This is one that I’m faintly frustrated at only having captured once. First featured 9 years ago but actually taken 14 years back, it looked to me like a cross between a lacewing and a praying mantis – which is largely what it is. It’s a member of the Mantispidae, or mantisflies, possibly a green mantisfly (Zeugomantispa minuta.) While the praying
Category: Photography
Probably not gonna happen again
Yesterday, I looked out front to find the female red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) actually sitting on the post lamp that illuminates the front walk (well, when it’s dark, and the light is on – the sun handles it most times.) This sits about six meters from the front door. Naturally, she flew off before I could get the camera and try to decide which window would provide the
Just once, part 49
While adding the image for this post, I searched on “northern” within the image title, and only two came up that were not northern water snakes – this one, and the polar vortex on Saturn (not my shot.) Now, if I search in the tags, I get 14 hits on
That makes two. Or is it three?
I was sorting images a few hours back, which often results in finding a few more pics to post, and indeed did moreover, it falls in line with the ‘Just Once’ topic, since it was featured earlier this year.
That’s a yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius,) snagged while out chasing wood ducks the other day, on a tree right alongside the pond –
Wood if I could
So, a presently ongoing saga. A couple of weeks ago I heard an odd call while out on the back deck of Walkabout Estates Plus, overlooking the pond – I didn’t recognize it but thought it seemed familiar. Then, on a hunch, I got out the binoculars and began scanning the area, and confirmed my suspicion: out in a secondary pool some distance off, I could see some wood ducks
Perhaps the last for the year
In crossing the yard the other day, I saw movement in a bare-ish patch of lawn, immediately recognizing it as a ground skink – I pounced, managed (after a couple of tries) to get it into my hand, then had to endeavor not to let it slip between my fingers. But this gave me the chance to do a few studio pics.
Mimicking their natural habitat isn’t hard, since they like leaf
November, your mother and I think you should move out
We’re just a tad late, but not too much, and so we’ll see November out on its own (but always welcome to visit, as long as it’s not overnight) with the month-end abstracts. And this month, we have two (urk!) smutphone examples, because that’s what I had in hand at the times.
Nice textures, but probably not too confusing or mysterious. We were transplanting
Just once, part 48
When first/last I featured this duo, I said that I wasn’t sure where it was taken – the obvious choice was the North Carolina Zoological Park in Asheboro, given how long ago it was taken and the negative film used. Except I didn’t recall ever seeing mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) there. Since that time, I found several more examples in my negative pages,
Further along those lines…
Just a follow-up to yesterday’s post, from early this morning. Because I opened the blinds in the bedroom and found the female red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) standing in the lawn right outside the window, but she noticed the movement and decided it wasn’t kosher, that close and with her down that low. I realized, many years ago while doing wildlife rehabilitation, that
Defying expectations
So yesterday I determined that there were a few shots that I wanted to capture today, and had them scheduled in. The weather, however, had other ideas, and most of the day was rainy, not at all conditions for what I had planned (which, successful or not, I’ll reveal eventually – just not in this post.) Thus I resigned myself to skipping photography for the day and working on other tasks