Defying expectations

November 20, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

So yesterday I determined that there were a few shots that I wanted to capture today, and had them scheduled in. The weather, however, had other ideas, and most of the day was rainy, not at all conditions for what I had planned (which, successful or not, I’ll reveal eventually – just not in this post.) Thus I resigned myself to skipping photography for the day and working on other tasks instead, of which there are still plenty.

But in the afternoon I went out to check the mail and found someone right smack in our front yard, and hurried back inside immediately. This is not as ominous (or as wimpy) as it sounds, because the someone was a red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus,) and I went inside to get the camera and The Girlfriend. Coming back out, I eased the lens into view and was just focusing when the hawk decided not to hang around and flew off, showing that my suspicions of it having prey on the lawn were unfounded. Luckily though, it only flew to the light pole at the end of the driveway, where we discovered that another waited.

pair of red-shouldered hawks Buteo lineatus perched on light pole
We’ve been hearing one marking territory in the immediate area quite often, and have spotted it in the trees in the yard a few times, but never in the clear enough for photos, so I was pleased to have them both out in the open like this, albeit in lousy light. The one from the yard is on the right, and is likely female judging from being larger than the other – it’s a little early for mating season, but who knows?

It was still raining lightly, which might have helped, because I was able to creep a bit closer for better framing without them flying off.

I made it to roughly 20 meters off, enough to get a few shots, and left it at that so I wouldn’t spook them off. I honestly don’t know how much or how quickly birds can condition to human presence, but I thought it was better for me to walk away quietly rather than have them fly off when they felt I was too close. Maybe we’ll have a nest nearby, come spring.

The male didn’t appear the slightest interested in what I was doing, only glancing at my progress occasionally. There were plenty of grey squirrels active in the yard and it’s likely that’s what they were after; I did examine the yard where the female had been standing and found no evidence of remains, but if they want to raise some young here, the yard and the pond will provide plenty of food.

Later in the evening, going out to check the mail again (the light pole was almost directly over the mailbox and so I had skipped it earlier to avoid disturbing the hawks,) I noticed something on one of the balancing birds, and so got the camera back out.

The past couple of nights have been far too chilly for the Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) to be sleeping in the open, and it was still raining lightly anyway, but the temperature was actually warmer than it had been during the day, and so this guy was game.

The anole had one eye opened sleepily watching what was going on, which is fairly typical, but otherwise remained undisturbed. It’s entirely possible that this is the one that had been sleeping inside the sculpture, which we saw again one of these mornings, yesterday or today. However, upon unloading the memory card, I noticed that I could never see further down the tail than this, and wasn’t sure if it was simply because the wings of the sculpture cut off the flash light, or if the tail was partially missing. So I went back out a little later to check.

Yep, this one lost part of its tail in some altercation, which is fairly frequent. We’ll have to see if it grows back forked.

But I want you to notice the different in lighting between the anole pics. The latest one immediately above is less contrasty than the others, and also a little bit yellower – this is because I was using the macro softbox for this shot of the missing tail, but direct flash with the others. Direct flash makes the raindrops show up better, but the heightened contrast and deeper shadows sometimes eliminates details in macro subjects, which is why I have the softbox.

There was something else that I brought the camera out for, though.

There is a line of Leyland cypress (Cupressocyparis leylandii) trees along the driveway, and each night some variety of bird chooses them to roost within in fairly noticeable numbers – I spot them with the headlamp from time to time when I’m out snooping around, but the nature of the foliage and the habits of the birds means that I rarely get more than a glimpse of a pale belly. Tonight was a little different, and I could work some angles that showed a little more identifying coloration. Just, not enough; I’ve been through my Sibley Guide multiple times and can’t pin it down, though my suspicion that they’re warblers remains. It does not help that warblers get very vague coloration during the fall and winter months.

Naturally, they were always overhead – not by much, but enough to prevent any views of the backs or wings that might assist in pinning it down. I believe I’ve seen them during the day, but they’re just as buried in the foliage and not holding still in the slightest, so the view is much worse.

These four were all roosting together in less than a half-meter cluster, and attracted my attention by having a brief, quiet discussion for a moment, but even then it was simply twitters and not any kind of song, so no help there. This was my typical view, too, up until tonight at least. If you have any ideas on the species, pass them along.

I figured, while out with the camera and flash, I’d try to find one of the anoles that insists on living in the greenhouse, and so popped in to check. Sure enough, one was found tucked into the pineapple plant.

I’d spotted one here before, since the shape and density of the leaves down near the base make for good sleeping nooks, but it took me several tries to get the flash angle right to show it, while trying not to lean in too close and get stabbed by the sharp ends of those leaves. But again upon unloading, I found a detail that I likely wouldn’t have noticed at all.

Sorry about the overexposure – it’s hard to judge. But man, what happened to those rear toes? They should be long and slender, with the middle toe extending quite far out, so something caused them to be almost missing, and I have no idea what. Though now I’m less motivated to chase this one, at least, out of the greenhouse, because it’s better sheltered in there – as long as it’s finding enough food. I’ve seen them slipping under the edges of the bottom frames, and when the temperature gets high enough I open the door and ceiling vents anyway, so they can always make their own choice.

But I noticed that a different angle would give a peek at the forebody, so I went for that angle too.

Not much more than a peek, really – you can see the paler markings that run along the spine, and down at the bottom is the edge of the eye, with that hint of blue eyeshadow. That was the best that I was gonna get.

While there, I did a couple of updates, because it’s still a little hard for me to believe.

Those are new blossoms on the Key lime (Citrus × aurantiifolia) trees – which still have limes on them. We’ve harvested one batch and made a fabulous pie, but have enough for something else too, so we’ve been letting them sit until we decide (and Thanksgiving is coming up anyway.) Just last night I dug out the pollinating paintbrushes, because nothing’s going to do it in the greenhouse but me, and not a moment too soon it appears. And the lemon trees were getting their start too.

These are perhaps even more ahead of the game, because both trees are laden with lemons that aren’t ripe yet – huge ones too, so we’re gathering lemon recipes as well.

We’re definitely glad we sprung for the greenhouse, and in fact, this is a new one that’s over twice the size of the previous (which isn’t saying a lot: 2.5 x 4 meters rather than 2×2,) even though most of the plants that we’d had in there last year were waiting for the opportunity to plant them in the new place, which has now occurred – we have the citrus trees, trumpet flowers, and a potted Japanese maple in there right now, so it’s not overcrowded. Despite the delight of the anoles with it.

So, not bad for a day that I figured I’d forego the photography.

Just once, part 47

November 20, 2024November 19, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

This week we have an American coot (Fulica americana,) found in the ponds of Savannah National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina. I’d photographed one once before this, in Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Delray Beach, Florida – not a very good shot, but it showed their semi-webbed feet well – but as for being featured on the blog, this only happened once, four years ago. Which was the last time we were down at Savannah NWR, which we’ll have to remedy soon.

This coot was sharing the same space with common ~~moorhens~~ gallinules and purple gallinules, and as I type this, I find that what was considered the common moorhen in the US, the same species as found in Europe and Africa, isn’t – they are genetically distinct and now considered a separate species as of 2011. Which is funny, because I also featured that species in the same post in 2020, but this new nomenclature had not yet propagated to my identification sources; for birds, this is usually Cornell University’s All About Birds site, though I can’t recall if I used it then. The point I was making, however, was that despite their very similar appearance, habits, and habitats, they’re all distinctly different species, different genuses in fact.

But I’d featured both of those species multiple times before now, while the American coot was only once, so that’s what we’re discussing now. Even if it is the least remarkable in appearance. I did what I could with the opportunities, but you almost get the impression that the pics would have been better without the distraction of the drab birds in there. I mean, they have red eyes, but then someone said, “That’s a bit garish – let’s tone it down a bit.” They probably resent the change to “gallinule,” too. Oh, wait, that was the other one…

Chaos, revisited, part one

November 19, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I almost felt obligated to do this follow-up, considering how badly I lambasted the book that purported to explain the concept, because it seems that it was, at least to a degree, more the author’s dismal attempt to explain it than the concept itself.

We’re talking about chaos theory, and it does not bode well that I sought out multiple sources to try and get a grip on it and failed; however, this recent article did more for my understanding than all of those sources combined, and did so in a way that it fit well into the other disciplines of science. That article is The Forces of Chance by Brian Klaas who is, of all things, an associate professor in global politics at University College London – not (by vocation) a mathematician, though how far removed this is I cannot say. But all credit to him for pinning the idea down so well, with perhaps some caveats in there, which we’ll get to.

Basic definition: chaos theory is the manner in which large systems may depart from expected results in a non-linear manner. Well, that’s about worthless without exposition, but to add the necessary element, in some cases very small variations can lead to quite broad effects, and we’ll use the old standby of the weather to help explain it. Weather is hard to predict, even though we understand the mechanics of it just fine: air warms and expands, picks up moisture that can make clouds, and so on. But predicting it is hard and fraught with wide error margins, because a little extra warmth here, a bit of smoke there, and other such factors, can cause a storm to become raging or peter out entirely.

A quick note: physics is deterministic, meaning that if we know the energy that goes in, we know the effect that comes out. Full stop. The only place where this falls apart is on the subatomic level, and countless experiments at this level shows that it rarely ever can rise above it to have the slightest effect at all; there’s more than a suspicion that there’s at least another law of physics governing this subatomic ‘randomness’ to make that deterministic too. What this all means is, given enough information about conditions of any given system (for instance a cold front,) we can predict what it will do. The key factor in there is given enough information, which is many cases is far more than we have any way of gathering or collating. How much of that smoke from a volcano will reflect sunlight and drop regional temperatures, versus how high is the humidity where the smoke particles themselves form nuclei for raindrops and gets quickly carried back down to the ground?

Now, the ‘law’ of averages (we really should stop using that term,) indicates that small variations tend to balance out: a little bit this way, a little bit in the opposite way, and the effect largely cancels. What chaos theory addresses are the circumstances where that averaging fails, and a small variation leads the physical effects down a different path (this is where non-linear is a bit misleading, because it remains linear, just departing from average or even expectations.) My example is following a complicated set of driving directions, only inverting right and left in just one step – you might still get fairly close to your destination, or you might go incredibly far out of your way.

Klaas provides another example that highlights a difference in factors, by recounting a personal, emotional bond that affected the choice of targets for the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II – and at the same time, a chance weather event. Both of these – human emotions and weather – are inherently chaotic, defying predictions and expectations. And Klaas largely addresses the failures of social sciences (politics, economy, sociology, psychology) to effectively predict outcomes, which are all reliant on human emotions to a large extent. Does this mean humans are chaotic? Well, certainly that they’re complicated, while not in any way defying the laws of physics or determinism. For instance, I don’t like the color red, and who knows why this might be? It could potentially be due to my astigmatism, and how the lenses in my eyes don’t focus red as well as other colors, but the result might be that, in a decision that depends on whether I choose red or blue, blue is going to be the case most often – even though, on average, humans prefer red over blue. You could only predict this if you knew this trait about me (and now you are so armed.)

This overall dependence on wildly variable human input, however, is why there’s a distinction of ‘social’ sciences versus ‘physical,’ and you can argue – I would, anyway – that the word ‘science’ shouldn’t be applied to the former, because there have never been any results in such fields that tell us we have this down to a science. Here, chaos theory has due application – to a degree, anyway.

Because chaos theory doesn’t determine when a system will depart expectations or ‘become non-linear,’ nor does it provide a method to prevent this – it’s just something we can point to after it happens, a name we can apply. In scientific terms, a theory is an explanation for the known facts – a strong theory predicts results, given the right factors, and this is what chaos theory does not do. And this is also where the article was ultimately disappointing, because while it showed how and where chaos might erupt, it didn’t provide any advancements that have been made since the theory was first coined – I was kind of hoping that, given our enormous computing power and the decades of observations, someone might have been on track for finding any key factors that would help predict when this non-linearity could appear, but so far, we appear to have nothing.

The aforeblasted book by James Gleick was notorious for accusing scientists for not accepting chaos theory, though it never became clear where this was taking place, nor what exactly was supposed to be done about it, and Klaas makes the same error, though to a lesser degree, For instance:

The problem is that social scientists don’t seem to know how to incorporate the nonlinearity of chaos.

I’ll bite: how do you incorporate chaos theory? If it can arise at any time, especially in certain disciplines, what are we supposed to do about it? Simply shrug and say, “I dunno,” and then go play video games? Giving a name to unpredictability isn’t exactly a huge accomplishment – we’d embraced unpredictability before we had language. Ignorance is our default state; our goal is to reduce that as much as possible.

Klaas also targets natural selection (which of course raised my hackles,) but this is more of a straw man argument than anything informative. He shows that genetic variations were largely random, which is perfectly true; the problem is, virtually no one claimed otherwise, and the key part in there is natural selection. Evolution is how the environment favors the variations that best support survival and reproduction, but it has always depended on which variations arise, and many of the weird things we see in species are because an optimal variation did not, so something else that could barely fit the bill was adapted instead. I hate to tell him this, but this was known before chaos theory was coined (and didn’t leap forward after that, either.)

I still have to give the article credit in that it never attempts to deny or misuse determinism, never implies that our knowledge of physics is somehow flawed, which is certainly the overriding impression that I kept receiving from Gleick’s book. Nor does it attempt to elevate chaos theory into something remarkable and innovative, though Klaas does seem to believe that the social sciences cannot recognize it; I have seen no direct examples of this myself, though I never put stock into economics and poli-sci and don’t know how many people do.

But what I will say is that the article sparked a couple of ideas, and rather than make this post inordinately long, I’ll go into them a little later on. Lucky us, eh?

Just once, part 46

November 13, 2024November 12, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

We have a double this week, a cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) and thistle flowers (Asteraceae.) The thistle is not so surprising, since while it is abundant in central New York where I took this, I haven’t yet seen it in North Carolina where I spend the vast majority of my time, and truth be told, I don’t seek out thistle flowers as photo subjects – it was the cabbage white that attracted my attention. Those can be found all over the US, but I had a vague suspicion that maybe I didn’t have much chance to see one since their preferred food was thistle nectar; a check with BugGuide.net disavowed me of that notion – they sup from lots of plants. So perhaps it was just that I don’t often pursue the smaller butterflies. Or maybe they really are scarce around here, for whatever reason.

It was the delicate green color that made me frame this subject, but the other reason that I feature this here is that it was taken not with any form of macro lens, but the Tamron 150-600 at 600mm instead, which can’t focus within two meters. I admit I was chasing birds instead that day, but this subject presented itself and so I snagged it, and was lucky enough to catch the multiple false pupils in the eyes (we are talking about the butterfly right now.)

Actually, I tell a lie. Not only have I featured thistle flowers here before, I can now recall two separate occasions where I found them in North Carolina (neither of them is that link, which was Florida.) I don’t think I’ve posted images of either of those occasions here, but obviously I still showed thistles at that link, so we only have the cabbage white as a singular appearance. At least so identified. It’s probably not even the only ‘macro’ shot with that lens featured here. I’ll try and do better next week…

Clear ’em out (only momentarily)

November 9, 2024November 8, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

All right, the anole pics are piling up, though I’ve been trying to do posts on other things to break it up a little, but now it’s time to clean ’em out, for the brief period that this will last. We’ll start with a few from just this morning.

Going out to the greenhouse to open it up for the day, I found this little scene etched on one panel:

That’s condensation on the inside of the panels, disturbed by… somebody. Actually, the footprints and the tail tracks make it pretty obvious, but I like how the anole was disturbing it enough to throw water further down the panel. Here’s a closer look if you like:

Despite my best efforts, there are always a few anoles in the greenhouse – it doesn’t close tightly enough for them, plus they love scampering all over the outside. Since it can easily hit 40°c or more in there during the day if I don’t open the door and vents, it usually remains open while the sun’s hitting it, and they have plenty of opportunities to get inside even if they weren’t capable of slipping through the cracks The heat doesn’t seem to bother them, though I don’t know how much food they’re finding in there. But they especially like the pineapple plant:

So far, no hint of pineapples, but this has been going for a few years now after just sticking the cut-off head of a pineapple in a pot, so we’ll see I guess.

One colder morning, I noticed that a balancing bird decoration (The Girlfriend loves these) seemed to be sitting a little off-balance.

Now, this one is notorious for one of the birds gathering water within if it rains hard enough, collected through an opening in the rear, making us comment that “it’s time to express the birds.” But it hadn’t rained recently, so I took a closer look.

You can see the dew, and it was pretty chilly out, but if you look close you can also see a pointy bit around the nether regions of the far bird. Closer still:

Yep, there’s no portion of the sculpture there, and I’d suspected anoles were taking shelter within some nights – it could fit a dozen of them, but generally only one is clambering about on these at any given time. Anoles like climbing, so they took to the lawn sculptures instantly, and the dark color means they gather heat from sunlight pretty quickly. A flash shot shows things distinctly.

If they take to this after a rain, they’ll have their own little indoor pool, until we drain the birds again. In fact, this is our gauge of how hard it’s rained; a light rain won’t put any water within. A hard rain will deposit water in one of them, and a fierce storm will cause both to become reservoirs. It’s weird.

This one is in the process of molting, looking terrible but this will all be gone in a day or two. Snakes will shed their skin in one piece, or at least try to, but the anoles just shred it off in patches.

I missed a couple of good shots by not carrying the camera with me everywhere I go – you’d think I’d learn, but it’s hard to carry when you’re doing carpentry, you know? One of the anoles on the side of the house looked strange, and a closer look revealed that it had captured a wolf spider – the body was clasped firmly within the anole’s mouth, but the legs dangled freely on either side like a huge scraggly mustache. I ran to get the camera, but it was a floor away at the other end of the house, so it took a couple minutes. By that time, the anole had started gulping the spider down, as well as seeking a little more shelter:

The initial appearance would have been a great shot, but I suppose I’ll get another opportunity at some point.

In moments, all evidence of the spider was gone, even though it almost looked big enough to defy being swallowed, but this guy ate good for the day at least.

And finally, a quick grab shot as I passed, several days back.

This one was indeed up overhead, peeking from the roof edge, and the flash unit was already attached and fired up, so I got a nice, dead-on shot, with the flash bouncing from the white paint filling in the shadowed side of the anole’s face. I like it.

Okay, maybe we’ll go a few posts before we see more of these guys. Gotta look for more subjects.

Like, Wow!, man!

November 8, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

This one popped up several weeks ago, when I was too busy to do it justice, so I set it aside for when I had plenty of time to write it up properly, which appears to be now. There are a decent number of details and thus it will take some explaining, so get comfy as we set off on this journey.

There used to be a massive radio telescope at Ohio State University, dubbed the Big Ear, that monitored a portion of the sky each night for any signals within a fairly broad set of wavelengths – this was largely aimed towards intercepting any potential signals of extraterrestrial life, and served as among the first efforts at SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.) And on August 15, 1977, the telescope recorded a remarkably strong signal from a relatively barren patch of sky. This wasn’t discovered for a couple of days since the printouts of the recordings had to be examined personally for any anomalies, but when it was, the section that showed peak reception and signal strength was circled and appended, “Wow!” by Jerry R. Ehman, the astronomer evaluating the data. And it was certainly significant, many times stronger than any signal received before and tracing a bell curve of signal strength that helped pinpoint the location in the sky, as well as helping confirm that it was not a stray, fluke signal.

Some background: Radio telescopes aren’t tubes and lenses like optical telescopes, but antennae of different types, and in Big Ear’s case, it was two massive mesh arrays that reflected and bounced the radio waves down to two receivers. The whole affair was fixed and not able to be aimed, but it had a broad focus range and the rotation of the Earth served to track its observation path across the sky. The signal lasted for 72 seconds, which corresponds closely with how long any given point source would be able to be received as the planet rotated.

Mostly, anyway. The way the recording worked, the telescope would take ten seconds of signals received, spending two seconds to average out the signal strength from that period, and record that average as a single digit on the readout. So technically, there were six readings of ten seconds averaged out, allowing for a little slop on the signal strength and start and end periods; this also prevented recording any modulated or patterned signal with short periods. For instance, had a Morse code style signal been received, all of the dots and dashes within that ten seconds would have been simply averaged out to one digit of signal strength, roughly half of the actual signal strength because all of the pauses between dot and dash would be averaged into the final tally as well. However, the curve traced by the rise and fall of signal strength was in accord with a steady, constant signal, getting ‘louder’ and ‘quieter’ as it passed into and out of the focus of the antenna array.

printout of "Wow!" signal from Ohio State University — Credit: Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American AstroPhysical Observatory (NAAPO).

[There are always illustrations of this in any given article about the signal, showing a string of letters, “6EQUJ5.” The signal strength was measured by simple digits representing variation from the ‘background baseline,’ one through nine, and then letters if the signal required more than that. Reaching “U” meant it was 30-31 standard deviations above the baseline, background signal. Examining the other portions of the printout, most signals show from 1 to 3, with two signals reaching 6 and 7, and no other letters (better than 10 deviations above background.) In short, it was way out of place for typical celestial receptions.]

The wavelength of the signal was 1420.4556 Mhz, which is notably close to the wavelength of excited hydrogen electrons, the radio waves emitted when hydrogen is bombarded with energy from an outside source such as a star. The problem was, when the location of the source was plotted, there was nothing within range that should have been able to produce such a signal, and in fact, very little there at all. The signal was also transient: there were two receivers for the telescope, aimed slightly differently, which should have captured the signal three minutes apart – but only one did (and the telescope was not designed to differentiate which one it was.) So at the very least, the signal stopped before the second receiver aimed at the same section of sky, or started after the first did. Moreover, the same section of sky was monitored on subsequent passes – and later on by much more sensitive telescopes. And in the nearly fifty years since, no comparable signal has been detected, from any location. The Wow! signal stands alone as a peculiar anomaly.

In 2017, a potential explanation was put forth, in the form of two comets that converged on that portion of the sky, thus magnifying their own output in the hydrogen wavelength. The popular media ran with this, but it didn’t take long to determine that the comets did not pass through that portion of the sky at the time the signal was received, nor was there any known way for them to emit that strong a signal.

The question that’s been asked repeatedly is, might this actually indicate extraterrestrial intelligence, an attempt to communicate? Arguments have been made that the wavelength could be indicative of this, since it would demonstrate that the transmitting species was aware of the properties and penetrating value of that wavelength. But at the same time, hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and fully to be expected to be received quite often – just, not at that strength. It’s also a restricted frequency for civilian use, so unlikely to be a stray signal or reflection from a terrestrial source (though the military is not so restricted.)

Missing are any factors that would be more convincing of an attempt to communicate (or even just an intercepted transmission not intended for us): patterns, variations, or modulations, any repetition, any further examples, and so on. One long beep, one time only doesn’t exactly say anything, except perhaps an alien driver stalling too long at a cosmic traffic light.

The question that’s been in my mind for years has been, what are the chances this was a simple hoax? Not on the part of the team at Ohio State University, but perhaps by some knowledgeable students? The antenna array probably wasn’t hard to access, nor would it be difficult to build a lightweight radio to transmit on that frequency, perhaps carried in a light plane or even just floated from a balloon. Since the antenna was huge, it could pick up very faint signals, and the wattage of the transmission would not need to be high at all. The signal only being captured in one of the two receivers bolsters this idea slightly. I could easily see this occurring. Except… if you’re going to go through all that trouble, why pick a wavelength so close to hydrogen emissions? Why such a short and simple ‘beep?’ Any elaborations on the idea would probably provoke a better response.

However, a couple of months ago, a paper was released that provided a potential explanation. Examining archive data from the much larger and more sensitive Arecibo radio telescope (which had collapsed a few years earlier,) astronomers found several other signals of the same type, albeit much weaker. These signals were generated simply by clouds of hydrogen excited by external energy sources, and it was hypothesized that the Wow! signal was the same, only produced by a much stronger source exciting a hydrogen cloud to unprecedented levels. The hydrogen cloud has actually been identified, just not the energy source, but given the nature of the signal, the close fit with the frequency, and the presence of many other weaker examples, the evidence is weighing distinctly in favor of this explanation.

Now we get to the critical examination of this all. Without the corroborating detail of the energy source, the explanation isn’t conclusive, though we’d feel more confident if and when it’s even seen again in some other circumstances – just one instance seems unlikely at least. Then again, the nature of the phenomenon is that it’s transient and short-lived, and a radio telescope has to be pointed directly at it when it occurs, so we shouldn’t expect to see it often either.

As for it being a deliberate signal from some extra-terrestrial intelligence? Well, again, it’s just a ‘beep’ in an extremely common natural wavelength, and just like the hoax possibility above, we’d expect to see something more elaborate, or repetition or a pattern or anything. Even singular beeps that went up the spectrum through the wavelengths of hydrogen and helium and oxygen or whatever, something that is highly unlikely to progress by any natural means but would be very indicative of intelligence, would be far better (and we’ve speculated ourselves on doing the exact same thing if we decide to reach out, a message that says, “Hey, this is not random nor probable,” without any language at all.)

Occam’s Razor comes into play. The most recently proposed explanation involves the fewest unknowns and presents examples of weaker versions of the same kind of signal. It has the fewest questions that need to be answered (“What was the energy source?”) and does not require anything that we have no evidence of at all, like extra-terrestrial intelligence. It serves to answer the question for now. Maybe it’ll be overturned in the future – but it’s far more likely that further support for it will appear instead. All we can do is watch for further developments, but that’s how science works.

Today’s surprise

November 7, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Well, okay, this one wasn’t a surprise – it’s just evidence that I’m still trying to get really nice pics of the pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus) that keep visiting the property, despite their penchant for appearing through a thicket of foliage. I was busy with other tasks as this one was flitting around, so I couldn’t dedicate the time to it right then. It’ll happen.

What I was referring to, however, was this guy:

That’s a juvenile eastern kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula,) and I’d only ever seen one once before, as I remarked earlier this year. This one tried to slip past me into the open garage, so I captured it and set it aside in the terrarium for a photo session a little later on.

[The terrarium, by the way, is now unoccupied – the eastern spadefoot toad that I’d elected to hang onto, thinking it was likely an invalid due to its foot injury, proved quite capable of burrowing despite the handicap, and so I released it of its own recognizance.]

Trying to find a place to do a photo session without the snake simply taking a powder, I settled on the miniature Japanese maple that we’d just transplanted, which worked excellently. And full credit to the snake, who investigated the tree idly but mostly held still to allow me to snag a variety of angles.

I shot both with and without the macro flash, but the use of it helped illustrate something: the eyes are starting to cloud up, indicating that the snake will be shedding its skin within a few days – it’s not too advanced yet. Typically, when it gets further along and the snake can’t see very well, it makes them much more likely to strike when disturbed. This one gave me a faint coiled defensive display when I went to remove it from the terrarium for this session, and the barest hint of striking, but was otherwise perfectly docile.

It was even cooperative enough to allow me to take a position underneath and show the belly coloration without having to flip the snake upside-down, which rarely works anyway because they can’t slither like that and so resist such attempts.

It’s funny; there’s nothing particularly elaborate about their coloration, but the contrast just makes them seem exotic to me, and I was glad to find one again. They can get a lot bigger than this, averaging about a meter in length but capable of doubling that, and I’m hoping I can continue to see them in the area. This one was just big enough to take on the smaller anoles, but was probably unable to tackle a full-grown adult.

Meanwhile, I liked the above pic because of the body disappearing from focus down the branch. The Japanese maple hasn’t changed much for autumn yet, and may not due to the circumstances of transplanting, but there’s a hint of color in there.

And I couldn’t resist the implied menace of this one, though it would have been better without the other portion of the body in there. It was a wild snake and wasn’t going to take direction, but I did gently nudge it to get it to raise its head more for clearer shots at times – can’t complain about that.

After this session, I released it back near where I’d found it (but outside the garage this time) – we’ll see if it appears again. But hey, the prediction that I’d rectify my single encounter actually came true, so now I can count on spotting kestrels and trapdoor spiders before the end of the year, right?

Just once, part 45

November 6, 2024November 4, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I decided to do this one, since it was just a couple days past a year ago that I snagged this shot.

Okay, yes, I’ve featured Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) here a billion times, and there will be more before the end of the week even. But I’ve only featured, and seen, one with a forked tail just once in my life, so this counts. And believe me, I watched carefully, for the remainder of last year and all through this, to see this guy again, in vain. Since this is at the old place, I think my chances of seeing this individual have now passed. Whether the plethora of anoles here at the new place will be enough to permit me to see such a thing again will remain to be discovered.

As I said then, anoles (and skinks at least, but I suspect quite a few lizards) have the ability to regrow their tails if they lose them, and skinks apparently can drop them on demand – which seems like an odd mechanism, so maybe it’s only that the tissue is tenuous to begin with and it can separate if it’s tugged on with sufficient force, usually by a predator. Sounds traumatic, but I’ve seen it happen and the skinks certainly show no signs of adverse effects, and the tail grows back – occasionally, as seen here, it grows back forked, though why this is I cannot say. I also didn’t know how long it took, only having seen it at stages that I was unable to follow or check on periodically, but if this one is that same individual that I saw in the spring of the year, then we have a bit of a timeframe (though I have no idea how long the tail had been regrown, either.)

There’s an interesting avenue of speculation here as well. First off, how important is the tail if it can be removed so easily? I’ve seen numerous examples of skinks and anoles with truncated or regrowing tails, so it happens fairly often – presumably, the lack thereof is not a significant detriment to their survival. While the ability to lose it, distracting predators or escaping their clutches, probably provides a greater advantage than having it for balance or leverage or whatever. Not very many species can regrow limbs, but the tails on both of these species is as long as the body is (well, provided they’re intact,) and with the lizards’ ability to dart forward suddenly, the chances are significant that any predator will snag the tail rather than the torso. The juveniles of the American five-lined skinks have brilliant blue colors on the tail as well, not to mention that it will writhe furiously when detached to attract attention away from the escaping skink. That blue color fades by adulthood however, so by then they’re counting on their camouflage and experience in evasion? Lots to ponder.

Regardless, here’s hoping that I manage to change this experience away from ‘just once.’

Intermission, unnumbered

November 6, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Way too many numbered posts in here…

Anyway, a couple of recent pics to break things up slightly, with little exposition.

I was out exploring around the edges of the pond out back several days ago and found this guy, who was nice enough not to move while I held the camera down to its level and shot blind. This is a pickerel frog (Lithobates palustris,) that I would see near the old place only on rare occasions, I think always along the Eno River. They can be mistaken for a leopard frog, but are distinguished by more squared-off spots along the sides and, especially, no light spot in the middle of the eardrum. Nothing exciting to say about it, just cataloging that I can expect to find them around here now, presumably more often than before. I’m still determining the various amphibians that are in the immediate vicinity.

And this one (of a pair) was cooperative enough to let me go in and get the camera, but not so cooperative to move to a clearer view:

We’d spotted pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus) near here before, and then one flitting deep in the foliage of the trees near the pond, but this one and its sibling, I think, were right alongside the driveway – just, not getting clear of intervening branches and leaves. I did at least get this frame with the eye and catchlight visible between the branches. The two were foraging not more than two meters apart, and I thought they might be a mated pair but couldn’t get a clear enough look to determine male and female. Then the following day, I heard a familiar wheet-a wheet-a sound and watched a pair land on a nearby dead trunk, likely the same pair, but that sound seems to be uttered by immature woodpeckers conversing amongst themselves – so far, that’s the only time I’ve heard it, and until now I thought it was only flickers.

I went in to get the camera for the pair on the dead tree, but they elected not to hang around long enough. However, within a couple of minutes a red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) came along instead.

The day was light overcast and I was facing almost due south in mid-afternoon, so the lighting wasn’t getting any better, and this has even been lightened in post, despite dialing in some exposure compensation while shooting. But at least it’s sharp, and you can see the acorn snack that the woodpecker has, as well as the fungus growing from the trunk. This tree sees a lot of action, mostly woodpeckers so far, but it’s a shame that my vantage is never going to be in good light. Maybe I’ll go down the road a little and see if I can get a better view from there, but the nearby trees may prevent that.

Managing a little more time to chase photos now, but up next, we have even more anoles. Well, one…

Don’t miss this

November 3, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

The idiocy of Daylight Saving Time is upon us again, or at least it was early this morning, and while smutphones and computers are generally on top of things now, you are likely aware of how many little clocks around the house are not: the alarm clock, the stove and microwave, the grandfather clock… and of course your camera. Sure, maybe this matters little, but if you’re going to have a timestamp on your images, it might as well be accurate, right? So go change that clock now.

As yet, no one that has the power seems inclined to eradicate the utter nonsense of DST, even though it gets bandied around as a worthwhile idea twice a year. I’m 98% positive this is what is keeping alien civilizations from contacting us, because it takes a special brand of stupid to alter the time of day that we do any given thing, but change what the clock reads to pretend that we didn’t. Who are we attempting to fool? If you need to do something in daylight, then do it in daylight regardless of what the clock says, but the daylight period is going to be less in winter no matter what we do, so fucking with the ‘official’ time isn’t accomplishing anything.

But anyway, if you prefer to have your pics match the time on your smutphone (and there are occasions when I’ve actually counted on an accurate timestamp,) then fuck with your camera clock too and set it appropriately. I’ll be back in six months to bitch about this again.

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