While redoing some drainage channels around the house, something in the dirt seemed a little too undirtlike [spellcheck doesn’t like that word, but I’ve long since learned that spellcheck is bigoted] so I scooped it up. Lo, it was a cicada, the first I’ve seen in the earlier instar nymph form, the phase that stays underground for freaking years and feeds on tree sap.
Not
A few days ago I demonstrated my vast disconnect from the parent mindset, because I went to the NC Museum of Life & Science, on one of only two Mondays they are open during the winter as well as a school holiday, and wondered if it would be crowded. I know, I know – don’t mock me because I’m beautiful.
That was terrible, I admit it…
As comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy has been getting brighter, we’ve had zero visibility here, until tonight. I went out and did some searching with binoculars, finally locating it, then brought the camera equipment out to give it a shot.
Let me be up front about this: when the weather turns nasty, it is rare that I’ll be out in it, any more than the next person, and I don’t make a habit out of many of the practices I’ll be talking about here. So don’t take this to be preachy or anything. But if you find yourself itching to get out and chase photos but blocked by weather that’s
[Repost of original posted January 5, 2015, destroyed by hosting failure.]
I have a lot of little things on a mental checklist to get images of, experiments to try, and items of that nature. It’s 2:30 am as I type this, having just come back from attempting one, the results you see here.
These are all moonlight shots. A low pressure system pushed through recently and brought a lot of rain and
In years past I’ve done a gallery of my “Best of the Year” images, or various shots I’d edited for blog use but never posted this year I’m doing something different for the year’s end. Largely because the weather has been dismal around here, and much the same for large portions of the country – indeed, probably most of
Despite the weather and the holidays, I do still get out to do some shooting now and then, even though the pics in this post were from… jeez… ten days ago. These were taken, with one exception, at a botanical garden during a halfway-decent day. Above, a pintail duck (Anas acuta) provides a dozing pose as the cloud cover thickened up.
While UNC’s Botanical Gardens are dedicated mostly
I really have to stop doing stuff like that with the titles…
As a section of the photo gallery shows, while I lived in Florida I ‘maintained’ a small saltwater aquarium – not exactly intentionally, and certainly not in the way that aquarium enthusiasts do. Instead, it was born simply from finding critters
Last year, I was making it a point to post more than I had any year earlier, and did indeed reach that mark, just a few days past this date last year. It is safe to say that I won’t be setting any records this year, since with this one I am 44 posts away, and I don’t see me knocking out, like, three posts a day from here on.
The move to a new house had a lot to do with this, as did the
Some time back, after posting a bunch of especially creepy pics, I added the above image and mentioned that I should do a post about it. As you can see, I’m right on top of that, having taken only nine weeks to get to it.
It is, like all images to be seen in this post, a zoo pic, the dreaded ‘captive’ subjects that seem so dire to people at times – real nature photographers
