Wait, we’re one short!


I had said earlier that, after an auspicious start, I thought I could do a post for every day of October, and had intended to post this one yesterday, so the month end abstract would bring us up to the full 31 posts this morning. Alas, the day at work yesterday was horrendous, running quite late, and I was exhausted and actually in pain when I got home late yesterday afternoon, read more

Some more experiments

During an outing yesterday, Buggato asked if I was going to chase any moon shots in the next few nights, and I shrugged and said, “Maybe.” I had some experiments to try, but the past several nights the humidity and haze were affecting things too much.

Going out after 11 PM, however, I saw the moon was showing as deep contrast as I’ve ever seen, evidence of a good clear night, so read more

More luck than normal


It had been a while since I’d spent any time at all at the nearby pond, so the other afternoon I wandered over to see what could be found. Right off the bat, I could see a great egret (Ardea alba) hanging out at the nearest edge, about where the green herons had been hunting earlier. Pausing well back where I wouldn’t spook it, I affixed the long lens and began read more

Herons all the way down

The other morning Buggato and I did a photo outing to the head of the Neuse River in Raleigh, an area called ‘Falls of the Neuse’ even though the falls have been replaced by a dam and spillway now. We hadn’t been down there in a while, and figured this was a decent time, but hadn’t counted on the flow being higher than normal, which prevented wading across to other photo read more

Money well spent


… or at least, so far. I doubt I’ll be regretting it.

The Girlfriend and I take the kayaks out every once in a while, so far only on Jordan Lake (though they’ve been out at both North Topsail Island, NC and Murrell’s Inlet, SC,) and the biggest frustration that I have with this – still admittedly minor – is that I have no decent way of capturing images or video read more

Damn noisy neighbors

… but I can cope with this kind of noise.

A few nights back, not too long after some long overdue rains, The Girlfriend and I went over to the pond to see what sunset was doing, and as the sky darkened… well, the video explains it better.


This was peak activity, but unfortunately the batteries in my video light were almost kaput, so more of the lighting is provided by the headlamp and read more

Big honkin’ bug post


That title’s an homage to a coworker of mine from history back, who described a spider in that manner and sparked a bizarre mental image…

So around Walkabout Studios, as I said earlier, are arranged several egg sacs (“oothecas”) of Chinese mantises (Tenodera sinensis,) specifically so I can photograph them in various life stages, including hatching. Along for the read more

Closer than last year

… or the previous one, for that matter.

I’d mentioned earlier that I’d primed the yard with egg cases of the Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) – seven of them, to be exact – and this morning I found the first of them had produced progeny. Unfortunately, read more

Drawn to scale


I’ve mentioned in two previous posts about a trip to the NC Botanical Gardens, a session The Girlfriend and I did before their closing, and I would have warned you about the closing had I had more than a day’s notice myself. Note that this just applies to the gardens proper the nature trails out back remain open.

Anyway, I was hoping to see at least a Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis,) read more

“You paid money to do this”

I mentioned earlier that there was some potential content coming, and lo and behold, here it is! We had friends visit last weekend, mostly to help us with a major project (which they achieved in exemplary fashion,) but also to kick around a bit, and one of the activities that I’ve been itching to do again since the first time during the read more

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