Category: Photography

No record this year

Al Denelsbeck

shamrock flower in late autumnLast 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 fewer subjects I was finding in the immediate vicinity. The cold snaps that hit the rest of the country have not avoided this area either, and they’ve served to render a lot of things dormant earlier than usual. One exception (I think, anyway – I wasn’t paying close attention last year to their behavior) has been The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog’s shamrock plants, which have bravely staggered through the frosts that decimated many of the other plants and are still, somehow, pushing out blooms, albeit rather weakly. There are more trees in this yard, and the dead leaves are a thick carpet that can only be cleared away for roughly two hours or so.

Finding subjects to shoot in these conditions has been rather challenging, and this holds especially true for sessions with students – not just the subjects themselves are scarce, but the background conditions, framing opportunities and contrasting colors and whatnot, are also harder to find. While I am more inclined to shoot little tableaux instead of wider landscape or scenic images anyway, right now there really isn’t much of a choice; thus, students are almost forced to adopt my style, ha ha!

So for the most part, I am engaged in winter and christmas projects, writing, and odds & ends around the house – nothing worth blogging about, though I suppose I could take a bunch of pictures of my food, and put on a wool cap (or “beanie,” whatever) and do selfies. Cast your vote in the comments…

oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia in autumn colorsBut I can put up a couple of images between long-winded posts, like this oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) found at the botanical garden. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in late fall, and I really like the effect – the leaves have a rich variety of colors, almost like those cheesy plastic fall decorations you can get at lame stores, only real and alive. I might have to look into planting some of these around here in the spring, since they seem to do well in shade. That’s kind of a prerequisite with this house, where large portions of the property get no direct sunlight, or little patches falling between trees that traverse the yard during the day (the patches, not the trees – those apparently only walk around when I’m not looking.) I have been making lists of plants that don’t need much sunlight to flesh out my vegetation options.

This year is virtually guaranteed to produce at least a couple of decent snowfalls here in NC, and I’ve got a few locations lined up which might prove interesting in such conditions, so we’ll see what happens. That’s the only thing I can tolerate about snow – I don’t do winter sports (or any kind,) don’t hunt, don’t ice-fish (or any kind,) and The Girlfriend and The Sprog don’t even want to get into snowball fights. The only thing I can say in favor is that this area is a lot safer for winter driving than the previous one; almost no hills, and roads which are likely to receive attention (what passes for it in NC, anyway) much sooner. There remains a possibility that I could have to go up to central New York at some point, not something to look forward to, and it’s unlikely that I’d have the time to shoot any scenic photos while there, either. That’s even if there was a proper snowfall during my visit, and not the typical grey skies over dirty, unmelting snow and plow icebergs that fill so much of my childhood winter memories. Floridians can get pretty snarky about the snowbirds (northern tourists) that visit during the winter months, but they don’t know what happens to your mood when you spend nineteen days out of every twenty with no sunlight. It’s not good.

[Floridians often have this big thing about being ‘native,’ rather than a transplant, and when someone says they’ve spent their whole life in Florida, it’s a matter of pride, and sometimes arrogance. It’s quite amusing, really.]

long-jawed orb weaver Tetragnatha on dead branches in still waterI’m continually impressed with the cold-weather hardiness of spiders. Last winter, I kept observing tiny green lynx spiders that would vanish with the snow and ice storms, only to reappear as soon as the stuff had melted. And while wandering around looking for pics recently, there were virtually no arthropods to be seen, even in the botanical garden (I spotted two, instead of the typical dozens,) but these branches clawing their way from a still pond sported a few very active long-jawed orb weavers (Tetragnatha.) There’s only one visible in this image, even if you think you see another – that’s just the reflection in the cooperatively placid water. And as tiny as it is in the pic, it’s hard to miss, isn’t it? Framing and contrast, framing and contrast…

I’ll keep looking for pics of interest (well, that I find interesting,) but I’m not expecting a whole lot now until spring. There’s still a zoo trip that may occur, and it’s been a while since I’ve been to the NC Museum of Life & Science, so perhaps I can get something in before the end of the year. We’ll see what happens, I guess.

The days of yore, part three

Al Denelsbeck

lion cubs facing off
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 certainly should be out capturing all their images in “the wild.” Yeah, whatever – by all means, don’t tell anyone they’re wild if they’re not, but if you can get images that people like, and/or that tell an interesting story, what does it matter where they’re obtained?

lion cubs looking coolAs my own example, I give you a warm christmas eve day, 2006, at the North Carolina Zoological Park in Asheboro. For some peculiar reason visitors were sparse that day, and the cubs, about eight weeks old then, were having their first outdoor session, having spent all their previous lives in the birthing den with the mother. The day was brilliant and clear, the temperature around 20° C (68° F.) And the cubs were making the most of it, tackling their folks, stalking one another, and pouncing on grass and twigs – basically, exactly what domestic kittens do at that age, but for some reason it’s far more fascinating and entertaining when you see wild species doing it, even though they could hardly be called ‘wild’ in this case.

There were four in total, and another test that was taking place was seeing how well dad would react to them. Now, I have to admit that I’m not exactly sure if the male lion was, indeed, the sire of the sprogs – zoos are just as likely to use artificial insemination to ensure viable genetic variation, as well as dealing with potential personality clashes. You just can’t slap together opposite sexes of any species and expect them to get it on, or even get along, any more than we can expect this of humans. Bottom line, ‘dad’ might not have been, but the staff were still waiting to see if he would serve the purpose anyway, since this was actually his first introduction, outside of controlled conditions, to the cubs. In the wild, male lions might kill the offspring of another male when taking over a pride, nature’s way of ensuring less competition for his own genetic line. It may seem barbaric to us, but that’s because we have our own instincts – curiously, they’re so strong regarding protecting infants that we even cross over into other species.

So, how was ‘dad’ dealing with the cubs?

lion father and cub chillin' together
Pretty damn well, to be honest. He could not have been more mellow and still been conscious, and while the cubs weren’t climbing all over him as they were with their mother, they probably could have without incident. In this shot, the cub had been perched atop the rock getting into pounce position when dad looked around, causing the cub to adopt the innocent, “just hanging out” look seen here. It’s never a good idea to let your prey know you’re going to attack them, especially when they outweigh you by such a huge margin. When their back is turned, however…

lion cub about to pounce on father
The cub never did complete the maneuver it was contemplating here; perhaps it realized that it did not have the appetite necessary. While we were there, we didn’t actually see any of the cubs wrestling with dad at all. But of course, there were quite a few tussles amongst themselves, and mom certainly didn’t escape their attentions.

lion cubs attacking their oblivious mother
She was just as mellow as dad, mostly ignoring their feeble attempts at matricide, which encouraged them to stalk one another more often; this might even have been intentional. She was not without the instinct of every mother everywhere, however, as some of the cubs found out when they decided to direct their attention near her face. Suddenly, it became the ideal time to keep the kids groomed, despite their (also typical among species) struggles to avoid such ministrations.

lion mother washing a protesting cub
You may have noticed a difference in angle between the two pics above of momma, and that’s because the zoo had multiple vantages over the lions’ area; we switched back and forth as necessary, though I tended to stick with the angle seen most often in these pics because of the lighting.

Like most zoos, there are some restrictions on getting nice, natural-looking, and uncluttered compositions. The enclosures still have to keep their charges safely within (and, just as much, the less intelligent members of the human species out,) and this means that very often you will have something that just doesn’t work: bad lighting, or a poor perspective on the interesting behavior, or simply evidence that it is, indeed, a zoo.

backbiting lion cubs
Yet, there’s a benefit to working with captive animals that you can take advantage of as well, since animals that are habituated to your presence are more likely to engage in behavior that is extremely hard to capture in the wild. Wild animals may not ‘let their guard down’ in areas where they can be seen easily, and may well be sensitive to your presence, or at least suspicious that something is different. So capturing some adorable interaction can be a lot easier with captives…

lion male and female nuzzling affectionatelyThis is exactly what it appears to be – a very affectionate nuzzling, including some gentle nibbling on one another. I was there with The Girlfriend and The Younger Sprog, and you can imagine the reactions at this point, as well as the frantic instructions to, “Look! Look!” and, “Get it! Get it!” They could hear the shutter snapping as well as I could, or at least they should have been able to, but it’s possible that normal sensory functions were somewhat overwhelmed at that point. They were, naturally, getting their own shots as all this was taking place.

And as I said, visitors were rather thin that day, so very few people saw this particular spectacle, and not many more got to see the cubs’ first day out. This was eight years ago, and the cubs may well have been sent on to other zoos, since most decent parks now exchange animals; the trade in capturing wild specimens, something that Gerald Durrell once took part in, has now halted among all reputable establishments, except in rare circumstances. The mother succumbed to cancer a year or so ago, but I noticed as I was attaching the link for the zoo (repeat) that a new pride has been born recently; I honestly cannot say if they were born to one of these cubs or not. We haven’t been back since that trip in 2006, don’t ask me how we managed that, but it looks like we’re going to have to try again soon.

I leave you with my favorite shot, as an impish cub halted in his grass gnawing to focus directly on me and the long lens staring down, curious as to what I was doing up there above the rock wall. Any emotions that we think we see in this expression are almost certainly imaginary, but if you see a feline version of David Attenborough, narrating a segment on the peculiar habits of humans, well, you can be excused…
expressive lion cub portrait

But of course

Al Denelsbeck

autumn trees against clear skyThis autumn has proven to be one that I’ve rarely had the chance to take advantage of: a fairly good display of colors, peaking during clear weather, with no storms or even high winds to strip the leaves from the trees. So while this area has few vantages that provide the best display of colors – generally something that overlooks rolling hills with a wide variety of deciduous trees – I have to say I bagged a decent selection of images, from several different locales.

Once again, though, bright sunny days are not always the best to pursue certain subjects, and vivid colors are among them – contrast can go too high and details can get washed out. Sometimes, it’s better to be in the muted light of heavy haze or even overcast, or in the deeper shadows of a full forest canopy – it all depends on what’s in front of you. For reference, see a couple of the closer leaf shots from a year ago. The colors aren’t quite as vivid yet they have a richer tonal range, more subtleties and a bit more variety.

Many areas that anyone might find themselves within aren’t ideal for nice scenic landscape images – there isn’t a good selection of differing tree species (and thus colors,) there are too many distracting elements or ugly bits of urbanization or industrialization, and so on. So sometimes creative framing can save the shot, finding a position that maximizes the impact of the good elements you do have and eliminates anything that doesn’t work.

autumn colors on reflecting pond
For instance, this image was taken within a housing development, at an angle that eliminated all houses, poles and wires, and bright blue recycling bins. The few colorful trees, spread out along the lakeshore, were grouped together into the frame by my shooting position, and the uglier longneedle pines between were captured in a way that their sparse, lopsided branches helped fill out the composition – if you look at the far lakeshore, that’s actually more representative of how the trees were laid out and how much color was to be found. On occasion, I’ve seen a single tree that I like and wandered about, crouching and dodging, to try and use it with some other element to the advantage of both. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t – but you never know without trying.

yellow floating leaves against bare branches and blue sky reflectionI am probably a little too hooked on using reflections and floating leaves, but hey, I like ’em. The idea of ‘peak’ colors is a little misleading; there is often a point where you can see the maximum amount of colors, but usually a number of species have hit their most colorful much earlier, while most others are still green, and these early bloomers greet ‘peak’ with empty branches. Sometimes this can be worked into the composition, sometimes it’s a patch of distracting, somewhat anachronistic bare trunks. For this one, I decided to use those branches as a backdrop for the leaves passing by, and the blue sky and yellow leaves set off one another nicely.

I mentioned this before in the compositional post about water, but an awful lot of the time people just never notice the reflections at all, which is a shame, because they can be a really potent element. Always, always look to see what water is reflecting, because it might give you some great ideas, but also know that the two-dimensionality of images, the same thing that can make layers of foliage blend together into an indistinct mess, can make the reflections much stronger and more obvious than they seem when observing them in person. Depth-of-field has a lot to say too, because when we focus the lens onto reflections, it’s not at the distance to the water itself, but bouncing off the water and all the way up to the subject being reflected, which is usually a whole lot farther away. This means that you can choose to have either the reflections in focus, or the leaves on the surface (or the reeds growing within the water) in focus, but not both, even with the smallest aperture your lens can achieve. The selective focus can draw attention easily to one or the other, but it might also trash your plans to have them appear together. Also note that with a wide-angle lens, the depth-of-field characteristics might make the difference in focus trivial and virtually unnoticeable, so now the reflections may just make for more clutter in the composition. Observe carefully and experiment.

This next image I’m putting up fairly large (as far as the blog format goes) because I want some of the details to be clearer.

layers of colors
Here the water is half-reflective, half-transparent, giving an overlay of sky and foliage atop layers of leaves just beneath the surface. I also need to note that this is mixed lighting; the trees in the reflection are receiving full sunlight, but the water itself and the floating leaves are actually in shadow. This worked out rather well, since water always darkens reflections, so the exposure came out pretty well balanced.

A polarizing filter can be a handy tool in such cases. Light reflecting from non-metallic surfaces (which mostly means water and glass) will be polarized, so orienting a polarizing filter can reduce or even eliminate the reflections – you can adjust their strength in your compositions. It’s almost magical to watch what’s under the surface suddenly spring into view…

backlit red leaves against glittertrail starburstsSo while I’m on the subject of reflections, we’ll look at another variation. The reflection of sunlight near the horizon off of rippling water or wet sand is called a glittertrail, and naturally is a useful element in itself. A very small aperture (in this case f22) turns these little spots of intense light into starbursts. I liked the color intensity of the backlit leaves, but didn’t know what else to do with them until I shifted too far to the side and started blinding myself with the glittertrail – aha! I really wanted a stronger, more prominent leaf for this composition, but the wind was pretty stiff this day and whipping the leaves madly (which also contributed to the well-spaced sparkles off the water,) so this is what I got. If it motivates you to try a variation, fantastic – remember me when the royalties come rolling in.

I should also mention that sunlight coming into the lens in this manner is not only very prone to producing flare and ghosts, but very likely to trick the exposure meter as well. It’s not a bad idea to bracket widely to ensure you got the exposure that you like, or if you can determine what it should be (for instance by aiming off to the side just enough to eliminate the direct sunlight,) switch to full manual mode and override the meter entirely. The sun riding lower in the sky as we get close to winter means a lenshood should be almost constantly affixed to every lens, but that won’t do a damn thing for aiming right into the sun or its reflections.

We come to the point in the blog post where I ask, what’s wrong with this picture?

What's wrong with this picture?
If it helps, we still haven’t left the same topic I’ve been rambling on about for the past several images. If that’s not enough, look carefully at the bottom of the frame.

I did this on purpose, because it’s not often you get conditions this ideal, so if you’re still struggling, I’ll tell you: it’s upside-down. See? It’s obvious now, isn’t it?

Nothing wrong with this picture
slightly more obvious spillwayThat’s so much better, right? Uh, no? This is actually looking down from a small hill at the reflection of the trees and sky in the inordinately still water above a spillway, the lip of which forms the edge between the trees and the bright rocks, which are on the riverbed well beyond the reflection and the spillway itself. Here’s a variation that makes it a little more obvious, though I imagine it might still seem a bit mind-bending until the perspective falls into place.

In this image, it’s easy to see a particular trait that I mentioned earlier, that of the reflections being darker than the original – how pronounced it is depends on the sun angle (and to some extent the contrast settings of the camera.) Basic rule: if you want both to appear in the image, expose for the original, especially considering the sky. If you expose for the reflection (for instance, by aiming more at the water than the skyline itself when obtaining an exposure setting,) you will likely overexpose the sky and bleach a lot of the detail from it. I also have to reveal here that those who like doing that HDR stuff almost always miss this trait, and make the reflections too bright in comparison to the sky, a dead giveaway to any experienced photographer or editor.

I have one more scenic shot I’m going to put up in this post, but before I do, I have to give a shout-out. Most of these images were taken on an outing with a student, and I don’t talk about students much because I’m respecting their privacy – not everyone wants to have a web presence. But this one has said he doesn’t mind.

Al Denelsbeck by Albert BuggSo while out shooting during yesterday’s session, a large leaf dropped and perched atop my camera, and the indefatigable Al Bugg (yes, same first name, and yes, we’re often not sure which one of us we’re addressing in conversation) captured the portrait. That’s the ‘heavy kit’ I’m wearing, everything on belt packs with supportive suspenders – ready for just about anything. Go ahead and laugh.

Meanwhile, I’ll close with perhaps my favorite shot (so far) this fall – if I’d had a couple to perch onto that swing I’d have done so, but no one was around at the time. I’ll leave you to ponder the difference in mood with the swing being empty, but I’ll point out that only two trees are displaying good color, while the one that supports the swing has already passed peak. Did you notice either of these before I mentioned them?

empty swing under spreading branches against autumn colors

Picture this

Al Denelsbeck

In doing the monthly maintenance for the blog yesterday, which includes some basic recordkeeping, I noticed that I had uploaded 62 photos for the month of October, which ties with the record set in December of last year. Despite being in the winter, December is explained by putting up a collection of images that I had prepared for the blog but not used throughout the year, kind of a year-end retrospective, but I have no event like that for this past month, so that’s not too shabby for the entry into the off-season.

Now it’s true, not all of the images were my own, which can be said for many months, including last December. Comparing them, December had three more original images than last month did, so if you want to tally it that way, it means I didn’t tie with the record after all. But if you count images shot within the month, October 2014 probably beats all others.

I just thought you should know. I’m avoiding the crass opportunism of including an image here just to get a start on November.

Not according to plan

Al Denelsbeck

autumn leaves in water reflecting blue sky
forest trail stepsSo, okay. I went out yesterday to check out the nature trails behind UNC’s botanical garden, for the first time in over a decade. You’d like to think that nature photographers are always in touch with every natural area nearby – and they probably are… it’s just that I’m not. Actually, I have several other areas that I prefer, mostly well away from people, also able to produce more interesting critters, but yeah, I probably should have been back sooner than this.

Anyway, since this was intended just as a scouting session, with no real goals in getting any images, it makes perfect sense that I shot close to 400 frames – which is more than I’ve taken many times when specifically going out to produce usable photos. This is one of the reasons I encourage taking your camera (a real one) with you as often as possible. The fall colors have not ‘peaked’ yet, but the trees tend not to coordinate amongst themselves very well and all peak at different times, so creating autumn compositions can be done for weeks. Meanwhile, there’s this little layout rule that images alongside text should be oriented so that they pull attention into the text – if there’s an implied direction or natural emphasis, it should be towards the printing and not off the page. The only thing is, with this forest steps shot, I’m not sure which way that actually is…

tiny saplings among autumn leaves
It somehow doesn’t seem right that a sapling that’s only achieved ankle height should be turning, about to lose its leaves, but then again, why wouldn’t it? I liked the variety of leaves that could be seen in such a small area, as well as the pleasantly contrasting pink and green of the little sprout.

giant magnolia autumn fall leaves backlitThe sky was perfectly clear after the previous day’s rain storms, and the low angle of the wintering sun produced not only very high contrast conditions, but a significant amount of glare when facing anywhere remotely eastward, so some compositions, that might have been quite compelling in other conditions, were simply out of the question. There are ways, however, of using such light angles. Magnolia trees tend to lose their leaves early, and the bigleaf magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla) wasn’t far from dropping these like so many of the others already littering the ground beneath, so within a few days this opportunity would have been gone. Some trees are already bare and many in the process of changing colors, while quite a few, as seen in the steps shot, are still quite green.

I have to note, with pleasant surprise, that the number of longneedle pines to be seen in these woods is quite low – they’re an ugly tree, and quite a pain in the ass in that their needles get everywhere, all year long, and the ground cover they produce tends to prevent many other plants and trees from getting started. It’s nice to see a greater variety, and of course the deciduous trees make for better photo subjects, even when dead.

shelf fungus detail
Part of the reason these details can be seen so distinctly is because of that bright, low sun, and with the forest canopy, the opportunity for the light to shine through is sporadic – thus, this was as much a matter of opportunistic timing as any ability to spot something interesting. It might also have been interesting still dripping with rain – it helps to think of variations that might occur, so you can plan and seek out certain shots when the conditions are right.

backlit damaged green leaf with blue skyBackground is an important factor, and one that is amazingly easy to change at this time of year. A very small adjustment of shooting position – left or right, higher or lower – can drastically affect just what is going to appear in the background, and the ability to enhance your subject can make the difference between a basic shot and an interesting one. Is there a color or shape that will work with the subject better? Is there something clashing that needs to be eliminated? Thinking in terms of the entire frame, and being aware of what’s beyond the subject, can help a lot. While this one was relatively simple to achieve, I’ve gone flat on the ground or stood on fences and rocks to change the appearance of the background (and affect the light angle as well) – minor efforts to create major differences. And yes, this has often meant getting dirty, damp, or worse, and sometimes I bring along kneepads and a ground cloth (a small section of waterproof tarp) when I expect to be doing a lot of it, but I’m also not too concerned with how I look to others, or how uncomfortable I might be afterwards, if I get a shot that I like.

dead cricket consumed by fungus
I wasn’t loaded for doing elaborate macro work, but I kind of wish I’d tackled this one in greater detail. While any insect that dies might serve as food for opportunistic fungi, there are varieties that actually infect living species and provoke them towards certain behaviors that will promote the spread of their spores – the same can be said for many parasitic microbes, and I’ve had such images on my mental shooting list for years. From, really, not very far away, this just appeared to be a whitish cricket perched on a leaf, but up close it gets supremely creepy (okay, even creepier than many of my images.) So, yeah, Happy Halloween again.

wasp portrait on pitcher plantI decided, since i was in the immediate vicinity, to hit the garden proper once more. North Carolina is one of the few states where predatory plants are native, so the botanical garden, dedicated to native species, features a variety of Venus flytraps, sundews, and pitcher plants. The pitcher plants always host some resident wasps, and I’m in the process of determining what these are and how they live. The reason being, I’ve seen more than a few pitcher plants that are plugged with grass or leaves, and some that feature a hole chewed into the trumpet well down the body. Pitcher plants have slippery insides, an attractive smell, and a pool of sticky nectar at the bottom that attracts the insects that will nourish the plant with their death, but it appears some arthropod has circumvented this trait for their own purposes, probably in protecting the larvae. Right now I’m just not sure if it’s actually the wasp species seen here, or of the wasp preys on the species that attacks the pitcher plant. So I’ll just leave this image here while I work on the details.

I just want to point out: dark green, behind the wasp. A slight shift in either direction would have changed the background color, and thus how well the wasp stood out.

I kept my eyes open when I approached the small pond which held my subject from an earlier visit, and the attention paid off – this is quite likely the same green frog (Rana clamitans,) though I spotted no tadpole this time.

green frog Rana clamitans portrait
Moving slowly, I was able to actually prop my elbows on the rim of the pond for a tight portrait, a much more personable angle than the previous images of this amphibian – and one that produced a subtle but interesting addition. It’s not hard to make out the reflections of the foreground reeds in the frog’s eye, but there’s something else too, which we’ll go a little closer to make out.

photographer's reflection in green frog's eye Rana clamitans
This is slightly better than twice full resolution. To the right, you can actually see the barest reflection of me getting this shot; my sidelit forehead is showing near the top under the blue sky, while my right hand can be made out on the shutter, and the faint curve of my left hand under the lens. The camera, black and facing away from the light, is only visible as a dark space. Now I’m going to have to try for a better version of this…

bumblebees on purple flowersI also got another image of the same flowering plant that appeared in that earlier post, though not the same blossoms of course. This time I was thoughtful enough to look for the identifying plaque, but there was none, so I still cannot tell you what species this actually is. But the light was at a more useful angle this time, so the interiors were better illuminated, meaning that one of the bumblebees had to burrow in quite deeply to stay in the shadows – that dark spot in the lower blossom is a bee, while the other scampered around on the outside of the petals, knowing there was nectar to be had but not terribly sure how to reach it. C’mon, their brains are the size of a booger, they have to screw up from time to time…

[Notice, however, how the dark background masks the definition of the bumblebee’s head; this is an example where I failed to use the background to best advantage. I still make the mistakes I warn others about, now and then, but there really wasn’t an angle that would have worked and still shown the interiors of the blooms anyway. While many different compositions and approaches can produce a nice image, there often remains some way it could be better – not necessarily that it can be done with those particular conditions, but that some set of conditions will serve. It means you keep trying, still watching for improved image.]

Now, quite often when I’m out shooting, I will find some subject or composition that I feel essentially justifies the time; if nothing else comes out at all, this one will make it all worthwhile, and I can go home now. This usually doesn’t actually make me go home, and I will often keep going just to see if I can top it, which has occasionally happened, but there remains the feeling that one frame (or set thereof) beats the rest.

mantis silhouette on broad backlit leafSo when I spotted the shadow on the large leaf in passing, you know I was chuffed. Not an hour earlier I had been thinking that the mantids had been scarce in the garden that year, and I lost my opportunities for those shots at home back in July; it was very cooperative of this one to pose so distinctly in the center of the leaf, probably still warming herself after the crisp night. While my framing here makes it quite prominent, this was actually found in a crowded, complicated stand of various plants and was not obvious; I almost missed it entirely in passing. Interestingly, the light angle is not as it seems, as is indicated by by looking at the top right of the leaf, above the crossing brown frond; that thread sticking out up there is her antenna, the same one throwing the fine shadow across the leaf.

There was an extensive elementary school group visiting both the garden and the trails the entire time I was there, rather obvious from the noise levels, screams of discoveries echoing off the hills. One small cluster wasn’t too far away when I found the mantis, and I debated about pointing it out to them, but I’m always a bit wary of such things, since younger kids are notoriously bad about observing within disturbing or interfering – sometimes I think it’s better when they haven’t spotted such things on their own, because it tells me they’re not in the appropriate frame of mind for them anyway. This all sounds rather dismissive of children, I know, which isn’t entirely accurate, since I do presentations to kids and enjoy the opportunities to share information and discoveries. But to me, there’s a certain level of focus and respect I’d like to see in place before introducing them to something delicate, just as much as anyone would want to see before letting the kids carry the good china out to the table, you know? Regardless, the group moved on before I had decided which way I was leaning.

Chinese mantis Tenodera aridifolia sinensis portraitNo, I did not get multiple frames of the mantis shadow and neglect getting the mantis herself (I just had some space to fill up alongside.) This is, most likely, a Chinese mantis (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis,) the most common species around here, and the largest – this one is not quite as long as my hand, and I’m guessing female from the size and girth. Yes, she’s got some kind of injury to her right eye cluster, and in a less-than-ideal location too, since it quite possibly affects her depth-perception right up front where it’s most useful in nabbing prey. Yet she’s more than big enough, so either it’s recent or it didn’t have too detrimental an affect on her. Unless I miss my guess she’ll be producing an egg sac soon, which will overwinter and hatch out the young somewhere around early April; she will die off soon afterward. While it might seem odd to us, many species live long enough to reproduce, and not much beyond that – that’s really all that was necessary to pass on the genes, so that’s all that was selected for. We (well, not all of us) give birth to these helpless, floppy little blobs, so we have to stick around long enough to ensure that the genes make it past weaning at least. Yeah, I know, there I go off on the kids again…

I have a few more images from the day that may make it to another post, and of course the autumn colors will be progressing, so something more will be along soon enough. You know where to find me.

I can still do a bug update

Al Denelsbeck

Jumpng spider Phidippus in rose blossom
While the weather has produced a few cold snaps and the trees are progressing into their autumn colors, the arthropods have gotten harder to spot, but can yet be found. Above, a jumping spider (genus Phidippus) saw me coming and took refuge in a shelter it had created within a rose blossom, presenting a significant photographic challenge – this is the best I could manage, since only one angle allowed light either in or out, and I had the choice of firing a flash into the crevice or actually allowing the lens a clear field of view. Still, it gives an abstract impression of the conditions for shooting bugs.

On the side of the house I found a very large wheel bug (Arilus cristatus,) a form of assassin bug, so named for that weird projection on the sholders – this one measured about 35mm in length, perhaps the largest I’ve seen and, if the girth was any indication, a female seeking a place for her eggs. I could be wrong – this is the south after all. I collected her and a branch as a setting, rather than work on the side of the house, but made a mistake visible here: I used a photo print as a background, and the pattern of the box turtle (that was the main subject of the print) remains visible to the right. Perhaps not everyone will notice this, but the pattern is distinctive and it jumps right out at me.

Wheel bug Arilus cristatus with fake background
At the same time, I also found a species I’ve never seen before; judging from the legs, wings, and the shape of the head and mouth, I am pegging this as an Orthopteran of some kind, the order that includes grasshoppers, katydids, and crickets. [Note: as I type this, I decided to check BugGuide.net for a further detail, and right smack on the homepage was another example of the species, posted just seventeen minutes ago – it is a narrow-winged tree cricket, Oecanthus niveus. Or, was. But I’m getting ahead of myself.]

narrow-winged tree cricket Oecanthus niveus
I have been working on a couple of school presentations, and the wheel bug was a nice model to do some anatomical detail images from; few insects (around here) get to be this size, so it was a prime opportunity. Also helpful was the sluggish nature of wheel bugs, which tend to be rather dainty in manner – if they don’t fly away first. While this one tended to try and switch to the underside of the leaves, I was still able to go in for some significant closeups, close enough to see the sand grains adhering to its head.

macro close up of wheel bug Arilus cristatus head
Looking at the eyes, you can see the curious shape of the flat-planel flash rig I use, but also a blue spot; that’s the LED flashlight I use as a focusing aid with the fixed-aperture reversed 28-105, all explained in this post. One of the benefits of working in a macro ‘studio’ indoors is that I can use an AC power source for the flash unit, providing a recharge time of 4-5 seconds and indefinite use, which batteries definitely can not maintain. Plus if my subject tries to fly away (which this one did not,) I can usually recapture it again.

After a productive session with the wheel bug, I dropped the tree cricket onto the same branch without removing the wheel bug. I was mostly after detail pics like the one further up, but I also knew that assassin bugs prey on other insects, and I was curious as to whether my subject might do this as I watched, or if it would be too wary of my presence to engage in such behavior. The tree cricket, in less than a minute, blundered directly into the wheel bug and effectively answered this question for me, since the assassin wasted no time with a potential meal so blithe.

Wheel bug Arilus cristatus with captured narrow-winged tree cricket Oecanthus niveus
I have been told that the proboscis of an assassin bug, shown so clearly here, can deal a nasty bite to anyone handling one incautiously, though I have yet to experience this for myself, despite having handled an untold number of them – basically, don’t grab them, but scoop them up gently if you have to use your hands at all. Most times, however, I simply nudge them onto an index card or into a film can (ask your parents what that is.)

Wheel bug Arilus cristatus with captured narrow-winged tree cricket Oecanthus niveus
I could not tell from this image whether the wheel bug was actually penetrating the chitin of the tree cricket, or if it was simply waiting for me to move on before it finished its meal, but the position of the cricket’s forelegs reminds me strongly of the classic villain-ingenue poses from pulp novels and movie posters many decades ago. I don’t think I could have planned so dramatic a pose, so yeah, Happy Halloween.

I did eventually leave the wheel bug in peace to finish her meal, but in checking back later on, I found a few strands of web practically over top of the bug, and along some of the other leaves. Apparently, when I had cut the short twig I brought along another resident, a minuscule spider that would appear to be genus Wulfila, perhaps Wulfila albens, a type of sac spider. BugGuide.net’s handy little spider eye chart has been inordinately useful many times over in my search for proper species, though it does require that you have a very clear view of the eyes, which is not always easy to accomplish.

white sac spider, probably Wulfile, perhaps Wulfila albens
Despite the rather menacing appearance in this image, the spider was tiny, able to sit with legs fully spread on a fingernail without overlapping, and would not have posed a hazard even to the tree cricket. I later released both the spider and the wheel bug, though I would have liked to have seen where, if anyplace, the eggs were eventually laid.

harvestman daddy longlegs Opiliones on dead leafLooking out the window the other day, I saw the curious spectacle of a harvestman spinning on a bit of pine bark dangling from a stray web strand – this is mildly notable in that harvestmen do not spin webs nor climb them, so I’m not actually sure how this one got there, and it didn’t seem to know what to do itself. Most people I’ve met seem to refer to these by the marvelously technical-sounding name of “daddy longlegs,” though that same nomenclature is applied to species of crane flies as well – “harvestman” is the more appropriate common name, but like all common names, it’s better to go with the scientific names for accuracy. In this case Opiliones is the overall Order, an arachnid but not a spider – and no, they’re not the most venomous arthropod in North America, they have no venom at all. Urban legends are ridiculously hard to get rid of. According to one source I found, it’s not even clear if they hunt or only scavenge, feeding on insects already dead. My own experience hasn’t contradicted the scavenge idea, and in fact I have photographed them carrying long-dead caterpillars. I have also only seen them feeding at night, so that’s the time to look if you’re interested yourself (what am I saying, “if” – of course you are.)

I went down to Ederia Pond to collect some water samples, spurred on by the Triops failures to see what kind of native aquatic subjects I could find, which so far hasn’t been much (lots and lots of daphnia.) But with the water sample I collected no small number of floating aquatic plants which I’m not going to bother trying to identify, and with those came along a few riders.

With their coloration and diminutive size (roughly a millimeter in length) they were hard to spot, but the plants were quite laden with aphids, dozens collected within a patch of plants perhaps 7 cm across that came into the jar with the water sample. There’s not a lot to be said about aphids, and less to photograph, really, but while I had them in front of me…

aphids aphididae on duckweed
Now, let me correct myself: I know they’re perched on duckweed here, but I choose this image for the clarity, and it does not represent the bulk of the aquatic plants I collected, which you’ll see in the next image – something vaguely fernlike.

Along with the aphids came a weevil of some kind, larger than the largest aphid at a whopping (and confirmed) 1.8mm in length – I just happened to like its appearance. The spherical droplet seen here was actually produced by the weevil, though how and why I cannot say, seeing that it was only visible in the viewfinder because it produced a curious reflection of the light.

unknown weevil Curculionidae with aphid aphididae
Judging from the variety of images that I obtained, the weevil was milking the aphids for their ‘nectar’ the same way that ants do, but I cannot be absolutely sure of that – all I know is that nearly every image has an aphid very close by or actually under the feet of the weevil. I tried identifying this one, but there are a million varieties and the only identifiers I can use – “orange,” “rust,” “tiny” – haven’t turned up anything. Think hard about this if you want to go into arthropod photography: cataloging the little bastards can be seriously time-consuming.

The slow season for insects is almost nigh, which means you won’t see many posts like this for a while (you’re greatly saddened by that, I can tell.) This does mean I’ll be switching to more landscape, abstract, and fartsy stuff, and in fact, there’s another post largely of that nature in the works…

Natural filters

Al Denelsbeck

Backlit forboding clouds
I was aware of the impending partial solar eclipse, and even dug out some materials that might potentially assist in getting images, but failed miserably, on two fronts. The first was, what I had to help cut the glaring light from the sun down a manageable level for photos would only work if the light was already reduced, for instance by thin clouds or late in the day with a heavy dose of atmospheric haze, neither of which came to pass in my area. The second was, I apparently misinterpreted the time that it would appear here, and every time I checked I saw a complete sun. I gotta pick better sources of info…

Jim over at the Kansas branch, however, got conditions much like I had for the transit of Venus a few years ago (another here,) and was able to snag a few images due to the thin clouds that filtered the light a bit. While a proper solar filter is able to produce a more detailed image, there’s something to be said about the mood and tempestuous nature of using the clouds in this manner.

2014 partial solar eclipse from Kansas
The reason these appear more like a lunar eclipse is that the sun, even through the clouds, is magnitudes brighter than the surrounding sky, able to overexpose itself by a ridiculous margin to become a featureless giant blob, should the sky be realistically rendered. So, despite these being taken in late afternoon, the exposure had to be reduced to near-darkness to keep the features of the solar disc.

2014 partial solar eclipse from Kansas
And even then, the light can easily swamp all of those fancy things camera manufacturers do to control unwanted optical effects in the image, and thus at times, glare and internal reflections can still come through. What I’m most curious about is the ‘keyhole’ nature of the glare around the points (what astronomers call “limbs”) of the sun. I would have thought that the glare would be pretty evenly distributed, so I can’t explain why there are distinct anti-crepuscular rays, like reverse spotlights, coming off of those points.

But Jim has a favorite, and I can’t fault his taste because it’s mine too:

2014 partial solar eclipse from Kansas showing sunspots
Yes, those are sunspots appearing towards the center of the sun, since there is some prominent activity* going on right now, and Jim managed to capture it during a cooperative pass of thicker clouds. The same activity is producing nice aurora borealis (and australis) shows at the higher latitudes, something I’m dying to capture someday but also quite reluctant about as well, since I don’t like bitter cold and that’s pretty much what you have to endure to see the best auroral displays. I saw some very restrained effects in central New York a couple of times, but nothing at all impressive; the colorful stuff happens much closer to the arctic and antarctic circles.

I need to point out something else, too. Go back up to the previous image with the glare and internal reflection, and look closely at that reflection – the sunspot is visible there as well, even though it’s blown out overexposed in the sun itself.

Be sure to check out Jim’s pics of the previous eclipse, too. And the lunar eclipse from earlier this year, with a follow-up sequence.

* You see what I did there? Sunspots are regions of intense magnetic activity that frequently result in solar prominences, those big arcs of fire seen in images from NASA, so “prominent activity” has a double meaning. I know you’re impressed even though you’ll never admit it…

Like custard

Al Denelsbeck

Purple flowers don't ask meI have a rather large, mostly speculative post coming soon, one that’s been in the works for a while now and has been something of a bear to finish, for a variety of reasons. But since I’m not going to finish it tonight either, I decided to span the gap with a handful of recent pics. Thus, this is filler, but quality filler, as the title implies. Or at least I think so. Hey, I could be doing some list of the ten most overused internet memes or something, so be grateful.

[I want to be grateless to someone, someday. Hell, I just want to see how one quantifies ‘grate.’]

Once again, there isn’t a lot of exposition that can go along with many of these images, like this one, and I’m not the kind of arteest that resorts to a lot of existential, grandiloquent prose (except right there) to try and make my photos seem deeper than they are. It’s a visual medium, and if the image doesn’t hit you right away in some manner, then no attempt at rescue with linguistic appeals is called for. So, these are some species of flower that I can’t be bothered to look up, still bearing the morning dew, momentarily, because they just emerged from the shade. You’re going to see a lot of flowers, since most of these came from a trip to the botanical gardens. Unfortunately, I tend to forget to search out the identification plates when they exist, and I know better too.

All right, all right, they’re some variety of aster, I think. Another variety is coming up shortly.

cloudless sulphur butterfly Phoebis sennae on cardinal flower Lobelia cardinalisI’m a little more sure about the identity of both the butterfly and the plant in this image: cloudless sulphur buttefly (Phoebis sennae) on cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis.) While I have images that show the appearance of the butterfly much better, I liked this one for the angle and the visible feeding behavior.

I really try to avoid shooting subjects this colorful when the light is bright, because contrast gets hard to manage and subtleties are often lost, but when I have a student, they schedule the day and locale most times, and I just point out how to use the light to best advantage. Thus, this one has actually had the contrast lowered a little for web display, but I would have much preferred a hazy or semi-overcast day for colors of this nature.

high contrast backlit leaf grayscale in red channelSo what can you do with high contrast lighting? Well for one, you can produce some nice effects with backlighting, further enhanced with a minor editing trick. While the original version of this shot was in color, and a lovely brilliant green at that from the sun shining through the leaf, I tried a simple Photoshop trick and deleted the green and blue color channels from the image, leaving just the red, then converted that to grayscale. Since the image had been predominantly green, the red channel provided the greatest contrast range, making the details stand out even further. The same probably could have been done with converting the entire RGB image to grayscale and then tweaking contrast, at least for this image, but sometimes the selective channel thing produces effects which would be hard to duplicate in other manners. Definitely something to try out if you like monochrome images.

I want to point out that the sun produced a lot of the effect too, coming at a semi-oblique angle that threw some starker shadows from relatively gentle curves of the leaf. This is one way that autumn and spring can provide opportunities not always available in the summer, because the sun rides closer to the horizon and comes in more from the side rather than overhead.

hoverfly on asterAnother variety of aster, or perhaps the same one but having bloomed a little later so the centers are still vibrant yellow. Nothing much to say about this – just took advantage of the visiting hoverfly to provide a different point of focus. Had the hoverfly been on the lower blossom and thus in less-direct light, the effect would have been different, likely not as strong – something to consider while chasing pollinators on flowers. Pick a good position with the sun giving the best angle of light, and watch for the subjects that leap out at you because of the way the light plays across them.

Bog Garden artificial waterfallWe leave the botanical garden for a moment (or a single image – however you want to measure the time) to visit a place called the Bog Garden in Greensboro, which I checked out Tuesday while in the city. Interesting place, but we got there at a difficult time, too late after sunrise to have any soft, orange light to work with, but still too soon to prevent it from coming straight into the lens in too many situations, so my opportunities were greatly limited. This is a small man-made torrent within the park, recirculated from the nearby lake by pump, but otherwise pretty natural in appearance (though a geologist could probably spot the anachronisms easily, since I could see a few.) Deep in the forest canopy and having come without a tripod, I was pushing the limits by shooting handheld, and most frames show the effect of motion-blur from the camera shifting ever-so-slightly during the longish exposures, but this one didn’t come out too bad. On other compositions, I got down on the ground alongside the stream and braced the camera on the rocks and my stacked fingers to make a serviceable support, not to mention a more interesting low-angle viewpoint. I think it’s easy to imagine that, had I been shooting from a standing position looking down on this small torrent, it would have had a much less dramatic appearance.

leaf-footed bug and bumblebee on some orange flowerOkay, I tried finding out what flower this is, and had no luck whatsoever. The foreground insect is an Eastern leaf-footed bug (Leptoglossus phyllopus,) but there are too few details visible on the bumblebee to pin it down any further than that. The leaf-footed bug demonstrates why light angle and contrast can make such a difference, because it’s on the fine edge of throwing its own back completely into shadow – meanwhile, some of the flower petals came out with wonderful shaping (bottom center) while others almost lost all detail from the light (right.) So, now that I got you to look carefully at the image, did you notice the fence in the background? Because I always do, and fret about it, but I’m curious to know who else actually catches these, or whether I should stop worrying so much about them.

basking green frog Rana clamitans and tadpole
As the student and I approached this small pond, I vouchsafed that the conditions were right, and other visitors far enough away, that a cautious approach might allow us to spot a resident frog. True enough – we won’t talk about how much luck was actually involved – a green frog (Rana clamitans) was spotted basking in plain sight. As we leaned in for the detail shots, however, we spotted the tadpole posing alongside in a remarkably cooperative manner. I only regret that there was no other angle to work from, the little garden pond liner being blocked on all sides but one, so no other compositions could be managed. I’d much rather do a portrait shot than a top-down view.

Now, bright light usually helps with shooting aquatic and underwater subjects, because it penetrates well – hazy or cloudy skies reduce a lot of the light that can get beneath the surface, but much worse, the broad expanse of sky producing the same light level throughout only serves to reflect from the surface, making it near-impossible to see through it. But even with the nice penetration of clear days, reflections and contrast still play their own roles, especially when the pond denizen is sitting half out of the water like this one, and I reduced contrast on this image too, as well as darkening the exposure slightly, to make the frog a bit more natural-looking.

some purple flower and skipperOne last shot of purple, just to give your monitor a workout. I have no idea what this flower is either, though it’s very pleasant-looking, but the butterfly is some variety of skipper (Hesperiidae,) possibly a clouded skipper (Lerema accius.) It was intent on getting the most out of that blossom, so I was able to shoot a series of images while steadily leaning in closer.

This is, in fact, something that I have to tell my students fairly frequently. The best pics, naturally, are going to come from getting in as close as possible, but this should actually be done in stages, and quite slowly at that. Start farther out and fire off a frame or two where you stand, then start going in closer. At some point, you’re very likely to spook the subject away, and if you haven’t gotten any frames by that point, you’ve lost the opportunity. Also bear in mind that many species respond to more overt visual cues than subtle ones – not surprising I suppose, but it does require a moment to consider what this means. Raising the camera and/or closing in are overt, and doing both together far more likely to provoke a flee reflex. Raise the camera slowly to your eye while farther away, and then you’re making no other motions as you close in except growing in size, which is less likely to spark a response. And don’t check your LCD to see if you got the shot – that’s another unsubtle move.

Now, while doing this, it’s good to already know just where to put your feet, and awareness of your surroundings is a good habit to develop. Is your footing secure, are you going to brush against any other branches which might move, can you work to the side for another angle while in close? And even, and this is a big one, are you going to throw your own shadow across the subject as you close in? This happens very frequently, and requires a bit of experience to know how to position yourself automatically so you won’t do this. But little things like this can greatly improve your chances of getting the shot you want.

The shadows in that image are still a little harsh, especially when the light is failing to reach the interiors of the blossoms. A better light angle would have been ideal, and even hazy skies can scatter some light from other directions and soften the difference between highlights and shadows. I also could have used a reflector to throw some light into the shadowed side, or fired off some fill-flash to illuminate from the camera’s viewpoint – the reflector would likely have scared off the butterfly, but the flash probably wouldn’t have, despite common beliefs. And the more I talk about this, the more annoyed I am that I didn’t make the image better. I think I better stop here…

Too cool, part 26: You’re getting warmer

Al Denelsbeck

Rosetta spacecraft and comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Courtesy Astronomy Picture of the Day
On the Astronomy Picture of the Day site for October 16, we get to see a stunning image (cropped version above) that’s unique in many ways. The Rosetta spacecraft is a probe designed and launched by the European Space Agency (esa) to rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and presently riding just 16 km (10 mi) away from said comet. It has another craft attached, called Philae, which will separate on November 12th to actually land on the surface of the comet. But while still attached, the cameras on Philae were used to get this image of the comet and the solar panels of the Rosetta craft in an excellent composition. 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has a curiously dumbell-shaped body, and is now close enough to the sun that it is starting to generate the jets of vapor that produce the coma and tail, the glowing (actually reflective) haze that we typically imagine comets to have – in truth, they only have this when close enough to the sun for the ice to sublimate into vapor. But seriously, don’t just look at my cropped version up there – go to the source page and click on the image for the much larger version.

A month ago, Rosetta sent back an even more dramatic photo, a wonderfully detailed look at the surface of the comet – click on that one, too, because it’s a wonderfully stark and forbidding image. For years, comets were believed to be “dirty snowballs,” made of mostly ice but with a generous helping of dust, grit, and rocks thrown in. Primarily this was because we could only get a halfway-decent look at them as they got very close, but this meant they were also close to the sun and thus active, spewing out an obscuring haze of vapor. Most meteor showers, however, come from the Earth passing through the orbit of comets and encountering their trail of expelled dust, the solid stuff they left behind on their long elliptical orbits of the sun. Vapor wouldn’t be able to produce meteors, so there had to be at least some solid material, but the extent of the coma and tail led us to believe that there was extensive ice. Recent probes (notably Giotto, Stardust, and Deep Impact) revised this concept, and this image from Rosetta helps confirm it: comets, or at least the ones we’ve managed close examinations of, are far more solid matter than originally theorized.

Will we be able to go out some night and spot comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in the sky? Nope – not without a pretty decent telescope, since it estimated to, at best, only get to around magnitude 11. The limit of our vision in good viewing conditions is magnitude 6 or 7 (the smaller the number, the brighter the object – Sirius, the brightest star, achieves magnitude -1.46.) But that’s okay, because the Rosetta/Philae mission will provide plenty of detailed images – esa’s website on the mission is brimming with info already. And there are always a few comets that become faintly visible each year, though they often take some effort. Heavens-Above.com is a great resource for finding items of interest in the night sky, customized to your own location, and Stellarium is an excellent freeware program as well.

I will likely bring some updates in November as Philae drops down to the comet and tries not to bounce off (this is actually a serious consideration, since the comet measures only 4.5 km, or 2.8 mi, in length and thus has such feeble gravity that the lander will effectively weigh a few grams – it is equipped with augers in the feet to drill into the surface and hang on, and they’re designed so that they don’t push the lander away in the attempt.) Keep watching (this) space…

Scattershots

Al Denelsbeck

grey gray treefrog Hyla versicolor Hyla chrysoscelis in bluebird house
Just a handful of recent images, incorporating both ‘found’ and ‘planned’ photos – nothing deep to be found here. Above and below, a grey treefrog (either Hyla versicolor or Hyla chrysoscelis) was found squatting in one of the bluebird boxes one midday, to my surprise in a position that provided the full view of the autumn sun, now noticeably lower in the sky even at noonish. Though this is at least the third I’ve seen on the property, in my experience treefrogs don’t pick a particular ‘home,’ but will wander around and find shelters of opportunity – they may be seen a few times over in a particular sleeping spot, but have no qualms about switching it for another. In the next couple of days following these images, this one did not return to the bluebird box.

grey gray treefrog Hyla versicolor Hyla chrysoscelis getting out of bluebird box
Which brings up a good place to mention the aftermath of the post about the flying squirrel. The following day, I kept spot checking the box she had chosen for her nest, from a distance, but never saw the faintest signs of activity. Eventually, late at night, I chanced a quick look inside the box, to find that she had abandoned it, taking her choice nesting material with her. I can only guess that all her peeking out during the previous afternoon was her way of determining that this was an unsafe place to raise the kids (still unsure whether they had been born yet or not.) This is often the difficulty with photographing species in the wild, even the semi-urbanized ones: your presence can be noted and considered too much of a threat, and no matter how long a lens you might be using, it can only magnify so much. Though I remained in the yard about 8-10 meters away, often partially hidden on the porch steps, she wasn’t inclined to stick around. Because of this, I wasn’t as motivated to put up the other bluebird boxes right away, and in the interim, one of them got this temporary occupant.

I was about to do some detail images of a triceratops beetle, and gathered some oak leaves to use as a backdrop. Riding along on one was what I believe to be a variable oakleaf caterpillar moth, um, caterpillar (Lochmaeus manteo) – the common name of some species comes from their larval form, so this is the larval (caterpillar) form of a species named the variable oakleaf caterpillar moth. I can’t help but think that they could have made this slightly more logical…

variable oakleaf caterpillar moth Lochmaeus manteo
I hadn’t planned on using the caterpillar as a photo subject, but while it was right in front of me with the lights all set up, I figured, why not? Upon unloading the images, however, I saw a strange detail that made me go back out to try and produce in better detail.

translucent head of variable oakleaf caterpillar moth Lochmaeus manteo
The flash angle was just right it seems, and some portion of the internal anatomy became visible through the head of the caterpillar. Much as it might look like a brain, I have my doubts, since the brains of caterpillars – most arthropods – are exceptionally small, but then again, so is this; the entire caterpillar measured 22mm in body length, and 2.5mm across the width of the head. I have enough images from other angles to show that this really is internal, and not a trick of external shape or coloration, but none of my additional attempts brought out any better detail. The eyes, by the way, are that handful of little domes at lower left.

So, yeah, is anyone wants to tell me what I just got images of, I’d be delighted.

One of my other projects with the new house is putting in a pond – mostly decorative, but of course it will serve double-duty as a habitat for aquatic denizens except mosquitoes. In going out yesterday to evaluate what still needed to be done (a lot,) I discovered a largish wolf spider had gotten trapped within the plastic pond liner, unable to scale the sides. I enlisted The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog’s help with the next two images, finally getting something that I’d tried to do earlier, not quite successfully:

wolf spider Lycosidae on hand for scale
Wolf spiders are very common throughout most of the US, and certainly around here, but very hard to pin down an exact species since it often takes a detailed look at the underside – we’ll stick with the family Lycosidae for now. This one was very reluctant to crawl onto my hand, given any other option, so I accomplished this by giving it none. I’ve seen them at least twice this size, but this was still a respectable specimen to try and overcome my lingering arachnophobia. Credit to The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog – her arachnophobia is much more significant, and she had to get fairly close with the camera for these shots, especially the next one (although this is a tighter crop of the full frame):

wolf spider Lycosidae facial closeup on hand
I feel obligated to point out here that the spider was very well behaved while she sat on my hand – once coerced into climbing aboard, she remained largely motionless for the two minutes we spent getting photos, and was restrained no more than you see here. Spiders really don’t deserve the reputation that they have. So when I point out that you can see her fang resting against my finger, right there underneath the long ‘mustache’ that most spiders have, you can rest assured that this was only casual contact and nothing at all ever came of it.

In contrast, as I type this I am scratching at a couple of large weeping sores on my feet, the aftermath of an encounter with fire ants – it would appear that the red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) can be found in this area now. I wasn’t absolutely sure about this until I caught one biting me the other day and examined its corpse, but the body color and style matches. One bite from these little fuckers, from just walking in their general vicinity in sandals, has done far more damage than every spider encounter I’ve had in my life, combined – yet I’m still not myrmecophobic in any way. And since a phobia is an irrational fear or distaste, it doesn’t really apply to fire ants anyway – they have earned the acrimony.

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