A new record!

Al Denelsbeck

nineteen turtles sharing the same tiny island to bask
The turtles outdid themselves today, and I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to post another photo. There’s nineteen of them on this little tussock, now known to us as “Turtle Island,” because of course. And there’s even room for more if they’re careful (which they often are not.)

Near as I can tell, these are entirely eastern painted turtles (Chrysemys picta picta) and yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta) – the smoother, smaller, and flatter ones are the painteds.

Don’t believe me (about the count, I mean)? Here’s a version annotated with red dots for the heads:

nineteen basking turtles with their heads marked
While I was getting these frames, there were at least four more on the bank of another tussock island, a couple on various small logs, and at least five large ones that could bask in the shallows near the channel to the bayou portion of the pond. And this says nothing about the ones not yet out of hibernation. We gots a lotta toitles, is what I’m saying.

One of these days I’ll get around to posting the video of them jockeying for position, taken a couple weeks back. Not as many as here, but the competition was amusing.

Estate Find IX

Al Denelsbeck

This week’s find we credit to The Girlfriend, who discovered this little spud right outside the front door, of all places.

likely eastern mud turtle Kinosternon subrubrum in front yard
This is, most likely, an eastern mud turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum,) but truth be told, there is a fair amount of variability in markings that cross over with the striped mud turtle, especially in North Carolina where the striped mud turtle is not striped. Given that, I’m not worried about someone looking at these pics and pronouncing me utterly wrong.

likely eastern mud turtle Kinosternon subrubrum in photographer's hand, front view
This is average size for them, and in fact, I don’t think I’ve seen an adult varying from this by even ten percent – I always liken their appearance to hand grenades. I originally considered this a musk turtle (also colloquially known as a ‘stinkpot’) based on the pungent urine that it produced, which still lingers on my hand as I type this, but there’s a detail that rules this out.

likely eastern mud turtle Kinosternon subrubrum in photographer's hand, plastron view
While I don’t openly encourage handling of wild species, I don’t condemn it as ‘interfering’ or anything, since it’s trivial (especially compared to the hazards that they face routinely,) and in cases such as many turtle species, it’s the only way you’ll determine identifying characteristics. The musk turtle has only one hinge to its plastron, not allowing the legs to be fully protected, so this shows that it’s not that species at least; the head is to the right, but you can see the secondary hinge that closes off the hind legs. It also partially demonstrates that mud turtles are kind of like a cross between box and snapping turtles – handling should be done circumspectly, but that’s true of any species; don’t do it if you don’t know what you might be in for (or are offended by your hands smelling rank.)

likely eastern mud turtle Kinosternon subrubrum barely peeking from shell
The turtle was remaining reclusive, and even when put down, it extended its snout only far enough to see that I was still there. I popped the flash to fill in those shadows a little, but the eye is still not really visible.

So I let it be, while pulling up a lawn chair a short ways off and waiting…

likely eastern mud turtle Kinosternon subrubrum outwaiting the photographer
… for quite some time – over a half-hour, and this is as far as the turtle peeked out, determining that I still lurked nearby. I amused myself with other pics that I could get from my seat, some of which you may have already seen (I work on these posts in odd order sometimes,) which likely didn’t help because I was aiming the long lens in multiple directions and was obviously not just some lawn decoration, so the turtle stayed put. I eventually went indoors to do some other things, but came back out about 20 minutes later to find the turtle gone, though it didn’t take a lot of searching to find it again.

likely eastern mud turtle Kinosternon subrubrum heading out across the yard
It was heading purposefully across the yard, out in the open, but stopping to nose down into the ground litter from time to time, eventually emerging again and moving on to another spot to repeat the performance. I’ve since learned that mud turtles are largely but not entirely aquatic, hibernating on land a very short ways underground, in spots with lots of leaf litter but often with at least a hint of sunlight, so they can feel when the days get warmer. That would appear to be what this one was doing – it was quite a nice day, but it’s not expected to remain that way and the turtle might have been looking for a new hibernation spot, though why it was out now, I can’t say. Curiously, you can see some dried algae adhering to the shell, which if my sources are correct, may have been there since before it entered hibernation last fall.

likely eastern mud turtle Kinosternon subrubrum re-emerging from testing burrows
The yellow-bellied sliders and eastern painted turtles in the pond are active as soon as it gets marginally warm, and will be out basking on sunny days, but the mud turtles would seem to have a more seasonal schedule and possibly shouldn’t have been active yet. So is this an anomaly, or is the schedule not that specific? Don’t know, but it’s this week’s find regardless. And now I have to go wash my hands again…

Go, and sin no more, February

Al Denelsbeck

… and spell your name right.

It’s the end of the month, natch (does anyone say “natch” anymore?) and so we are beholden, through the ancient rituals of this here blogareenie, to feature an abstract image of some kind, far too often a quite poor one. But we’re a little bit better off this month, because we have this:

lossa bright colorful sparkles
I’m not going to tell you what this is – you have to figure it out for yourself. I will say that this is not as-shot, instead edited in GIMP, but a very simple edit. It came out far better than anticipated, with lots more sparkly bits, and who can resist those?

[Only tangentially related, but over two decades ago when working as a ‘stringer’ wedding photographer, I attended a wedding planner event put on by one of the photographers I worked with, a married couple. Right before the doors opened, the wife scattered glitter with abandon all around the studio. I was careful to remain out of the line of fire and didn’t even set my camera bag down on any such adorned surfaces, but that wasn’t sufficient, and I was finding glitter in my bag for years – just the occasional little sparkle from the depths when the light was right, but goddamn, that shit gets everywhere. I’m pretty sure I have that same bag stashed away upstairs, and I bet if I did a careful examination of the nooks and creases, I’d still find some. The sparkles seen above, however, are well and truly gone.]

I’ll be back later on and tell you what this is, if you really need me to.

Couple more

Al Denelsbeck

Just for giggles, since I got an eclectic selection today, some of which are going to appear tomorrow morning.

The day was quite warm, nice spring weather, and the Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) knew it of course.

pair of Carolina anoles Anolis carolinensis hanging out on lamp post
This is the post for the lamp alongside the front walk, which continues to host many anoles both around the base and within, as you can see here – the hole used to be for a ‘hitching post’ crossbar that long since vanished, but the main post is hollow for the electrical wiring so they have a nice place to hide. And don’t ask me what that lump is. I was shooting these while waiting for more developments on the Estate Find front, which you’ll see shortly.

And near the bird feeders.

two-frame gif of likely yellow-rumped warbler Setophaga coronata atop balancing lawn decoration
When I saw how similar these two frames were, I had to make a gif (pronounced, “al-JAF-fee”) from them, but this opened up another 20-minute search to determine for sure what the bird was, because I do that. And I’m still not sure, but I think it’s an immature yellow-rumped warbler (Setophaga coronata) – the color variation is this species is ridiculous. From other photos I know it has the yellow rump, and the white eye ring, but only the faintest hint of other markings that are ‘typical.’ In other words, it could fit within the variations, but I’m not sure other species won’t be a closer match. While calls are one of the most dependable methods of identifying birds, naturally none of them want to audition their song while I’m watching. But who cares? It’s a cocky little bird – leave it at that.

A good sign or bad?

Al Denelsbeck

These photos are absolute crap, and I apologize – they would have been discarded (or indeed, never taken at all) if it weren’t for what they show. But shooting at an oblique angle through double-pane glass will do that, though I had no other options. I consider myself lucky to have witnessed this, as brief as it was, and this was actually the second time – the first occurred when I didn’t have the camera in hand.

A few days back now, The Girlfriend and I noticed that a pair of the wood ducks were quite close to the new nest box, and appeared to be eyeing it speculatively.

pair of wood ducks Aix sponsa underneath nest box on pond
This was some fifty meters distant, and I knew if I ventured outside at all I’d spook them off – there was no place where I could observe without being seen, and wood ducks have damn good eyesight.

But we didn’t have to wait long.

female wood duck Aix sponsa launching herself towards nest box while male watches
Without further preamble, the female launched herself at the opening, and I was ready.

female wood duck Aix sponsa reaching mouth of nest box
While the first image is a few seconds before the rest, the remaining five were all on the three-frames-per-second rate of the 7D, taking place over less than two seconds (the 7D has a high-speed, eight FPS mode but I rarely use it and if I’d thought to switch it here, i might never have gotten the action.)

female wood duck Aix sponsa hovering momentarily outside opening of nest box
Both times that I witnessed this it was the same: the female did not enter the box but hesitated at the opening for the barest moment, just enough to see inside and nothing more. The first time, I thought she might have had trouble gaining a purchase, though wood ducks have sharp toenails on their webbed feet for exactly this reason, and the nest box was built to specifications.

female wood duck Aix sponsa turning away from nest box after momentary inspection
According to the lore, wood ducks often take over abandoned nest cavities of woodpeckers, presumably the larger ones like the pileated since the openings of the others are likely too small, so perhaps they routinely do a quick check to ensure that the spot is unoccupied. My preparation for the cavity was only to put in a bed of Spanish moss, since I figured they’d like that better than the suggested wood chips, and there’s plenty of it around.

female wood duck Aix sponsa splashing down next to male after checking out nest box
And like before, after this ever-so-brief inspection, the two moved on without further concern. So now of course I’m wondering: Did it not pass muster? Is this typical, and they’ll be back? We have not, to appearances, entered mating season for the wood ducks, though I can’t be sure about that since they’ve been routinely paired since we first started seeing them. The mating season for the mallards seemed pretty obvious, though brief, and since that time it looks like only a single pair has been visiting (though they recognize when we’re putting out food and draw closer with only token discretion.) This is our first time observing wood ducks so we’re out of our element, and can only continue to observe and see what happens. But we’re remaining optimistic.

Not his best side

Al Denelsbeck

It’s been a couple of weeks now since I got these shots, having set them aside for a writeup, and I’m finally getting to it now. Don’t judge. Or judge all you want, because I’m not paying attention anyway.

While alongside the creek that forms the east edge of the property, I noticed a large yellow-bellied slider (Trachemys scripta scripta) drifting in the water, and notably, not diving at my approach. I took the opportunity to fire off a few frames of course.

yellow-bellied slider Trachemys scripta scripta floating on creek surface
Despite the fact that it was turned in my direction and I was creeping closer, unable to do so silently with all the ground clutter, the turtle remained resolutely in place. I passed the point where it should have been completely aware of my presence, and still it remained, floating placidly. This was too suspicious, and I made it a point to examine the photos closely once I had unloaded the card. Here’s a closer crop of this same frame:

yellow-bellied slider Trachemys scripta scripta closeup showing damaged eye
Yep, the turtle was at least sight-impaired on that side, but likely completely blind there – I can’t vouch for the other side because it never turned that way.

Curiously, the blind spot on half of its field of view did not prompt the turtle to try and compensate by turning its head; it apparently lacked the reasoning ability to piece this together. Moreover, the noise of my approach, coming quite close, was also not enough to spark its flight response, even though I would have thought they’d at least work together. So while it appeared suspicious of the noise and was indeed oriented towards it, because it did not see any danger, it was not convinced that danger was actually present.

There are plenty of turtles in our pond, and there’s no question that they’re sight-oriented: we don’t have to be very close at all before they abandon their basking spots for the safety of the water. I would have though that their hearing was a significant factor in this too, but now that I’m thinking about it, it doesn’t seem to be – it only tells them where to look for danger. Yet, they also have very specific things that they’re watching for too, since I’ve observed them basking on logs as the ducks passed within a meter and not caring in the slightest. Today I had the kayak out on the pond for the first time (properly, anyway,) and while the sliders all abandoned their basking spots, one little turtle on a small branch allowed the kayak to get within two meters before it decided that this might be a hazard and went for the water. Whether this was because it was also unable to see the kayak, I cannot say, because I wasn’t close enough to see it in detail, but I’ve previously approached a turtle from the water level (snorkeling) and it was quite unconcerned until I got very close, so perhaps it also depends on circumstances? Water residents = probably okay? I’ll have to do more observations.

Sorting finds n+11

Al Denelsbeck

I’d put off this sort a little too long, especially since I’m getting new pics pretty much daily, so I had to slog through over 1,700 images this time – it took a while. But naturally, I ran across a few to feature that I hadn’t immediately put to a blog post, and here we are.

unidentified sparrow in profile
This… is a sparrow. I think. What species of sparrow, I cannot say – see previous sentence. The problem is, I’m not too familiar with the little songbirds, and plumage varies with season and location, and this is an odd angle anyway, but if I had to bet, I’d simply say song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) because they’re quite common. We’re not here for that, so stay focused; we’re here for the lovely detail in the feathers, which is faintly annoying. It’s annoying because I just got through discarding a hell of a lot of wood duck photos because focus wasn’t tight enough, and I have this from a casual shot one day. Of a sparrow. I think. This is a tight crop at almost full-resolution, so focus was on for this one. Figures.

male and female mallards Anas platyrhynchos foraging in backyard pond
The light and the focus were working for this pair of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos,) foraging in the backyard pond. Considering the shooting angle, I was fairly close to these two (even though this is a tighter crop,) and so it might actually be the pair that is getting habituated to us fairly quickly, having taken their cue from the Canada geese – two pairs of geese and one pair of mallards now come up to the banks, and sometimes much closer, when they hear us out there with the cup of corn. It’s quite entertaining.

male wood duck Aix sponsa and female mallard Anas platyrhynchos swimming together in backyard pond
One of the sharper wood duck photos that I have, which is an accomplishment because they still maintain their distance assiduously. The male is in the back, the female in front – except that’s not a female wood duck, but a mallard instead; compare the schnozzes. No hanky-panky going on to my knowledge – they just hang out together semi-frequently, and the ‘spouses’ of both were sitting just outside the frame. Of course we have an annoying weed cutting across the frame, but that’s partially my fault because I haven’t gone out and whacked down the stuff around the edges of the pond. Compared to how it was late this past summer, though, this is superb visibility, and I’ll have my work cut out for me to maintain clear views to the water’s edge this spring. Donations of weed trimmer cord are greatly appreciated.

And finally,

pond ice suspended from overhanging tree branches after they straightened back up
I initially saw this from a significant distance across the pond and wondered what the hell it was, because it hadn’t been there a couple days earlier, and it seemed too big (a half meter or more) to have been blown in with the wind or something. Eventually I determined that it was ice from the surface of the pond. The freezing rain storm had overloaded many smaller trees and caused them to dip quite low, and the subsequent freeze caught these branches in the ice atop the pond. As the thaw was occurring, the branches were no longer so burdened and straightened back up, in a few cases carrying with them some sheets of ice from the surface. It was quite bizarre and we probably won’t have the conditions to repeat it too often.

As I’ve said, I’ve been shooting frequently, so more will be along anon. Patience.

Estate Find VIII-ish

Al Denelsbeck

Just a couple of additions from early this morning – the Estate Find posts are written a day or two beforehand so I can keep to my schedule, but this morning had good conditions so I extended it a bit.

I woke up a little before sunrise, when I really should be waking up but I’m usually up too late the night before (or earlier that same morning,) so it often doesn’t happen. But I looked out at the clear sky and knew I had to do something, and as the sun began climbing from beneath the horizon, the first opportunity presented itself.

ice-covered bare American sweetgum Liquidambar styraciflua tree catching the first orange rays of the rising sun
As much as this looks like something from the early spring, this is the sun just catching the ice-covered top branches of an American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua,) and I realize as I insert this that it’s “LiquidambAr” and not “LiquidambEr” as I’ve probably typed it before, so ignore all the previous incorrect renderings of the scientific name. The sunlight was only this orange for a few minutes and went through yellow to white pretty quickly. I did a bunch of upper-branch photos as it progressed, and even tried to frame the half (“third-quarter”) moon in with the glittering ice, but the sun angle wasn’t optimal to produce that and all I got were a couple of faint sparkles. But as I was getting breakfast, a thought occurred to me before I’d gotten too far, and staged a simple photo:

backlit hot mug of tea steaming on snow-covered surface
The breeze, which didn’t even feel present, was just a hair too strong most of the time and the steam from my tea was laying out almost horizontally, but I was ready when it shifted. Came out well for a spur of the moment composition.

The one I really like, however, is this one:

ice-covered Japanese maple catching the morning sun from behind with multi-colored sunbursts
This is only a tight crop of a larger frame, with no other editing – the colors really were like this. You just have to find the right angle, and shoot at a small aperture to get the starbursts, of course. This’ll be a print soon.

Estate Find VIII

Al Denelsbeck

back yard with Japanese maple coated in ice
Another winter storm rolled in this week, but less severe than predicted – what we ended up getting was sleet and freezing rain, enough to coat everything but not much more than that. Not long after sunrise the sun had broken through the clouds, but soon afterward the sky became solid overcast and remained that way until just before sundown – I had gotten out before that occurred and snagged a few frames, so those are our Estate Finds this week.

ice-covered branches of Japanese maple against blue sky
The conditions, save for the sun, remained the entire day since it barely peeked above freezing, and walking around outside could not be done stealthily at all, since the grass was covered with a thin layer of frozen beads, the sleet that had then frozen together under the freezing rain, and it was downright noisy to walk around, but not slippery.

pink camellia Theaceae blossom under coating of ice
The pink camellia (Theaceae) bushes out back were not quite up to the task, and the tops bent nearly double under the weight of the ice, which produced a curious effect.

ice-coated leaves of camellia Theaceae bent over from the weight, with icicles extending horizontally
No, the frame is not flopped – this was exactly as the branches appeared, overburdened with ice; the pink variety does not seem to have sturdy branches. The trunk of a tree out on a small island in the pond did worse, though, snapping sometime after the storm, though it was already leaning way out with poor balance and appeared to have some rotten sections anyway. But the other varieties of camellia were holding up fine.

variegated blossom of camellia Theaceae peeking out from under icicles
Yes, almost exactly the same spot as previously, though not the same blossom – they only last a couple of days. The white varieties started blooming recently and they’re holding up well too, though somehow they only had half as much ice even though they were only a handful of meters from the others. Go figure.

balancing yard decoration with significant icicles
As you can see, the grass wasn’t even fully covered – not a lot of precipitation, and presumably the air got warmer in the higher altitudes to permit the sleet to turn to rain, but it was too cold down at the surface. Made for some nice decorations, anyway.

samara of Japanese maple tree under coating of ice against sun
We return to the Japanese maple for the last two shots, because it was the most photogenic as well as being backlit by the sun. This was not one of the many that we brought with us in the move, but one that was already present on the property, a lovely twisted old thing. Looking forward to seeing it leaf out in the spring.

And finally,

closeup of ice-covered branches of Japanese maple with sunbursts and refractive ghosts
This is a tighter crop of a larger frame to concentrate on those details, because of course. We get ice storms only every five years or so, often without nice sunlight afterward, so I was glad to have the opportunity. And two decent storms in a winter is pretty rare for this latitude, so you bet I’d take advantage of it. Neither of us had to be anywhere and we could just stay home and keep the fire going, so it worked for us.

‘Bout time, you putz

Al Denelsbeck

I’m talking about me in the title, since I finally got around to a task which I’ve had planned – well, mostly – for weeks. I have to credit this to the holiday, celebrated the 3rd Tuesday in February after an election year where you realize far too many of your fellow citizens are utter fucking morons, which is If It Goes Another Day You’re A Worthless Excuse For An Amateur Naturalist, or IIGADYAWEFAAN for short (I shouldn’t have to tell you how to pronounce that.) Prompted by this holiday, which seems inexplicably targeted towards me somehow, I dragged The Girlfriend out to the edge of the pond and finally got the wood duck nest box hung.

author standing in kayak attaching wood duck nest box to tree overhanging pond
Now, a word in my defense: I had actually tackled this better than a week ago, but that attempt didn’t work out, and I had to consider a new approach. Said attempt involved a stout pipe with a flange at the top, which had originally sported a bird feeder, but I figured that it would support the nest box on top just ducky fine. I wanted it out over water, but there was a spot I could reach it from shore and hammer it in; with the third swing of the sledgehammer, however, the flange shattered and departed in two different directions, and after a couple more swings, I could see the threaded end of the pipe mushrooming under the impacts. That meant that I couldn’t replace the flange on top, and would have to attach the box to the side of the pole instead, yet the pole was already sinking too far into the mud – the box would barely be off the water. This caused me to regroup.

It does not help that we already know the bottom is quite soft and downright treacherous, meaning a pole would have to go very deep but also that standing in the water would probably place me too low to actually hammer the damn thing in. I opted to hang it from a tree instead – not ideal, but the wood ducks are active in the pond and time’s a-wastin’; they’re going to want to nest soon.

My first alternative was to shinny out on the target limb and hang the box while draped across it, but I realized that not only would I have no way of stabilizing myself out over the water, I would have no way of holding up the nest box while I tightened the cable clamps. The next idea was to lay the ladder out from shore to the limb while The Girlfriend held the box up from a kayak underneath, but as I was going out, I could see the limb dipping a bit too much under my weight and realized that it might not actually hold it. So we fell back onto Option Three, which was to lay one end of the ladder onshore while the other end was supported with the kayak, making a scaffold out over the water. This proved to be effective enough.

author standing in kayak posing next to newly-hung wood duck nest box
Yes, I’m standing up in a kayak here, but it’s stabilized with the ladder and barely moved at all. And, not only were the ladder and the kayak both linked to shore with ropes, the socket wrench in my pocket was linked to my belt with a cord; nothing was going to get lost in the water.

wood duck nest box suspended over pond
This really couldn’t have waited any longer. The wood ducks are now actively foraging in the backyard, probably because we’re routinely feeding the Canada geese and mallards there, while the mallards have clearly entered breeding season. Not to mention that there’s another major winter storm due in tomorrow night, which is amusing in itself – you can see I was out today without even a jacket, and the anoles were scampering around. Sheesh.

view of suspended wood duck nest box from opposite shore of pond
This is the view of the nest box from several windows of the house, including my office, while the view from the deck is slightly obscured by a branch; if you go back to the first photo, you can see Stately Walkabout Manor in the background – from that end of the house to the kayak’s position is about 50 meters. We’ve seen the wood ducks up at this end, so here’s hoping that they take the bait, as it were.

But, there was something else that prompted today’s activities, too.

cluster of male and female wood ducks Aix sponsa foraging for corn in back yard
The images are crappy because the morning (two days back) was overcast and I had to shoot through double-pane glass out the back window, but a whole flock of wood ducks (Aix sponsa) had come onto shore right out in the back yard to feed on the corn that we’d distributed; we had to remain indoors because they’re still far too spooky to be around when people are outside. Yet they were quite excited to find the corn.

collection of male and female wood ducks Aix sponsa foraging for corn in back yard
The terrible photographic method was enough to make me find another avenue, which was exploited the following morning, yesterday now:

The view is due east, straight into the morning sun, so not ideal but nothing can be done about it anyway. However, the bathroom window gives a higher perspective and doesn’t spook the ducks, so it works well – all we have to worry about is guests wondering why there’s a tripod in the bathroom.

Speaking of that, I’m still working towards a more viable means of stabilizing the camera for video with a long lens – within the budget of course. Things should improve soon.

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