I was examining the progress of the spring revival in the yard yesterday and noticing that the deer had discovered my almond tree the previous night, which means it now sports a few less leaves than it did – this occurs every few weeks in the summer and seems to do the sapling no harm at all. And then I noticed a movement near the base of the reappearing dog fennel plants, and went in for
Category: Photography
Enjoying the weather
I got out to poke around down at the park a few times in the past couple of weeks, the same park that produced the great chorus frog recording last month. There was a primary reason for this, as I’ll get to shortly.
The image above I included mostly for the counterpoint to the tulip plant I featured previously.
Aha, hmmmm
I decided to try and answer a couple of questions raised in the post about the newborn mantids, so I went out and collected the debris that was still hanging from the egg sac, that the newborns had been suspended from immediately after emergence. The first thing to become apparent was that it hung from a webbing
Had my back
I was aware of the total lunar eclipse scheduled to appear last night/this morning (there’s that stupid “it changed day in the middle of the night” thing again,) but after a week of clear and accommodating weather, the front pushed in yesterday and we received solid, low overcast skies, meaning the only thing I could see was how many places nearby waste electricity by throwing
Mixed blessings
I had a post in draft form wherein I mentioned that I was keeping my eye on the egg case of the Chinese mantises (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis,) figuring it was due to erupt at any time. This morning, that post was ruined.
I was just about to head off to meet with a student when I took a last look at the egg case, and found it almost literally dripping with newborn mantids. I quickly got the camera
On composition, part 14a: The lurking cliché
This is an extension of the topic tackled in a previous Composition post, because I felt it deserved a closer examination. So join me as we dive bravely into the seedy underworld of the cliché again.
The word itself has distinctly negative connotations, doubly so when there’s any connection whatsoever to the Art World (which is a peculiar-looking, off-balance planet that changes its own orbit
Small improvements
About a week ago, I noticed that another of The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog’s flowers was of the type that opens each morning (when the conditions are right,) and started planning to try again to capture this. Naturally, the weather went to yuck for the next few days after that, but I watched
Rediscovered
While skimming through images in my folders, I came across this pair taken back in 2012, and decided to feature them to appease all of the people who started coming here because of the bugs, who now have nothing to see during the cold months. You haven’t been forgotten.
On the spearmint flowers this butterfly, likely a pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos,) was holding a little too still
Spring and equinox and all that jazz
Shocked as I am to report it, the calendar event of the vernal equinox and the weather coincided quite well – the skies cleared and the temperature got into the twenties (or the seventies, if you prefer,) so I did indeed get out to chase a few spring subjects. It was exceedingly few – it’s still a little early for spring in North Carolina, and more so with the temperature fluctuations
A thousand words
I think this is the probably the best single image representation of this winter’s weather that I’m likely to achieve. I never spotted this winter aconite flower before the freezing rain came, but was lucky enough to see it afterward.
Not quite as much rain this time, so no issues, though I’m pretty sure I heard a nearby transformer blow last night. But we’re not