October 8,

Just around

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Some of the photos in the backlog, all local, all from a period of… I was going to say, “Several days,” or list the actual dates, but it seems they’re all from the 28th and 29th. We’ll start with the very post-modernistic moth, or maybe it’s the concept model that will look nothing at all like the subsequent production version.

tersa sphinx moth Xylophanes tersa on yard sculpture throughout the day
I’ve said it before, but while BugGuide.net is a great resource, its image search function is sadly lacking, relying only on keywords from attached text rather than any tags or descriptions, so I had to find this one through reg’lar image searches and confirm the ID through BugGuide; this is a tersa sphinx moth (Xylophanes tersa,) looking far too much like it was crafted from forest scraps to look like a moth, albeit a stylized one. Body length better than 50mm, this one was present on one of the yard sculptures all day long, but disappeared overnight.

tersa sphinx moth Xylophanes tersa on yard sculpture throughout day
Very sleek-looking, and apparently the adults drink from deep-throated flowers, of which there are few choices around here. I think we found this well past when the Brugmansia had bloomed, but I do know that somewhere well up in the canopy on the far side of the pond, trumpet creepers grow; we’ve never seen the plants themselves, but fallen blossoms can be found in one particular spot from time to time.

The following night, I managed images of a couple of things I’d been trying for and hadn’t achieved, like this American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus):

very large American bullfrog Lithobates catesbeianus alongside author's foot for scale
The key part here wasn’t the frog itself, it was getting my foot next to it for scale, which I’ve attempted several times in the past without success. We have at least two about this size, and this one routinely sits onshore at night near the kayak dock, its eyes reflecting the headlamp from a good distance off so I usually know when it’s there. To get this, I narrowed the beam down to a spot and kept that shining just off the nose of the frog, hopefully blinding it while not shedding any light on my foot, which I very quietly placed in position, and it finally worked. In fact, the frog remained in place after I got the photo and backed away.

Another lucky one:

large North American beaver Castor canadensis on edge of pond scarfing down corn at night
Every once in a while, we spot a North American beaver (Castor canadensis) at night up to get a share of the corn, but they usually slip into the water as soon as they suspect we’re near. This one was more complacent; also, big. See that root/stump to the far right, that’s kind of L-shaped? I measured it, and it’s 10cm in height, so you can get a faint idea anyway – I don’t think any of the beavers are gonna let me plunk them onto a scale or anything. You might remember (of course you do) the passing mention of a fallen cluster of trees in the pond, and we can report that the beavers are indeed working on them – at least, if the gnawing sounds we’ve heard a couple of different nights are any indication, but it all occurs on the far side from shore so no visual confirmation yet – you should see some pics soon, hopefully.

Of course, if we have any collection of pics at all, anoles and frogs will be in there, since they own the property.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis snoozing vertically on rosemary plant
The numbers of juvenile Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) have been steadily increasing since we’re passing through, or have just passed through, the birthing season, and while I haven’t tried to maintain a count like last year, there are plenty around, often appearing on new sleeping perches each night. This one had chosen the rosemary plant out back, a first I believe. No, I did not capture it going anywhere – this was exactly how it was sleeping, though it opened its eyes on hearing me nearby, which happens about half of the time. The next one looked even more awkward.

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis sleeping in awkward vertical position on Japanese maple leaf
I made sure the camera was level so you could see exactly how this one was sleeping on a Japanese maple leaf. There’s something to be said about the ability to hang like this with no fear of losing one’s grip, remaining motionless all night long.

Meanwhile, the frogs weren’t motionless, and we also have plenty of those newborns, or at least, those newly-emerged-from-the-ponds.

very small juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus on weeds with author's fingers for scale
Another one of the green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus) with my fingers for scale. We have a collection of these (up to four) that hang out on the kitchen window at night chasing moths and gnats attracted to the light, so we’ve been leaving the light on to make a buffet for them – we can actually see them getting larger, not to mention witnessing the occasional capture in action.

Nearby, one the same size, but not the same species or age.

spring peeper Pseudacris crucifer perched on weeds
This is instead a spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer,) but this is likey an adult, because they’re this size when full-grown. I took a moment to circle this one trying different perspectives, and made a slightly fartsier composition for the portrait angle, Frogs from this angle always look so stoic, and while those great big eyes should give us that big-eyed-baby feeling, the horizontal pupils instead suggest this weary tolerance of life. Or maybe that’s just me.

Okay, that’s a few down, we can switch to a recent outing soon. “Soon.”


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They’re coming back

Al Denelsbeck

solitary adult male wood duck Aix sponsa trying to get up nerve to get some corn onshore
It’s been interesting watching the various wildlife that rotates around Walkabout Estates Plus, their schedules and habits, though we’ve only been here a year and so we don’t know if these are schedules. The visitors we like the most are the wood ducks, but they remain exceptionally spooky and so photos and video of them are tricky, often having to be shot through the upstairs bathroom window because they don’t like human presence anyplace where we can easily be seen.

Their first appearance last year was… well, it wasn’t an appearance, since we only heard the calls, and those started almost exactly a year ago. I managed a couple of glimpses of them over the next few weeks, but it wasn’t until well into the winter when they began visiting the main pond off the backyard, which is when we began putting down corn, and that certainly encouraged them to be coming up more often. We saw activity throughout the spring, and new broods in spring and summer, and then as the broods were getting their adult plumage in, they all but vanished, and the visits were few and far between. Still, the corn was disappearing and I suspected that early morning visits were occurring, so I got up well before first light and got the camera set up in the window. That worked.

In the spring we’d had them coming well up into the yard and were hoping to get them a little habituated to our presence, but then one of the females fell prey to a red-shouldered hawk that was also hanging around, and we felt that we might have contributed to this from our feeding habits. So now the corn only gets distributed down at the edge of the pond, while the wood ducks themselves seem to have changed their habits, since they venture up little more than a meter away from the water’s edge, and only at dawn and dusk – getting well-lit pics is going to be challenging.

The first clips, by the way, were what I mentioned in last week’s Estate Find, my potential goal, and were indeed shot on that Friday morning, though I already had the mantidfly up by then. The mob clips were obtained Sunday, and I’ve just been trying to get the time to put them together and do the voiceover since then. I get to these things eventually…


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Cut it out, brain!

Al Denelsbeck

A bit over a week ago I guess, I woke up here at the new Walkabout Manor during the move-in process, which meant a fitful night on the air mattress while we waited for the trailer with most of our belongings to get delivered. Whether this had anything to do with it or not, I arose quite anxious, because I was acutely aware that I had to change the address on my business cards and get more ordered. This was important, or so my sleep-addled brain told me, and it forced me from a drowsy no-rush-on-anything state into full wakefulness because I had to get right on this.

Now, bear in mind that I give away one or two business cards a month at best, and haven’t even started soliciting new photo students within the area we now reside, mush less arranged for a gallery display or anything – getting new business cards is well down the list of things that Need To Be Done. I mean, can I even get Walkabout Studios set up first? But for reasons unknown, my brain chose to fixate on that with enough emphasis to force me awake and ready to jump on the computer. Granted, I have, what, eleven different card designs?, that all need to be changed, so it’s a longer task than you might have thought, but not that long, and not at all crucial.

[“Eleven? Al, what the hell?” you say, but they’re all different photo images, and I print a variety of them on each photo page and cut them apart myself, so at any given time the recipient gets a random choice.]

On the same day I ran across this post from The Bloggess, a neat coincidence. Not exactly the same thing, but likely the same effect, which is one’s brain attaching random importance and/or emotional reaction to some particular concept while we’re in that stage between sleep and awake. Most everyone is familiar with having some brilliant idea in that stage and then struggling to remember it afterward, in some cases actually writing it down only to find that it makes no sense in the light of day. Occasionally, it actually is an insight, but more often I think (at least in my experience,) it’s simply nonsense – it’s got nothing to do with the thought itself, only how the brain interprets it, which in that sleep state might be entirely random.

I sometimes wonder about the peculiar workings of the brain, especially because I’m prone to entering the free-association period as I’m falling asleep, following some particular line of thought until I suddenly realize that it makes no sense; the spacing of the lines on the roads have no relation whatsoever to donkeys, or some such rot. It’s bad enough that we can associate wildly disparate items because of some past experience, like that time we watched Krull while eating lime jello, but then our brains can make associations for no apparent reasons at times – and worse, the same brain wastes its time trying to figure out why. And now I have a memory of being anxious over the address on my business cards, when I know it’s totally inconsequential, but am I going to be able to selectively delete it and free up space for, like, the new neighbor’s names? Noooo…


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Tripod Holes 41

Al Denelsbeck

monochrome photo of flowers spilling over wall at night
N 28° 8’49.32″ W 80°38’37.62″ Google Earth location

Part of the challenge of doing these posts has been seeing just how specific I can get about a location, and this one is within a meter or so (though I probably should have more decimals in the Lat/Lon coordinates for that.) I knew the rough location and started cruising through Google Earth, and with Street View and some comparisons I’ve pinned this down to the exact location, so you can be utterly confident when you visit. This was nearly twenty years ago though, so those flowers probably aren’t there anymore.

Once again in bona fide black & white film, Ilford delta 400 to be exact, out at night with an Olympus OM-10 and only winging it at exposure times, but this came out just fine for that. Perhaps a tad overexposed, but not egregiously so – if I recall correctly (and why would you doubt it?), the wall was a pale cream color offset by the white accent tiling, the flowers yellow, while the almost-directly-overhead streetlight provided good contrast and brought out those textures, far better than if it had been further away or across the street or something.

I was trying to recall if this was the same night as another particular shot, and eventually dug out the negative binders to check; it was. This wasn’t far from a set of train tracks and I wanted a time exposure of the train passing, but had no idea of the schedule other than, ‘at least once a night.’ I was likely stalling when I took this frame, waiting for the train, and had given up and moved on, no small distance either, when I heard the train whistle and rushed back to get the tripod set up in time for a single frame. I did better later on.

Also along this same road, someone’s massive grapefruit tree extended well out over the sidewalk (this being Florida, but of course you knew this because I gave you the link and coordinates,) and some nights I’d steal one when they were ripe. These tree-ripened grapefruit were fabulous, if a bit sticky, though I used to feel a little bad about helping myself until, a few weeks later, I glanced through the fence there to find the ground littered with rotting grapefruit, so I’m guessing they weren’t missing the ones I scarfed down. But emboldened by the fresh flavor, I also found a ripe orange tree and helped myself to one of these, a huge mistake because despite its lovely appearance, this orange was simultaneously bitter and sour, and I mean horrendously so. Crime doesn’t pay (all the time, anyway.)


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Okay, for not trying very hard

Al Denelsbeck

I was on my way to bed yesterday morning (hush) and decided to peek outside for a moment. The moon was bright and clear and looked pretty close to my target phase: catching sunrise or sunset on the central peak within Tycho crater, which I admit I still don’t understand because I’ve already done it a few times now, but it’s an obsession I guess. I really wasn’t inclined to tackle a proper session, with the tripod and remote release and mirror lockup, but I thought, Just attach the long lens and wing it handheld – it’ll only take a minute. Of course, I was using the wheedling, singsong little internal voice I can never resist, so…

The moon was at the wrong altitude for stability, making me hold the camera at an angle that I wasn’t used to and couldn’t stay very steady in, and even manual focusing was a chore, but I fired off several frames, both to give the stabilizer in the lens a chance to work its magic, and to adjust focus every few frames to try and nail one – the moon is too small in the frame for really exact focusing, especially when the camera isn’t steady, and the focus screen has a resolution limit anyway, so refocusing frequently improves your chances (or mine at least) of a decent frame. And it worked – just once.

full frame shot of waning crescent moon at 600mm
This is the entire frame, so you know what I was working with, and in a more-or-less level view to boot. Now we go in to full resolution, rotated to use the layout better.

full resolution crop of waning crescent moon showing sunset and shadow on Tycho's central peak
Juuusst a little degraded from using ISO 800. but not that bad – cameras really have improved in the higher ISOs from what they used to do. The large crater on the shadow terminator down towards the bottom, the one with another little crater on its wall, isn’t Tycho, it’s Maginus; Tycho is just above it and slightly left, smaller but obviously deeper and clearly round. And you can just make out a tiny bright speck in the center of the shadow thrown by its own wall, but if that isn’t enough, that central peak throws its own shadow within the crater. I’d say I got the timing right. Meanwhile, more towards the top of the frame we have the line of Montes Appeninus, the lunar Appenines, emerging from the shadow pointing towards the crater Eratosthenes.

I’ve remarked how often the sunsets around get boring, with the atmosphere simply not providing anything for colors or textures, but it’s much worse on the moon, naturally; there might be a very faint hint of dimming and color shift from the sun before it disappears over the horizon, from a vestige of gases attracted by the weak gravity of the moon, but that would be it. No one’s had the chance to see it – all lunar expeditions took place in ‘midmorning’ of the lunar day (remember – a lunar day is 29 Earth days long) because the widely-varying temperature of the surface is best then. Moreover, the Earth remains in the same place in the lunar sky perpetually, given a little play from the lunar libration or wobble, but it can be seen to rotate. Those photos and video of ‘Earthrise’ over the moon were taken by the orbiting Apollo Command Modules.

In just a few minutes, a bank of clouds began rolling in, faster than they appeared, and my session was over.

clouds beginning to obscure waning crescent moon
But for giggles as I was typing this, I decided to see if the moon was again visible, even though Tycho would be in shadow and thus even photographing the moon at all was totally pointless. What I’ll do for the story, though. It was indeed up, clear enough though still showing a little color cast from being lower in the sky – but easier to handhold the camera for now. So, this is not quite 23 hours later:

waning crescent moon the following morning
Tycho, Maginus, Montes Appeninus, and Eratosthenes have all vanished into the night, with greater definition from some new craters – Copernicus is that prominent one just above the middle. I’d combine the two images into an animated gif to compare them directly, but again, it’s late in my personal day and I don’t feel like messing about. Take note of this, however: While we get these sharp definitions and distinct shadows from the lunar features at times like this, we can immediately refer to the edges of the moon to realize that none of these features are as high as we imagine them, only producing a faint wobbly variation from a perfect sphere when seen edge-on. It’s not like the craters peter out towards the ‘edges’ – if anything, they get much denser, as the far side saw, and sees, a lot more bombardment than this side. Had the moon rotated in relation to Earth, we could watch these features roll into view over a period of several nights, comparing the ‘profile’ view with the contours that appear at different light angles, but nope – this is the face we see, period.


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Yeah, that’s, uh, timing

Al Denelsbeck

So, a few minutes back, I’d been editing photos for an upcoming post and had taken a break, skimming though some nonsense posts from theChive.com. The particular one was about the scariest sounds anyone has ever heard. Just to set the scene, it’s 11 PM, The Girlfriend is asleep, the house is dead quiet, as is the neighborhood. I’m on #8 at this point, looking at the illustration provided as ambience and thinking, “Yeah, that’s a pretty spooky animation” – it was, in fact, the one below, except that they’d used an mp4 video and I converted it to a gif (pronounced “gtfo”) for convenience:

spooky gif… and right at that moment, there came this curious howling wail, really, not far outside the office window. I’ve never heard anything of the sort before, but it was reminiscent of a woman hooting or wailing, in a tone like a dog’s howl but not that kind of sound quality. Remarkable timing.

Now, I’m familiar with a lot of noises, not just from kids in the development, but all kinds of wildlife, from owls bickering to rabbit screams to cat fights, and this fit none of them, but I’d have to say it was closest to a cat fight, though more hooting than you imagine. I couldn’t make it fit anything that I knew.

Did I run upstairs and hide under the covers with The Girlfriend? Nope – I grabbed the headlamp and went outside in the direction that it seemed to have come from. I don’t call this any kind of bravery, but just the attitude/perspective that I’ve arrived at where imagination (or the influence of superstitious horseshit) doesn’t fill in the gaps. I really wanted to know what did make that noise, even when I believed it unlikely to be repeated, or the emitter to stick around while I was walking through the yard, however quiet I tried to be.

I found nothing, and heard just a few little rustles here and there from the branches above me, typical for night. So I watered the plants while I was out there, since I hadn’t done it earlier like I’d planned. Drama all gone.

If you went to that link, I can tell you that I agree with #10, though I didn’t find out what it was until years afterward, but I’d been out walking on the road late at night in rural NY when I heard the sound of a woman being beaten, roughly a hundred meters off in the woods to my left. Easily the scariest goddamn sound that I’ve ever heard, and I had little idea what to do about it; the police would be a while getting there, once I’d run back home to even get to a phone, and all I would be able to do was point in a general direction. Such a thing called for more immediate action, but again, where, exactly, and what was I gonna do about it, blundering around in the woods with an inadequate flashlight against, what, exactly? So I stayed rooted to the spot and listened intently, not hearing another sound at all. And while this was happening, I realized that, as clear as it was with no other following sounds, this was suspicious in itself, as well as being a regular cadence, perfectly spaced and even in tone and volume; that generally means intent, not randomness – calls of some sort. Damn weird calls, admittedly, but if it was an assault, it would be almost certain that I’d hear something else. Eventually (I have no idea how long I stood there, but it was several minutes at least,) I assured myself it was some unknown form of wildlife and moved on. Like I said, years later I found that I’d heard the mating calls of a fox.

A few years ago, I was out doing night sky time exposures in the darkest area that I could find within 20 minutes of driving, a dead quiet country road amidst nothing but fields, and heard a pack of coyotes howling, a few hundred meters off. Unlike so much of what I’ve heard from wildlife, this was exactly like TV and movies had it, a wonderfully emotive sound, and I was delighted, while at the same time chagrined that I had no way to record it (not that they gave me a chance with a repeat performance anyway.) I knew coyotes wouldn’t bother me, or even draw very close, so I just reveled in the perfect quality of it.

There really are some great sounds out there, though admittedly a bit creepy when first heard, especially if you have no idea what makes them: screech owls and barred owls, raccoons fighting, the aforementioned squeal of an injured rabbit, even the piercing alarm whistle of a woodchuck (which I had the misfortune of hearing directly underneath me in a raspberry patch one day in our back fields, again in rural NY, but at least it was daylight.) Woodchucks whistle? Yes, rarely, but it’s very clear and loud, and they can even climb trees when fleeing.

But yeah, I might have to rig the infra-red cameras back up…


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Too cool, part 41: Can’t get much smaller

Al Denelsbeck

I know, I just did a ‘Too Cool’ post, but then I came across this and it certainly deserves to be in here. Neatorama linked me over to an article on Quartz about a rather intriguing accomplishment in macro work, which is that little purple dot in the center of the image below, because this is apparently a single atom, captured with a conventional camera as well.

photo of a single strontium atom, by and copyrighted David Nadlinger, University of Oxford, EPSRC
Photo of single strontium atom, by and copyrighted David Nadlinger, University of Oxford, EPSRC

Really, check out the article, because it tells the details, but just so you know, the gap between the two electrodes flanking that dot on the sides is 2mm, slightly less than the shaft of a cotton swab.

Now, if you’re thinking like I did that this seems a little huge for an atom, which defeats even electron microscopes, well, here’s the deal as I understand it (you know, quantum physicist me.) It took a certain wavelength of laser to illuminate the atom, as well as a long exposure. Atoms are too small to reflect light, or more specifically, for individual photons to bounce off of because they’re little more than photons in size in the first place, and the energy of the photon typically affects the atom. It’s part of the whole quantum indeterminacy thing, because just trying to figure out where an atom is in the first place is virtually guaranteed to alter or move it. In this case, it seems that the strontium atom was absorbing photons into its structure temporarily, essentially converting the photon into energy along the electron shells/orbits/paths, which would bump the electron into a higher shell/orbit. Shortly, the electron drops back into its original position in regards to the nucleus, re-emitting that energy again as a photon, and that’s what the camera was capturing. Only, a single photon isn’t enough to register much on the digital sensor, so it had to keep happening over time, which is why it took a longer exposure. What you’re seeing isn’t an atom per se, but a collection of emitted photons, which may well not be as pinpoint precise as we’d like. There also remains the chance that the effects of the atom curve the photon paths a little, and/or that the ion trap holding it suspended can’t keep it perfectly still, but that’s just me speculating.

This is why science is so damned cool. We’ve known for decades that atoms are too small for photons (“visible light”) to reflect from, and even very small details take an electron microscope, because electrons don’t have wavelengths and don’t need focusing as such. But this guy just thought, Fine, I’ll make it glow on its own, and there you have it. Slick.


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Too cool, part 40: Red sprites in incredible detail

Al Denelsbeck

red sprites in detail, photo taken and copyrighted by Stephane Vetter
Red sprites in detail, photo taken and copyrighted by Stephane Vetter

Astronomy Picture of the Day today featured a confusing and abstract image, because it’s something probably never seen in this detail before: a collection of red sprites above an active thunderstorm.

Here’s the deal. Occasionally, waaayyyy above the tops of the clouds on some thunderstorms, there is an additional discharge – actually, two different kinds, the other being blue jets. They’re as brief as the lightning, but much dimmer, and can only be seen either from the side or from an aircraft at high altitude near the storm (which is how they were first reported, from airline pilots.) And as yet, no one knows how they form, but to be honest, we still don’t know exactly what causes lightning either.

It has long been my goal to capture one of these, and there’s a slim chance that I might have caught the vestiges of a couple, not long ago. Yet it takes not just the right kind of storm (that no one has pinned down,) but also the right conditions, seen from a distance to the side without anything in the way, and exposing for a dim display – such conditions are hard to come by. Hell, just pinning down lightning photos is challenging enough.

And then, Stephane Vetter here blows everyone out of the water and does a great deal towards lessening my enthusiasm, because beating this image is going to be well-nigh impossible. Oh, I suppose I’ll still be trying, but there’s no motivation to be the first to capture something like this in such detail. Note the graininess to the image, indicating that a very high ISO setting was required to snag the weak display, as well as no star trails, so the exposure was still relatively brief.

You can also check out the website of The World At Night for more night sky exposures, but be warned: some of these are specialized captures with expanded ISO cameras, and some are simply composites and other shenanigans, something not possible until digital editing came on the scene (you know, the exact same kind of editing that people rant about giving unrealistic expectations about models and beauty – in other words, not possible in normal means or ‘in-camera.’) If you’re getting the impression that the trend towards shamelessly and extensively editing night sky images makes me annoyed, well, you’re right. Might as well dub in a couple extra moons while you’re at it.

All that aside, this definitely ranks as Too Cool, and check out the various links in that post.


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Brevity, let’s see, brevity…

Al Denelsbeck

You and I both know I’m not too familiar with the concept, but we’ll make the attempt, okay?

Anyway, I have a buttload of photos that I’d like to feature before I even get to the beach trip, but not enough time to do detailed posts about them, so I’ll toss down some brief descriptions and possibly send the rest over to the Latest Images page. Sound like a plan?

lily pad collection with single blossom
I took this to illustrate that, even if the focus is the lily, we can always do more with the framing. We won’t miss it even all the way up there in the corner, but now it’s an accent to the patterns of the pads.

unidentified water flower against background of amphibian eggs
Another illustration of framing and selective focus; the background dots are a large quantity of amphibian eggs on the water’s surface.

Demonstrating the difference that positioning and effort can make. This is what the Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) looked like when first spotted. Pretty humdrum.

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis in shadows
But then, I carefully shifted around, endeavoring not to disturb the plant at all, to change the viewing angle, finding a small gap in the leaves to work with.

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis from a better angle
Now we have a more personal angle, and the furtiveness and ‘hidden’ aspect gets enhanced, even though they’re really the same location. Certainly better than a dorsal view. These, by the way, date from late July – I’m further behind than I thought.

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis gazing at photographer
A little later on in the same session, the mantis had moved to a spot that was easier to access, and when it turned to watch what I was up to, that’s when I took the shot. Just a simple demonstration of the small differences that are easy to accomplish.

Let’s get a little variety of color in here.

unidentified orthopteran on unidentified flower
I watched this locust/grasshopper fly from the lawn onto a flower blossom, and stalked it carefully to keep from spooking it again, knowing that it would still be wary after the initial scare. This was a frame that I’d considered using for the latest macro photography post, about doing more than illustration, but I passed it over in favor of better examples, so it appears here now. Makes you wonder who was stalking who, right? At least that was my intention.

tiger swallowtail Papilio glaucus drinking from phlox blossom
This one is merely illustration, though illustration of habits and details rather than just basic anatomy, at least, captured as a tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) delved deep into a phlox blossom. As I’ve often observed, there’s a lot of luck involved, but recognizing that the focus had to be on a specific point and that I had a bare couple of seconds to achieve this played prominently, as well. The ability to exploit the lucky circumstances, is what I’m saying – I gotta take some credit.

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis on banana leafOkay, back to green.

I knew that the Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) favored the banana and nearby palmetto plants in the botanical garden where all of these (so far) were taken, so we spent some time looking them over carefully to try and find some – that’s how the previous mantids were found, as well. Eventually, we were successful in finding a half-size juvenile, obviously this year’s brood, who was wary of our presence.

Following it carefully, we watched to see if it was going to provide a useful pose. It is worth nothing that the banana plant that it was perambulating across had huge leaves and was off the immediate path, so getting close or choosing a large variety of angles wasn’t going to happen – which is fairly typical for just about any kind of nature photography. This might look like I’m right on top of it, but it’s a tight crop from the Mamiya 80mm macro, and I was better than a meter away from it. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but the anole was only about 7cm in length to begin with, tail included – a ‘normal’ view would have had it almost disappearing against the huge leaves and stems and their assorted shadows. And ‘shadows’ is a key word here, because eventually, it jumped across to the right spot, and I was able to change position adequately.

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis shadow against banana leafAlas, my timing was just a bit off, and the anole had crept forward enough to put its head in shadow before I could get set to capture the silhouette that I was after. So this isn’t really the print-quality fartsy shot I had tried to achieve, but at least serves to illustrate thinking of a more creative approach.

The toes, of course, are the same size in each photo, but show up a lot more impressively in this one because of the contrast. There’s also the curious idea, which just now hit me, that the anole is holding a leaf up to its face with the forelegs, perhaps a member of the Witness Protection Program, or maybe just tipping some ants down to its mouth. I probably spend too long looking at my own photos…

But here’s another little observation: the textures of the backlit leaf are an element all their own, and I’ve shot such before just as abstracts. Now, though, I have a brand new goal of trying to get an anole silhouette in such a way that the leaf textures and the anole’s shape and position coincide, the curves matching and accentuating one another. I’m not expecting to nail this one anytime soon, but it’s the very awareness of these factors that will make me watch carefully for them to occur. Granted, this vigil will likely begin next spring at least, as we’re nearing the end of anole season here.

We found another of the same size that day, who is going to transition this post from green to brown – the frame below isn’t exciting, but the pose is adequate and the details are nice.

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolensis in brown display
The coloration is not indicative of a different sex, just a mood display, though I couldn’t tell you what provoked this – the behavior was perhaps a little less wary than the previous, but obviously it’s not trying to blend in here, and perhaps had spotted another anole (that we missed) that it was warning off. I’ve seen such changes occur, by the way, and it’s pretty fast – a second or two if they’re motivated.

Now we move on to a different day and location.

When my brother visited, he demonstrated that his spotting skills were competitively slick as he found this mantis that I had just passed.

Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina posing on leaf
This is a Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina,) about half the size of the more-common Chinese mantis that has appeared more often on this blog than any other species by far. I got slightly more of a scale shot when we let it stalk down his arm, but I should have backed off more to get the thickness of his arm in there, at least – I was concentrating on the mantis details and not thinking about what use I might put it to.

pregnant female Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina on arm
The swollen abdomen outclassing the wings pegs this as likely a pregnant female. The coloration is more widely variable than the Chinese, but the ‘urban camouflage’ pattern here is fairly common.

And I’ll close with a dragonfly from the same brief outing, one that I crept up to after a mating pair proved too elusive for any decent shots.

likely great blue skimmer Libellula vibrans with tattered hindwings
This is likely (as near as I can determine, anyway,) a great blue skimmer (Libellula vibrans,) judging from the eye and abdomen coloration and the dark tips to the wings; this took way too long to research. The tattered wings showed no visible detriment to its flying ability, and if I remember right, experiments done on several four-winged species indicated that the secondary wings were more for added maneuverability than much else, almost being redundant. Which seems odd to me, because the resources to develop and maintain such wings, which are clearly used in flight, could be better spent somewhere else; numerous other insect species have near-vestigial hindwings. But as I’ve said before, I just shoots ’em…


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Sunday slide 41

Al Denelsbeck1 Comment

Lower Cascade Falls, Hanging Rock State Park NC with but not by James L. Kramer
I figured, as I ended the run of Jim’s pics, that I would feature this particular image of Lower Cascade Falls in Hanging Rock State Park in North Carolina, because this was a trip that Jim and I took together back before he abandoned the state. If you wanted to know what Jim looks like, well, here you go.

Whaddya mean, “Where is he?” He’s right there! On the bank, over to the right, crouched by his tripod. Well, of course he’s wearing camo, because you can’t spook the falls if you want the really primo shots. No, there wasn’t any particular reason for camo on this trip, other than he found it the most comfortable – hey, ask him, not me. I purposefully shot the frame a little wider on this one to include him, and since it was a waterfall image, the shutter speed was intentionally slow, and Mr Fidget wasn’t holding still enough.

Curiously, Upper and Lower Cascade Falls are the closest waterfalls to my location here, and I haven’t visited since – it’s been over 10 years. I really need to plan another trip out there. While I would also like to see a waterfall in freezing weather, I am quite certain that the trails to the falls would be extremely hazardous in such conditions, and the park is almost certainly closed when that happens. Looks like I’d have to get out the ice cleats, grappling hook, and black turtleneck…


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