Estate Find XXXIII: The secret is corn

Al Denelsbeck

Last week’s Find was still fresh on the, um, server memory thingy, whatever, when I got the first clips of this week’s. A few days later I was able to add to the stock, so we have a couple of days worth of observations, which also added in the number of other species appearing. So without further ado:

Now, this was not a total surprise, because we’d been down at the neighbor’s house late last year, one that lives further down The Bayou, actually just past where our portion ends, and had seen one then; just like this time, I had mistaken it for a beaver (only because I hadn’t seen the tail yet,) until the neighbor corrected me, but then never saw any sign of one again until now. I was a little surprised to find that they were this far inland, since my experience had only been with one on the Outer Banks, but here we are. And the beavers do actually come into the pond, or at least did for a while, decimating the yellow cow lilies as they did so, but those are growing back so it appears they’re not visiting much anymore.

The nutria seem pretty mellow about sharing their territory (well, except for the green heron,) but how are they with beavers, or beavers with them? Don’t know yet. The wood ducks also seem fine, though they didn’t show when I had the video camera going.

Most places you will find in the US, nutria are considered an invasive pest, and they can do a lot of damage, as well as carrying several zoonotic diseases that can transmit to humans. They were imported from South America for the fur trade and got established after escaping or being released upon the collapse of that trade, many decades ago. We apparently don’t have the same level of predators (or health hazards) here as in South America to keep their numbers in check, so the byword in many areas is, “Shoot on sight.” As far as The Girlfriend and I are concerned, they can stay here since there’s little they can damage, but we’ll see if their numbers start increasing significantly.

At least one has made an appearance every day this week, at different times, and I thought I’d seen a smaller one as well, but have not confirmed that yet. As for their lodge/burrow, no idea where that might be yet either, but I’ll keep an eye out.

But this time, I did the voiceover in the afternoon so the Copes grey treefrogs did not have a chance to contribute. Now all I have to do is work on dead air…

Visibly different, part 55

Al Denelsbeck

Sure, this was the weekly topic three years ago, but who says it can’t be resurrected?

I mentioned a few days ago that I could illustrate something better, and now I’m keeping my promise. We’ll start with an image from several years back, with new annotations.

waxing crescent moon with craters marked
With the light angle of approaching 1st quarter, waxing crescent now, Theophilus crater stands out quite clearly as it reaches its own personal sunrise, and Langrenus has the barest hint of shadow from one wall. We now compare this to the image that I uploaded earlier, again with annotations.

just past full 2nd quarter moon with craters marked
It’s rotated, but that’s what the moon does as it traverses our sky – or more specifically, our viewing angle rotates as the Earth does. But now you can see that Langrenus is slightly more distinct, but Theophilus virtually disappears, only visible as a faint circle with a dot in it. This shows how the full moon loses so much detail, texture, and shaping, since the direct light disguises most of the surface irregularities that the lower light angles of other phases will enhance.

Maybe one of these days I’ll see if I have enough moon pics to do a full animation of the phases tracking across. It’ll be a royal pain in the ass due to the different angles, just like this, and the different colors from atmospheric effects, but it’s sure to garner recognition and acclaim, right?

It’s a start

Al Denelsbeck

The other evening I was out, for some reason without the camera, and witnessed something that I knew was going on from time to time, but usually too far off to do anything useful about. I debated about specifically trying for some pics, which would require a nighttime stakeout, but never got beyond the contemplation stage.

Then tonight, I lucked out a bit.

mother North American raccoon Procyon lotor with two of her progeny
North American raccoons (Procyon lotor) of course, a mother in the middle with two of her four progeny, who are getting quite big now. What I’d found the other night is that, as long as I didn’t make any distinctly human sounds and kept the headlamp on them (and avoided silhouetting myself against a light behind me,) I could approach reasonably close. ‘Reasonably close’ is like a minimum of eight meters – this is at 135mm and cropped a little – because raccoons can be quite convincing when they want someone to leave. I had been shooting macro and saw the eyes reflecting the headlamp, so I carefully removed the softbox, changed settings on the camera to something more appropriate, and quietly walked closer. Mom suspected something was up and moved into the middle of her young’uns, occasionally standing on her hind legs to see better, but they never panicked or got aggressive. The flash didn’t seem to faze them either, since this is one of six frames that I fired off. I knew that the moment I turned around and shone the light on something behind me, showing the outline of me standing there, they’d be off like a shot.

I might at some point try video, but I’d have to set up the tripod and spotlight them pretty seriously, which may or may not work, and they don’t seem to appear on any particular schedule. We’ll see what happens.

The Magic Bucket doesn’t differentiate

Al Denelsbeck

The other night I checked out the waste can outside the door to Walkabout Studios, otherwise known as the Magic Bucket of Variety (the can, not the studios,) to find that it had snagged yet another capture. This one was a small-ish wolf spider (Genus Lycosidae) and I noticed as I tipped it out that it looked a little odd. A closer inspection told me why, and once again I got the camera in hand.

female wolf spider Lycosidae with two newborns on her abdomen
This is pretty small, overall length in leg spread less than 30mm, so the fuzzy bits on her abdomen took fairly high magnification to see clearly, in this case the reversed Mamiya 45mm. Yes, they’re her newborns, just two of them, though a closer inspection of the can told me that a lot more of them were scattered around within, so I left it upside-down in the yard and set the few items of trash that had been within alongside it, so they could all escape. The image above is full-frame, though what we find when we crop in close is much better.

closeup crop of two newborn wolf spiders Lycosidae on their mother's abdomen showing prominent anterior median eyes
Awwwwww! Lookit those huge eyes! They’re like real-life Lucas the Spider!

The credit for this goes to the big round custom softbox, and by chance getting the right angle to reflect from the eyes so distinctly. Most times, the young riding their mother are so thick and oriented for protection, so you mostly see the abdomens and nothing else, but that’s hard to do with just two siblings.

Still, the Magic Bucket was almost responsible for starving an entire family, so I still need to keep checking it routinely. I suppose I could just use a lidded version, but then what would I do for new content?

LATE BREAKING NEWS: I set this aside to post a little later on today, and checked the Magic Bucket in passing:

unidentified crayfish caught in bottom of outdoor waste basket, again
Yes, another crayfish. I mean, what the hell, man?

Feisty one, too.

unidentified crayfish ready to throw down
Earlier, I thought that perhaps critters were getting caught in the corner between the house and the latticework that sits above the Magic Bucket (see here,) crawling through the lattice and dropping into the can. However, I had a couple of lightweight items sitting on the ledge that runs beside the steps and these had been knocked over, so there’s evidence that this one crawled all the way along that ledge. Still can’t answer why, and I haven’t seen it happen, so it remains a mystery.

Some other night

Al Denelsbeck

I don’t know, I think this was three nights ago, I just didn’t post it then. But while doing something else in the yard, I went past a dog fennel plant that was starting to get a little tall and found this:

pair of newborn Carolina anoles Anolis carolinensis snoozing on small dog fennel Eupatorium capillifolium plant
Now, “a little tall” is relative to the surrounding grasses, which weren’t topping 20cm, but this was a bit less than a meter in height, and far from what dog fennel can accomplish at full growth. Not at all like the trees that most of their brethren were using to sleep upon, and the top curling over is from the negligible weight of the anole.

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis sleeping precariously on small dog fennel Eupatorium capillifolium plant
As much as it looks like an action pose here, the anole was motionless and quite secure in its sleeping position. These are both newborns, because it’s that season, and they seem to be sprouting up all over the damn place.

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis sleeping vertically on small dog fennel Eupatorium capillifolium plant
As you can see, this one was aware of my presence (or at least the bright light of the headlamp,) but did not otherwise react. Had a stiff breeze come up, they would have been going for quite a ride since dog fennel isn’t particularly sturdy, but I think they adjust to this fairly well – I know I’ve disturbed the branches that others have been on before and gotten only a slight shifting in readiness.

The next night only one was on this plant, and last night none at all – you might credit this to predation but it was likely only picking a spot close to where they’d been hunting during the day, and I don’t imagine the dog fennel was big enough to provide much in the way of food choices. Though over ten years ago, they served as the setting for a lot of images, mostly lady beetles.

I’m selfish

Al Denelsbeck

I’ve been having reminders popping up from my calendar that the Perseids meteor shower is peaking within the next few days, and various sites that I’ve visited have been promoting it as one of the best showers of the year, insofar as number and display. But I’ve been neglecting posting about it for two reasons, the first being very self-centered: the skies have been overcast or semi-overcast for days (which has brought a much-needed respite from the heat,) and so visibility was zilcho. But that’s here, and maybe not where you are, should you actually exist and are not simply a figment of my imagination, which again is self-centered.

The other reason, however, is that the moon has just passed full and visibility, no matter what the atmospheric conditions, is going to be seriously affected by that, limiting the number of dimmer meteors that can be seen. Now, the radiant of the Perseids is right near the constellation Perseus, imagine that, which is to the northeast (if you’re in the northern hemisphere anyway,) so facing away from the moon – this helps a little. Except, the radiant isn’t the best guide to where to see the meteors – it’s simply that, on average, they seem to orient as if they were coming from there, though they can appear anyplace across the sky and don’t always adhere to this rule anyway. So my advice is, aim were you have the darkest skies, because the meteors are virtually guaranteed to appear most spectacularly exactly where you’re not aiming anyway.

Earlier this evening I was out, glanced up, and the moon was shrouded in scattered thin clouds which were illuminated by it, brightening the entire sky. So I went out a little later just to illustrate this to you (me,) and the clouds had cleared, except for the faintest haze. So I shot the moon anyway.

section of 2nd quarter full moon showing advancement of shadow as phase wanes
As I always say in every moon post I think, the full moon is boring, little more than a circular painting of greys, but any other phase shows more detail and character. So here I’ve selected the side that’s beginning to drop into shadow again, at full resolution, allowing you to see how the detail and texture and three-dimensionality are beginning to show. I’m actually going to be back later on to illustrate this better, I just don’t feel like typing it all up right now.

So if you’re inclined, so see the Perseids. You’re bound to do better than I, even if you’re imaginary – my luck with meteor showers is that bad.

Estate Find XXXII: Always have fresh batteries

Al Denelsbeck

While occasional Estate Finds are kind of lackluster, others serve as the first time that I’ve witnessed something cool, and this is one of those – though be warned, it’s also graphic and features nothing but snakes.

red-bellied water snake Nerodia erythrogaster and eastern kingsnake Lampropeltis getula a lot closer than they should be
Yes, both of these species have been featured before – but not like this (geez that sounds like clickbait.) Doing some tasks out in the back yard got sidetracked for quite some time when I heard a commotion, and luckily the batteries in the camera were fresh because it was time for video, and a lot of it. The clip is long (24 minutes,) and bear in mind that I cut an awful lot out. Part of me thinks that I’d be doing a disservice to aspiring wildlife photographers by featuring only two minutes of highlights with no indication of how long such things take, and part of me sends a hearty, “Fuck your dismal attention span,” to social-media gluttons who think a thirty-second video is ideal.

The subtitle refers to spending an inordinate amount of time to capture interesting behavior, which is what it takes often enough; the first example was here, though this one counts too. I ended up with 80 minutes of video clips, a lot of them just waiting at the ready should something really start to happen. And I was also remarkably lucky in that conditions were pretty conducive to getting clear shots without great discomfort or lots of shenanigans; at one point I was regretting not having switched to a longer lens on a tripod where I could maintain a more discreet distance, but eventually realized how much I likely would have missed with the limitations of such a setup (the lower angle allowing leaves to obscure more, for instance.) It worked out pretty well.

I was suspecting that I’d handled both of these specimens before, here and here, but I’m pretty certain that the red-bellied water snake is actually another, since it lacks the truncated tail tip that can be seen in those linked photos. And since there are at least two kingsnakes visiting, I won’t bet heavily on the other either, though it was the right size.

While getting all of this together, which took hours of editing and prep, I learned how to do subtitles, but also discovered that the timestamps on the video files (in UTC times for reasons unknown even when the camera displays otherwise,) are when the file is written, not when the recording starts. Technically I should have been subtracting the length of the video from the timestamp, but maybe next time. However, this time I tried out something that I’d been meaning to, which was adding a second video monitor and switching the project preview window over to that, so I could see details of the clips larger than a smutphone display as I was working on them. This helped tremendously, despite the hit to my desk space (meaning I’ll only be doing it for video editing.). The preview window is the one at top right in the image below, now able to be seen full-screen.

screen capture of Kdenlive program
Overall, though, one hell of a show, and I don’t regret the time spent.

Just because, part 56

Al Denelsbeck

Heard the distinctive calls of the Mississippi kite (Ictinia mississippiensis) while working at my desk, which is somewhat unusual – I’m never at my desk they don’t call very often, usually wheeling overhead silently. So I went out with the long lens and eventually snagged a nice shot of one perched in a tree nearby.

Mississippi kite Ictinia mississippiensis perched in treetop being harassed by blue jay Cyanocitta cristata overhead
The bird passing overhead is a blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata,) a pair of which were very unhappy about the presence of the kite, to which the kite paid little heed; this does serve as a great illustration of the size of Mississippi kites, though. The behavior of the jays was such that I would have said there was a nest nearby if it had been anywhere near that season, which it is not. But then again, jays are pretty territorial overall and have been making a fuss the past few days anyway.

Curiously, this appears to be the first time that I’ve ever featured a blue jay, which seems quite odd to me until I recall that they were almost never seen where we used to live, why, I couldn’t say. But the very thought made me dig out one of the earliest digital photos that I have of them, just shy of 20 years old now, a couple of recently released juvie rehab patients being clumsy with a tray of mealworms – I just loved the expressiveness of the frame.

two juvenile blue jays Cyanocitta cristata, one overturning tray of mealworms

It’s all cycles or something

Al Denelsbeck

It’s been interesting living right on the edge of an ecosystem, and I know that makes little sense because we’re all within an ecosystem no matter what, but what I mean is, we can observe the behavior of the wildlife that uses the ponds throughout the year, at all times of the day and night, and so patterns emerge. We have yet to determine how regular they are, but we see shifts going on.

great blue heron Ardea herodias returning to main pond after having been absent for weeks
This morning we saw the arrival of a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) for the first time in weeks, which also made me realize that the green heron has not been around either. I understand this for the most part, since the shielding of the water’s surface by the duckweed and cow lilies makes it nigh impossible for fishing birds to actually see prey, plus the fact that nothing larger than minnows are within the main pond in the first place. But I took advantage of the visit all the same; the heron seemed wary and I didn’t try to get closer and chance scaring it off.

great blue heron Ardea herodias standing at mouth of channel between main pond and The Bayou
I shot a bit wider here for context. It’s hard to see clearly, but to the left is a flat patch of open (though obscured) water near some trees, and this is actually the narrow channel between the main pond and The Bayou; the kayak fits through behind the two thin trees close together, between them and the tree with the dark foliage behind them.

Last night we left the light over the kitchen sink on overnight, since a cluster of at least six tiny juvenile green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus,) none of them bigger than a finger joint, were using the window as a hunting ground. I missed the shot where four of them were all on the same small pane of glass, but at least did a handful of frames as they scampered about enthusiastically.

tiny juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on window pane
It would be a nicer portrait if it wasn’t as filthy (the frog or the glass,) but whatcha gonna do? Okay, sure, clean the glass inside and out while they’re not there during the day, if you’re anal about it, but the frogs are still going to be ratty since they’re mildly sticky at the best of times – they’re kids.

By the way, the ruckus with the grey treefrogs that I mentioned last night? It went on the entire time that I was recording, and is interspersed liberally with the voiceover track – the only saving grace to this is that the natural background noises of the video clips has been retained too, so the frogs just kind of blend in unless you know the species well enough to know that you shouldn’t be hearing them this perpetually (or at all) during the day. I’ll tell you how bad it was: I always start recording with 4-6 seconds of silence for the noise reduction filter, to have a baseline of the ‘microphone hiss’ to be deleted from the track, and couldn’t actually achieve four seconds of silence. Little bastards. The noise gate function, which removes sounds under a certain decibel threshold (like intakes of breath) works fine – for periods of otherwise silence. So when I’m not talking, all is quiet, but every time I’m speaking I have a background of breeks punctuating every sentence or two. You’ll hear it tomorrow, since I saved the video for the Estate Find of course.

It hasn’t rained for days…

Al Denelsbeck

… but now that I have some serious video that I need a voiceover for, it’s raining. We did this on the last one, didn’t we?

Literally a meter from the door

Yes, it’s/they’re more likely female I think, but whatever. Just shut up.

pair of noisy copes grey treefrogs Dryophytes chrysoscelis calling during rain
Actually, the white thing is a bucket catching rainbarrel overflow, so I popped the second one into it and carried them both down into the yard well away from my door – we’ll see if this works…

* * *

EDIT: No, it did not work – before I even finished this post, they abandoned the bucket and crossed the yard to get back to the rainbarrel. I mean, we’ve had eggs and tadpoles in the same buckets, they seem to believe they’re fine for such purposes, but noooo, they gotta have the rainbarrel as a perch while audio is being recorded. Dumbasses, nobody ever listens to these, it’s not your ticket to fame…

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