Ahhh, that’s better!

September 17, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Did the rounds tonight, counting how many juvenile Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) I could find, and actually reached fifty this time, in fact, fifty-one. That one is shown below, doing its best to avoid being counted:

While certainly not an overriding, driving desire, I felt compelled not only to break the previous record, but to reach the nice round number of fifty – and then started to (once again) ponder why. I haven’t done a semi-philosophical post in a while and I’m overdue, so strap in. And of course recognize that I haven’t the faintest education in any of this, so take it as it should be taken.

First off, I suspect there are a couple of motivations taking place in here. I’m convinced that we, humans, have a ‘puzzle drive,’ a desire to figure out why things are the way they are, to solve the puzzles, to reach a solution, and this is not only an integral part of how we became ‘intelligent,’ it even manifests itself in trivial manners because it’s so strong; this is why we play games and set nonsense challenges for ourselves and so on. It’s not hard to see where such a trait could spur us forward in our knowledge, and also easy to see that no other species seems to possess it anywhere near the extent that we do. But regardless of whether this exists or not, we do set arbitrary goals for ourselves, and my desire to reach 50 is an obvious aspect of this.

Then we ask, Why 50? Why not 47, or 53? Well, we can say, “round number,” and have done with it, but why do we even have the concept of a round number? So okay, we probably have the reliance on a base-10 numbering system because we have ten fingers, though ancient Roman cultures (I believe it was) had 6 and 12 as more ideal, ’round’ numbers, which is why we have 360 degrees in a circle and the timekeeping method that we do, so culture plays a part at least. And we appear to have an inherent grasp of multiples; 50 is “a hand of two-hands,” or five times ten, so it’s ‘complete’ to a certain degree. And yes, should I have been even approaching a count of one-hundred, you know damn well I would have been pushing hard to make that goal – I was already checking some esoteric regions of the yard for more hidden anoles, so I probably would have been circling every potential plant that I could find and wandering down into the swampy areas if I was nearing a hundred (not that this would have been likely to help much, since anoles aren’t really swamp-dwellers.)

Moreover, I can admit that once I reached fifty, there was a mental aspect of, Made it – everything after this is just gravy. Even though fifty-one is obviously better – but it wasn’t as neat as fifty. There’s definitely an aspect of round numbers and more pleasing goals that overrides the mere, “But this is a higher number,” aspect of our brains (I don’t think I’m alone in this, anyway.)

I can throw out things like ‘even’ (divisible by two,) and ‘multiples’ (divisible by other numbers, four or five or ten,) but all I’d be doing is referring back to some inherent desire to meet these, not explaining why there’s such a desire. And I’m not going to accomplish it now either, though I suspect there’s a certain mathematical portion of our brains, one that recognizes numbers and assigns more or less importance to them; there’s likely a connection between odd meaning “not divisible by two,” and odd meaning, “peculiar.” [Yes, I know any number is divisible by two, but then we get into ‘whole’ numbers and the meaning of that, and start contemplating cutting anoles in half…]

We can go more fundamental and simply examine counting, and knowledge of numbers larger than a handful (no pun intended but that word probably originated in that manner anyway.) I was pondering this as I was watching the wood duck broods on the pond; one had an initial brood of 12, that dropped to 11 and then I believe to 10, before we lost track of them as the young got older and more independent. Except studies by biologists and other sciencey people indicate that ducks cannot actually count that high, so was the mother even aware that her ducklings were reducing in number? This is assuming of course that she wasn’t telling them apart in different manners, by appearance or sound or whatever; she could easily know who was in her brood without being able to assign a number to them. Even so, plenty of animals might have useful reasons to count above three or four (the semi-universal numbers reached by most animals that can count at all,) and yet, can’t. Meanwhile, humans can count far better (so we believe) than anything else. Why is that? It’s not like our broods ever exceed three, and what else did we need to count, back during our development as bipedal, tribal, hunter-gatherers?

The first thing that comes to my mind is, counting and agriculture are pretty intertwined – I’m not sure you can have one without the other, to know when to plant and how long to wait and how long before you will have the season to plant again. There’s a little bit of a ‘chicken or egg?’ thing going on here, wondering which came first or if they necessarily had to develop at nearly the same time. There are also strong indications that numbers were the precursors to writing, simply to keep track of important figures, and there are efforts to determine how to use numbers to establish communication with intelligent extra-terrestrials, if and when we encounter them, because we can establish numbers through universal constants like atomic weights/abundances. It’s just going from there that becomes a bit tricky (understatement of the year.)

We can wonder about the ability to count to high numbers, and how it might have come about, what portions of the brain had to develop in what ways. There are numerous instances of people who lack certain fundamental emotions, or even the ability to feel pain, but before I’d started this post, I’d never heard of any instances where someone couldn’t actually count, or could only manage the smaller increments of many of the other animals. It would truly suck to have such a handicap, but maybe this is only a matter of perspective, since apparently there is at least one South American tribe that not only has no concept of any distinctions beyond one and two, they may be unable to develop it as well; this might be something that has to be instilled at a very young age, and we only think in multiples (‘a hand of two-hands,’ as mentioned above) simply because that’s how we’ve been taught to conceive of numbers. If you think about it, we can look at a small group of objects and say, “There are five treefrogs on the window,” but it doesn’t take many more than that before we can’t say without counting them, or at least having them in an order that makes multiples apparent, neat rows or whatever. So maybe we can only count in numbers of numbers? Meanwhile, the tribe is functioning just fine without higher numbers, except in encounters with other tribes that can use them, it seems.

I am also reminded of a simple experiment that Richard Feynman pursued, as he so often did. He was practicing timing himself accurately by counting in his head, and found that he could do it while reading, but not while conversing. Meanwhile, his friend had no difficulty with counting silently while conversing, but not while reading. Eventually, they determined that Feynman counted internally by hearing the sounds of the numbers as if reading them aloud, while his friend saw them as if watching a digital display. So how inherent is this, or is it entirely dependent on how and when we’re taught?

There’s also the idea of favorite numbers, which are not hard to explain: they usually have some significance in their connection to our lives or memories, like birthdays. But then, there have been large scale tests that show that some numbers are far more favored than others, though I don’t know if they’ve done these tests among different cultures or not. And curiously, while I have a faint preference for the day of the month of my birthday, the month itself is not favored in the same way, and I couldn’t begin to tell you why. Maybe my parents lied to me all those years ago…

But yeah, food for thought, to disguise the fact that I’m still posting about anoles, for fuck’s sake…

Odd memories, part 29

September 15, 2025September 15, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

This one isn’t so much odd as appropriate, sparked by finding a comic gallery on Bored Panda the other day. On occasion, they feature a collection of webcomics from a single artist, and this time around it was Rosemary Mosco. I recognized the style quickly, because I’d been going to her site Bird and Moon for a while now – she’s a naturalist and educator and her comics present both useful information and wry humor. The one that sparked this post, however, was this one (used with permission) which I hadn’t seen before:

Bird and Moon GBHE comic by Rosemary Mosco — © Rosemary Mosco

It’s all relative, isn’t it? For instance, herons wouldn’t give the faintest shit about diamond rings (and neither should we, really,) but crows might like them. Some species of penguins also like rocks, but probably not diamonds – they’re impressed with the most round and perfect pebbles presented by suitors.

Now comes the odd memory part. Many years back I was firing off dozens of frames of the activities at Venice Audubon Society Rookery in Venice, Florida, one of the best birding spots in the world – this is not simply my opinion, since I haven’t been to enough to judge, but a broad consensus. Plainly visible in one tree was a great blue heron nest, a completed one since the female appeared to be actively sitting on eggs. Across the pond comes another heron, clasping in his beak a fairly large branch, and he alighted on the nest proudly with this new offering, even though the nest seemed perfectly complete and already in use. He proudly (so I’m assuming) attempted to place this in an ideal position in the nest walls, to be countermanded by a loud croak from the female. Chastened, he chose a different placement, with the same response. This went on for perhaps 15 seconds, a rather public argument accompanied by a bit of wing flapping, until the male resolutely took up the branch again and flew off, dropping it into the pond with a resigned air and continuing onward. The magic was gone.

[It’s easy to assign human emotions to other species, and most likely to be totally incorrect, though I think the altercation at least was hard to misinterpret: the branch was unwanted, for whatever reason – it might even have been because the male was supposed to be bringing back food. Of course, herons are one of the more harsh and noisy birds when they choose to be, and immediately before I started typing this, one chose to be right at the edge of the main pond, plainly audible through the open door to Walkabout Studios here. The Girlfriend’s Sprog could attest to this too, when she and her fiancé camped overnight on the edge of a lake and were awakened several times by herons loudly voicing their protests.]

I want you to note something subtle in the above comic, too: by the third panel, the feathers on top of the female’s head begin to rise, as well as her beak opening. It’s one thing to communicate emotions with trivial additions or changes to the drawing of humans, and quite another to do it with birds.

Thanks to Rosemary Mosco for permission to use this comic, and h/t to Bored Panda

Estate Finds XXXVII

September 12, 2025September 12, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Again, a little slow this week, finding mostly the same things that I’ve been seeing far too much of, and not seeing the things that i know are there, like the beavers – I keep finding evidence, but have yet to actually see one again. What we have this week are spiders, which is all the warning you get.

The coolest one, that I’d never seen before despite apparently being common, is this one:

Isn’t that coloration great? Excellent camouflage, at least during the day when the spider would typically be clustered up on a tree branch someplace, since this is the class of orbweavers that rebuild their large wheel webs each night, but hole up away from predators during the day. This is an adult female giant lichen orbweaver (Araneus bicentenarius,) industriously building her web right in the middle of the backyard, barely a meter off the ground. Well, depends on where you’re measuring to, really, since the top of the web was close to eye level.

I went out a little later on, once her web was complete, to get the abdominal colors better.

Largish at roughly 20mm in body length, she was very similar to the common barn spiders that are all over the place, except for a much better paint job, but still a lot smaller than the golden silk orbweavers serving as her neighbors. Very cool, in an extremely gnarly and creepy way.

The next one is less creepy, and even more colorful. The black knight butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) had a moth that was not just motionless on one flower cluster, but at a suspiciously odd angle, and that suspicion was absolutely correct, once I got around to a better angle.

Now, I was almost certain this was a common species, but my subsequent searches on both BugGuide.net and within Ecosia did not turn up a match for those colors – or at least, not one that was positively identified; I found a perfect match on a generic crab spider info page that naturally failed to list the species that it was showing. I posted the image to BugGuide.net, but wasn’t getting any firm responses. I even tried Google Image Search, which only provided some suggestions as long as I excluded the myriad potential answers that were obviously dead wrong, some of which weren’t even the same Family. Then as I was typing this up, I got a response through BugGuide.net that indicated this may well be a white-banded crab spider (Misumenoides formosipes,) which appears to be the closest match, at least when you look at this image, so I’m tentatively going with that. Now, I’ve seen plenty of white-banded crabs, but none with this color pattern and the white band really isn’t there, so I maintain that I am blameless for not identifying it sooner – it’s my blog, so there!

Crab spiders are known for having color variants (just check out the various images of only this species) and individuals can even change color to match the flowers they’re on – to a degree, anyway, except this one appears to be aiming for as much contrast as possible. I mean, I would like to see one match the deep purples of the black knight, but I don’t think that’s feasible and I wouldn’t want them to hurt themselves trying. You might think that this color would be working directly against them, since they’re ambush hunters, but as I was maneuvering for good angles, this one demonstrated just how this might work.

Aware of my presence, or at least wary of the sun that had suddenly split in two and was moving far too rapidly through the night hours (i.e. my headlamp,) this one sank backwards among the blossoms and just about vanished, which might well be the typical ambush position. Moths are notoriously stupid, however, so perhaps no such behavior is even necessary. When I revisited during the day, it was out and semi-obvious.

The white band is supposed to be just below the eyes, the band of reddish-brown here, but apparently it can also be yellowish. I cropped tight enough to show that the hairy scales from the moth meal were still present on the forelegs.

And one more, because it’s convenient and we’re doing spiders.

While out for another nighttime observation, I was picking up a distinct blue-green star from atop a stretch of suspended screening, the telltale reflection from the eyes of a spider, and went in as close as I could get, between the inaccessibility of the screen and the lens that I had attached. It was enough to reveal (with the help of the flip-up softbox option) a six-spotted fishing spider (Dolomedes triton) wandering along the screen with a massive egg sac, much bigger than I would have thought she could produce, but there you go. Unless she’s sac-nabbing.

Now, you may ask how I can identify the species from this pic while I couldn’t from the much better images above, but the six-spotted fishing spider is quite distinctive, mostly from the white band (hey!) along the sides, but also from the ten white spots on the abdomen. Wait, ten? Yes, they get their name from the six spots on the underside, apparently, something that I have never actually seen since I’ve always found them flat on the ground or water. So why aren’t they named ‘ten-spotted’ for the easiest trait to actually see? Shit, don’t ask me, I’m not an entomologist or taxonomist or anything edumacated like that – I often wonder what the hell anyone was thinking when they agreed on the names. It’s probably some inside-joke thing akin to a secret handshake or something. At least the entomologists seem to resist putting ‘eastern’ in front of every damn thing…

See? Like this

September 11, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

After yesterday’s post that ended with damaging my brand new softbox, I repaired it, added some clips to keep the flip-up top from flipping up, at least when I didn’t want it to, and glued some coarse grit sandpaper to the top of the hotshoe to prevent slippage (it’s an accessory shoe that takes the PC cord, so I’m not doing this to the 7D body.) Then I went out to do some more tests, largely to make sure the flip-up top didn’t flip up when I didn’t want it to, and to see that the flash unit and hotshoe remained good friends.

While doing this, I pushed the count-of-bebby-anoles-on-the-property-in-one-night up to 49! I feel bad that I didn’t reach 50, because that’s a magical number donchaknow, and I really did try. Mind you, I’m purposefully excluding the full-grown adults from the count, because I’m taking note of the population boom, so the count was higher than that – or it could have been a little lower, since some medium-sized ones were in there and perhaps shouldn’t be, technically. I’m honestly not sure how fast the buggers grow, and have no way of differentiating them except in very specific circumstances like weirdly-damaged tails. Regardless, that’s a good number that I’m proud of, which only goes to show you how low my standards for pride are and, if you haven’t already looked at the image galley, this probably saves you the time now.

But okay, the flip-up top of the softbox was there for a reason, and it got exercised a couple of times last night, and this is one of the occasions:

Those are the Pirate Twins, the orphaned pair of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) that visit semi-regularly, and I happened across them as I was driving the count up – curiously, they were in the middle of the yard and I’d apparently been going around them in a broad arc for a bit before I saw them. To their credit, they weren’t very spooked by my presence at all – wary, but they simply kept a certain distance and continued browsing. I’d credit this to being dazzled by the headlamp and not realizing that it was a person wandering around (I wasn’t speaking at all or even cursing, so you know I was in stalking mode,) but I turned a few times so the light thrown by the headlamp would have silhouetted me from behind, which is normally enough to send just about anything hurtling off from this sudden reveal, but these guys were cool with it.

Of course, the little Canon 300EZ flash doesn’t have much power, and I opened the aperture wide and boosted ISO way up to even get this shot – they were roughly 15 meters off, I think – but the softbox worked as intended, so it passed this test too. There’s just enough light to see that their spots have almost entirely faded.

I’m going to throw these up here, just because if I don’t, they’re liable to sit in the folder awaiting another opportunity anyway, but be warned – it’s yet another Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis.)

This one was not one of the count because it was clearly an adult, and a huge one at that, but I had to get the pic because it’s also the roughest I’ve ever seen, obviously having been in at least one major battle, but considering how many adults I found in the general vicinity, it could easily have been more. Given the size, there’s a chance this, or some of it, is due to simply age, but it looks more like scarring to me. I didn’t disturb him (I think it’s likely a male) to try for precise measurements, but I did use my fallback method:

By the way, the first of these pics was simply named, “KeithRichards.jpg,” because of course, which reminds me that I should do another roundup of the weird image titles that I’ve used. Betcha can’t wait…

Macro photography, part 14: Selective pressures

September 10, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

The pursuit of the ideal softbox for flash macro photography has been going on for a while now, with many iterations, and now we have another. The last version took advantage of being able to hash out and 3D-print a design more optimized for the purpose, because I now could, but I realized after a while that I’d made a mistake. In thinking, A parabolic reflector would maximize the light getting down to the subject, I designed a partial dome reflector – not actually a parabola because I wasn’t sure how to trick that out in Blender, and because a true parabola needs the light source at a specific center point within, a point that I’d never get a flash unit to sit at without blocking too much of the light, plus the idea that an offset design allowed the light panel to sit more over the subjects. This was the previous design:

It was okay, but not optimal, because it had a hotspot coming through the white diffuser panel that could be seen with highly-reflective subjects – granted, this impact was probably trivial because very few would notice it. But the biggest mistake was, with the light source (the flash head) offset to one side and having to reflect at nearly a right-angle, the dome wasn’t actually doing anything, and might have been scattering light in the wrong direction. So I went back to the original design, which I’d had to initially trick out in cardboard, but later did at least use sheet plastic. With the 3D printer, however, I could make a circular base much easier.

The flat reflector panel on the back (coated with aluminum foil, as is the entire interior of the softbox) bounces the light more directly downward, and the diffuser panel evens it out and softens it, to make a broader and lower contrast light, which we’ll see in a minute.

Once again, the flash and softbox sit on an adjustable arm to allow more specific aiming and positioning, which permits better light angles that can be chosen for the subject matter. There are two significant upgrades to this, however. The first is a rubber gasket (actually TPU, another 3D-printable material) within the tunnel that fits over the flash head that allows a snug fit that’s unlikely to come loose in the field. The other is the hinge:

This was actually added after initially printing the parts, but before I assembled them. It permits switching to direct flash instantly without fumbling with removing the entire softbox attachment, which of course would then have to be carried around in one hand; I’ve found that I needed this more and more, especially when something like a beaver makes an appearance when I’m out chasing lizards or something. Removing the softbox was never silent, and always stood the chance that I’d fumble and drop it, which was too likely to split the diffuser panel – it is, after all, only a single layer of white PLA about 0.35mm in thickness, and I’ve done it several times now. I mean, I just print another, it’s only attached with contact cement, but avoiding this is better overall.

Now, how well does it work? Let’s look at the test comparisons.

Shot back to back with the same settings, you can see the difference between the new (top) and old (bottom) light outputs – the top one is much more even and seems to be at least 1/3 stop brighter, possibly more. [The subject is my go-to for such tests, a 40mm ‘crystal’ ball that really shows reflections – it represents the worst-case scenario that I’m likely to encounter, essentially a giant water droplet.] Both of these were at my typical macro settings, 1/200 second at f16, ISO 250 – best for stopping action and flash synch, depth of field, and image quality. Now we look at a purposefully underexposed version to see how even that output really seems.

Same again, new on top, only now at F32 and ISO 100, underexposed by over 3 stops. The hotspots are now clearly visible, with the top being more even – still not perfectly balanced, but without the distinct tunnel edges showing up through the diffuser.

Sure, okay, but what about the field results?

Yeah, okay, another goddamn anole, but they’re effortless macro subjects because they’re always within a handful of meters of my door, so stick it. Notice, though, the very even light without harsh shadows or deep contrast, directional enough for shaping (see the backs of the eyes and the base of the skull, the faint shadows that help define those,) and even the leaf that sits directly above the anole’s nose doesn’t cast a harsh shadow. And while this is cropped, the light remains pretty damn even throughout the frame.

Another example:

Still late at night, but the lighting is so even that it could just about pass for daylight, and with a subject this obscured by leaves, the shadows could easily have made a mess – this is even better than expected, really. I can live with this.

We go for the full-frame, just so you know that the diffuse effect isn’t too small:

At closeup distances, the entire frame isn’t all that big, less than 20cm across, but that’s a wide field-of-view for macro work, and the light is even throughout, as well as penetrating the layers of leaves because it’s coming from a larger area – that’s the entire point of a larger diffuser panel. I’m considering this a valid design.

This will be uploaded for others to print, but it may be for a fee – trivial, many times less than what any ‘legitimate’ manufacturer would be charging, but if I can get paid a little for my time, sure. The stickler is, this is designed around the flash that I’m presently using, an old Canon 300EZ; lightweight yet still decent light output and reasonably fast recharging times (four AA batteries instead of the two typical for small flash units.) The fit is snug and perfect, but it’s not going to translate to other flash units in any way, and so far, I’m not sure of how to accomplish this effectively – I’m even going to have to reprint at least the tunnel if/when I go back to my preferred unit, the Sunpak Auto 322 (presently in need of repair – I think the capacitor failed.) So how to make this so it can be used on a variety of flashes? I mean, I can make adapters, but I only have a couple of flashes available to even measure. I can give instructions on making an appropriate adapter or just TPU gasket, but too many people can’t use either Blender (a design program) or TPU, which is admittedly tricky. Still hashing this out…

Meanwhile, for amusement: Right after getting the illustrative pics seen here, I started for Walkabout Studios with the camera and flash unit in my hand, and the fucking flash and softbox slid out of the hot shoe and crashed to the floor, breaking the hinges on the softbox free (they were only glued on – the finished design will have them incorporated) and splitting that damn diffuser panel – and I’d just printed the new one last night! This is actually one of those design flaws, just not mine: flash units only occasionally lock onto hotshoes as firmly as they should, and the 300EZ is not among them. Smooth plastic locking rings onto smooth metal hotshoe flanges simply won’t produce a firm grip. Now, the repairs can be done easily enough, and as I said, the finished design will be sturdier in that regard, but I’m now motivated to find a method to lock onto the hotshoe much better. Right before I’d started taking the pics, I’d tightened down the goddamn locking ring, so there’s no chance that it was loose – it’s just a shitass design that’s been around for the better part of a century, badly in need of improvement but still here due to universal usage. Anyone that creates a new one instantly makes their equipment incompatible with everything currently on the market – inertia and universal adoption is the foil of innovation. We’ll see what happens, but for me, I’m thinking of a rubber or nylon gasket between flash and shoe, able to be compressed and prevent slipping.

That said, watch for more new softbox results soon.

Sorting finds n+13

September 9, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Gotta bunch this time around, and it’s going to be herp-heavy, which means we’re classing together species that barely have any relation to one another scientifically, but they seem kind of the same; this means frogs, lizards, and turtles. We’ll try to space them out a bit.

This one should have been in the last post, but I forgot about it until I’d already posted and didn’t feel like going back to edit.

Another newborn Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) sleeping on the Japanese maple, but the light angle was hardly flattering and it looks barely this side of starving. In my experience, they often look like this soon after hatching (or first appearing in public, anyway,) but they rally quickly. The white around the eyes and chin also indicates that this one was beginning to molt, which only added to the decrepit appearance. You get the impression the twig that it clutches is providing the bare amount of warmth that the lizard possesses – or at least, you do now.

I should have included this one with the post at the time that it was taken, but one of the nutria provided a nice head-on portrait showing the orange teeth and that Lorax mustache. The orange is confined solely to the front surfaces, by the way, and is the hardest portion of the teeth, allowing them to wear down into chisel shapes as the softer enamel behind it grinds down faster.

Don’t know how I missed this on the initial unloading, but this anole seems to be sporting an ostentatious engagement ring, or maybe some kind of foot piercing. Note that very little dew is visible anywhere else, on the lizard or the leaves, so it obtained this droplet from some obscure nook. Is Sauron looking back at us?

[Makes me wonder if Sauron could actually look away from the Palantirs, or if he was forced to see what they displayed. If so, you could have a world of fun setting up things to unveil to him.

“Hey, Saurpuss, lookit this!”

“Gauggh! You filthy bastard hobbits!”

Come to think of it, this may explain a lot…]

So, the sex life of gastropods is quite funky, with different species engaging in it differently. While leopard slugs simply wrap genitals, others actually launch a small dart from their bodies, attached to a membrane or mucus ‘line,’ and reel one another in (most species are hermaphroditic, to make things even more interesting.) But finding two of them in close proximity at least suggested that this is what I was witnessing. And then we go in closer:

Not only is there a third, much smaller one in the middle there, but there is a line visibly connecting the two larger ones. So, was this what was happening? I have nothing further since there was no movement at all as I watched and I had other reasons not to stick around observing.. Not that anyone really needs a reason regardless.

Early one morning, a juvenile green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus) was perched on the almond tree, peeking up from its nook in the folded leaves, and so I got a little fartsy with it. I had the opportunity for several different approaches and poses. while the frog viewed my presence with a little anxiety and shifted around a bit.

A close crop of this one showed the dew adhering to the undersides of the leaf, though it was on top too. Plus we can see from the shadow that the frog is flashing us the peace sign, which doesn’t seem to fit the discomfort displayed, but perhaps this means something entirely different to treefrogs…

Still being fartsy now, but back to the anoles. The composition was entirely up to the anole, perching on the leaf of a hairy-stem spiderwort (Tradescantia hirsuticaulis) – the little touch of blue from the flower bud helps. Now if the lizard had only kept its tail straight, it would have been perfect. Well, okay, there’s no such thing, but better, anyway.

[Since I routinely see anoles clinging in precarious positions while fast asleep, I have to assume that their muscles lock into place during unconsciousness, which seems odd at first, but how many species actually go as limp as we do? It might even be that there’s no such thing as ‘relaxed’ muscles to them, and the muscles must be told by the brain to move, otherwise they’re ‘locked.’ Hmmm…]

While we’re being fartsy…

I saw orange jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) in the yard last year but didn’t take advantage of it, so I’m making up for it as we enter flowering season again for the species. I’ve seen several different plants that sport dewdrops right on the leap tips or, as here, at specific points, but I’m not even sure this is dew – perhaps it’s simply exuded by the leaves themselves? There’s probably a botanical term for this behavior, but I’m not looking it up. You’ll notice that the trumpet/cone shape of the blossom isn’t a continuation of the stem like most flowers, but hangs from it supported in the middle. Weird.

Back to the anoles and their muscle control…

Easy to see that the hindlegs are doing the work, but this one didn’t even bother with one foreleg, leaving it just hanging in space. We need a better angle:

I had to go with a different angle to get adequate flash illumination, and honestly, I can’t recall which orientation the anole had chosen – I think this is the most accurate. And that foreleg is just sticking out there.

As spring foliage kicked back in, the turtles lost a lot of the perches that they used to sun themselves upon, but three yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta) were making the most of this snag. You can see that the duckweed has completely taken over the pond, but there’s a small advantage to this too: it doesn’t flow right back into place quickly at all, so it leaves paths through the water when it’s disturbed, cluing me in as to who’s been visiting and where they’ve been going.

This cute juvenile green treefrog is perched on the leaf of a bullrush, to provide a little scale, but what it’s observing overhead was lost to me; it might simply be peeing discreetly I guess. The angle and flash show off the translucent skin well though.

And finally,

Back on the morning that I was chasing pics of fish jumping, I mistimed this one, which is a shame because it was reasonably close and focus was bang-on. But the splash looked nice, and closes out the collection on another fartsy note. Not a pleasant note, perhaps, or a skilled one, but a note – we’ll leave it at that.

Little things for now

September 8, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Just a couple of pics for the time being – I’m in the middle of sorting and some sorting finds will be along when I finish, so right now, we have a couple of recent discoveries for giggles.

First off, last night the five bebby anoles that could be found on the Japanese maple nearest the door to Walkabout Studios could be captured in a single frame:

Can you find them all? You remember that they turn much paler when they sleep at night, right?

Another little discovery, mostly because I saw something too dissimilar from the rest, which was this dark grey ‘leaf’ dangling from one of the sicklepod (Senna obtusifolia) plants:

This is cropped a little wider to show scale, but you can still see the web strand anchoring it to the branch in the middle. The details seem to indicate that this is actually a chrysalis, supported by the view when we go in closer:

The segmented abdomen (attached to the stem,) the wings, and the antennae are all distinct enough, but that’s an awfully pointy head, isn’t it? This might have given me pause if I hadn’t seen a species that seemed to match, almost exactly five years ago:

This is, I’m almost certain, an American snout butterfly (Libytheana carinenta,) and both that snout and the wings seem like a pretty good match to me. I’m trying to monitor the chrysalis to see if I can capture it while emerging, but I can’t sit there all day long, much less for the several days that this might take to finally occur. So, you may see it, you may not – that’s all I can say.

No, that’s never “all I can say” – we both know better. Meanwhile, the sorting finds will be along soon enough.

Estate Find XXXVI.V

September 5, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

We have a late Find entry, which I’m rushing out to make it still within the confines of Friday (I have a half hour.)

After watching the hatching taking place many moons ago, I saw no signs of any Chinese mantids (Tenodera sinensis) at all, except for the adult that suddenly appeared on the liriope, and I suspected that one had come from elsewhere. Tonight I found this mama, obviously ready to drop an egg sac, and I’m going to keep checking on her to see if I can witness this (and by that, I mean photograph, natch.)

I have to note that this is full-frame, and hardly the limits of closeup ability for this lens (the Canon 18-135mm STM.) We need scale, however, and I gotcha.

Yes, she’s a right thick one, and it’s impressive seeing how much they can grow in a season, since she’s a measured 100mm in length (I went back out to check,) while the newborns might top 12mm. She spooked while i was doing this, and I had to convince her to get back into the open, since the foliage there was dense enough for her to disappear easily, and then I’d never see the egg sac being deposited.

During the same session, I also found this one.

This is the other common species around here, a Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina,) not exactly providing the natural background by perching on the rain barrel. Less than half the length of the Chinese, this is nevertheless an adult, though not obviously pregnant. Another view:

The urban camouflage is strictly within this species, which can also be green. The short wings denotes this as a female.

Now, I tried to coax this one into my hand for scale pics, but she was having none of that, perhaps aware that I’d been messing with the septic system earlier today (even though I did thoroughly wash my hands.) She quickly leapt away, at least making a more natural background by landing in the grass, and after assuring herself that she’d escaped, she wasted absolutely no time in ridding her feet of that icky human ichor.

You’d think that perhaps it might be healthier to use something other than her mouth, especially with the rain barrel right there, but what can I say?

Five minutes til midnight – gotta hit ‘Post’…

Estate Find XXXVI

September 5, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I apologize, but there’s no Estate Find this week – I’ve spent the past two days doing almost nothing but dealing with contractors, after an extended weekend with guests over. While I did indeed go out a few times trying to find something, I was interrupted/cut short twice and found nothing new the other times.

It do be like this sometimes; despite your best efforts, you don’t produce anything of interest, and this can be made worse by insisting on something new. I’ve done extended outings like that, numerous times, and have also done sessions where almost none of the images that I did take were worth keeping. While it’s not a bad idea to have goals and to push yourself to produce something of interest, sometimes you simply have to let it go, since you can’t make the wildlife and conditions around you bend to your will.

Still, I won’t just leave it at that, so we’ll have a faintly fartsy pic from weeks ago, when The Girlfriend’s trumpet flowers (Brugmansia) were blooming.

Man, those are over two months old, dating from June 27^th! But the lighting gives a reasonably accurate impression I think, because these open fully and look best at night, attempting to attract some nocturnal pollinator that doesn’t actually live in this area, since these were imported (long ago) from South America and are actually extinct in the regions where they evolved – which isn’t to say that they aren’t thriving in areas where they were introduced. Still, whatever pollinator they evolved to attract ain’t coming…

We can go further back into the folder, too.

This dates back from May 2021, and wasn’t used then partially because I could never identify it. It’s perhaps even smaller than the impression given here, since it measured (if I remember accurately) somewhere between 15 and 20mm in length, and is likely a juvenile, perhaps only recently emerged from tadpoledom. As such, it probably doesn’t have its adult coloration in place, but it looks closest to a barking treefrog, especially those ringed spots. However, I never found any other evidence of the species in that region (this being where we used to live,) though they supposedly could be found in there. I’m just taking the opportunity to clean out a couple of older pics from the blog folder.

What the hell – let’s get rid of the oldest.

I don’t recall what the original purpose of this image was supposed to be, though the contemplative nature of it is obvious. It dates back from 2006, which predates the blog itself, and while it obviously got into this folder later than that, the program that I used for editing wrote the original ‘Date Taken’ as the ‘Date Modified,’ so I can offer nothing further. Those that maintain that I’m looking more and more like this as time goes by are ignoring that fact that the chimp has more hair on top (that’s considerably less grey) and does not have eyebrows sprouting wild and unruly hairs that resemble kudzu in more ways than one. The ears are a dead match though.

Anyway, better luck next week, and naturally I will present things here at other times as I find them, plus the occasional semi-philosophical post and some utter nonsense thrown in for seasoning. Don’t give up on me yet (he says to a nonexistent audience…)

Crikey stroppin’ beeah!

September 4, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Today, so my calendar informs me, is National Wildlife Day, which is actually different from World Wildlife Day, found on March 3^rd and yet somehow not on my calendar. In fact, this is only a National Wildlife Day, since it also falls in February – perhaps it depends on what nation we’re talking about (I seem to recall different hemispheres celebrating this on different days, early spring for either.) This one was created in honor of Steve Irwin, which means we celebrate it surrounded by a major camera and lighting team, animal wranglers, and controlled sets, running around pretending we’re in “the wild” while affecting a ridiculously stereotypical dialect and handling animals in a disrespectful and hazardous manner. Bonus points if you somehow manage not to be seen as an irretrievable assclown while doing so.

[As you might surmise, I’m not a fan of nature shows that aren’t the least bit natural, especially ones that foster (heh!) bad habits and entirely incorrect ideas about naturalism and zoology. The bare fact that most of them are like this doesn’t help at all, but for giggles, pay attention to the camera angles and ideal lighting to see how much staging is actually taking place. Now, at the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, I will readily admit that I resort to natural-looking sets on occasion, and of course I’m often controlling the lighting, but I never represent these as ‘natural’ and the purpose is almost always illustration, not ‘documentary.’ To say nothing of the large percentage of subjects that are actually captured in completely uncontrolled conditions.]

All that aside, feel free to celebrate this as you see fit; mere observation works just fine, and will tell you a hell of a lot more than trying to have any kind of encounter. Go someplace where the chances of seeing something are greatly increased: even just the local park, but national parks, wildlife refuges, forests, lakeshores… any natural area is usually capable of displaying some kind of wildlife, especially if we loosen our concept of what ‘wildlife’ is. It’s easy to get into the mindset that this means lions and camels and narwhals, but really, just think about the more common species in your area that you’re never actually seen – even for me, this is a long list. Don’t target anything, don’t have goals, just keep your eyes and ears open.

I have a few pics to throw up, not actually from today – I may get out a little later on and see what I can see, though I have several other things that have to be taken care of. It’s not like this isn’t a regular practice anyway…

A few days back on the 1^st I found this particular subject, though this is purposefully shot wide to give context and perspective. Can you spot what I was seeing among these calla lilies (Zantedeschia aetheopica)? Granted, I suspected such a thing was there and was specifically looking for it.

We’ll go in a lot closer.

Naturally, it’s a juvenile green treefrog (Dryophytes conereus,) sequestered during the day before going out to hunt at night – there are almost as many of these around as there are the Carolina anoles, and that’s saying something. This was shot ambient light in open shade, and suffered a little for it, but I did do a quick scale shot too.

Eentsy little thing, but it had found a perfectly-sized spot within the leaves, perpetually shaded and so cooler during the day.

We had guests over for the holiday weekend (no, not this one, but Labor Day,) and went down to the waterfront to find that some species of fish was jumping from the water constantly and exuberantly, very similar to what we’d seen previously at North Topsail Beach and potentially the same species. I had not taken my camera on that outing, but I returned for sunrise the following day (this would be the 2^nd,) and managed to snag a few shots of them in midair.

I got several photos, but most of them at a moderate distance at odd angles, and I was only working with the 18-135mm, so a positive ID was never pinned down (especially when the closest shot, here, was only seeing their bellies.) Nonetheless, based on both appearance and behavior, I suspect these are mullet; the average length seemed to be on the order of 25-30cm. But some of them were dependable enough that I could actually compose a few frames.

The sunset was unimpressive, being far too clear and thus blinding almost from the moment of appearance, and none of the fish were cooperative enough to jump in front of it before the sun was too bright to make a decent pic. But this one works halfway decently, at least. If I were so inclined, I’d wax enthusiastically about the mood of rebellion and contrariness displayed by facing opposite the boats, but there’s such a thing as trying too hard…

And then, yesterday.

Right where the nutria (well, and everything else) regularly forage, we found this adult North American raccoon (Procyon lotor,) in mid-afternoon, of all times. I was able to slip out onto the deck for a clearer view but did not otherwise push it; not only can raccoons be remarkably defensive, seeing one during the day is one of those warning signs of distemper or rabies, though no other evidence of this was forthcoming – both illnesses often display symptoms of sluggishness or being in a daze, aimless wandering and long pauses in confusion. Far more likely was that I spook it off by trying to get closer, so I maintained a little distance while this one was quite busy with its harvesting of already-harvested corn.

I couldn’t be certain while looking through the viewfinder, but I fired off the frames when it seemed likely anyway, and did indeed get the catchlights in the raccoon’s eyes, which is almost a necessity for this species; otherwise the entire mask is simply a band of black most times. It didn’t want to sit up and give me a better pose, but you take what you can get (when you don’t have an entire crew and animal wranglers setting up your shots, I mean.)

So, go see what you can find – still plenty of time left in the day, and I’ll provide a written excuse for you to celebrate this tomorrow if you need it.

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