Estate Find XXIII

Why is it that it seems (to me anyway) to be okay to write “XXIII” but not “XXVIII,” instead making me think it looks cleaner to write “XXIIX”? I mean sure, it’s a digit less, but doesn’t it just look better? Yet I don’t think writing “XXIIV” works the same way…

Or we could just stop pretending that it’s somehow classier to use Roman numerals in the first place. There’s that.

Slightly repetitive one here, depending on how you look at it. But sitting in my office one afternoon and hearing a ruckus from the pond, I went out back and made a new discovery, though it wasn’t until the next day that I was able to get adequate photos of it. Them. Whatever.

adult female wood duck Aix sponsa and brood of new ducklings
Yep, we have another brood of wood ducklings (Aix sponsa) to watch, and curiously, the mother seems to prefer keeping them on either the main pond or the upper pond, rather than just bringing them in for a couple of nights like the previous brood. And yes, I’m quite sure this isn’t the previous brood, since those ducklings should be a lot bigger than this by now.

adult female wood duck Aix sponsa and her brood of new ducklings all lined up next to her
As you can see, this session was occurring in late afternoon just before the sun disappeared behind the trees, still about 45 minutes before sunset, but this still mean the light wasn’t ideal. Although I did catch the young as they made a pass through a patch of bright sunlight, which is rare – wood ducks are very good about staying in shadow whenever possible.

The question is, is this the brood of the female that I caught peeking from the nest box? And the answer is, there’s no way I could tell for sure, but I’m leaning away from it; those young should have been out of the nest, if they did indeed leave in the few days that I was staking it out, for better than two weeks now, and I think they would have been bigger than this.

adult green heron Butorides virescens kicking up a fuss
While I never did discover what the ruckus was about the first day, it replayed almost exactly while I was doing these photos, and near as I can tell, the resident green heron (Butorides virescens) got quite upset to find the mama and ducklings nearby and protested it loudly – you can just see the feathers standing up in indignation. Why this might be, I cannot say – they don’t even share a food source, and the heron and adult wood duck are roughly the same size and pose no threat to each other. It might also have been that they both were responding to some other threat, though I saw nothing else either time.

adult female wood duck Aix sponsa leading her brood of new ducklings away while protesting loudly
For her part, the mother duck was also kicking up a fuss, leading her young off to other locations while crying plaintively in their manner, though this may also have been only a signal to the young to stay close and keep their eyes open. Just thinking about it now, I realize I may not have any decent recordings of the various wood duck calls, which do not sound like ducks – I’ll try to remedy that soon (the recording, I mean, not trying to get them to sound like other ducks…)

Twice now, I’ve also witnessed the mother bringing her ducklings into the yard after the corn that we distribute, even though they probably cannot handle corn themselves at this point – I was unsuccessful at photos either time, since they’re still wood ducks and incredibly wary of people, and she led her brood to the water as soon as I slipped out the door with the camera. We’ll be trying to get the ducklings something more appropriate to nosh on very soon, though right now it’s a matter of timing to try and prevent it all from being consumed by other critters before she and her brood find it.

adult female wood duck Aix sponsa and her new brood of ducklings
This is the sharpest I’ve managed of her and the ducklings so far, and of course the ducklings are mostly obscured – I’ll be working on it. But for now, we’re pleased to see another brood staying so close by, and hope it remains this way for a bit. The geese and geeseling have totally stopped visiting, for reasons unknown, and right now just a male mallard, only occasionally accompanied by a female, make semi-regular visits, though the wood ducks are still fairly routine morning tourists. It’s been interesting watching their habits, not knowing the reasons or if this is typical or not.

My my my my, mimosa

I’ve been kinda deep in some projects right now, only one of which is photography-related, so not a lot of chance to get out. There was another ISS transit, this time of the sun, that was supposed to take place today, but we remained resolutely overcast and rainy for the entire day, so scratch that.

Right now, for the sake of it, I’ll just mention this one. For some time now I’ve been wanting to get a mimosa tree established, without any luck. And before I go any further, I need to clarify what I’m talking about, because I’ve just discovered that this is far from the proper name, regardless; the species is, scientifically, Albizia julibrissin, otherwise known as the Persian silk tree or pink silk tree, and while commonly referred to everywhere I’ve been as a mimosa, it’s not a member of the Subfamily Mimoseae, though it does bear a resemblance to those. I’m just going to stick with mimosa, though I’ll always append the Albizia julibrissin bit…

A few years back, I attempted to cultivate a few from the seed pods that I’d found, but nothing occurred. I put this down to squirrels digging up the seeds, apparently finding them a delicacy, but I’ve been told that growing them from seeds is difficult. The Girlfriend also checked to see if one could be purchased from one of our nurseries, but was told that they never carried them because they were a “trash tree.” I have no idea why this might be, since they’re quite nice looking, not prone to overrunning an area nor leaving behind lots of leaf litter or broken branches; loblolly pines are hideous, shedding huge volumes of needles and pinecones constantly, overtake an area within a few years and block out everything else from growing, and drop branches or entire trees in every major storm, constantly causing damage to houses and powerlines and so on – that’s exactly what I’d call a “trash tree,” but far too many people in this state seem inordinately enamored of them. All that said, I still wanted to try and establish a mimosa.

On moving to the new Walkabout Estates, however, I found that I didn’t need to.

nighttime view of Persian silk mimosa Albizia julibrissin tree with new blossom and closed leaves
This was my first inkling, since the trees leaf out later than others and close up their leaves at night, but the blossom is unmistakable. This was way out on the edge of The Bayou, not even visible from the backyard, and discovered by headlamp one night, though I did eventually return during the day for a few pics.

Persian silk mimosa Albizia julibrissin tree in full bloom
We had one of these in the front yard when I was growing up in southern New Jersey, and I always found it fun to strip all the fernlike leaves from those little stems that they originated from, bastard that I was then (not like I’m not now – I’m just saying I started early.) But c’mon, they’re cool-looking trees.

Persian silk mimosa Albizia julibrissin tree showing leaves and blossoms
Unfortunately, like many trees the flowering season is quite short, though they still retain the bright green leaves throughout the spring and summer, and have a nice, twisty nature to the branches, spreading wider rather than taller. I’m pleased to have one close by, though granted, it’s not routinely visible. We might still try to remedy this.

Also on the list is a honey locust, for semi-scientific reasons, and I’ll go into this in another post, at least after actually locating one.

But you would have found this eventually anyway

I mean, I’m sure you check out Earth Science Picture of the Day routinely, but I’m also quite sure it’s not until after you see what I’ve posted, so I’m just sending you there a little early, is all.

Earth Science Picture of the Day for June 3

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, I’ve just never gotten around to selecting and writing up a submission, but the ice storm photo prompted me. I actually submitted in February – there’s a bit of lead time.

[And I still have to make a print of this one for display here – it’s definitely a favorite of mine.]

Anyway, now to sit back and watch the fame roll in…

ice-covered Japanese maple catching the morning sun from behind with multi-colored sunbursts

Another attempt

I’d found the website transit-finder.com last year, which takes a given location and lists the upcoming transits of the sun and moon for the International Space Station (as well as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Tiangong Space Station.) Last September I’d tried it out and did indeed see the ISS, but it came nowhere near the moon, despite the fact that we (Mr Bugg and I) made sure to be as close to the centerline of the pass as possible. I wasn’t sure what to put this down to; the site might just have been inaccurate, or the ISS might have gone through a boost in the week or so after I’d first plotted the transit. There was some support for this, in that when I went back in to confirm, a few days before the event, I noticed that both the time and the date had changed, though I might have chalked it up then to an error on my part. Still, I was wary this time around.

[Small note: Due to atmospheric drag, the ISS needs periodic rocket reboosts to maintain its orbital altitude, and these aren’t routinely scheduled because the drag is actually variable depending on conditions.]

example screenshot of transit plot from transit-finder.com
Not my location, just an example screenshot

I finally got around to trying again, yesterday evening. This time, I made sure to check the site right up until I was ready to leave, and was in place less than 30 meters from the centerline, meaning the ISS should pass right through the middle of the moon. I went with video this time around, especially since it was still daylight, and a bit hazy at that, and I wasn’t sure how clearly I’d see it. I’d synced my watch to atomic time and started the video about a minute ahead of the plotted pass. And this certainly benefits from being expanded to full-screen.

The amusing bit is, I watched the video carefully three times before I actually saw the ISS pass through; I was expecting a darker spot against the moon, or a brighter spot against the sky if the ISS was catching the sunlight adequately. I wasn’t looking up at the sky, nor at the LCD screen, when I went to stop the video – I’d checked my watch to ensure that we were well past the time of the transit, so long afterward when reviewing the video, the appearance of the plane was momentarily startling (thus I couldn’t pull up the Flightradar24 app and find out whose plane and where it was going.)

Still, this vindicated the site, since this was as close to prediction as I could confirm without looking carefully at my watch – within 30 seconds, at least, and bang-on for the location. I’d noted that the transit was only predicted to last 0.59 seconds and that’s close enough to count, too – that thing was hauling across the sky. It would be much better at night, though.

While there, I did a few photos too, mostly to nail focus.

1st quarter half moon at roughly 19:30 EDT
The haze undoubtedly reduced the contrast a bit, so I’m actually lucky to have caught the ISS at all. Some time later and back home, I went out to grab a comparison shot:

1st quarter half moon at 22:09 EDT
This was not quite three hours later, but the apparent rotation isn’t accurate: I’d rotated the camera in the lens mount for the video so the apparent motion would traverse side-to-side, maximizing the time within the frame.

The next opportunity will be a solar transit in just two days time, so we’ll see what happens with that one. Against the sun, even with the solar filter, the shutter speed can be a hell of a lot faster, and so maybe something more than blurs can be captured in the frame. Wish me luck!

Like you need it

red Japanese maple leaves against green leyland cypress and blue sky
I’m sure the myriad and voluminous readers of this blog aren’t going to need the prodding, but June is just brimming with excuses to get outside. First off, the entire month is Great Outdoors Month, making it a good time to check out the parks near you, or not near you, and do a trip to that one place you’ve been planning to visit for months. Do it soon, before it gets too hot.

bamboo shoot fed on by likely North American beaverThen Saturday, June 7th, is National Trails Day, which fits in with the parks thing, or you can go out and find your own, looking for those subtle signs of trackways, crossovers, migration routes, and so on. How are your observations skills? Can you tell how long ago the trail was last used, and by what? Sometimes this is extremely tricky, sometimes not so – mud and recent rains, scat, and even leftover food can give some pretty strong clues.

The following Saturday (June 14th) is National Get Outdoors Day, always the second Saturday in June. This, really, shouldn’t have to be a prompt for anyone – we should be all outdoors at least several times a week, and I don’t mean between the house and the car either, but because everyone reading is naturally already on top of this, it’s a good time to do something different. No, not stay indoors, I mean try something outdoors that you haven’t done before. The US Forest Service is waiving the fees for their locations throughout the country for the day, so that can help, but this is a good excuse to be creative. Don’t be stupid about it, though: stay hydrated, don’t push your limits too hard, be familiar with your location, and as always, be prepared for the unexpected (which is contradictory, so ensure nothing is unexpected instead.) Put that rain poncho back into your bag, for instance. Don’t count on your smutphone to provide the information you need, since that about guarantees that it won’t.

[All of this sounds a little US-centric, because I’m not familiar with national holidays in other countries, but that’s a lousy excuse to avoid celebrating these if you live elsewhere. None of these were created or promoted by Florida Man/Putin’s Bitch/Tom Tariffic/The Utter Fuckhead and he probably hates them all anyway, so have at it.]

Above all else, experience the environment, broaden your horizons, and have fun!

wide angle shot of Falls of the Neuse region in Raleigh, NC

What dat sun doin’?

Decided to squeeze these in here, since May didn’t have enough images [*snerk*]

I’ve been occasionally monitoring the sun’s surface with the solar filter that I have, since we’re close (or at) solar maximum, the part of the twelve-year cycle that our sun goes through where sunspots, coronal mass ejections, and solar storms take place the most. It’s been interesting to see, though I haven’t been as regular about it as I should have been. Still, the images are slowly building up in the blog folder.

First, from January 16th of this year:

sunspots from January 16, 2025
That’s a pretty decent collection, though if I remember right, the charged particles that are expelled from such areas largely missed Earth, so we didn’t see too much of a surge in auroral activity. And then, twelve days later (January 28,) everything was perfectly tidy.

solar image from January 28, 2025, showing no spots at all
I was a little surprised at this, myself, and even pushed contrast way up to see if even a hint remained, but nada – it was quite a clean surface, at least visible through my little filter.

By February 6th, they were forming anew.

faint sunspots on February 6, 2025
You might notice that this seems to have some hazy areas, and that’s because I realized a bit too late in the afternoon that I should be checking, and the sun was already reaching the trees on the horizon – I did some refocusing to produce a different effect, even as the sun dropped lower:

Sun image on February 6, 2025, focused on intervening needles and branches
And then, nothing too promising was found any of the times I remembered to check, up until May 2nd:

distinctive sunspots on May 2, 2025
That’s quite a nice display there, certainly the most distinctive that I’ve seen (not that that says much,) and curiously enough, Matt Young at Panda’s Thumb captured it too, likely on the same date given the distances from the edges – the difference in apparent location is entirely due to capturing it at a different time, since the rotation of the Earth means we’re looking at it from different angles throughout the day. Further down you’ll see an image from the 5th, the same day Matt posted, so I’m pretty confident his was from the 2nd.

We need a closer look, of course:

full resolution inset of sunspots on May 2, 2025
Cute little four-eyed fish swimming across the surface, very cool. This is at full resolution, by the way, and like my moon shots, I take several frames while tweaking focus slightly because critical sharpness can’t be determined while looking through the viewfinder, nor can autofocus be trusted to nail it; it’s much harder with the sun, too, since the spots are too small and indistinct to really pin down.

Encouraged by this, I was out three days later on the 5th, too:

distinct sunspots of May 5, 2025
This time it’s scattered clouds producing the haze along one side – I was forced to shoot in the small gaps while the sun was largely unobscured. But we can also see how far the spots have rotated around the surface, and in an unexpected direction, too. Not that you’re getting the most accurate impression from these images, since I wasn’t sticking to the same time each day and so the north pole of the sun is not necessarily to the top of the frame, or the same direction regardless, in any of these.

Now at full-resolution:

full-resolution inset of sunspots on May 5, 2025
That’s enough to see how the stain is soaking in and getting smeared – man, that’s never gonna come out.

And then, a mere day later on the 6th:

collection of sunspots on May 6, 2025
Noticing that the brightness might have been hiding some of the smaller spots, I switched to underexposing a little more than normal, in this case two full stops underexposed – it’s what’s been working better to see the details. Note that this is (almost certainly) the same four-eyed fish complex photographed on the 2nd, and we can see this at full resolution too:

full resolution inset of sunspots from May 6, 2025
Will they ever get sharper than this? I think it’s doubtful, since I don’t believe the details or delineations are ever that distinct to begin with.

I did a few frames here and there, turning up nothing but specks, though late yesterday I heard that auroral activity was supposed to increase dramatically, for those at any latitude to see such things (typically not here in North Carolina.) We’ve been getting routine rain storms for the past several days, but for a while today, the sun was out and bright. Knowing that auroral activity usually coincides with sunspots, I made it a point to snag a few frames today, and indeed, there they were:

sunspots on May 31, 2025
Nothing huge or distinct, but a fair collection of them all the same. This time for the larger (yet not full-resolution) inset, I boosted contrast a little, though what’s ‘accurate’ from the standpoint of exposure, contrast, and the filtration results, who can say? It’s not what I captured in-camera, anyway:

full resolution and contrast-enhanced inset of sunspots on May 31, 2025
Coronal mass ejections, often evidenced by sunspots, can occasionally mess with satellite communications, radio transmissions, and in extreme cases, even our power grid, and true to form, we lost power this evening for about 20 minutes. I’m inclined to put that down to the wicked thunderstorm that passed through, though.

One of these days, I’ll get out and capture some nice images of the aurora – I’ll have to travel a lot more significantly than I have to date, to get into a location where the display is worthwhile. Although, we all know how well my luck with meteor storms has been, so I wouldn’t be waiting too excitedly for this to happen.

Let’s see, that now makes it 171 images uploaded for May alone, coming in third behind May 2019 (173 images) and October 2020 (192 images) – not too shabby. I could have taken second without a lot of effort, but such records are self-indulgent. The numbers are actually just a reflection of finding stuff of interest, or at least, what passes for such in my little world. Wow, we got back to self-indulgence in a hurry…

Mother May I?

… post the end of the month abstract?

Waaayyy too much like others, but this is what I got, except for some that have already been posted. Maybe I’ll go create another tonight (this is being written the night before it posts.) Anyway,

large water droplets on ginkgo Ginkgo biloba leaf
Give me credit for picking the right angle, at least. I took several from this vantage, because the depth-of-field was so short and the focal point is pretty crucial. Notice that several of the drops are acting as lenses to show the water drops behind them, and yes, the flash angle was important too. It’s fun to experiment with things like this.

This is a leaf of one of the ginkgo trees, by the way, seen directly from the side. We’ve had a hell of a lot of rain this month.

Intended and appropriate

Okay, this holiday actually occurred almost a week ago on May 25th, but I’m bringing it up now intentionally, and you’ll understand why in a moment – give or take.

Today (not today) is the birthday of Dumfroot Spaglokkit, known far and wide to photographers as the inventor of the shutter lag. Here’s his story:

In the early days of the field when photographers had to create their own film plates out of dried shellac and chickenshit, and portraiture was rearing its ugly head, Spaglokkit noticed that despite preparing his subjects for the inevitable clicking of the shutter, usually they weren’t actually ready – at least half of the time, the fear of what might occur caused them to blink (these were the days of flash powder, after all,) but there was also the factor that anyone trying to smile pleasantly invariably looks like they’ve discovered a snail in their undergarments. He did observe, however, that once they felt the ordeal was over, their look of relief, while not the targeted warm expression, was at least better than appearing to be holding back flatulence. Spaglokkit reasoned that, if the shutter actually tripped well after it was triggered, the number of keepers would probably double and much expensive chickenshit could be salvaged.

Dumfroot began with squeeze bulbs that tripped the shutter through air pressure, ensuring that flexible long hoses and compression delay introduced an uncertain and unpredictable pause before the shutter actually opened. He also experimented with wound springs, which were quickly adapted to the group portrait task where the photographer wanted to be in the frame. These worked a little too well, in that the variability was quite wide, producing either a shot of the photographers’ backs as they were running to get into position, or the strained confusion on everyone’s face as the timer ground to a near-halt well beyond when it was supposed to before actually triggering the shutter. Nonetheless, these remained in use for decades before being repurposed to calculate the time that a caller would spend on hold before a customer service rep would actually answer.

As films improved and photographers got bored with portraiture, the shutter lag was gradually phased out in favor of split-second timing to capture that precise moment after something cool happened, driving it home that it was all the photographer’s fault and could not be blamed on shutter lag; this is widely believed to be a German innovation. Electronic shutters and circuitry served to almost drive Spaglokkit’s efforts into obscurity – until the advent of digital photography.

This ‘advancement’ brought instant gratification into the hands of amateurs, but it also brought complications. Camera manufacturers realized that instantly producing a snapshot worth keeping, first try, meant their products might last far too long, and so they brought back shutter lag, as well as autofocus wandering and the deceptive pre-flash to fool people, ensuring that a) users would take many more photos trying to get the one that they wanted, wearing down the equipment faster, and b) the promise of ‘improvements’ with a new model a mere six months down the road would improve sales by several hundred percent. The shutter lag was carefully calculated to reduce by fractions with every new model, despite the fact that solid-state circuitry had no discernible delay like mechanical shutters and apertures did. There was a third factor as well, in that a certain number of users, frustrated at the missed shots through the shutter lag, would smash their camera and go purchase a ‘better’ one.

[There was a variable-delay software that was initially used in digital cameras before the ‘calculated reduction’ technique was settled upon; this software was later sold to Microsoft to run their “time remaining” displays for larger tasks, which bear no relation whatsoever to the actual passage of time. This is to produce an unbalanced and insecure state of mind in the user, which can cause them to buy more Microsoft products. Apple, it must be noted, went in the other direction, pricing their products exorbitantly to convince the less-discerning population that they must be more valuable, knowing how few people would actually perform a simple comparison…]

Nonetheless, this gradual reduction in lag time could only last so long, and manufacturers were quickly running out of new models to introduce (though the marketing ploys of both “X zooms” and “megapixels” helped stretch this out a bit.) Spaglokkit’s innovation was once again teetering on the verge of obsolescence when so-called ‘smartphone’ cameras burst on the scene.

The premise behind smartphones is, the more time they spent out of someone’s pocket, the more information they can scarf from their environment and send back to the manufacturer; thus, every task is created to take far longer than necessary, assisted by the introduction of a balky touch-screen interface. Once again, the shutter lag came into play, necessitating at least three photos be taken in order to obtain one keeper, leaving plenty of transmission time for data. Quite often, the phones are transmitting the audio as well, because the frustrated mutterings and curses of the users are hilarious – remember this the next time you take your phone into the bathroom. And the phone manufacturers took a cue from the camera makers, ensuring that their products were more delicate than necessary so that the frustration damage factor keeps replacement models on the market.

Dumfroot Spaglokkit unfortunately died quite young while pursuing his other hobby of skydiving; his idea to adapt his invention to that field wasn’t the brightest that he’d had. So he never comprehended the impact that shutter lag would have on the field of photography, and especially, never received any repayment from photographers themselves, which is probably for the best.

Estate Find XXII

Got a multi-part one for this week, dedicated solely to mammals, which are woefully underrepresented in my stock. Then again, I could live out in the west and have plenty of bison and such, but few examples of shorebirds and jellyfish, so…

The other evening while out on the edge of the pond, The Girlfriend’s Sprog asked what it was that was moving the tall pond leaves and I, rather dismissively and without taking a close look, suggested that it was probably turtles under the surface. After a moment, she informed me that this was no turtle, and indeed, it wasn’t.

North American beaver Castor canadensis chowing down on leaves of yellow cow lily Nuphar lutea
That’s our friend the North American beaver (Castor canadensis,) or one of at least two and I suspect the male, happily consuming the yellow cow lilies (Nuphar lutea) that overrun the pond, so go for it, dude! This was not only a bit early in the evening to expect to see activity, but quite close to Walkabout Manor and while The Girlfriend’s Sprog and I had been openly conversing nearby. I’ve spotted a lighter-toned individual back on the creek, and that one seems to give the warning tailsmack on the water at the least provocation, while this one appears much more mellow, which is why I’m inclined to believe the lighter one is the female, but that’s all I have to go on.

almost hidden North American beaver Castor canadensis facing towards camera while consuming yellow cow lily Nuphar lutea
‘He’ was out there for no short time, taking down quite a few leaves, and it appears this might be a regular thing because the quantity of those giant leaves seems to be subsiding noticeably. In this pic he’s turned to face us, and you can just make out an eye to the left there.

almost hidden North American beaver Castor canadensis showing foreclaws gripping stalks of yellow cow lily Nuphar lutea
Another view head-on, only this time the eye is hidden but we have a nice glimpse of the foreclaws holding a stalk of the cow lilies – they’re fairly dexterous with them.

Eventually, before the light had fallen too far, the beaver decided to head back home, but it had been out there for fifteen minutes after I’d gotten the camera (going by the timestamps on the photos,) so he wasn’t particularly spooked by our presence, but likely knew he was remaining almost hidden. Now what remains is to see the other out there, or better, their offspring. Still checking routinely.

Two days later, this time in the early afternoon, we looked out back and found a pair of mammals out there eating the corn we throw down for the ducks. For the ducks, guys.

white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus doe looking up from stealing corn
This is, of course, a white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus,) one that’s been making a lot of visits to the yard to scarf as much corn as she can; we can’t say if she’s the parent of the fawn found earlier or not, since we can see no evidence of nursing although we’re not sure how well it shows in the first place. Yet she’s here at least three times a day, so the ducks are definitely getting a reduced diet, despite our best efforts otherwise.

North American raccoon Procyon lotor looking up while also stealing corn
This one, not three meters away, was not expected, at least not in the afternoon; I’ve seen evidence of their visits and occasionally eyes in the headlamp late at night, but never during the day. I think everyone knows the North American raccoon (Procyon lotor,) and this was no small specimen. They both were chowing down together and it appeared all Snow Whitey out there – for a few moments anyway.

white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus doe facing off with North American raccoon Procyon lotor over feeding territory
As the deer wandered a little for more corn, the raccoon disputed this encroachment on its territory, and the two had a little face off. This is a bad position to see from a raccoon, I can tell you from experience, and they don’t fuck around. If you see this flat-headed display, get more than a little distance between you and the raccoon.

The deer, however, was having none of it.

white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus doe lifting leg to rap North American raccoon Procyon lotor in head over feeding territory
She pawed the ground with a forefoot a few times, getting closer to the raccoon as a warning, end eventually rapped the ‘coon smartly on the head with that hoof. I was trying to switch to video and wondering if I could adequately handhold the long lens for decent footage and thus missed capturing the moment of contact, even as I witnessed it. The raccoon, very begrudgingly, backed off only enough to satisfy the doe and resumed eating. It’s also situations like this that tell me I should be knocking down the grasses near the edge of the pond more frequently.

While it might sound like a good idea to be sitting outside with the camera ready on a tripod, hoping to capture all such visits and displays, I’ve done it before and there are long periods of time when not a damn thing happens – or it happens just out of decent view of my vantage. So we’ll stick with this method for now, at least until I can pin down a reasonable schedule of their activities.

Sorting finds n+12

This past sorting task was overdue and required me to slog through 2,000 images, and the earliest image was still just May 2nd – less than a month. Now you understand why I keep talking about a photo backlog, and these only added to it…

female wood duck Aix spoansa watching photographer carefully from perch behind tree
I can’t recall the exact circumstances for this one, but we’ve noticed that if the wood ducks (Aix sponsa) get suspicious, they’ll occasionally take a perch in the trees on Duck Island to keep an eye on things, which is what this female is doing. The Girlfriend was stunned and delighted to find that ducks can actually perch in trees, or at least wood ducks can. It’s definitely infrequent.

unidentified sweat bee Halictinae dangling from single web strand adhered to midleg
Growing up, we always called these little guys, “sweat bees,” though as I got into arthropod photography I figured this was one of those nonsense colloquialisms – turns out, that’s what they’re called (Subfamily Halictinae, and I’m not going to try and get any closer than that from this photo.) I found this one dangling from a single web strand attached to a spinner on our back porch, no spider in sight, and occasionally it would attempt to fly off and just zoom in circles. Don’t ask me how this occurs.

nearly invisible airliner high overhead betrayed by its contrails
While outside waiting for something to fly over again (I forget what,) I did a focus test on a commercial liner passing high overhead, and liked the effect. The contrail made it clear where the plane was, which is good, because even at high magnification it virtually disappeared in the atmospheric scatter, along with the color matching the sky. Some of those spots are indeed navigation lights, though the nose point I suspect is simply a reflection of the sun.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis sleeping between screen and frame of back door
As much as this one appears squashed, it’s just trying to sleep – the Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) are quite fond of sleeping between the decorative frame of the back door and the screening therein. never realizing that this neither hides them nor conserves their body heat. But the girth of this one leads me to believe that it’s a pregnant female.

And another entry in the “Which one works better?” survey:

unidentified dragonfly backlit against dark background
The one above, or the one below?

unidentified dragonfly backlit against dark background
Same pic, just cropped differently. It was late afternoon and the background trees were already shrouded in shadow, though the sun was backlighting the dragonfly. This version makes it clear that some minuscule insects (or perhaps just dust or pollen) were also cruising through the frame, leaving little star streaks.

That’s a few more down. Getting there…

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