Okay, yes, we had one of these last year, but that was before the Estate Finds were active, plus I haven’t found anything too compelling this week. And in fact, I had missed this juvenile eastern kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula) entirely as I marched past, but The Girlfriend spotted it and directed me to where it had disappeared under the leaf litter
Category: Nature
Blameless
Yes, we’re back on the wood ducks again, but let’s be real – they’re the coolest birds and right here on the property not even god is gonna blame me for posting about them *
Anyway, after doing the nighttime photos of the mother and ducklings on Turtle Island, I kept watching for them, getting some more shots and then, one evening, spotting the mother just
Your April reminders
I mean, you can simply look at the posts from previous years on the sidebar, there, to get these, and I can save myself the typing effort, but you’re not gonna do that, are you?
So once again, I’ll remind you that the Lyrids meteor shower is going on right now, but
Estate Find XVI
A little bit weak this week, mostly because I’ve been doing many other things (among them throwing up, but that’s passed now,) but also because not too much new has crossed my plate. I have some video clips that should be along shortly though.
The property is home to several groves of bamboo, mostly out onto the island on the back side of the pond, but also encroaching into the upper
Estate Find XV
All week I wasn’t finding a whole lot of new things to photograph, and Thursday was busy all day, so I ended up trying to find something late Thursday night/early Friday morning. I was out with the night rig, and indeed got a glimpse of beavers, twice, but never could get focus before they slipped out of sight, and my attempt to out-patience them failed I saw some ripples
Just because, part 55
A few photos sitting largely by themselves, just gotta clear some of the folder out.
Out the other night with the long lens attached, I fired off a few frames handheld at the waxing crescent (nearly half, or first quarter) moon high in the sky, adjusting focus manually each time. This one came out the sharpest, and this is a full-resolution crop from the center – that’s
Not waiting another week
I could have shelved this one for another Estate Find, but that’s a week away and I think I should keep you in the loop.
I had a feeling this was looming, yet did my check a little too late in the day to catch anything in progress – still, we have this.
That’s the egg case/ootheca of a Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) that we saw in an earlier,
It’s time
When did we last feature wood ducks? A couple of weeks ago? That’s enough of a gap.
Yesterday I looked out the office window and found a pair of the wood ducks (Aix sponsa) hanging out on the little log that serves as a turtle basking spot for the smaller species. They had a good view directly into my office window themselves, and so I shut off the lights therein to hopefully not disturb
Estate Find XIV
This one was a semi-targeted find – I figured some representative of the order would be visible around here soon, but this one showed up when I wasn’t specifically looking for it.
Instead of being anyplace along the water’s edge or among roots of trees nearby, this one was found in the middle of the driveway when we took the trash out last night. This is a very
Multitasking
Nearly all of the images herein were obtained while I was out last night after the month-end abstract – it was a nice night after an even nicer day and so the critters were making the most of it.
This one, however, is not from yesterday, but we have kind of a theme going so we’re running with it.
I’ve dealt with this too much before, but amphibians can be a real