2024 were an unexpected subject, a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) visiting the neighborhood pond.

long shot of mature bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus hanging out at neighborhood pond
That’s the first, the ‘insurance frame’ taken as it came into sight, in case the bird spooked before I got close enough for better ones, which happens from time to time. It’s full-frame as well, but crops down halfway decently:

bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus perched overlooking neighborhood pond
The tangle of branches gives entirely the wrong impression, since the eagle was at the edge of the pond with a clear view and a clear flight path. I just liked the idea that the first bird was not only an eagle, but one I wouldn’t have expected to find until going down to Jordan Lake, some kilometers south. This was taken January 24th, and I’ve got that beat this year, since my first bird pics were on the 2nd, but admittedly those are only mallards. The eagle, meanwhile, visited several times over the following couple of weeks, but seems to have vanished at the same time that the red-shouldered hawks began their pre-mating territorial displays, so there’s a distinct possibility that they chased it off.

And finally,

small flock of Canada geese Branta canadensis taking off in heavy fog over Pamlico River, with solitary one swimming underneath
I realized during sorting that this one had a little snide commentary, as a small flock of Canada geese (Branta canadensis) took flight in the thick fog a few weeks back, while another sits complacently alongside a sign indicating its cowardice. Or something. That whole flock ran straight into the masts of the sailboats moored about fifty meters away*, so the joke’s on them, eh?

But that’s it for sorting finds, until the next, which typically comes over a thousand images off, since that’s how I parcel out my time: put on some podcasts and just plod through the folder. I could do it daily, but then how would I catch up on podcasts, huh? Okay, then.

* No they didn’t

Mostly good

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

So I did indeed get out to view the occultation of Mars by the mean ol’ moon (ours, I mean, not any of the other planets’,) and even snagged a couple of video clips. The nice thing was, Mars was bright enough to be seen near the moon with only a slight overexposure of the moon itself, so that worked out acceptably well.

Mars nearing occultation by full moon
You can see it easily down there at the bottom, and also that the moon isn’t quite full, but close enough for our purposes (well, any phase would be fine for our purposes, and even a crescent might have looked cool.) This was with the Tamron 150-600 at 600mm of course, which we can zoom in on to see at full resolution.

Mars nearing occultation by moon, full resolution at 600mm
Video resolution would be different, though, so I switched over to using the 2X teleconverter with the lens – this reduces light by two stops, but this was easily compensated with aperture and ISO.

full resolution image of Mars just before occultation, through 600mm lens and 2X teleconverter
You can actually make out some striations on Mars now, though I’m not 100% sure this isn’t atmospherics and lens aberrations – one of my frames appears to show the polar cap, while others don’t, and there was evidence of increasing high-altitude humidity.

Now, I did get the telescope out, and temperature-stabilized and collimated and everything, but it was close to a waste of time: the camera mount that I had for it wouldn’t work with the objective standoff, and I couldn’t achieve focus – the sensor was too far away from the focal point. During the occultation, I amused myself with looking at some details on the moon and even a bit of the nebulae around Orion’s dagger, but that was about it, and couldn’t do a thing about getting images. I have a webcam adaptation that I need to get working, so there’s that project.

But, I did shoot video with the long lens and teleconverter, at least:

As mentioned within, Stellarium’s plotting of the times seems to be slightly off; I’ve noticed this before, so naturally on the reappearance I started early to capture the right moment, but this meant that the moon was moving out of the frame during the reemergence, leading to my little screwup. Not that big a deal, since the resolution was still too low for a nice look anyway, not to mention those cirrus clouds reducing the visibility.

[A note about the motion: what you’re seeing is mostly the rotation of the Earth, causing both the moon and Mars to slide across the sky. But the moon itself is revolving around the Earth in the opposite direction, quite slowly in comparison since it takes 28 days to do a full orbit. This means that everything appears to be moving to the upper right (for this time of night and perspective, anyway,) but the moon still blots out Mars in the opposite direction, or Mars slides behind the moon as it overtakes it, whatever you like. It’s the same with eclipses. Seems odd, but most of the apparent motion is just the Earth turning.]

The same full-resolution view of Mars after it reappeared looks much worse now due to atmospheric distortion:

Mars near the moon after reappearing following occultation, partially obscured by cirrus clouds
I did several frames, tweaking focus in between, but this was the clearest that I achieved. It did not help that the moon was significantly higher now and required an awkward position to see through the viewfinder, and I was viewing through glasses that weren’t flat to the eyepiece. I should have dug out the right-angle viewfinder attachment.

Overall, though, it was successful, just not as close or resolved as I would have liked. Still working on it.

Edging out the little guy

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Tomorrow night, a little after 9 PM EST (so 2 AM Jan 14 UTC – adjust as necessary,) the moon will occult Mars, pretty directly for most of the US. This will last for a little over an hour before Mars reappears again out the other side, so this is an easy thing to spot by naked eye, and a good target for telephoto lenses, small and large telescopes.

plot of Mars occultation by moon 1/13/25
Plot of Mars occultation by moon from Stellarium for this location – other regions will vary somewhat

I keep making noises to this effect, and keep not doing it, but I really should get the telescope set up for this – it’s a good, easy target and we even have conditions tonight for a test run. It’s cold out there, and the scope is always a bitch to set up, align, collimate, and all that – I understand why people build backyard observatories. And ideally, I should have the tracking motor working, but last year’s attempts to get this together for the solar eclipse produced almost nothing – it seemed to be working, but not properly, and I had no way of determining why not. In this case however, the target area will be broad enough that tracking may be unnecessary.

The big caveat: the moon is a hell of a lot brighter than Mars, and so an exposure to get good detail from both isn’t happening, but if you’re into astrophotography, you’re probably used to Photoshopping (I think they call it “image stacking,” but potato/potato) to get an image that shows both, so have at it. I may do some experiments tonight to see what relative exposures are necessary. The moon is easy, but we can bleach that out a bit to capture Mars as it hides.

If you haven’t done it yet, download Stellarium, and get it set for your location. It’s really damn handy. And good luck!

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