Tip Jar 17: Stalking

April 27, 2026April 26, 2026 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

green heron Butorides virescens looking globular — Knowing it might be there, and being patient with the approach – can’t complain about the results at all

If you’re like me, even as often as I do it I still picture something like Elmer Fudd when I hear this word, or someone creeping up with a detached bush as camouflage while pizzicato strings play with their footsteps (I think that’s the term, but I’m not a music person.) This is misleading, even in the circumstances when it’s not entirely inaccurate, and there’s a lot more to it than that anyway. So what do I mean when I’m using the term, or better yet, what’s my advice on how to do it?

Sounds. Silence, of course, is optimum, but also next to impossible to accomplish most times. Learning how to walk quietly is key, and takes practice, but the general idea is to put your feet down as gently as possible, almost rolling them onto the ground. At the same time, finding those areas to walk in that make the least sound helps this tremendously; picking mossy areas over leaves, grass over gravel, and so on. This often means getting to the side of the regular path if it consists of noisemaking substrate, though at other times (parks and frequented trails most often,) the path has been cleared by the passage of others and is the quietest option. Avoiding sticks of any kind is important, naturally, and this means keeping a close eye on where you put your feet – not a bad idea anyway in areas that have venomous snakes or poison ivy or those irritating tiny cacti.

Following a rain or overnight dew can help a lot, since sodden conditions will reduce the noise in most cases, certainly better than dry leaves. And one that a lot of people don’t think about, but breezy or windy days can help mask the sounds you do make.

When you realize that any experienced outdoors person can tell the difference in footsteps between a deer, a squirrel, a lizard, and a human just by sound, you’re recognize that you should break up your pattern, making it irregular with differing size steps, as random as reasonable.

And of course, shutting up is paramount too, but you’d be amazed at how few people understand this. Human speech is instantly recognizable even at a distance, so learn to be silent in that respect. I often communicate with someone else by short, quiet whistles – no Morse code or agreed-upon sequences, just a couple of quiet attention-getters until they look my way and I can nod or mime something. I have yet to find a species that reacts to quiet whistles in any way, even when I have to do it a few times at increasing volume until I attract the attention of who I need to.

Many, many species are attuned to motion. Like in Jurassic Park, staying still is often enough to escape attention, no matter what you’re wearing. Amusingly, certain species respond to certain kinds of motion more than others, generally resembling the predator (or prey) species that they’re most aware of. Best practice: move when they’re not looking. Also, directly towards a species is often the best move, since if they can’t get two eyes on you for depth-perception, they may not even realize you’re closer. Eventually, this fails and your target will become aware that you’re there and something is going on – hopefully this is once you’re close enough for decent shots. And now you have the challenge of raising the camera to your eye, and believe me, this is instantly suspicious to a lot of species, because what else does anything of this nature? It helps to have the camera mostly raised and leveled towards your subject to begin with, as tiring as this might be to your arm muscles, since then all you have to do is raise it subtly. And sometimes, with practice, you can even fire off shots without using the viewfinder, though I’ve been doing this for a long time and still haven’t gotten to where the camera is actually pointing where I think it is, far too often.

Staring. Don’t, any time you can avoid it. This is predatory behavior and a lot of species become acutely aware of it. Once a species even suspects you’re there, it’s time to go casual and look around lazily, often down more at the ground, or just out towards the horizon, never in one place too long. Many species freeze and ‘point’ with their gaze towards something suspicious, so avoid that. For any species that has reason to fear airborne predators, looking to the sky is out too.

Mimicking their browsing or casual behavior. This works far more often than you might ever suspect it should. Many, many species rely more on behavior traits than actual appearance, so even though you might not look anything like a heron or a deer, mimicking their behavior (once you know they’re aware of you) can actually put them at ease, and yes, I’ve mimed browsing deer and preening birds many times with good results – it’s actually amusing. In such circumstances, taking a couple of casual, aimless steps can actually work better than holding still – again, predators hold still, just before the pounce or charge.

trio of white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus next to Cape Hatteras lighthouse — My earliest example of both closing when they weren’t looking, and mimicking behavior. All three deer started staring at me once they realized I was close, but I turned and acted like I was browsing, and the two on the right immediate went back to doing the same

Some species, like rabbits, get confused by diagonals. You can get closer by moving more to one side than directly, even when this clearly shows you crossing against a background.

Background. Better to have something behind you that is dark and convoluted, rather than something like open sky. Dense foliage often doesn’t provide any reference point against which a species can recognize your movement, even when your own attire isn’t actually blending in. Most especially at night, never cross in front of any light source, and this includes as you’re leaving and your headlamp or flashlight is shining on tree trunks or foliage – try not to silhouette yourself against something brighter. You have to be aware of what’s behind you, from your subject’s perspective – tricky, and takes extra awareness of where you are and what you’re doing.

Camouflage. Okay, I almost never use anything even close, so while it can’t hurt and probably helps in a lot of cases, it also probably doesn’t help half as much as the other habits outlined here. Now, garish and obviously contrasting clothes aren’t going to help in any way, so browns and greys and so on are certainly much better choices overall. But is a full camo kit a bonus, much less necessary? Probably not. especially when you’re in an area that the target species frequents. They know their environment, so you’re still likely to attract attention just by being ‘not that.’

Blinds. Better than camo, to a small extent, and certainly a boon towards masking your movements – as long as you’re doing them silently. But bear in mind, you also have to have blinds set up well ahead of time, preferably long enough to thwart that ‘something different’ concept above, and most especially, you have to be in them before the species come into the area. So, useful for having a very specific goal and the ability to wait for it, perhaps for hours, but not so much otherwise. You can often reproduce the benefits of a blind by just waiting in a deeply shaded area – as long as you hold fairly still.

Plant your feet. We fidget a lot as a species, and without military training, we’re often uncomfortable with standing perfectly still all the time. But those little movements can give us away, so ‘growing roots’ is a good practice to develop – where it doesn’t conflict with the advice above.

Use your own ears. Just hearing the approach of something has netted me more good frames than nearly anything else, and knowing what’s ‘typical’ (rustling of leaves in breezes, common songbird calls) versus what’s beneficial to our pursuits (actual movements of species, calls of something far more interesting) is extremely helpful. That sudden rustle nearby will always cause me to freeze and watch carefully in that direction, and it often pays off.

At the same time, this makes us acutely aware of how much noise we’re making ourselves, and helps us reduce this significantly.

summer tanager Piranga rubra peeking from foliage — Only photographed because I heard a call that I’d never heard before

My directional hearing is pretty specific, at least if I can judge against the other people I’ve been out with and how quickly I can home in on something, but how to develop this? I can’t advise, except to practice a lot. Home in visually on any calling bird in the sky, or airplanes can work well in this regard, though be aware: the faster and/or higher they are, the more the sound lags behind their actual position due to the speed of sound. Turn your head slightly when you know where the noisemaker is, so you can learn the difference in your ears when you’re off-axis. But when this is developed, you can immediately be looking in the right direction for further movement, once you hear that initial sound.

Splitting attention. One of the hardest aspects of all this, since you might want to be watching the skies for interesting birds approaching, the foliage around you for any nearby species (seeing them before they see you,) and where you’re putting your feet, which takes a very high precedent, to avoid both noise and danger. The most useful trick is to examine the ground ahead of you carefully while standing still, know what’s there for a couple of meters, then you can move forward that much while you watch for other subjects. But if the footing is more obscured or provides too much camouflage for snakes for instance, you examine the surroundings when you’re standing still, and watch your footing closely as you move forward. Get in the habit of doing small incremental advances rather than maintaining any kind of pace, and look around frequently in as many directions as feasible.

We will miss things. We don’t have 360° vision, far from it, and can’t look everywhere at once. This isn’t a failure on our part, just the way things are, so don’t fret about it. But don’t miss the venomous snake or that ankle-twisting hole.

Get in the habit of pausing within the shadows or cover of surrounding trees before venturing out into the open, where you can be seen easily, and carefully survey the open areas – again, see them before they see you. This even applies to bends on the path or where the foliage parts at the edge of the water. Use the cover that’s available, and reveal yourself only when you’ve at least tried to check the area.

By the way, autumn is a very tricky time, since fallen leaves can obscure a lot, including deeper holes, and of course make a lot of noise. Slow and careful are the bywords here.

Also, with snow, think about your composition. If you like that pristine snowfield as an element, don’t walk across it but skirt it instead, outside where you’ll be framing your shots. Same with a smooth beach, like after high tide. If you don’t want your footprints in the shot, don’t put them there.

Water and wading. Big one here – falling in the water is bad enough, but with your equipment is extra damaging. Best to pack everything away in your protective bags before even venturing out, so it has a little protection anyway – a tightly-closed bag is proof against submersion for a second or two, which may be enough.

Rocks and unsure footing abound, and are often obscured by sediment. Keeping your weight still firmly planted on the steady foot, extend the other out ahead of you until it seems to have solid purchase, then slowly shift your weight onto it, ready to shift back if it doesn’t seem stable. Arms out for balance, and a walking stick is usually a good idea. Take it slow and easy.

Larger and shallower rocks, while they look like they might be nice stepping stones, are more often covered with a layer of algae or silt and can be the slipperiest surface imaginable – don’t trust them at all. Better to stick to the deeper stream bottom than to slide uncontrollably off of your footing.

Avoid hopping to a new purchase, but if you have to, only choose a level, flat, and dry one. Land with your weight straight down, not traveling forward – don’t count on firm footing, but balance instead. I’ve done this enough that I can actually jump across a small stream onto a slippery muddy shore – though now that I’ve put that in writing, I’m guaranteed to blow it the next time because the law of jinxing is a measurable force in the universe…

I always wear closed-toe sandals, and I don’t have to tell you why. The amount of times they’ve saved my feet when I slipped into a gap between rocks or roots cannot be tallied anymore.

Even with a smooth and clear bottom, learn to move your legs gently and smoothly, to avoid making a lot of splashy water sounds – you should be able to do this almost silently.

Don’t push it. By this I mean, trying to get so close to a species that you put yourself into danger. Any species can react badly when threatened, and we’re a very poor judge of what’s threatening to them. Never get to a point where you can’t flee if charged, or have your escape blocked off, or most especially, the animals’ escape blocked off – that can induce a panic right there. Always remember, just because nothing has happened doesn’t mean nothing will continue to happen, and who knows what might trigger a species? You may think you’re non-threatening and mellow, but the animal is mighty suspicious and beginning to think you’re getting too damn close – and then a bird gives an alarm call or a tree branch falls. Even if you’re not the target of aggression, you might be in the way of the panicked fleeing, and with a white-tailed deer, this can be dangerous.

Most importantly, plenty of species are seriously protective of their young – always give them a wide berth. Mating season can also be hazardous with some species, since the males become territorial and aggressive. Assume the worst, and pass on the shot in favor of staying safe and respecting the animals. Don’t be one of those idiots.

Overall, take your time and be patient, but practice your best habits as often as possible, until they become second nature. Observe, and learn from experience. There’s always room for improvement.

North American beaver Castor canadensis gnawing on bark chip

Just because, part 57

April 26, 2026 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

five-lined skink Plestiodon fasciatus slinking out from under garage door
I haven’t been shooting a lot, but I do have a handful of video clips to put together, that might wait until I have a couple more to flesh them out. In the meantime, an anecdote and recent exchange.

The Girlfriend commented that there was a frog sounding off quite close by, she suspected inside the garage. This isn’t farfetched in the slightest; since the lizards absolutely delight in running in there and disappearing every time the overhead door is open, we usually leave the door cracked a few centimeters now so we don’t trap any. But since the garage is a big space with lots of hiding spots, I didn’t bother attempting to find it.

Later on, I heard it directly, a barking call in midday that I have no idea what the purpose is, and soon zeroed in on one corner of the garage, naturally the junk corner filled with tools and building materials. The Girlfriend and I surveyed this area, and I said, “It could be anywhere in here – we probably wouldn’t find it unless we tore this spot apart. They like tucking themselves into nooks like this,” and saying so, I turned around a two-meter section of J-channel for siding. Sure enough, that’s exactly where the frog was hiding, up until I actually moved its bed, whereupon it leapt out onto my shoulder. A small rodeo ensued, culminating when I convinced it to stay on something long enough to carry it out to the azalea bush outside the door, what I considered a much better day and nighttime perch. But at least it wasn’t trapped in the garage trying to find its way out a window or whatever.

Two days later, however, we heard it again, and yes indeed, back on the same J-channel.

green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus tucked into J-channel within garage — The lower spot, almost hidden

We let it be, since it seemed to be finding this spot on its own, but by nightfall when we were taking the trash out, it was on the move and I shooed it out the door and off to the side.

Next day, back again.

closeup of green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus tucked into J-channel
I went back inside and said to The Girlfriend, “I was just out in the garage…” and left it hanging.

She picked it up immediately. “He’s back again?”

“Yup, same spot. Higher this time though – he’s moving on up.”

She didn’t miss her cue. “To the east side?”

“Mm hmm,” I confirmed, then a pregnant pause. “He finally got a piece of the fly…”

I am not ashamed.

Estate Find 60: Been a while

April 24, 2026 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

When I had this as a weekly topic last year, there were times when I was struggling to have something to feature, and punted it once or twice, though at others I had subjects waiting in the wings, and overall didn’t do too bad at all for finding something new for every week. I like this way better though, in that I can feature things as I find them and not stick to a schedule.

Poking around late last night (as in, right before it became “today.”) looking to see who was about and not finding much of anything, I finally spotted a patch of paler green within the foliage of the large Japanese maple in the backyard. It was about the right hue for an anole in night coloration, but didn’t look quite right for it, and a close examination confirmed this: it was not an anole.

small rough green snake Opheodrys aestivus coiled asleep in foliage of Japanese maple tree
I was delighted at this, because it’s been – holy shit, has it been ten years? – since I last photographed one, so I’m sure you’ll understand my pleasure. This is a rough green snake (Opheodrys aestivus) coiled up asleep in the leaves, because that’s what they do – they’re very arboreal, and growing up we always called them green tree snakes, since you’ll rarely find them on the ground at all. This perspective simply wouldn’t do, however, so I crawled underneath the tree to see more of it.

small rough green snake Opheodrys aestivus seen from underneath just as it's waking up
I made a small mistake in doing so, however, because I was used to stalking the anoles at night and they pay little attention to the headlamp bobbing around or the flash going off. But snakes don’t have eyelids and thus sleep with their eyes open, and from experience, I’m fairly certain that a distinct change in light wakes them up right away. Normally, this is throwing your shadow across them, but here it was likely the light passing in and out of the shadows of the leaves, so this little guy was awake and starting to seek a safer place as I was underneath framing the shots.

And little it was, even smaller than average, as we can see because I couldn’t let it go at these, and had to get some scale and better detail images.

small rough green snake Opheodrys aestivus coiling for leverage within author's hand
The muscles of most snakes are impressive, but rough green snakes can suspend themselves way out from minimal purchase, or in this case, abandon the established support of my hand to throw its hindbody out for a different grip to try and escape – you can see the tailtip curled over one finger, while it looks like I’m demonstrating knot tying. Naturally, this is going on in my left hand while the camera is held in my right.

Overall length was probably a little over 30 cm, but they can easily get better than twice this, and twice this girth so, you know, huge.

small rough green snake Opheodrys aestivus extending out away from author's hand
Here I’d finally convinced it to use my hand as support – for a moment, anyway. Even at this size/age, you can see the scars from past encounters, though I’m inclined to think ‘songbird that wasn’t happy to find it within the leaves’ and not your typical predators of snakes, since it wouldn’t have survived most of them. And the scars were not likely from battles with its own prey either, since those are slugs and spiders and so on.

small rough green snake Opheodrys aestivus facing camera while coiled in author's hand
I did a lot of frames, partially because it was moving around so much I was never sure that focus was correct, but also trying for a decent portrait. I would have liked to have captured this one with the tongue out, but it held the pose for less than a half-second. Meanwhile, notice the tail extended out to the left.

small rough green snake Opheodrys aestivus with tail tip coiled over nose while in author's hand
And the last one, for giggles, since it had now coiled its tailtip over its own head, actually holding it there for a little bit, perhaps secure in its grip.

I released it back into the tree where I found it after this session, and it slipped deeper into the foliage and out of sight quite quickly. Will it stick around in the immediate area? Will I see it again? Can’t predict that, but I’ll keep you posted.

The stories I could tell ya…

April 22, 2026 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

… and usually do, without a filter even.

So I did go out this morning just before the peak of the Lyrids meteor shower (which was supposed to be around 4 AM locally,) and fired off a lot of frames. Stars were visible but not distinctly so, leading me to believe either the humidity was very high or a faint haze was obscuring the sky (which is the same thing I guess.) I was largely watching the area of sky I was aimed at the whole time, and wasn’t seeing anything happening, until a two-minute exposure close to when I was going to wrap it up. I saw the meteor clearly and was pretty certain that it was within the field of view of the camera, and sure enough, it was visible as a faint streak.

two-minute time exposure of night sky with captured meteor
This is full-frame, and it just barely shows at this resolution. See it? No, not that dotted line near top center – that’s simply four stars nearly in a line along the plane of movement (likely the base of the constellation Corona Borealis, The Crown, just to the right of Bootes, The Fatass.) Try looking instead at the bottom of the frame to the left. This, by the way, constitutes about half of the visible sky from the backyard here, with straight up being at the top of the frame – I could shift below this and turn the camera to landscape instead to get the rest, but that also aims towards the town lights and so gets brighter and less distinct because of that. At full resolution though, the meteor looks like this:

inset of two-minute time exposure of night sky with captured meteor
There it is, that vertical streak just left of center. Since this was aimed at longer exposures, the aperture was f8 (ISO 2000,) and so not ideal for capturing the faint ‘shooting star’ type meteors like this one. Like these, actually – there’s a second in there that I didn’t see at the time, to the right, just barely discernible because it’s not following the same star paths. I enhanced contrast significantly to bring them both out better:

inset of two-minute time exposure of night sky with captured meteor, contrast-enhanced
Really brings out the noise of ISO 2000, doesn’t it? I was normally firing off frames of 15 seconds, f3.5, to bring out the fainter and brief traces that might occur, so the higher ISO was intended to help with that, but I don’t think 2000 is useful, really – it’s certainly messy. But you should be able to see that second one anyway.

Immediately afterward, bolstered by the one I’d seen and a couple other suspicions of faint, quick ones, I switched back to 15-second exposures at f3.5, and captured some more streaks even when I was seeing nothing. Here are two of them in the same frame, opposite corners of the full-resolution inset:

inset of time-exposure of night sky with two satellite trails
Except, these appear in subsequent frames as well, slightly further along their paths, indicating that these were both satellites and not meteors – it was getting closer to sunrise and so some of the satellites were able to catch sunlight again.

I have yet to examine all of the frames at full resolution, and might for giggles, but who cares about pissant little streaks like those above? I was after nice brilliant fireballs, and I haven’t seen one of those in years. So much for this storm.

Now, part two, of which I will tell you right now there are no images to illustrate, so we’re stuck with prose. Just as I was getting ready to detach the camera from the tripod, I heard a sharp crack from the direction of the pond, and thought, The beavers just took down a small tree. So leaving the camera where it was, I walked over there slowly since I was already wearing the headlamp. Initially, I just saw two heads with reflecting eyes slinking past, dark and low in the water, just inside the lily line. I wandered further, looking for stumps or fallen trunks and finding none, but on returning to the apron where we throw down the corn, I saw again a head cruising through the water (well, there was a body attached too, I just couldn’t see that.) In typical beaver style, it did a back-and-forth pass, ensuring that nothing dangerous seemed to lurk (only seeing the glare of the headlamp in my direction,) and came up to shore about four meters away. This was a big beaver, biggest I’ve seen since this one, and jet black – I’ve never spotted this one before.

Curiously, for the size of the body, the head was fairly small, and I’m slightly inclined to think it was a pregnant female, but that’s more an impression that an experienced naturalist’s opinion – I’ll stick with ‘she’ though. She began scarfing down corn from the shallows just offshore, quite nonchalantly, while not too far away, roughly the border of the pond and The Bayou (so, 20-30 meters,) another beaver slapped the water loudly, twice. She never even twitched. I had of course gone down without the camera or camcorder, so I was only observing.

Then she started working closer, and I was beginning to get concerned – not because beavers tend to be aggressive, because they’re not, but because anything can have a bad reaction if startled, and she was closing to about two meters, close enough for her to feel threatened if she suddenly detected that I was there looming overhead. This did give me a chance to measure her entire length against landmarks though, and it was in the realm of 70 cm nose to tail (having checked later on with a tape measure,) estimated weight at least 15 kilos. I waited until she had abandoned her one feeding spot and started edging to the side, and I gently moved one foot, a tiny scuffing sound. She became alert and moved off slightly, and I did it again a little louder. This was enough to send her into a turn and dive, not frantically, but playing the discretion card, and I was able to go back to the tripod and collect the camera.

This causes me to relate two anecdotes about beavers from the past. While I was working for a humane society, we had a moderately-sized beaver come in with a leg injury, largely superficial, but the vet recommended a warm compress twice a day to help with any potential infections, and since I was part of the Beaver Project at that time, it fell to me to administer this. Bearing in mind that this is a perfectly wild animal in a foreign environment, the beaver would allow me to pick it up and sit next to it on the floor of the kennel, one hand holding the warm towel around its injured forelimb – the worst reaction was to try and push my hand away. I’ve been in far more danger trying to clip the cats’ nails. However, by the end of the week, the noise of the dogs nearby was beginning to take its toll and the beaver was getting visibly agitated, so we halted the compresses and elected to release it back where it was found. Rather than taking off like a shot the moment its carrier was opened, it ambled out and over to the streambank nearby, slipping into the water with all casualness.

Then the other side of the coin. A few weeks later, a former employee heard her two Brittany spaniels kicking up a fuss on the back of her property at night, and went down to investigate. It turns out they had cornered a beaver, a big one, and it was very angry. She got too close without realizing the situation (given the darkness and likely a handheld flashlight in the pre-LED days, not hard at all,) and the beaver decided she was as much a threat as the dogs, attacking here viciously. Her legs got seriously torn up, requiring (if I recall correctly) over a hundred stitches, and she told us she couldn’t get away from the beaver and had to pick it up bodily to hurl it away. Thankfully, this was also before rabies had moved into the area, even though she probably received a booster anyway (we all had preventative rabies vaccines if we were handling wildlife.) So, overall, beavers are mellow and not prone to aggression, but can get that way if provoked – it’s always a bad idea to assume any lack of danger from wild species.

Though I am glad this attack occurred well after I was tasked with going into a kennel and handling one closely…

Tip Jar 16: Moving water

April 20, 2026April 19, 2026 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

time exposure of lower concourse on Minnehaha Falls, GA
While some consider it trite, there’s still a fascination and popularity with the effect of moving water in images, and so, here are some pointers for tackling this on your own.

The primary bit, of course, is a slow enough shutter speed to have noticeable water motion to blur it out, but of course, everything else being sharp. This generally means shooting from a firm tripod, though I have admittedly gotten away with some frames handheld, with a relatively short shutter speed (like 1/10 second) and, the key bit, an image stabilized lens at short/wide focal lengths. I can’t recommend this, since you’ll likely produce a lot of discards, but there are narrow circumstances when you can get away with it.

Still, to do it dependably, you should have a tripod, and this is one of the reasons I schlep one along for stream and mountain excursions. Also helpful is a remote release, with the addition of a circular polarizer or neutral density filters to reduce the light and thus the shutter speed.

Shutter speed. No firm guidelines here, since it depends on how far the water moves across the frame, as well as how cottony you want it. Shortest would probably be 1/10 second or thereabouts, but longer is better in most cases.

long exposure of moss within water with moving trickles throughout
Aperture. Generally, the smaller the better, to reduce light and help lengthen the shutter speeds, but this also helps in keeping foreground and background elements in focus with the increased depth-of-field, and that contrast between sharp features and cottony water is what’s usually so appealing about such shots.

ISO. The lower the better, again to lengthen the shutter speeds, though it also helps in creating images that are detailed and clear enough to enlarge well.

Location/conditions. Here’s something that matters a lot. Open or deep shade is preferable by a wide margin, because splashing water in bright sunlight produces momentary reflections that will render as spots or streaks of pure white within the cottony moving water, usually not a good addition. Even dappled sunlight will create hotspots that reduce the effect of the blurred water. Plus the shade helps to lengthen those shutter speeds again. Note that this will make the light more blue, so you might consider going with Auto White Balance, but be warned: this can get badly skewed by the scene if there’s too much green within, for instance. I tend to stick to Sunlight white balance (neutral,) and tweak colors afterward if it seems necessary – often times the blue cast is reasonable and appropriate anyway.

squiggles of bright sunlight reflections during longer time exposure — What the bright sun does

The other bit that can have an affect is the wind, and/or the movements of leaves and branches. Anything that moves during the exposure will also blur of course, which you may or may not like. Too much, and the images just look overall blurred, taking away the points of sharp focus that we seek. However, a couple of leaves or branches here and there won’t always detract, and may add a little character. To this end,

Bracket exposures, widely if necessary. Without a doubt, shoot several different frames at different shutter speeds, even tweaking aperture as needed or desired. That blurring effect will increase with length of exposure, but it can also go so far as the completely eradicate any definition from the water, producing just fog, and you may or may not want that. Meanwhile, exposures too short will limit the effect, sometimes to the point of escaping notice. Experiment freely, while you’re in location and have the conditions. Unless you’re actually doing this on film, it costs nothing to toss out the ones that don’t work. And if you are doing this on film, keep notes of what exposure you used.

Filtering. Using a circular polarizer will reduce the light by, usually, about 1/4 to 1/2 stop, while neutral density filters can be obtained for much greater reductions in light. While I prefer the ones that are square and can thus be used on a variety of lenses, simply held in place, some of these are not truly neutral but have a faint color cast – easy enough to tweak out in post processing. It’s more of a danger in holding them in front of a lens, though, since you run the risk of bumping the camera and trashing the shot, or even of letting some light past the edges, so use these carefully, or with a holder. These will help with those conditions that are too bright for long enough shutter speeds, but they don’t eliminate that sparkle effect from bright sunlight on splashed water, so they’re not as useful as they might seem at first.

Also, polarizers reduce or eliminate the reflections from still water or glass, since those are polarized by nature – this is part of the value of such filters, but if those are a part of your composition, you can lose them. Such conditions are probably few and far between, however.

Moonlight photography. This is one of the better ways to tackle moving water shots, since the light is so greatly reduced in the first place, as well as moonlight being less likely to reflect from splashes too distinctly; it can still happen though. Doing this for something like ocean waves, lots of movement during very long shutter speeds, will likely produce only fog with no definition at all, so better to have something sharp to contrast with, such as rocks or bridges or a lighthouse, something of that nature. Here, also, the length of the exposure can dictate how dark and moody the frame is, from barely twilight to appearing almost indistinguishable from full sunlight.

stream rapids by moonlight long exposure
Be aware, though, that shutter speeds longer than ten seconds may produce movement from clouds in the sky, and more than 30 seconds (depending on focal length and aiming direction) can cause stars not just to appear, but to streak across the sky as well. This can be useful too, just know that it can happen.

Use it as a background element. One of the creative ways to use the blur is to isolate your foreground subject against the cottony water, including using it for macro work (as long as your main subject won’t move during the exposure.) In this manner, you can use a smaller aperture to capture a deeper subject with higher depth, and still get that short depth appearance from a radically blurred background. It can also add a surreal aspect to a wider scene when used subtly.

ferns backgrounded by moving water at Watkins Glen, NY
Shooting into moving water. For instance, of leaves or rocks on the bottom of a stream. This is tricky, but cool when you get just the right conditions. First off, even shooting into water with a fast shutter speed usually just freezes the distortion of the rippled water, producing a funhouse mirror effect, so slowing down the shutter speed can average out this distortion – you’ll likely still get a softer image, but better than a warped one. However, your shutter speeds should probably be much faster than when used to blur out the water overall, because otherwise your subject will become just a blotch of color. Any ripples that reflect even indirect light will produce a haze across your subject as well. That said, something that disappears into deeper water, like a spread of leaves or the pebbles going offshore, will go progressively softer and more indistinct the deeper they go. Again, bracket wildly when you find the right conditions to exploit.

Definitely a fun thing to experiment with, so when you find the conditions, take some time and see what you can produce. Good luck!

deep vertical time exposure of Looking Glass falls and waterway, GA

Nights in April

April 19, 2026 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

You can expect to find things like this, if you’re looking around. Two short clips, one from last night, one from, damn, ten days ago – I’d been hoping to get some more to go along with it, but there’s been no further sign as yet.

A note about the toads. This isn’t actually mating, since they do external fertilization: the female finds a body of water after the male grabs ahold (amplexus,) and releases her eggs while the male releases his sperms at the same time, so the actual fertilization takes place in the water. The male was simply waiting, though perhaps goading the female to carry on. Why he didn’t seem to have a clue, I can’t say – amphibians are supposedly very attuned to the sounds of potential mates, and spadefoots and southern toads sound nothing alike. Listen, what anyone gets up to is their own business and I’m not judging, but as Hall & Oates says, “If you’re in it for reproduction, you ain’t gonna get too far.” I think that’s how the song goes…

Meanwhile, the ducklings first appeared with mom at dusk, slipping under cover before I could get upstairs to the camera and long lens. Last year, at least one mother duck (probably more) had used Turtle Island as a nice overnight roost, but that’s too far under water now to serve, which is a shame because it was a safe spot; I witnessed a raccoon hunting on the pond shores at the same time that I was watching this expanded brood. So she might have decided there wasn’t a good place to sleep within my sight, or she might simply be cycling around the roost spots, because that does seem to be a trait.

Did these emerge from our own nest box? I can’t be sure – I’ve never seen any activity at it, but it tends to be subtle and brief when it does occur, the female entering and leaving within seconds, so it’s possible that I was missing it. I have plans to make a small indicator on the outside of the box when there’s sufficient weight inside, but that won’t happen until after nesting season now, and I’d have to take it down and put it back up again, not an idle chore.

For giggles though, go back and watch the duck portion of the video again, this time watching the surroundings. See all those little starlike points of light among the foliage and debris? They’re all reflections from spider eyes, likely the fishing spiders, and yes, there are a lot of them. Most are tiny, way out of proportion to the brightness of the reflections at only a few millimeters in body length, but yeah, scads of them. Truth is, you can really only see this if the light source and your eyes (or the camera) are close together – I see it constantly with the headlamp, so who knows how many you might be missing? Spiders are all over the place and generally have no affect on people, but folks are often shocked to see just how many.

You know you’ll see more duckling clips when I get them, so keep checking back. I’m doing routine night patrols myself.

Just the right angle

April 19, 2026 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

These are just a few recent images that demonstrate one of those factors I struggle with, in this case, trying for ‘that portrait’ of a wood duck. And I’m doing this because, while I just now got a video clip of some other species entirely to feature, I also have background noise that will prevent doing the voiceover for a while. So we have this instead.

Anyway, the wood duck (or one of them, anyway) that likes to claim territory and harass the others:

male wood duck Aix sponsa showing great coloration from feathers as it harasses other ducks
This particular position really brought out the iridescence of the wing feathers, a pretty rare thing in my observations, and this is probably intentional (for a completely misleading interpretation of ‘intent.’) First off, it only happens in bright sunlight, which the ducks tend to avoid, and those blue feathers are most often obscured under the others. They are, likely, both a display for mating and an indication of what species they are when they’re flying, leading the others in a flock away to safety (rather than, for instance, having them follow the hawk that just dove in to try and snag one for a meal.) However, attracting the attention of predators is a bad thing, so the feathers become notably muted and drab when in shadow, and wood ducks are good about remaining in shadow. Meanwhile, the head itself, so often a display of its own iridescence, isn’t catching the light correctly to show it at this angle.

Now we jump a mere second later, as the female that was being chased off by this one splashes into the water:

male wood duck Aix sponsa showing less color as fleeing female wood duck splashes into water
The male is in largely the same position, just turned ever-so-slightly, but the gleam from those blue feathers has now about vanished. They’re not covered, just at the wrong angle to diffract the light in the previous manner. And still no glow from the head.

Now, I wasn’t keeping track of who was who at the time, because it’s actually pretty hard when they’re nigh identical and keep dodging back and forth as wood ducks do, but the next pic is only 30 seconds earlier, and I think it shows the same territorial male coming up from the water towards a different male onshore:

aggressive male wood duck Aix sponsa approaching another from the water
If you look closely, you can see that the beak is open on the one in the back. No nice blue wing feathers, but the iridescence on the head of the rearmost one is now showing a bit, indicating that only minor changes in angle can radically change how these ducks appear.

Which is why I’ve been pursuing ‘that portrait’ for a while now. Not only does it take bright sunlight, which the ducks appear within only briefly, but just the right angle to bring out the best colors, and this occurs so fleetingly that it can vanish before I’ve tripped the shutter. To say nothing of having a decent setting, background, position of the ducks, and of course sharp focus. In a species that I have to work quite remotely from because they don’t tolerate human presence at all. Excuses, excuses, yeah I know, but these are one of the more challenging subjects that I’ve tackled, and a lot of it has to do with, they only look really good when they’re just so…

Should we be worried?

April 18, 2026 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Another holiday is upon us, which should be an easy one to celebrate because, you know, we’ve all been there. Today is Laugh At What You Were Proud Of In Your Youth, the day when we all look back on our accomplishments or finds of the past and say to ourselves, “You naïve, ignorant fool!” In the case that I’m showcasing here, Younger Me was, um, just four days younger, when I posted about a pic of the pond edge that showed up to twenty turtles basking. What a maroon! This is what we were seeing this morning:

Just to blow the previous record out of the water (heh!) there are forty-four turtles in this image. Don’t believe me? Like before, clicking on the image above will take you to a full-resolution version so you can see for yourself, and if that isn’t enough, this link takes you to an annotated one: green for confirmed turtle heads, orange where only their backs were visible, and blue for those in the water. And in case you think I was fudging things a little to drive the count up, these were all confirmed by comparisons to other images – there are no cypress roots being mistaken for turtles in there.

Don’t miss the nutria bebbehs in there either, eating together alongside the favored taller cypress knee that we now call the Matterhorn, again, simply to have an easy reference when we’re spotting all the wildlife with binoculars.

There is something sobering about such a large cadré of, it must be noted, armored residents massing on our shores, and while we can’t imagine what possessions of ours they could possibly want, The Girlfriend and I are gathering a collection of empty turtle shells in case of a charge, to tiddly-wink them back into the water as needed*. It’s not like we have to be ever-vigilant – if we see the invasion beginning, we could probably still finish lunch…**

* I suspect a lot of people won’t get that reference

** That’s just being Testudinist…

April stuff

April 17, 2026 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

A quick reminder that the Lyrids meteor shower is set to peak on the evening of the 21^st-22^nd, even though it’s technically going on right now – this is apparently a shower with a long period but a very distinct and sharp peak, so your best bet is early morning on the 22^nd. The thin crescent moon will have set by roughly midnight while the peak is somewhere around 4 AM EDT, so give it a shot. What do you have to lose but sleep? And perhaps your patience. Your lack of a stiff neck. And your lens cap in the dark.

[We now have folding lounge chairs that will allow us to lean back with a better sky view, so perhaps we can avoid the neck thing, though I imagine I’ll be pursuing these on my own.]

Don’t stay up all night, because you’ll need to be well-rested for all of the elaborate celebrations of Earth Day on the 22^nd. Still, keep it mum, because we’re aiming for it to be a surprise. Did you really think Artemis II went around the back side of the moon for no good reason?

And on the 24^th, the Hubble Space Telescope turns 36 years old, still going strong despite the various advanced ‘scopes that followed. That’s a Friday, so no worries about partying too hard. Let’s see, what was I doing at 36? Come to think of it, let’s not go there…

[I did, idly, wonder how my photographic output compared to Hubble’s, realizing that a) I didn’t even have a serious camera until well after it launched, and b) it’s been in near-constant operation from the start, with high demands on its time. So while I can lay claim to something near 110,000 digital images, 5,800 slides, and dog knows how many negative images, this probably doesn’t hold a candle to Hubble’s output. Except, a pretty good number of its images are extremely long exposures, like hours or days at a time. And do stacked images count? How about the fact that nearly every image it produces is a combination of several, since the sensors are not RGB or color in any way, and rely on the filters used in front of the sensor and post-processing? This is a rabbit hole I’m already regretting…]

But anyway, do something for April.

short time exposure of night sky just west of zenith — Done right now, just for this post – nothing to see though

Estate Find 59

April 17, 2026 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Looked out through the screen door to Walkabout Studios this morning (did I mention that I have a screen door now? I’m very pleased with it,) and spotted something sticking up from the grass right in my line of sight, not six meters away. It looked more obvious than this, because once it saw me opening the screen door (did I mention?) it ducked down a little.

eastern box turtle Terrapene carolina carolina just barely peeking above grass outside Walkabout Studios
Pretty subtle, right? That was the idea of course. The head was raised much higher when I first spotted it, and if you asked me to sketch or describe the head shape of this particular species, I probably wouldn’t get it right, but the moment I saw it, I said, “That’s a box turtle,” and of course (did you doubt it?) was absolutely correct.

large adult female eastern box turtle Terrapene carolina carolina in grass outside Walkabout Studios
To be more specific, a largish female eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina,) which was great to see since this is the first I’ve found on the property, or indeed anyplace in North Carolina since 2023, southeast of here. They’re strictly a land species, and tend to like more wooded areas while we’re borderline swampy, but apparently she was fine with it. The curious location and facing direction had me wondering if she’d placed a nest someplace near my back door. I’ll keep my eyes open – we haven’t seen any obvious nesting behavior from anyone yet, despite the multitudes of turtles in the pond.

The brown eyes denote this as likely a female, by the way, but I didn’t pick her up to examine the plastron, which is another hint: the males have a distinct indentation, a concavity in the center, while the females are largely flat – I’ll let you puzzle out the reason why. She was a decent-sized specimen, too:

large adult female eastern box turtle Terrapene carolina carolina with author's fingers for scale
There’s something else that only shows vaguely here, while other frames show in more detail, and that’s the ridges of the carapace scutes, the ‘scales’ or shell sections. It’s hard to tell since the most recent ones are indistinct, but they develop a new ridge every year, so she appears to be from ten to fourteen years old. Her inner ones, the early years, are quite broad, meaning she was growing quite well for the first nine or so years of her life, but there are a bunch of very fine ones at the outside edges, the recent growth years, so it appears she’d slowed down – which might be perfectly normal, since she’s about as big as they can typically get.

large adult female eastern box turtle Terrapene carolina carolina peering out of deep grass to determine if author was gone yet
I let her be for a short while, and checked up a little later on – she saw me approaching from a distance and was craning her neck to see better, though she’d withdraw almost entirely once I got closer. A few minutes later, I saw her plowing determinedly through the grass and weeds (we let the backyard go, because we don’t need a huge lawn and the critters greatly appreciate it,) and about a half-hour later, there was no sign of her anyplace, having either made good time getting out of the yard or finding a spot that concealed her from me – but that would be impossible, you know that.

Still, great to see, so I had to share.

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