Now July me down to sleep

Wow, even I don’t like that one!

But you’re not here for the wordplay, you’re here for the month-end abstract. So let’s see, what do we have for the contestants?

Coopers hawk Accipiter cooperii not holding still for the camera
While chasing the brood of Cooper’s hawks (Accipiter cooperii) that occupied Walkabout Estates, I snagged this motion-blurred example – image stabilizing lenses only work for the camera’s motion, not the subject’s. Had it not been for that head, it would have been a lot more difficult to determine what this even was.

I must note, by the way, that after making that post, I heard the young calling in the distance for a day or two, then nothing at all; they’ve left the area now, off on their own, so I’m glad I got what I did. This is contrasted against the red-shouldered hawks a few years back, who left the nest and vanished entirely – different species, different fledging habits.

And another, more abstracty.

fine orb web catching morning light edge on
This one does much better at higher resolution, and may become a large print that makes people go in close, because the web strands stay sharp – at least, within the focus range in the center. There are just enough details to make it work, for me anyway: the sparkle of the light off the strands, the parachute-like billow in the middle, the clarity of the web structure at lower left, and the curves of the highlights at lower center. It also helped that I was shooting with a wide open aperture, so the background got rendered in soft round blobs instead of aperture-shapes like pentagons or septagons. Little things, little things…

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