My mistakes

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I scanned this one many moons ago just to illustrate the failure, and never ended up using it, but now it will serve as the lead-in to this week’s Tip Jar. This is, the weakness of a cheap tripod.

scan of old negative of time exposure of plane landing at night, with notable vibration from cheap tripod in the breeze.
Let me explain what you’re seeing here. First off, from way back in the days of shooting print film, so this is a scan from a negative that didn’t age well, probably around ’93 or ’94. This is a time exposure at night of course, of a plane landing after having passed almost directly overhead – you see the lines of the wingtip anti-collision lights and the fuselage-mounted red strobes, as well as the taxiway light appearing more green than the blue that they should, but this might have simply been my scan settings or the film.

The distinct part is the wobbling of the yellow wingtip lights; that shouldn’t be there. However, I was alongside road construction, so up on top of a bulldozer on top of a mound of fill dirt, with the tripod at full extension, including the center column, trying for the highest angle I could – which, give me credit, got the taxiway lights. However, the slight breeze demonstrated that I was using the tripod in the worst way possible, maximum instability, and it was simply vibrating regularly just from that scarce wind. I had believed I had a decent tripod at the time, something I’d ‘splurged’ on at Wolf Camera when I’d broken my previous one and needed it the next day. Plastic pan/tilt head, thin aluminum legs and center column, probably weighed under a kilogram.

It was some years later when I started getting serious about photography, buying a better camera than the Olympus OM-10 used here, and began reading articles and books about the pursuit. I realized than that the tripod was junk (this image helped,) and that I was pushing the limits of any tripod by doing things like this. The one I got as a proper replacement in the late ’90s was a Manfrotto at least four times the cost, three times the weight, and capable of splitting someone’s skull. No tripod is 100% stable, but that one showed me what it should feel like, anyway.

Curiously, I also caught something unexpected, which was the reflection of those wingtip lights onto the fuselage of the aircraft, which are the wispy squiggles in the middle of the frame. You can also look at the different sizes of red dots, cast by the fuselage and tail strobes, and see they diverge towards the left as the plane flares, nose rising so the main gear contacts first, on touchdown. I really should revisit this subject some day, but the bulldozer has probably been moved since then…

Privileged

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I have a small collection of photos taken last night that I need to put up, and they were bumping four others from a few nights ago, but they all got kicked out of line by what I took this morning. These are the privileged piccies, the ones too good to wait in line. Yes, I’m terribly classist about my photos…

I was just setting up to reshoot an illustrative image for tomorrow’s Tip Jar, when I glanced out the back door while I had the 70D with the Tamron 150-600 in hand, and said to myself, Hmmmm – that kinda looks like the green heron. Stepped out onto the deck and aimed the camera, and confirmed this.

green heron Butorides virescens on tree on Turtle Island, from back deck
Yep, that’s the green heron (Butorides virescens,) or at least, one of them. I’ve seen two on several occasions, but always in pursuit mode, so I’m surmising that we have one resident and one frequent interloper. Judging from the behavior and how long it was in view, I’m going to call this the resident, the one we saw just a few days ago.

That was taken from the deck, and I watched for a minute to see if it was settled into this spot to hunt (this is a tree on the former Turtle Island, now totally submerged.) And then began to creep down there, switching image modes and eventually setting exposure compensation for the lighting conditions – the pond surface was bright enough to darken the heron a bit, so I added 2/3 stop overexposure after the following frame.

green heron Butorides virescens perched on low branch over pond
Only part of the path could be done under cover – the rest was wide open on the back ‘lawn’ (if we had an HOA, I’d be fined for even calling it that, but we don’t – woot!) only passing in and out of open shade. The heron could easily see me, and paused from time to time to evaluate my presence, which was largely motionless and unassuming while I was under its gaze.

full-frame shot of green heron Butorides virescens in cluster of branches while approaching
Over a period of about ten minutes, I sidled ever closer, taking frames as I went, convinced that at any minute, the heron would spook and fly off – or, see the interloper and do the same. This is full-frame, showing my view as I was approaching – these are all at 600mm, of course.

Now the detail crop of the same frame:

inset of green heron Butorides virescens in cluster of branches showing autofocus was working as intended
I had changed a couple of settings on the autofocus, and it’s been behaving much better recently, as this demonstrates. There were plenty of things for it to lock onto instead, but I was keeping the focus point right on the heron as much as possible, and it was working. The good light certainly helped, and who knows? The color of the heron might have been ideal for the contrast detection function that drives the autofocus. Not questioning it.

green heron Butorides virescens stretching head up distinctly showing white feathers under throat
This was just after making a slightly more conspicuous move closer, and was likely the heron’s reaction to seeing this, though curiously, the eye is almost blocked. I’m not sure if it was stretching out in preparation of flight, or if it was attempting to camouflage itself by mimicking water reeds – I’ve seen bitterns do that as a standard response, but never green herons.

I held still and let it calm down again, which really didn’t take more than a minute or so.

green heron Butorides virescens peering into water from low branch
Now it’s resumed hunting, and we get a good look at the coloration – which doesn’t seem very green, does it? So why isn’t it a blue heron? Well, there are already great blue herons and little blue herons, which probably got there first, but this is also a trick of lighting and the feather qualities. They do actually appear very deep green in the shade where they tend to stay; it’s only in bright sunlight that you get this dark slate color. I have never collected a feather from one, but if I come across any, I’ll do some photo experiments with it.

green heron Butorides virescens preening on low branch over pond
Again, I’m standing upright in the yard, probably about 16-20 meters distant, so the heron knew I was around – that wasn’t enough to forestall it preening a bit.

green heron Butorides virescens scratching face on low branch over pond
Quite a bit, actually – it went through several different short sessions while I was there. These are cropped, of course, but c’mon! Look at the feather detail! Now you know why these images took precedent.

Let’s have some more establishing views:

full-frame shot of green heron Butorides virescens hunting on low branc
Again, full frame, now at my closest approach not too far from the edge of the pond, and giving an idea that I was doing careful shifting to prevent my view from being blocked by intervening leaves and branches on the pond edge, not at all helped by the heron wandering back and forth in search of that key spot that would reveal all the fishies. And now, a full resolution inset of that same frame:

full-resolution inset of previous frame showing sharpness of focus
The little feathers over the eye. The optical hotspot from the sun refracting through the cornea even though the iris remains in shadow. The duckweed on the bill. I’m chuffed, is what I’m saying.

[So you know, 267 images over the space of 40 minutes, though I’ll likely only keep half that – I’ll try to tally them during the sorting. But some of that quantity was solely to ensure that I had at least a few like this.]

But it wasn’t all wine and roses.

green heron Butorides virescens on low branch over pond partially obscured by intervening leaves
There were times when the view was obscured, and by this point I had sat down in the grass in a persistently shady spot, so this necessitated careful shifting on my bum to try and maintain a decent view, without the heron getting too spooked. It would notice, but by now it seemed to accept me and only paused long enough to confirm that I was not about to launch myself at it.

green heron Butorides virescens showing tongue after unsuccessful strike at fish
Tight crop here, after an unsuccessful strike at a fish, where it was likely clearing duckweed or algae or grit from its beak, but yeah, that’s the tongue, and I’m pleased I caught it.

unfocused green heron Butorides virescens with small fish, autofocus wandering at crucial time
Of course, it had to happen. There were several unsuccessful attempts at a snack, but when the heron finally snagged one, then the autofocus decided to wander off and pay no attention – this entire sequence will be discarded, because all nine frames look like this. This is perhaps partially my fault; the strike took the heron out of the autofocus zone momentarily, and when I saw it had a fish I cranked off the frames, without pausing to ensure that the AF had locked back in. I know better, but I was thinking that with such a small fish, the heron would swallow it in seconds (which it did.) Yet, without that pause for AF to lock on, none of the shots is useful so I still missed the action.

It’s not like I don’t have any decent keepers, though.

green heron Butorides virescens on low branch over pond, beak almost touching water
Yeah, the tip of the beak really is only about 2cm off the water’s surface. Look at the feathers on the nape of the neck.

green heron Butorides virescens with small fish or insect capture
The focus could have been a tad sharper, but now I got one of its capture, kinda. The snack isn’t terribly well-focused and I can’t make out what it is, but from the few details I suspect a dragonfly nymph – there should be thousands in the pond, because there are nearly that many adults winging over the surface. Fine by us – there are too many other insects down there, so eat all you want, guys.

When I decided I’d gotten enough frames and it was clear the heron wasn’t going to take flight and give me an opportunity for in-flight photos, I rose slowly and made my way straight back to the house, though I checked partway back: the heron had not spooked at my rising and remained in place, so perhaps it got slightly habituated to me. It was still there as I went indoors.

We’ll close with two portraits, because fifteen pics wasn’t enough for a post.

representative portrait of green heron Butorides virescens during shooting session
This is the representative heron shot, full body pose even showing the edging of the body feathers pretty well, good overall light, even on the clear eye looking at us and all that. The neck is tucked in typical fashion, by the way, disguising how long it truly is, which you only get to see occasionally.

tight closeup of green heron Butorides virescens looking down into water
But I also like the drama of this one, the intensity and the visual impact of that beak. At least one from this session will be a framed print soon enough.

Need a bigger fence

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It’s always nice to have your own pool, but you have to factor in the fencing around it to keep the neighbors’ prying eyes out, of course. Out on the beck deck today, I found that a watering can featured a new detail.

juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus ensconced within watering can for day
Now, I know, every time we go to use the grill, I have to remove the cover and then chase three green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus) out from the space underneath, because they find the cool(er) dark hollow under the cover a nice safe place to sleep during the day. This always results in a rodeo, since I don’t want them getting someplace where the heat will be detrimental, and that’s exactly the directions they go – and this keeps happening because they return to the grill underside each morning.

So this one is likely to use this spot for a while – at least, until it gets tired of seeing me checking on it.

juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus peering out from watering can on deck
We are partially to blame for this as well. The stick is in there, just like all of our watering cans, because the Carolina anoles can’t swim but still venture in sometimes, so we try to make sure they can get out if necessary, and the treefrog found this to be quite handy.

Earlier this year, I was trying to water some plants and the watering can kept getting clogged, a fairly typical occurrence when leaves have fallen within. I shook it, started pouring again, and it clogged again within a couple of seconds. On the second repeat of this, a Copes grey treefrog leapt out, having sheltered in the spout until I kept flooding the damn thing on him. It’s like that around here.

A round number defeated

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When doing the end of the month tallying for the ol’ Walkabout blogaroosta, I found that I had uploaded 497 photos for the first half of the year. Three more, and I would have had a nice even 500 – I even had three waiting in the blog folder for a post! You can imagine the pain that this caused me.

Which was, not much at all. ‘Round’ numbers are a conceit, little more – cool if you like math tricks, but ultimately meaningless. I’ve gone into this before. Even as an average, it doesn’t mean I’d hit 1,000 images by the end of the year, since these are highly variable depending on both the subject matter that I discover and my mood in pursuing such. Even having a certain number as a ‘goal’ can be good or bad: forcing me to seek out more to photograph, perhaps, or on the other hand, making me settle for something I otherwise wouldn’t have, just to meet this arbitrary number.

Anyway, let’s look at those three images, shall we?

profile view of unidentified cicada Cicadidae
Found this largish, greyish specimen of a cicada, a species I don’t recall ever seeing before, and brought it in for some detail photos. It will remain unidentified, however, because the distinctions within the Family Cicadidae are numerous and, really, not worth the effort. But we do need a closer look at that eye.

closeup of compound eye of unidentified cicada Cicadidae
Now, here’s something I was just thinking about: This is a pretty complex, large eye for something that consumes plant sap, especially in the adult phase which only lasts for a few weeks at most. Do they need these to find mates? Escape predators? It’s a puzzle, and more so when you realize that the nymph form has only slightly smaller eyes and they spend months to years of their lives completely underground. Contrast these with the eyes of butterflies, which are more active and more visible, and thus more of a target for predators, while also needing to find the flowers that they feed upon right at the peak of their nectar production. It’s not making sense to me right now.

head-on shot of unidentified cicada Cicadidae showing different classes of eyes
And here we see three ‘simple’ eyes clustered in a triangle on the frons (forehead.) These are, I believe, only used for flight, mostly in staying level – they can’t use their ears for that like we can since they’re stone cold deaf from hearing their own songs at close range. No, I tell a lie – being deaf doesn’t affect the vestibular system in most cases, but cicadas probably don’t have such anyway. We’re wandering…

Regardless, pretend these went up at least four days ago, and then join me in celebrating this remarkable achievement. I mean, what else ya gonna celebrate?

Another brief look, in daylight

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I’m quite pleased to have gotten this. I was up yesterday at first light, not exactly intentionally, but used the opportunity to watch for duck and geese raids on the pond edge. Instead, I realized I was hearing the juvie barred owl (Strix varia) calls from right in the backyard again, so I gathered the long lens and tripod and went out looking.

While two were in evidence from the calls, I only saw one, and that one was flitting between perches a little anxiously – perhaps because of my presence, perhaps not, I can’t be sure. I was locked in on it just barely appearing from behind a trunk, terrible conditions, when it left that perch and took this one. A small movement of the tripod gave me a clear view – headphones are recommended for the faint calls:

It was just a week ago when I considered myself incredibly lucky to get the siblings preening and hanging around right out back, and now I snag one in daylight. Even better, I’ve now uploaded two videos in sub-two-minute, TikTok-attention-span lengths! I wouldn’t count on this becoming a habit, though…

I attacked the audio to see if I could isolate those calls a bit better, and it wasn’t too hard to get it to this point; the calls are very high-pitched while most background noise is pretty low, which is why low-pass filters are common. I simply wiped out everything below a certain frequency threshold, but don’t ask me what that was since I didn’t take notes. Enhancing it further is presently beyond my skills, since the frequencies of the calls are varied and overlapping other bird calls. I made an attempt to drop the pitch as well, simply to get it into the range The Girlfriend can hear, but this didn’t work well enough.

Still, I’ll be happy to continue this trend as long as I can.

I thought you wanted this…

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Within two days, I had two similar subjects to work with, with rather disparate cooperativeness, but it gave me the chance to catch up a little on the image count for the month.

The rains came in this past week, too many cloudbursts to count, but it made the amphibians happy, and we all know how important that is. One decided to come in the front door as soon as I opened it, though it likely regretted this immediately after, because I collected it and took it into Walkabout Studios’ Amphibian Branch, otherwise known as my bathroom.

portrait angle of juvenile northern cricket frog Acris crepitans in macro studio
The reason I do this is because such subjects typically leap away every chance they get, and the bathroom gives them a lot fewer places to hide themselves while also being easier to pursue and recapture. And it was necessary for this one, since it leapt away at least eight times.

The setting here, by the way, is a simple weed plucked and held in an alligator clamp, in front of one of my prints as ‘appropriate’ background color – you can see that it’s not as natural green as it should be, and I need to try another print. But this was the bare ten seconds that the frog was in place before it abandoned its perch.

juvenile northern cricket frog Acris crepitans perched on sink alongside sponge after recapture
Here it is after the first or second recapture, having immediately disregarded my setting and pausing on the sink, still sporting the debris it picked up during its tour of the bathroom corners – since I had the camera in hand, I went ahead and got the single frame, but it’s also the best scale shot with the sponge in the background. Far less natural-looking than the print, of course.

juvenile northern cricket frog Acris crepitans in macro tray, briefly
Another momentary success, probably after recapture three or four, in a small tray I use for such ground-dwelling subjects. Bear in mind that I still hadn’t identified the species, attempting to get something that would indicate this. It’s a juvenile, so adult markings aren’t developed yet, and at this age it might be anything.

dorsal view of juvenile northern cricket frog Acris crepitans showing lack of identifying markings
Once again back in my portrait setting, this is where any identifying markings would show, and are not. Or are they?

inset of dorsal view of juvenile northern cricket frog Acris crepitans showing faint vestiges of triangle between eyes on back of head
Cricket frogs, both the northern and southern variants, have varied markings but most frequently a triangle on the back of their head, and this inset shows that there is the faint vestige of one able to be made out. We’re in the range where the two variants overlap, but the calls are distinctly different, and they were sounding off right at the pond out back as I obtained these shots, the only calls I’ve ever heard from the cricket frogs. Verdict: northern cricket frog (Acris crepitans.)

Once I had enough frames, I returned my hyperactive model to the sodden environs whence it came, perhaps convinced not to venture too close to doors anymore.

The next subject was also a door dasher, though in the daytime and much more complacent for the images.

juvenile spring peeper Pseudacris crucifer perched alongside own image in reflective film on storm door
On the outside of the back storm door, the one featured so distinctly in the previous post, we have this little spud in a dynamic pose on the reflective film. Also a juvenile, we need something for scale, and The Girlfriend obliged.

juvenile spring peeper Pseudacris crucifer on reflective film on storm door with The Girlfriend's finger on opposite side for scale
That’s her fingertip, on the opposite side of the glass – we’re talking smol here.

juvenile spring peeper Pseudacris crucifer on reflective film on storm door alongside author's fingers for scale
I also got my own fingertips into the frame, on this side of the glass this time, as the frog stated getting wary of all this attention. However, unlike the cricket frog, it never leapt away at all. In fact, the crappier end-of-month abstract earlier today was taken from the other side of the glass, with the flash barely making it through the solar film to illuminate the frog.

dorsal view of juvenile spring peeper Pseudacris crucifer showing identifying X marking across back
Boring dorsal view, but again, identifying markings, and the ‘X’ across the back is clear enough even when it got partially obscured by the bright reflection from the wet body. That identifies this as a spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) – quite common around here, and quite vocal in these conditions. I have plenty of frames of them, but not with their own reflections so fartistically as some of these, so there we go.

I have still more (of other subjects) that could be put up, but they’ll likely wait a day or two. Back in the swing of things, though.

Even though he’s a handsome devil…

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Wonder of wonders, I can actually put together a short video! Don’t get too used to it, though…

Total display/dispute lasted just a couple of minutes, and probably only occurred because the anole scampered across the door when the sun was right. We’ll see more of that reflective film (primarily in place so we can observe the wood ducks without spooking them) in a little bit.

By the way, that internal clip came from three years ago, chronicled in detail here. No such drama this time around.

June finis

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And so, June did expire, but not before, with its last breath, producing an abstract. It shouldn’t have made the effort, really…

I find myself woefully unprepared for the month end, and can offer only an archival image – at least, in the truer sense of the word, “abstract.” I stumbled across this earlier this month, kinda liked it, and set it aside in case I, you know, failed to produce anything better. I know, right? It is to laugh.

hazy sun reflected in water with leaves
It works, at least, and I need to be concentrating on approaches of this nature, since that was the whole point of making this a monthly thing. Actually, the whole point was finding a curious coincidence and deciding to run with it, though we can see how well I run.

Anyway, this is just the reflection of a hazy sun and overhanging branches in the water’s surface, taken seven years ago. It’s certainly better than what I have to offer from this month:

bizarre shaded image of spring peeper Pseudacris crucifer on far side of tinted glass
No, don’t send me links to Merriam-Webster, I know what “abstract” means; this is just what I produced recently while attempting something else. Bizarre, but in a far more creepy way.

However, fear not! I have a lot more images I’d like to get up today, but also some other things planned, so we’ll see if I get to them, while I may have the opportunity to produce a better abstract too – shouldn’t be hard, really. Day ain’t over yet…

For once

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My sleep schedule is quite whack right now, so when I say I was doing something, “early in the morning,” that means for me, translating to midmorning for most people. So, early in the morning, I looked out back and spotted one of the green herons (Butorides virescens) right down at the pond edge. We’ve had a couple sticking around for a while now, but virtually every time I’ve been aware of them, it’s when they’re flying off venting an alarm call, or chasing one another – I get the impression we have one resident that fiercely protects its territory from another frequent interloper. This time, however, I knew right where it was and had the long lens handy.

My allergies were acting up last night [even earlier this morning], resulting in dry eyes that will often give me problems sleeping, so I’d lubricated them before going to bed. Since they remained dry, I was having a hard time clearing said lubricant from them in the morning, and my view through the camera was variable but overall poor. I had to trust in autofocus, and I was quite skeptical about this as the heron was stalking among tall weeds that I felt sure the AF would snag instead. However, I was pleasantly surprised:

green heron Butorides virescens stalking along pond edge
Can’t complain about that, really. I’d slipped out onto the deck and was moving when the heron didn’t seem to be looking in my direction, though I was still pretty far off. I snapped far too many frames, tweaking focus by hand or forcing the camera to refocus in the hopes I’d get something useful, but it did pretty well overall.

green heron Butorides virescens with leg raised in slow stalk
One of these days I’ll be equipped to snag video, but the tripod will have to already be set up. So for now, I can tell you that most herons seem to stalk like cartoon characters walking on tiptoe, that elaborate, extend-one-foot-well-out-ahead-and-then-pitch-the-body-to-catch-up-with-hands-held-limply-as-if-the-restroom-ran-out-of-paper-towels routine, though they never have an orchestral soundtrack to creep to.

As the heron worked the pond edge, it nicely posed alongside an unrealistically-painted metal cousin.

green heron Butorides virescens on pond edge alongside metal great blue heron sculpture
Ironically, today is another holiday, Trust In Technology Day, or TITD. I had intended to ignore it entirely, since I don’t (trust in technology, or at least, not very much,) but I kinda had to this morning, and it paid off, so make of that what you will. Still not gonna upload any damn thing to The Cloud, though…

Sorting finds n+16

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Another round of sorting finds, because I emptied out the folders (well, the image folders – the video folders still need ‘some work.’) Except, the image sort folders remained empty for less than a day, so I could do it again, but it’s not enough to worry about right now.

So let’s see, we’ll start with a sequence:

four-image sequence of territorial male wood duck Aix sponsa chasing female into water
A bit earlier in the year (these are from April,) the wood ducks (Aix sponsa) were being seriously territorial, with one in particular being ‘boss,’ or at least that’s how it seemed to us – distinguishing individuals isn’t done by coloration or markings, so we usually use behavior, and this one stood out. Here, he chased a female into the water, despite the fact that we ensure there is enough food for everybody. Just your typical bully…

I have far too many video clips to compile into a whole narrative, but this hints at it, since we see here a female with her brood:

adult female wood duck Aix sponsa with ducklings on edge of pond in late afternoon sun
This is right around the time that the ducklings were now able to take the corn – you can see one with a kernel in its beak. We had a lot of broods this year, we’re not even sure how many, but too many to keep track – and on top of that, just yesterday I spotted what appeared to be a brand new collection. This is late, even for a second brood, and I’m not 100% sure it was a wood duck family.

This all resulted in some interesting collections at the pond edge, at times:

wood duck Aix sponsa mother and ducklings chowing down at pond edge with Canada geese Branta canadensis, nutria Myocastor coypus, and eastern grey squirrel Sciurus carolinensis
So let’s see, we have a mother wood duck and her ducklings, with two Canada geese (Branta canadensis) behind, a nutria (Myocastor coypus) alongside, and an eastern grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) on the tree. The only thing missing are the turtles. We need a closer look at the ducklings:

mother wood duck Aix sponsa with brood of five ducklings at pond edge
There’s five of them in there, and I can’t say if there were any more behind the tree. At present, nearly all of the broods are close to adult size and developing their adult coloration, though a few stragglers can be found at times. I still have no way of knowing when the nest box is in use, but I’m working on it.

I have to note, too, that the beaver dam is steadily raising the water levels, and this region you see here is now a pool ringed by the tops of the cypress knees – I will have some comparison images soon.

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