It’s been a busy two weeks and I haven’t had time to do much for the bloggarino – a couple of the recent posts were actually scheduled days in advance. I should be more free now, but right at the moment, just two quick images from this morning, almost the same location but not the same time of day.
Heading out to breakfast this morning with The Girlfriend and The Manatee, I spotted my little friend here:
It’s not like I need further photos of Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis,) but it was being photogenic next to the flowers of the oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia,) so I grabbed the camera. The morning sun was blocked from this position so it looks far more overcast than it is.
On returning, the anole had moved on, but very close by was another tableau:
The housefly (Musca domestica) is easy enough to spot, but the little Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) is there if you look. While the mantis could potentially have captured and eaten the fly – well, most of it perhaps – the fly took off before a move was made. It at least provided a nice scale for the mantis, and the two images show off the radical difference, including in color, between sunlight and shade. Composition, tension, and education – what more could you want?
While World Migratory Bird Day yielded just one bird for me, the previous couple of days were a lot more productive, as my brother and I did a short trip out to Washington, North Carolina, and points further east. Here on the waterfront of the town, a nest box for purple martins (Progne subis) shows a lot of activity, in a prime location where there were plenty of riverside bugs to catch. None of the females wanted to give me the clearest looks for illustration, but the males are very deep blue with black wings, while the females more midtone grey with paler bellies, so you can at least tell that there are plenty of couples in residence. Actually, I may be assuming too much about the social structure of martins; this might just be a swingers’ condo. No judgment.
This example here isn’t exactly migratory, tending to remain in the same areas all year long, but it was what I captured on the same trip anyway. Identifying it was a little tricky, given that the hairy woodpecker and the downy woodpecker are almost identical, save for a) the size of the beak, which doesn’t differentiate very much at all; b) some very subtle markings that, like in this photo, aren’t even fully visible; and c) the size, which is fine if you’re close enough or have a solid reference point. I’m going to go with downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) for this one, and a male at that because it appeared to be doing a display for another just out of clear sight behind some foliage, but if someone wants to argue, I’ll cleverly switch the subject over to philosophy just to trash them.
This was in Goose Creek State Park east of Washington, bordering the Pamlico River. An interesting mix of pine forest, swampy wetlands, and largely saltwater sound that yielded the green heron here, it was while wandering the edge of the sound/river that we saw a lone osprey hanging out on a distant dead tree well out into the water.
Its presence there for an extended period of time was a little suspicious, especially given how close it was to an old nest stand that had seen better, or at least more upright, days.
I included the trunk of another tree at the edge of the frame for a reference, to show that I wasn’t being creative with camera angles but holding it dead level. This would initially seem to indicate that the nest platform was long abandoned, but then again, birds nest in the crooks of branches and all that, and sure enough, a very close look at the nest revealed why the osprey was hanging around nearby.
Even at this magnification you have to look closely, but that’s the top of the head and the yellow eye almost dead-center in the frame, the mother sitting on eggs while the father stands watch and fetches food as needed. This was not happening while we were around, though, so no action to catch this time.
Back home, or near it anyway at Jordan Lake, more action was to be found.
The sky was less cooperative later in the day, but the birds were extremely active, and this osprey was circling not too far off and looking about ready to stoop for a fish. When all of a sudden…
… another appeared out of nowhere and dove on the innocent hunter, apparently feeling that this was poaching on its territory, and it was largely through sheer luck that I had the camera to eye at that moment – the second I saw the action I was firing off frames. Timing this would have been next to impossible.
The lower osprey quickly took the hint and dove out of contact, immediately vacating the area, perhaps as surprised as we were – it certainly showed no sign of seeing its attacker coming. While it’s hard to imagine that the victim didn’t sustain some injury from the encounter, it’s hard to say for sure; the feathers are relatively thick there and an osprey might attack another solely for the message, not necessarily to injure them. A lot of wildlife encounters are like that, especially within the same species, and aren’t as vicious as they appear, but the rest is simply speculation.
Off in the distance, a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) performed another harassing encounter on an osprey, which didn’t yield very good pics, but I include this one solely for the curiosity.
Here, I believe it has just completed its attack and is diving for the fish that the osprey had dropped, but what an awkward pose. While I know the back is largely towards us, to the right a bit, and the head is straight down, those wings still have me confused – we’re seeing evidence of a hard maneuver, but the anatomy is not exactly clear here.
We’ll close with a better one.
The late afternoon sun was providing just a little color, and the autofocus nailed things properly, even for the fish. If I knew more about fish species this would probably be enough to identify it, but I don’t and I’m not taking the time. Feel free to chime in if you know.
I’m a little behind with this follow-up, but I have good reasons, plus I’m a grownup and don’t have to explain myself to the teacher anymore. Yet I did indeed get something at least semi-appropriate for World Migratory Bird Day, on that very day even, though I cut it kinda close. The outing that my brother and I made wasn’t aimed towards birds at all, and much of it was spent deep in forest canopy where, even when the birds did show, they were the little hyperactive species flitting around in poor light and I didn’t even bother trying, knowing the results would be dismal.
But then, close to when we were going to leave, my brother spotted the heron:
This is the initial frame at 135mm, because I had the shorter lens attached, and full-frame to give some idea of how little we could see. Motion, however, counts for a lot, allowing us to see more because of the shifting contrast with the background, so we can go in a little closer:
Now it becomes clear that the great blue heron (Ardea herodias herodias) has captured a snake, and I quickly switched to the long lens, hoping the heron wouldn’t gulp it down before I could get a few sharp frames. The heron, at least, was reasonably cooperative.
The snake, not so much. While headfirst down the gullet of the heron, perhaps by half its body length, the snake was very much alive because herons swallow their prey whole, and here it’s clutching at the breast plumes of its captor. Meanwhile, the heron was stalking slowly downriver (this being the Eno River) and I endeavored to maintain a decent view, or improve on it if I could. Ducking around some intervening trees and bushes on the banks, I got a nice perspective as the light improved, right before the heron took flight.
The autofocus wandered no small amount at the working distance, capturing the background from time to time, but a few frames were more than sharp enough, and this is one of the winners. It’s evident now that the snake is a red-bellied water snake (Nerodia erythrogaster,) which I don’t see too often and my brother has never seen. They average over a meter in length and 20-30mm in girth – nice little meal for the heron, and a good way to round out a relatively slow shooting day.
For the sake of it, and because I can’t make a post from the remainder, I’ll throw down a couple of other frames from the outing.
This is a white-spotted slimy salamander (Plethodon cylindraceus,) confirmed by the appearance, the habitat, and the fact that handling it immediately coated my hands with a fiercely sticky mucus that adhered to everything almost as bad as the plot device of a sixties sitcom. Moreover, we met with The Girlfriend’s Sprog just after this, and despite washing my hands thoroughly, they still displayed distinct brown stains that I showed to her – she recognized them instantly from her own experiences during her grad studies. The salamander was almost what we were out to discover, finding at least four, but none of the other species that we were actually hoping to find.
And a fartsy shot, because. The mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) was in full bloom so I fired off a few frames, not even getting a migratory bird in there. Then again, I got more than a few frames in the two previous days, and you’ll see them shortly as well.
Today we go all the way back to the day before yesterday, on the shores of Pamlico River within Goose Creek State Park – I can’t tell you what the tree is because I still haven’t looked that closely, but it’s decorated with Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) anyway. My brother and I were checking out new areas and found a handful of subjects to exploit therein, this particular one prompting me to get out the Tamron 10-24 ultra-wide to make the most of the branches and moss.
Much more interesting, however, is how much of a visible slope the Pamlico River maintains in that region as it drains east towards the Atlantic Ocean – the sun actually rises 20 minutes earlier at the farther end of the river than it does at the near end, solely because of this. You don’t even need a sail if you’re boating out, you can just coast, but returning is lot harder.
Okay, I can see you’re not buying that, but honestly, the camera was dead level when I took the pic – something must have happened in-camera…
I was at least 85% certain that I’d used this post title before, but apparently not. Anyway, it’s World Migratory Bird Day, and so, we have a world migratory bird, in this case a green heron (Butorides virescens.) While I’ve been waiting to see evidence of them returning to (and nesting at) the neighborhood pond, this was taken many kilometers away, at Goose Creek State Park near Washington, NC. It also wasn’t taken today, but yesterday instead, which is why it’s a placeholder – I may obtain some decent images of migratory birds today on an outing, but if not, I have plenty from yesterday. You’ll see them either way.
But let this serve as a reminder of the holiday, in case you’re not already out on your excursion to celebrate it. Which is silly, I know, because of course you are, but still, some people fail to place proper emphasis on the important events, so…
You tried praying to a different god this time around, didn’t you? Thought you might have figured it all out, but we’re back now and shot that hypothesis to hell…
This time around in Profiles we have Jorgeanne, only the Spanish pronunciation so it has nine syllables and sounds a bit dirty. Jorgeanne obviously overdid it a bit with the lip injections; you know how you add a bit of hot pepper to a recipe, only you get a little used to it when tasting and you keep adding more until you serve it and your guests make those overly polite comments about the recipe and are always busy the next time you invite them over? Yeah, that. Thankfully, she never seriously considered any buttock work, because a cownose ray with a dump truck is not something anyone should have to see. While you might figure that she’s aiming to be a swimsuit model, she actually has her eye on the TV, mostly because she keeps forgetting where she left it. She also tries to keep a good head on her shoulders but there are obvious problems with that. Jorgeanne is greatly in favor of broadening audience expectations and generating greater diversity in casting, because her agent told her she’d damn well better in today’s climate, which is simply, “wet.” Secretly, however, she longs for the return of blacklists, because she’s delighted with the idea of sanctioned douchebaggery, plus if she’s unsuccessful she could then blame the system and be considered a martyr instead of talentless. We know you’re trying to determine if this is offensive in some way and we’re enjoying your confusion. Jorgeanne figured that the secret to not being recognized and hounded when in public was to be in the presence of bigger names, so her errands always require trying to coordinate with other celebrities, making her the strangest stalker in town. She has no plans for retirement because she lives too close to countries with unregulated fishing industries. Jorgeanne’s favorite method of removing bubblegum from hair is with liquid nitrogen.
Even we don’t know when the Profiles will cease, but there are still way too many images set aside in the folder, so don’t get your hopes up. We’ll throw you a bone by saying some of them are probably not good enough to use, knowing you’ll just look at the prose above and realize that this doesn’t stop us…
Just a trio of images from the same outing last week, when I wasn’t concentrating on birds. Grab shots, as it were.
I don’t know what the tree is, but I liked the angle of the branches in the light of the setting sun. Would have liked a little more buffer space around it, but as they say, you take what you can get, and Photoshop the rest.
A large group of kayakers, much more than seen here, were heading out together for what I assume was a sunset tour. I tried cropping this shorter in height, more of a panoramic, but it looked a lot flatter, no pun intended; that bit of blue water at the bottom, as unsaturated as it is, helps balance out the image more than you might think.
And when the sunset didn’t pan out, we waited for the moonrise, which took a lot longer to rise above the trees than I calculated. This was without any color alteration, as gold as it appeared, and not too shabby for handheld at 600mm and manual focus – I chose a frame with a hint of clouds for a little more personality than a basic full moon. If it seems like it’s just a little fuzzy on top, it is: that’s the 0.2% of the side facing us that was in shadow, just a hair past ‘full.’ It’s funny that I can see this but not spot a crescent that’s almost as small as that edge, though tiny crescents admittedly appear in twilight skies and thus have much lower contrast from the surrounding sky. One day, however, I’ll snag a less-than-1%-illuminated moon…
On an outing back, once again, to Jordan Lake (we’re in a rut) this past Friday, the bird activity was higher than it’s been all year, so far anyway, but unfortunately a bit distant. I shot a very large number of frames, but probably better than half will be discarded; too much of it was either trying to snag the actions of a distant subject that couldn’t be seen clearly, or focus-wandering and motion blur. The focus issue is much-improved after some maintenance and adjustments, but it still gets fooled or lost from time to time.
This osprey (Pandion haliaetus) was only circling without making any dives for fish, true for far too many that we saw that day. But I liked the rendering of the clouds in this one at least.
Later on, we were on a narrow land bridge between the lake and a moderately-sized pool when an osprey began its stoop into the pool.
Just a little motion blur from this, but the pose was notably different from normal and looked cool. However, the bird passed behind some trees from me just as it was reaching the water and I couldn’t see the entry or climb out with a fish. We had a great view of the entire lake on the opposite side, but weren’t positioned for a good view of the pool. So it goes.
The osprey nest that we’d been watching was still occupied, though it took long observation to determine this; the foliage was thicker now and the mother, sitting on the eggs, was maintaining a low profile. However, her mate would make appearances at times, like when a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) passed too close to the nest.
This is just to illustrate, because it’s the entire frame, what I was seeing in the viewfinder – the birds were several hundred meters off. I’d been clued in to the altercation by the territorial cries of the osprey, otherwise I might have missed it all. We go in closer:
Just too great a distance for decent resolution, but the poses were cool. Osprey, of course, on the right, eagle on the left, ready to defend itself. The dispute involved several antagonistic passes over better than 20 seconds.
While they look almost comparable in size here, note that the shadow of the osprey is cast onto the eagle, in late afternoon as the sun was getting lower; the osprey is closer to the camera than the eagle. In reality, eagles mass two to three times what osprey do, though wingspan is only about 20% larger.
This is a better comparison, because they’re close to the same distance from the camera. And yes, it’s dead level; the eagle is nearly inverted to fend off the osprey. Osprey are also faster and a lot more agile than eagles, so it could circle and come back around for another pass before the eagle could vacate the area, which it eventually did, and the osprey returned to the nest.
But a short time later, the tides had turned:
I never saw the osprey catch its fish, nor where the eagle came from, but suddenly very close by there was a dogfight as the eagle came in to harass the osprey into dropping its catch. I can’t say that either of these were the same birds seen earlier. This is far from the quality that I ever want to show people, but the action was too cool to pass up, and the desperate appearance of the osprey wings and tail were very evocative.
Even worse now, but you can see that the osprey has just released the fish. While I said above that osprey can out-maneuver eagles, this is presupposing that the osprey wasn’t burdened with a fish and the eagle had not just come out of a dive. Curiously, while I’m almost certain this is what the eagle was trying to accomplish, it failed to go after the fish as it fell, perhaps missing it until it was too late. I am quite sure there is no eagle nest within a kilometer or three of this location, so it wasn’t a defensive thing, nor a territorial thing since many different birds all hunt in this region, constantly. The eagle was probably just too close to see it fall, or to make the turn to snag it before it hit the water and sank.
Moments later, the same eagle circled around and provided a few nice, distinctive frames.
I’m not complaining about that one at all. There’s a reason we hit this branch of the lake in late afternoon, and this kind of lighting is it. Deepest blue skies opposite the sun, good lighting and shading on the face, little silhouetting – you can’t make the birds work for you, but you can pick the conditions that help a lot.
By the way, look carefully at the talons – in several frames it’s apparent that the eagle has a dropped, perhaps broken toe.
A little later on, I finally got the focus to remain tight as an osprey descended to snag a fish and… failed. It immediately circled around to try again, this time being successful, but I wasn’t. Dammitall anyway. One of these days…
Despite this activity, Mr Bugg felt we might be missing something more interesting on the other nearby branch of the lake, so we headed out to cross over, passing on our way close to directly under a small flock of black vultures (Coragyps atratus.)
This pair watched my close pass with a little trepidation, but not so much that they saw fit to fly off, instead just clattering their beaks together in what was probably rude commentary on my hat or something. Note that this is full frame at 600mm, not even a dozen meters off.
On the other branch, a great blue heron (Ardea herodias herodias) was being an exhibitionist.
This was the view from some distance off at the boat ramps – it had finally finished preening with its head buried in its breast feathers, but then adopted this regal pose. I’m okay with it I guess, but I detest longneedle pines enough that I’m not wild about the background.
Returning 45 minutes later, the heron was still there as the sun dropped lower and got more golden in color, and it was patient enough to let us creep a bit closer and improve the background.
When using autofocus, this is the kind of image that you take a few frames of at least, defocusing and refocusing to try and snag that perfect distance. The autofocus will grab highest contrast and can easily be just a hair off the ideal point, not quite getting the eyes sharp (I have a few of those.) Even manual focus, with a DSLR at least, will probably not let you see enough resolution to ensure that perfect sharpness is achieved.
We were willing to wait for the sun to get even lower, hoping for deeper and more pink colors (the ‘golden hour,’ doncha know,) but the heron found it suspicious that we simply stopped where we were (probably about 20-30 meters off) and eventually flew off for less creepy surroundings.
Around the point where the light was far worse, we heard the calls of eagles quite close, and spotted this one perched in a tree overlooking our location.
On a previous visit we’d heard the same thing at the same time of day, so I’m wondering if this is a dependable pattern, especially since the copse of trees isn’t far out of reach. One of the eagles, however, was remaining just barely out of sight like before, judging from the minimal distance of the calls. I doubt there’s a nest nearby, for two reasons, the first being that too much boater traffic comes right past this point constantly.
This was the second reason. I’d played a hunch and won out, since both eagles left the roost after sunset, just as they had on an earlier day when it was overcast. You’re seeing the extent of the sunset colors here, not a scrap of cloud in the sky despite the earlier conditions, and I’ve brightened this just enough to highlight the coloration and confirm that they’re eagles. Curiously, the pair split right here, one continuing on some ways down the lake while the other returned to almost the same spot, a bit further away and deeper in the trees.
And obviously, this was the last of the bird photos that we were going to get, but it was enough for one day, and I’ve still got a shitload of sorting to get through. So why am I here posting? Oh, yeah, that’s kind of the purpose of the sorting in the first place…
Trotted over to the neighborhood pond this evening to see if the sunset would pan out, and keep an eye open for wildlife, especially water snakes because it’s that time of the year. The sunset was total crud, but I was successful with one goal, anyway, finding a pair of northern water snakes (Nerodia sipedon sipedon) right smack in the path ahead of me. The light was fading fast but still sufficient for a couple of brief video clips, so…
Seeing the two of them close together seemed a little suspicious, especially when neither of them reacted to my close presence, though they confirmed their intent quickly, while I remained fixed in place and didn’t even shift my feet once I realized what was going on. The first couple of photos suffered from a shutter speed too slow for any quality, and I didn’t bother firing off the on-camera flash because I didn’t want to disturb them.
Just after these clips, a third water snake slid into the picture and attempted his own coup, finding the position already taken, while the female began slipping just a little further away. Apparently it was clear that the female was in season, and I’m impressed with how easily this was detected by the males. Satisfied that their primary goals had been met, I elected to use the flash for a couple of frames, apparently disturbing nothing.
What I find impressive is the color variation, indicating little – most snake species vary in hue more than a little bit among individuals, making identification by color far too tricky to attempt, though pattern is another matter. The female is medium brown in base color, the first (successful) male is quite dark with no brown at all, while the latecomer (ahem) is almost orange in hue – his head lies along the female’s back just at the leftmost curl in this photo, with the other male just below it; the female’s head is at upper center.
Luckily, The Girlfriend did not come along on this outing – she does not like snakes and the size of the female, at least, would not have been met with anything approaching the delight that I had. Worse though, my brother was driving down here for vacation exactly when this was taking place, specifically to see things just like this, but what could I do? At least there’s the video…
And yes, I rejected countless off-color comments and puns both here and in the voiceover. I can display a tiny bit of class, with effort.
On a (fairly) recent trip to the NC Botanical Gardens, I was making the attempt to shoot with more effort towards composition and all that, rather than illustration, but we know I don’t do ‘art,’ so we’re back to being fartsy here – define that as you will. And I could probably research what flowers these are, but really, I have a lot of images to get through, more than just this post, so I’m not going to take the time, especially since I may not have much free time next week. We’re doing the aesthetic thing here, not the scientific one; no comments about how I can’t handle either.
I shot a few variations of the same general subject:
The question is, had you already seen the Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) in the first pic, or did this one make you go back and spot it, or did this text? Or did you not care either way? I’m never sure how subtle some of these photos are, because of course I knew it was there all along – or at least when it moved and attracted my attention.
These are all the same anole, by the way – I was trying to get the most out of a semi-cooperative subject perched in a halfway-decent setting. I think I like this one best. I shifted slightly to put the head against the brighter leaf, knowing it would still be fairly subtle, and the tail falling along the line of the leaf edge was a happy accident – since the tail is often a giveaway, it worked quite well to disguise it.
Okay, I just spent about 15 minutes trying to determine what those flowers are, because. Nothing seems like a precise match, but these might be maple leaf viburnum, Viburnum acerifolium – that’s the best I’ve come up with. I do at least know the garden sticks to native NC plants, so it narrows things down a bit, and these appear to be a little past prime so that might explain the difference. Or I might be dead wrong – that could explain it too.
I make it a point to find the anoles when I’m in the garden, because they like the habitat, even though I’m getting a decent colony of them here at Walkabout Estates now. This was the first that I found, because I know they like these palm-like plants (that I can never remember the name of) and so I was specifically searching – they’re big plants that could hide a couple dozen of the little lizards, and the anole was roughly as high as the top of my head, so I was on tiptoe to frame this. Shame about the little shred of retained skin from a recent molt sticking out right from its snout.
You’ve already seen some of the other attempts to be fartsy, so now we return to the Estates.
I’ve been stalking this one for a few weeks now, since its regular haunt is the oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) in The Jungle. It has been spookier than normal and close approaches have been difficult – I know this particular image has no fartistic merit, it’s just here for comparison. Because a day later, the anole was considerably less wary of my presence and I managed, moving slowly, to get a leetle bit closer:
Granted, this is a tight crop not much reduced from full resolution, but I wasn’t a quarter-meter away for this frame, wide open at f4 with the marvelous Mamiya 80mm macro lens. How the anole allowed this close approach, I’ll never know, but it undoubtedly had to do with my unparalleled stalking skills and preceding reputation. The animals just clamor to be immortalized by my hand. You know it’s true.
