This past Tuesday I met with a student down by the river, and afterward poked around to see what items of interest could be found. In the distance I espied a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) that appeared to be hunting, but a closer look revealed that it had been successful. I hadn’t brought the tripod and thus should not have been shooting with a long lens handheld,
Category: Nature
Frustrations, part 10
We’ve had a couple of bluebird nest boxes in the yard for the past two years, attracting occupants each spring, and of course this means I’m attempting to get some decent images. What I’m most after are the newly emerged fledglings, the young whippersnappers just leaving the nest, but while waiting I try for feeding shots as well.
The folks are a tad shy about me looming over their
Macro photography, part seven
I mentioned in an earlier post about experimenting with a new method of lighting macro subjects, so now we’ll take a close look at it. One of the chief pursuits of photographers is getting the light just right,
I suppose you find that funny
So, I met a student in the local botanical garden this morning, and afterward took a couple of passes through the garden to see what there was to chase. I have a post in draft form, coming soon, that’s going to have a few images of jumping spiders, plus a whole collection of other recent pics – they’re primarily what I’ve been seeing lately. Thus, if anything, I’d pass
Drama
We’ll start with the artsy-fartsy one.
This came from a patch of wild daisies down near the river, many of which served as eyries for crab spiders (I think I’m mixing metaphors without goggles again) that were making a serious dent on the hymenoptera population in the area – every one I found either had a meal in chelicerae, or soon obtained one. They tended to
Checking in
It’s been a little longer between posts than intended, but this only means that truly major, insightful, earth-shaking stuff is coming soon (yeah, yeah, I know save the sarcasm.) I’ve had a couple of projects going, and have been commenting in other locations, such as Sean Carroll’s Preposterous Universe blog, or maybe it’s S=k. log W,
Not him again
The past few days have been overcast and either rainy or misty, so photo opportunities were a little limited, but the azaleas are in full bloom so they’re providing much better settings for the mantis images now. I remain unsure how old the mantises were when I found them – I’m guessing at least a few days, since their eyes had changed from the dark ones I’ve
Just a drop, please?
One of those things I had to share. Out early the other morning after an overnight rain, I was examining the azalea bush for interesting stuff, mostly looking for a way to use the rising sun and the raindrops creatively. One of the little mantises was too deep among the leaves to catch the sun, but as I watched, it engaged in a behavior I’ve never seen: it
Earth 2: Earth Harder
So, I did indeed brave the sunny, warm weather (which did not tax my sinuses half as much as yesterday) to chase a few shots, mostly by heading down to the river for a short while. I was primarily aiming to do some infra-red experiments, and did, but I took advantage of other conditions while I was there. Above, a common clearwing moth, also called a hummingbird moth (Hemaris
Earth rules!
It’s Earth Day, the day we celebrate our planet’s independence from the Barren Hegemony of the Solar System! It was a hard fought battle, especially since there was no one to fight it, but we (well, not specifically us the planet, anyway) persevered!
We typically celebrate our defiant animus by going outside and gloating. Admittedly, some people (you know, them) do things like