Mother May I?

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

… post the end of the month abstract?

Waaayyy too much like others, but this is what I got, except for some that have already been posted. Maybe I’ll go create another tonight (this is being written the night before it posts.) Anyway,

large water droplets on ginkgo Ginkgo biloba leaf
Give me credit for picking the right angle, at least. I took several from this vantage, because the depth-of-field was so short and the focal point is pretty crucial. Notice that several of the drops are acting as lenses to show the water drops behind them, and yes, the flash angle was important too. It’s fun to experiment with things like this.

This is a leaf of one of the ginkgo trees, by the way, seen directly from the side. We’ve had a hell of a lot of rain this month.

Intended and appropriate

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Okay, this holiday actually occurred almost a week ago on May 25th, but I’m bringing it up now intentionally, and you’ll understand why in a moment – give or take.

Today (not today) is the birthday of Dumfroot Spaglokkit, known far and wide to photographers as the inventor of the shutter lag. Here’s his story:

In the early days of the field when photographers had to create their own film plates out of dried shellac and chickenshit, and portraiture was rearing its ugly head, Spaglokkit noticed that despite preparing his subjects for the inevitable clicking of the shutter, usually they weren’t actually ready – at least half of the time, the fear of what might occur caused them to blink (these were the days of flash powder, after all,) but there was also the factor that anyone trying to smile pleasantly invariably looks like they’ve discovered a snail in their undergarments. He did observe, however, that once they felt the ordeal was over, their look of relief, while not the targeted warm expression, was at least better than appearing to be holding back flatulence. Spaglokkit reasoned that, if the shutter actually tripped well after it was triggered, the number of keepers would probably double and much expensive chickenshit could be salvaged.

Dumfroot began with squeeze bulbs that tripped the shutter through air pressure, ensuring that flexible long hoses and compression delay introduced an uncertain and unpredictable pause before the shutter actually opened. He also experimented with wound springs, which were quickly adapted to the group portrait task where the photographer wanted to be in the frame. These worked a little too well, in that the variability was quite wide, producing either a shot of the photographers’ backs as they were running to get into position, or the strained confusion on everyone’s face as the timer ground to a near-halt well beyond when it was supposed to before actually triggering the shutter. Nonetheless, these remained in use for decades before being repurposed to calculate the time that a caller would spend on hold before a customer service rep would actually answer.

As films improved and photographers got bored with portraiture, the shutter lag was gradually phased out in favor of split-second timing to capture that precise moment after something cool happened, driving it home that it was all the photographer’s fault and could not be blamed on shutter lag; this is widely believed to be a German innovation. Electronic shutters and circuitry served to almost drive Spaglokkit’s efforts into obscurity – until the advent of digital photography.

This ‘advancement’ brought instant gratification into the hands of amateurs, but it also brought complications. Camera manufacturers realized that instantly producing a snapshot worth keeping, first try, meant their products might last far too long, and so they brought back shutter lag, as well as autofocus wandering and the deceptive pre-flash to fool people, ensuring that a) users would take many more photos trying to get the one that they wanted, wearing down the equipment faster, and b) the promise of ‘improvements’ with a new model a mere six months down the road would improve sales by several hundred percent. The shutter lag was carefully calculated to reduce by fractions with every new model, despite the fact that solid-state circuitry had no discernible delay like mechanical shutters and apertures did. There was a third factor as well, in that a certain number of users, frustrated at the missed shots through the shutter lag, would smash their camera and go purchase a ‘better’ one.

[There was a variable-delay software that was initially used in digital cameras before the ‘calculated reduction’ technique was settled upon; this software was later sold to Microsoft to run their “time remaining” displays for larger tasks, which bear no relation whatsoever to the actual passage of time. This is to produce an unbalanced and insecure state of mind in the user, which can cause them to buy more Microsoft products. Apple, it must be noted, went in the other direction, pricing their products exorbitantly to convince the less-discerning population that they must be more valuable, knowing how few people would actually perform a simple comparison…]

Nonetheless, this gradual reduction in lag time could only last so long, and manufacturers were quickly running out of new models to introduce (though the marketing ploys of both “X zooms” and “megapixels” helped stretch this out a bit.) Spaglokkit’s innovation was once again teetering on the verge of obsolescence when so-called ‘smartphone’ cameras burst on the scene.

The premise behind smartphones is, the more time they spent out of someone’s pocket, the more information they can scarf from their environment and send back to the manufacturer; thus, every task is created to take far longer than necessary, assisted by the introduction of a balky touch-screen interface. Once again, the shutter lag came into play, necessitating at least three photos be taken in order to obtain one keeper, leaving plenty of transmission time for data. Quite often, the phones are transmitting the audio as well, because the frustrated mutterings and curses of the users are hilarious – remember this the next time you take your phone into the bathroom. And the phone manufacturers took a cue from the camera makers, ensuring that their products were more delicate than necessary so that the frustration damage factor keeps replacement models on the market.

Dumfroot Spaglokkit unfortunately died quite young while pursuing his other hobby of skydiving; his idea to adapt his invention to that field wasn’t the brightest that he’d had. So he never comprehended the impact that shutter lag would have on the field of photography, and especially, never received any repayment from photographers themselves, which is probably for the best.

Estate Find XXII

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Got a multi-part one for this week, dedicated solely to mammals, which are woefully underrepresented in my stock. Then again, I could live out in the west and have plenty of bison and such, but few examples of shorebirds and jellyfish, so…

The other evening while out on the edge of the pond, The Girlfriend’s Sprog asked what it was that was moving the tall pond leaves and I, rather dismissively and without taking a close look, suggested that it was probably turtles under the surface. After a moment, she informed me that this was no turtle, and indeed, it wasn’t.

North American beaver Castor canadensis chowing down on leaves of yellow cow lily Nuphar lutea
That’s our friend the North American beaver (Castor canadensis,) or one of at least two and I suspect the male, happily consuming the yellow cow lilies (Nuphar lutea) that overrun the pond, so go for it, dude! This was not only a bit early in the evening to expect to see activity, but quite close to Walkabout Manor and while The Girlfriend’s Sprog and I had been openly conversing nearby. I’ve spotted a lighter-toned individual back on the creek, and that one seems to give the warning tailsmack on the water at the least provocation, while this one appears much more mellow, which is why I’m inclined to believe the lighter one is the female, but that’s all I have to go on.

almost hidden North American beaver Castor canadensis facing towards camera while consuming yellow cow lily Nuphar lutea
‘He’ was out there for no short time, taking down quite a few leaves, and it appears this might be a regular thing because the quantity of those giant leaves seems to be subsiding noticeably. In this pic he’s turned to face us, and you can just make out an eye to the left there.

almost hidden North American beaver Castor canadensis showing foreclaws gripping stalks of yellow cow lily Nuphar lutea
Another view head-on, only this time the eye is hidden but we have a nice glimpse of the foreclaws holding a stalk of the cow lilies – they’re fairly dexterous with them.

Eventually, before the light had fallen too far, the beaver decided to head back home, but it had been out there for fifteen minutes after I’d gotten the camera (going by the timestamps on the photos,) so he wasn’t particularly spooked by our presence, but likely knew he was remaining almost hidden. Now what remains is to see the other out there, or better, their offspring. Still checking routinely.

Two days later, this time in the early afternoon, we looked out back and found a pair of mammals out there eating the corn we throw down for the ducks. For the ducks, guys.

white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus doe looking up from stealing corn
This is, of course, a white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus,) one that’s been making a lot of visits to the yard to scarf as much corn as she can; we can’t say if she’s the parent of the fawn found earlier or not, since we can see no evidence of nursing although we’re not sure how well it shows in the first place. Yet she’s here at least three times a day, so the ducks are definitely getting a reduced diet, despite our best efforts otherwise.

North American raccoon Procyon lotor looking up while also stealing corn
This one, not three meters away, was not expected, at least not in the afternoon; I’ve seen evidence of their visits and occasionally eyes in the headlamp late at night, but never during the day. I think everyone knows the North American raccoon (Procyon lotor,) and this was no small specimen. They both were chowing down together and it appeared all Snow Whitey out there – for a few moments anyway.

white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus doe facing off with North American raccoon Procyon lotor over feeding territory
As the deer wandered a little for more corn, the raccoon disputed this encroachment on its territory, and the two had a little face off. This is a bad position to see from a raccoon, I can tell you from experience, and they don’t fuck around. If you see this flat-headed display, get more than a little distance between you and the raccoon.

The deer, however, was having none of it.

white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus doe lifting leg to rap North American raccoon Procyon lotor in head over feeding territory
She pawed the ground with a forefoot a few times, getting closer to the raccoon as a warning, end eventually rapped the ‘coon smartly on the head with that hoof. I was trying to switch to video and wondering if I could adequately handhold the long lens for decent footage and thus missed capturing the moment of contact, even as I witnessed it. The raccoon, very begrudgingly, backed off only enough to satisfy the doe and resumed eating. It’s also situations like this that tell me I should be knocking down the grasses near the edge of the pond more frequently.

While it might sound like a good idea to be sitting outside with the camera ready on a tripod, hoping to capture all such visits and displays, I’ve done it before and there are long periods of time when not a damn thing happens – or it happens just out of decent view of my vantage. So we’ll stick with this method for now, at least until I can pin down a reasonable schedule of their activities.

Sorting finds n+12

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This past sorting task was overdue and required me to slog through 2,000 images, and the earliest image was still just May 2nd – less than a month. Now you understand why I keep talking about a photo backlog, and these only added to it…

female wood duck Aix spoansa watching photographer carefully from perch behind tree
I can’t recall the exact circumstances for this one, but we’ve noticed that if the wood ducks (Aix sponsa) get suspicious, they’ll occasionally take a perch in the trees on Duck Island to keep an eye on things, which is what this female is doing. The Girlfriend was stunned and delighted to find that ducks can actually perch in trees, or at least wood ducks can. It’s definitely infrequent.

unidentified sweat bee Halictinae dangling from single web strand adhered to midleg
Growing up, we always called these little guys, “sweat bees,” though as I got into arthropod photography I figured this was one of those nonsense colloquialisms – turns out, that’s what they’re called (Subfamily Halictinae, and I’m not going to try and get any closer than that from this photo.) I found this one dangling from a single web strand attached to a spinner on our back porch, no spider in sight, and occasionally it would attempt to fly off and just zoom in circles. Don’t ask me how this occurs.

nearly invisible airliner high overhead betrayed by its contrails
While outside waiting for something to fly over again (I forget what,) I did a focus test on a commercial liner passing high overhead, and liked the effect. The contrail made it clear where the plane was, which is good, because even at high magnification it virtually disappeared in the atmospheric scatter, along with the color matching the sky. Some of those spots are indeed navigation lights, though the nose point I suspect is simply a reflection of the sun.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis sleeping between screen and frame of back door
As much as this one appears squashed, it’s just trying to sleep – the Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) are quite fond of sleeping between the decorative frame of the back door and the screening therein. never realizing that this neither hides them nor conserves their body heat. But the girth of this one leads me to believe that it’s a pregnant female.

And another entry in the “Which one works better?” survey:

unidentified dragonfly backlit against dark background
The one above, or the one below?

unidentified dragonfly backlit against dark background
Same pic, just cropped differently. It was late afternoon and the background trees were already shrouded in shadow, though the sun was backlighting the dragonfly. This version makes it clear that some minuscule insects (or perhaps just dust or pollen) were also cruising through the frame, leaving little star streaks.

That’s a few more down. Getting there…

Another kind of Osprey

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I’m quite fond of rotorcraft, and rarely get to indulge this in any way, though the local airport being used for refueling the regional medevacs helps to some degree, and occasionally we get buzzed. But as we found long before moving here when only visiting the town, said airport also gets used for practice by Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotors, military aircraft likely based out of Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station. To date, the only time I caught this since moving here was at night, and while I cruised over to the airport to see what I could, what I could wasn’t much – mostly, just navigation lights passing with a moderate amount of noise, though at one point I did realize that Osprey have tip-lights on their rotor blades, and faint green circles could be seen escorting the navigation lights through the darkness. These did not unfortunately show up on the videos that I took.

In the past few days, however, the Osprey have returned during the day. Their combination of turboprop engines and heavy rotors lends them a distinctive sound, but we’re semi-shrouded by trees here and I’ve missed a few closer passes because of this. And then the other day, I heard one approaching as I had the camera and long lens handy, and barely caught it as it passed almost directly over the property.

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor passing too close overhead for 600mm focal length
Aside from the fact that I had maybe just under two seconds to focus and frame as it zoomed overhead, this also told me that 600mm was too much magnification if they were going to be this low, though it shows the half-open cargo hatch clearly. And you have to admit, that’s some excellent detail on what is probably the fuel-dump pipe on the tail…

I figured they were probably doing the usual, which was approach and departure practice on our little not-busy airport, so I headed over there to see if I could snag some better views. And I did, to a degree anyway.

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor on approach to local airport, with nacelles rotated back
This is banking around for approach, catching the later afternoon sun at a decent angle. You can see that the engine nacelles are already rolled back though the landing gear hasn’t been deployed yet; this is roughly 60° off of the approach corridor, but likely less than half a kilometer from the runway threshold. Tiltrotors cruise with the rotors rolled all the way forward just like any standard propeller aircraft, but obviously the rotor disk is too big for them to be on the ground this way, so they’re always rolled back towards vertical for takeoff and landing, though not always all the way.

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor climbing out from local airport, seen through chain link fence
After sitting down out of my sight on the taxiway or end of the runway for some time (there are too many hangars blocking that view,) this is the aircraft now climbing out, mostly in hover mode but you can see the nacelles are forward slightly to give more efficient forward thrust. Osprey can maneuver in all directions with the nacelles fully vertical, like any helicopter, but not particularly quickly, and so when climbing out and accelerating, the nacelles roll forward a bit, trading a little lift for speed. Curiously, the flaps, the hinged portions of the trailing edge of the wings, are still deployed – these provide extra lift but also extra drag, and will be used for both landing (slowing the approach speed while still giving extra lift) and takeoff, but generally this is under full thrust; I would have thought that the extra drag at this low of a forward speed would be more of a hindrance, but I don’t fully understand the aerodynamics of a tiltrotor. You’ll also notice that the chain link fence around the active aircraft area also blocks the view, far too much.

A day later they were back at it, and I had enough forewarning to be ready with the long lens as they approached. I have a flight tracker app on my smutphone, but it only tracks military flights about half of the time; we see flights of F-15s cruise over routinely, at 5,000-10,000 feet, and those never appear on the tracker, though the Osprey do sometimes. Still, I caught it as it appeared over the trees.

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor approaching Walkabout Estates in a shallow bank
The nacelles are now fully forward in cruise mode and the angle isn’t right to be approaching for the runway facing more-or-less towards the house, even though they were only a little over two kilometers from that threshold, so I’m guessing they were doing approaches on another runway. They’d have to be a lot further away for a decent head-on shot, but I’ll take this.

I waited them out, and sure enough, they did another pass about twelve minutes later.

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor passing over Walkabout Estates
The noise isn’t as great as you might think – it’s much worse in full hover. Here you can see the faint forward-sweep of the wings (and the flaps fully retracted in both passes) while the cargo hatch is open again; I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an Osprey in flight with the hatch closed, to be honest, and I could say the same for the CH-53 heavy lift helicopters (seen below, from North Topsail Beach in 2017.) Don’t ask me the purpose behind this, but it was a nice enough day that I don’t imagine it was chilly inside.

Sikorsky CH-53 Super Stallion heavy lift helicopter cruising overhead with rear hatch partially open, North Topsail Beach
These, by the way, are noisier that the Osprey – and can haul better than half-again the payload, but they’re over 100 knots slower. Like everything, you pick your tradeoffs.

We go back to the previous day at the airport for the closing image, as the departing Osprey passed directly in front of the sun for a bit of a fartsy shot.

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor climbing out and passing directly in front of sun
Okay, now back to our regular content (notice that I didn’t say, “normal.”)

Briefly at the Park

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The Girlfriend and I did a relatively brief trip to Goose Creek State Park, shit, over a week ago now, where I snagged a small handful of photos – nothing exciting, but an outing nonetheless. The key part, as always when down near the water, is that I was on the lookout for eagles, of which I saw none. (On a latter trip this past weekend, we found what appeared to be eagle nests in two different locations, but neither of which was within an easy drive and I’m aiming for more accessible.) So this is what I have for that trip, anyway.

Only a single osprey (Pandion haliaetus) was in evidence, but that one was circling the same area of the Pamlico River and repeatedly began a stoop towards fish below – it aborted every one as the fish disappeared. I’ve just deleted countless images that were potentially the sequence of the full dive, only to reach no denouement. But some of them still looked pretty dynamic.

osprey Pandion haliaetus backing in air before beginning stoop after fish
Here, the osprey obviously spots something, halting its circling motion into a near-hover, talons extended, before beginning its dive. The talons are a great indication, since osprey at least will immediately drop the talons low if they spot a potential meal – or if they’re disputing territory with another bird (not necessarily another osprey.)

osprey Pandion haliaetus twisting in steep dive
I like this one for the odd pose and that wing, twisting as it realigns for the dive – the top of the head is to the left, while the bird’s back is more towards us, but facing right. This is why I might blow a lot of frames as the action begins, because this pose existed for only a fraction of a second.

osprey Pandion haliaetus in tight perfectly vertical dive, talons extended
Beautifully vertical dive now, wings half-tucked and eye on the target. Not that this helped at all, because the dive was aborted only seconds afterward. One attempt made it all the way down to within a meter or so of the surface, but the fish were either fickle or wary, and I saw no captures this session.

osprey Pandion haliaetus gliding overhead
I have way too many pics like this, but the sky and the pose and the detail worked, so here we have it. Meanwhile, there may be other portions of the park where the osprey are more active (or more lucky) and we just haven’t discovered them yet. Still exploring, still building data.

Now, at multiple times during the outing, some nice-sized fish were actively jumping, though at no point was the osprey there, nor inclined to come zooming over from where it had been. But it was happening frequently enough that I tried to capture a fish out of the water in mid jump. By a large margin, what I got were always a hair too late.

splash from recently jumping fish
I keep telling myself that I should be quicker, since the jump should last long enough for me to trip the shutter, but it all depends on whether I’m aimed in the right direction or not, doesn’t it? And focused for the correct distance; both of these are highly variable. But I did eventually claim success, if not exactly an impressive example:

unidentified fish clearing water during jump
I can’t say what they were, nor exactly how big they were since distances across open water are far too difficult to judge, but they should have provided a decent meal for the osprey at least. I even caught a frame with two of them in the air simultaneously:

two unidentified fish jumping from water simultaneously
This gives a hint of the variability, and the difficulty in knowing where to pre-focus. Years back out at North Topsail Beach, there was a species that always seemed to jump three times in succession, which made it a little easier, and from what little I can see of the body details, these look like they might be the same, but I’m not terribly confident in that, and these were only jumping once.

Up very close to shore, several schools of unidentified fish fry were darting back and forth, occasionally stirring the surface into a momentary froth as they zoomed away from some unseen (or merely perceived) danger.

unidentified tight school of fry in shallows of Pamlico River
I’ve never been good with fish species and these were neonates anyway, so we’re going with “fish.” The schools were very tightly packed, as this implies, but hardly worthy of an osprey’s attention.

school of unidentified fry close to shore in Pamlico River
Any fish people out there? Is this enough to identify them? They were about 50-70mm in length, and as you get a hint of here, their topmost scales would flash brilliantly in the sun, though more electric blue than this shows. The Pamlico River is an estuary, open to the sound within the barrier islands, though many kilometers distant; what this means is that the salinity of the water here varies considerably with season, winds, and rainfall. We caught no hint of ‘salt air’ while there, but then, we have these, which were present in surprisingly large numbers:

unidentified reddish jellyfish in Pamlico River
Near as we could tell, they were all the same species, though in widely variable sizes, from perhaps 15mm up to ones like this, somewhere in the vicinity of 90mm across the bell and better than 150 in tentacle length. I had nothing to collect any of the smaller ones within, so I couldn’t bring a specimen home for detail shots – I did what I could onsite.

unidentified reddish jellyfish in Pamlico River
There hadn’t been any storms recently, and especially not pushing in from the east where the closest ‘ocean’ water is, but who knows how the currents and prevailing winds work in the river and sound? This was right on a public beach access and popular swimming spot, however, and even though there somehow wasn’t another soul to be seen on the beach, we notified a park employee on our way out, who did seem surprised. We haven’t been back since to see if this persists or if it was only a brief thing. Though they might have been a lot more dangerous than I surmised, since a short while later, we saw what appeared to be a sullen teenage Grim Reaper wading ashore:

distant ancient stump resembling tattered grey robes
This is with the 600mm lens, so it was quite a ways offshore. Subsequent close examination revealed it to be merely an ancient tree stump, however:

closer crop of stump
What gets me about this is, this was a long ways offshore, indicating that either it remained very shallow in this portion of the river, or there was a small former island out there.

And finally,

Spotted Sandpiper Actitis macularius and old barnacle-covered snag
This guy made the barest of appearances around the edge of an old snag, before flying over to a more visible spot for the photos. The white line above the eye, pale legs, and dark-tipped bill place this as most likely a spotted sandpiper (Actitis macularius,) especially since they’re quite common throughout the east coast. Identification of sandpipers can be tricky, since they change plumage throughout the year and have no small variability while between these stages, so if I’m wrong, they’re to blame, not me. But check out the barnacles on that snag, which suggest that the water level gets a lot higher than this at times, or at least has for a significant period in the recent past. Which makes that lone stump even more curious, but there we go.

That’s a few more out of the folder, and the sorting is now done, so, progress! While I’m not going to set a personal record (the dumbest kind of record) for number of photos uploaded in a month, this has already beat out everything in the past five years, so I got that going for me, which is nice. Still more to go.

Two staples

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

It’s been a busy couple of days, and so I haven’t cleared any of the backlog while, yes of course, adding to it. So I’ll clear two add-ons and reduce the amount of deficit by a small degree. Seriously, I shouldn’t even be doing this, since I’ve got a shitload of photos to sort too, and will be returning to that once this is posted. Anyway, two from this morning.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis peeking from camellia Theaceae leaves
It’s been raining for two days straight, with only pauses here and there, so activity among the critters is much reduced, but this Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) chose to peek out from the camellia leaves during a lull, only to find me standing there. Just can’t win…

Further off, and the find that made me get the camera out in the first place (this time around, anyway,) were these unidentified lilies with another occupant.

green treefromg Dryophytes cinereus peeking around edge of unidentified lily leaf
Sure, I could have worked around for a better angle, but we’ve seen green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus) dozens, if not hundreds, of times on the blog, so why do we need another full view? But a faint sense of mystery and foreboding, ah, that works better! Now if I could only accomplish that…

XXI extension, with promise

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The Estate Finds are written ahead of time and scheduled to post at 6 AM each Friday – sometimes not too far ahead of time, but they’re certainly not ‘real time’ posts. This past one almost could have been though, as twice during the day Friday I achieved updates on the primary subject.

At midday, I saw something fly into the pond as I was talking to The Girlfriend out back, thinking it was a wood duck until I saw it landing with neck outstretched far beyond what a wood duck could accomplish. The bird disappeared into foliage, but remained where it was while I snagged the camera and long lens, which was enough to bring it out adequately.

green heron Butorides virescens perched in thicket on pond
While I won’t insist this is the same green heron (Butorides virescens) as before, the chances are in favor of that at least, and this shows that it seems to like the pond. Also, that it’s not quite as spooky as many of the same species that I’ve dealt with before. I was being extremely careful not to alarm it, but it really wasn’t paying me much heed, even when it should have been well aware of my presence. I admit I could have done without that little dangling vine/branch right by the eye.

green heron Butorides virescens preening in thicket on pond
It’s got quite a hiding place there, being next to invisible among the leaves and branches – if I hadn’t seen it land, it’s unlikely that I would have spotted it otherwise without some rash move on its part. Meanwhile, it took a few moments to preen.

green heron Butorides virescens at last providing a clear view of its eye
At least now it shifted enough to clear the eye. These frames are all cropped a bit, so the view I had through the viewfinder was much reduced from this and I couldn’t make out those fine branches enough to know when the eye was visible.

Camera autofocus wandering to the background plants for no adequate reason
full-frame representation of viewfinder viewThis is why I hate autofocus, far more often than I think should be warranted. It’s supposed to work on contrast detection within the active AF area, which should clearly have snagged the head and body of the heron, even in silhouette, but for reasons unknown it instead jumped to the background pond plants. At right is approximately what I could see in the viewfinder, with the center AF area indicating that it had locked focus, and it was impossible to tell that it wasn’t actually on the heron itself. This also makes it a little tricky to rely on manual focus as well, since the view is too small to ensure critical sharpness, especially with the very faint ‘pixelation’ of a ground glass focusing screen – I struggle with this all the time with things like moon photos, and I deal with it by taking multiple frames with repeated focus tweaks to try and ensure that at least one of them is bang-on. This is a hell of a lot harder to do with a moving subject of course. Stopping down the aperture to achieve a higher depth-of-field doesn’t work very well at these magnifications, at least not with the Tamron 150-600 – the DOF just doesn’t extend very far regardless.

In late afternoon as the sun was dropping behind the trees, the heron reappeared, squawking suddenly as it left its semi-hidden spot on the pond to come right out in the open, albeit open shade.

green heron Butorides virescens perched on small snag in pond
I was out in the middle of the backyard pursuing another subject which will probably be featured shortly, so I doubt I could have been much more obvious, though still removed from the heron by 15-20 meters – it just didn’t seem to care. That perch is the exact same one used by the turtles in the previous post, and how the heron was even seeing any quarry under that blanket of duckweed, I’ll never know.

green heron Butorides virescens wading deeper into pond on snag
We now get to see that they have much longer necks than it appears. Normally, I think, the herons avoid putting their feet in the water when they can, simply because it might scare the minnows that they’re after, but this one seemed to be;ieve that getting deeper may work better. The stretched neck puts me in mind of people wading into cold water, thinking that standing on tiptoe helps somehow.

green heron Butorides virescens fluffed after attempted dive after minnow
Another bit of evidence that it wasn’t concerned about me, because it shifted position closer to me and the shore. I was looking away and believe I missed its attempt at catching a minnow, since I’ve seen this kind of fluff-and-shuffle after just such an action; that’ll teach me (and yet, I was simultaneously following another subject, so that’s the chance you take, you know?) But sure – if the heron wants to keep popping up this frequently, I’ll be happy to keep shooting. I’d even do something to encourage it to stay and keep hunting here, if I could determine what.

All of these did nothing whatsoever to alleviate the backlog of photos that I have, but at least May should be a significant month for photo uploads. I’m looking forward to the awards I’ll receive for that…

Before the deadline

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Today is World Turtle Day, and I’m prepared, having in fact obtained a few images the day before, because I’ve got it going on. What “it” is and what “going on” means is up for interpretation, and I doubt we’ll be in agreement over those. Regardless, some World Turtles.

The explosion of both foliage in the many trees around the pond and large lily leaves within it took away many of the basking spots that existed all throughout the fall and winter, and so the turtles aren’t seen anywhere near as much. One of the few spots that remain sun-drenched is quite small, a mere fallen branch that barely clears the water, but it regularly receives its share of users, and then some.

five turtles all vying to use the same snag in the pond for basking
That’s five of them in there, though one is only peeking from the water, and none of them are large. From the markings that I can see and the shape of the carapace, I’m going to claim that all of them are yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta,) one of four species that are proven to exist in the pond and easily the most common one. This is with the long lens of course, but it’s still closer than they normally allow me to get; I came up through the wooded area and peeked between some trees to get this. A short while later, I did the side angle from further off:

five yellow-bellied sliders Trachemys scripta scripta covered in duckweed attempting to bask
As you can see, the pond has been taken over by the duckweed quite thickly; it really could stand more flow, but even the creek alongside the property doesn’t flow very well – we’re only a couple meters, if that, above the typical level of the Pamlico River/Sound, so there’s no downhill to work with. And while we have ducks that will indeed take down some of this vegetation, it would take several hundred to make a serious dent in it, I think.

Back on the creek, there’s a large fallen trunk that’s a favorite basking spot of the turtles there, but they’re typically very spooky and drop into the water at the faintest hint of peoplefolk. Yesterday, however, one ignored its brethren and remained in place, even as I approached pretty damn close. I initially thought it might be the one with the bad eye on one side, and it simply couldn’t see me, but subsequent examination of the frames showed that both eyes appeared fine – it just wasn’t that concerned.

very large yellow-bellied slider Trachemys scripta scripta blocking path across trunk
I have occasionally assigned a sort of psychology to behavior among the larger, older examples of turtles, later realizing it was unwarranted as I compared my evaluation of different individuals: I’d both supposed that they were unwary because they were large enough that little could threaten them, and (for other specimens) that they got to be that old by being especially wary and quick to take cover. It’s too easy to build a supposition from little evidence, and even more easy to be dead wrong.

closer profile of yellow-bellied slider Trachemmys scripta scripta on trunk
But I still took advantage of the behavior for some closer portraits, and as you can see, this eye looks fine at least.

There are presently three spots in the yard with known turtle nests, and who knows how many more that I didn’t find or that went a bit further off the property – I’m going to be absolutely paranoid in about two months on, because the newborns will track back to the pond after hatching, right across the yards. This one was found just after closing on the house last year, to give an example of the size.

unidentified newly hatched turtle held in author's hands, taken by The Girlfriend
I said, “just after closing” – we’d been painting for two days straight, and I found it as I was cleaning the brushes and trays, so hush. And don’t ask me what species it is, because a lot of them look alike at this age, though I suspect it’s a painted turtle.

This one is definitely an eastern painted turtle (Chrysemys picta picta,) though:

likely female eastern painted turtle Chrysemys picta picta head-on, found in yard after rain, likely seeking a spot to lay eggs
Found in the yard several days back, not long after a good soaking rain, it was likely out to take advantage of the softer ground to find a nest spot, but it’s been so long since I’ve gotten decent pics of a painted turtle that I did several frames from different perspectives to have the detail shots, and then put her back where I found her. A few minutes later, she was nowhere to be seen, having already made tracks.

profile shot of eastern painted turtle Chrysemys picta picta held in author's hand
So there’s a few examples for the holiday. It’s also Endangered Species Day, but while I considered trying to have something for that, time and opportunity weren’t going to let it happen, to say nothing of how difficult it might be to actually get photos of any of the endangered species that can be found anyplace close – there aren’t many, and I don’t believe I have ever gotten photos of any of them, save for manatees and a couple of crappy images of green sea turtles, taken in Florida. Now, if someone were paying for such images, we’ll see what kind of effort can actually be put into this…

Estate Find XXI

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Credit for this one – at least, part one – goes to The Girlfriend, who was the first to spot and photograph it three days ago, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I was successful myself. I was out specifically to pick an Estate Find, hopefully this one. and wasn’t having a lot of luck – I was on my way back when I caught movement at the pond edge. Visibility was horrendous, and it took a bit of careful sidling to even get the first shots.

green heron Butorides virescens peering past intervening foliage
A green heron (Butorides virescens) naturally, the first for the year and the first on Walkabout Estates – but this needs a qualifier. During the property inspection, I spotted one, not at all surprised because the pond is ideal for them, but it wasn’t ours then. And I’ve been waiting to see when they might return, since it’s about the same time of the year as I was first finding them at the old neighborhood pond – they seem to migrate in rather late, for some reason. I would put this down to breeding elsewhere and then migrating in afterward, except that I had witnessed a few new broods and fledglings at that pond, so it doesn’t seem to be the case.

green heron Butorides virescens semi-obscured by foliage
To say that I was having a hell of a time trying to obtain a clear shot is putting it mildly; while the heron was on the pond edge, I was inland several meters with countless bamboo plants, vines, and whatnot in between, and I would shift sideways to clear some only for more to obscure my view. Meanwhile, the heron is right there and I’m endeavoring not to spook it before I get my portraits.

green heron Butorides virescens tinted green by intervening foliage and reflected light
I was sticking to manual focus, because AF would have simply tried to nail the leaves in-between us; this one is tinted green mostly by shooting past/through too many leaves, but likely also has some help from the fact that everything in the immediate vicinity was green, and this was the light that was getting reflected onto the heron. Meanwhile, it is now suspicious that someone is watching it, and moments after this, it flew a short distance off to another edge of the pond – not far enough, though.

green heron Butorides virescens now out in the open
Even though I was now clear of the damn foliage, this frame was still a bit too green from the duckweed-reflected light, and so I tweaked it back to neutral. In direct sunlight, green herons actually look closer to dark slate blue as their base color, but in shadow (where they tend to hunt,) it appears like shadowed green foliage, and works very well.

Now, this is also an ideal habitat for a nest, so we’ll just have to see what happens. Fingers crossed, offerings made to the minor deities and all that…

Later that afternoon, I got part two. Sitting in Walkabout Studios with the door to the outside open, I heard the derisive call and slipped outside with the long lens, locating my subject surprisingly quickly, but even more surprising was how many frames I managed to get.

juvenile pileated woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus semi-obscured by foliage
Not my day for obscuring foliage, was it? This is full-frame and my initial view, a pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) foraging exuberantly on a dead limb. Again, manual focus was engaged and I started creeping forward, knowing that at any second I’d be spotted and the woodpecker would take flight because while the woodpecker was in deep shadow, I was out in the middle of the sunlit yard. Still, I could improve my vantage.

juvenile pileated woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus barely discernible through leaves
Slightly better, and a hint of the markings, but not good enough.

juvenile pileated woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus mostly silhouetted against sky
Now we have enough of a view for two observations: that this was a female, and that it likely was a juvenile, this year’s brood, determined by the lanky proportions and faintly threadbare appearance along the neck. I also made a mistake that it took me too long to recognize, because while I had dialed in exposure compensation for the bright sky in the background, I was forgetting that the woodpecker was itself in deep shadow, and the compensation should have been twice what I was using (so, 2 stops overexposed instead of the 1 full stop that I’d set.) Silly me, and I tweaked this slightly afterward, but the shadow detail simply hadn’t been captured and so I didn’t try pushing it too far and making it look weird. Yes, I’d thought to try and get to the sunny side of the woodpecker, but that would have required being several meters out into the pond – it wasn’t happening.

juvenile pileated woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus providing pose on dead limb
I also had to once again adjust for the green light, the cypress needles and grape leaves surrounding the woodpecker were what was illuminating the shadowed side. And at this point, the woodpecker is now suspicious of this guy down below.

juvenile pileated woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus eyeballing photographer
Couldn’t pass on featuring this one, even though, with the eyes set on either side of the skull, most birds can be looking directly at you with only one eye while their beak is pointing off to the side – we just assume that this kind of perspective now means that it’s looking right at us. Maybe yes, maybe no, but birds typically don’t need the binocular vision to determine if danger’s present; that’s usually saved for hunting instead, where the depth perception is crucial.

But there you go: one targeted Estate Find, and one happenstance. I can dig it.

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