Getting to be that time


Yep, dusk is falling on that magical evening, so I had to post an appropriate image to help the mood along. Here, we see an extremely rare Portuguese tiny-tailed bat (Yashulden bythis) cruising overhead in pursuit of its favorite prey, Carolina wrens. Since Carolina wrens are diurnal and bats are nocturnal, now you know why they’re extremely rare.

Okay, no – there is no such species, read more

Oh, sure, just waltz out of here, October!


I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s the end of the month, and that means it’s abstract time! Gather the kids, pop some popcorn (the proper way, none of this microwave bullshit,) and settle down as we spin this sordid tale.

This month’s image was indeed taken this month, stemming from my occasional tendency to look around and find something compelling other than my primary read more

Laziness does not pay off

Actually, just typing that title reminds me of the satirical ‘Demotivational’ poster that I saw some years back, which read something like, “Hard work pays off over time, while laziness is an immediate reward.” Nonetheless, this is a tale of knowing better, gambling and losing, and learning a lesson yet again that I will still fail to heed at some point in the future.

That read more

Storytime 43


I happened across this little scene several weeks back, and it remained in place for quite a long time – as far as I know, some of it still remains. It was found directly on the trail around the nearby pond, and is very likely evidence that some mammal met its end at the teeth of a predator, also likely a mammal I’d lean towards a fox dispatching a read more

Scheduled to appear

So, there’s a small benefit to backyard photography, aided by blogging about it, and it’s this: you have the opportunity to see if there is a long-term pattern that develops among the common species, and even pin down exact dates. It doesn’t necessarily tell you why there seems to be a pattern, however…


There’s a large and hearty rosebush that sits alongside read more

Let’s maintain some focus here


I am presently deep within an investigation: what exactly is causing the autofocus on the Tamron 150-600 to be so undependable? Another outing chasing birds on Jordan Lake produced far too many images where focus wasn’t anywhere near where it was supposed to be, and I had made it a point to try and trip the shutter only when it seemed locked on. At times it read more

One word

Orionids

That doesn’t really cut it though, does it? Even if you know what the Orionids are, I didn’t say when they’d be occurring, and if you did know, you probably wouldn’t need me to tell you when, or even that they are occurring. I was just trying to, you know, counteract my tendency to write too damn much when only a few words would do, or go read more

Storytime 42


It was probably about 20 years ago when I picked up a book on close-up and macro photography, and discovered some of the varied methods of obtaining a very high order of magnification without actually having a lens dedicated to it, such as lens reversing and lens stacking. I experimented a little, but didn’t tackle the techniques too seriously for a while.

Later on I was in Florida and using read more

Not half


And so we get to part two of the recent beach trip photos and anecdotes, but I can’t say it’s the second half, because I have more pictures to feature here than I did on the previous post. And they’re not going to be in chronological order just to mess with the anal people.

I made a brief mention of this earlier, but while we had good weather for the three-day weekend trip, the read more

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