Awkward teen years

Al Denelsbeck

I went over to the neighborhood pond earlier today, just to see what was happening, aiming for before it got too hot; I missed. I’d seen a couple of broods of Canada geese (Branta canadensis) over there, this years goslings (three of which you’ve already seen as last week’s Profiles of Nature entry,) but this morning made it clear how many there were, and I had to call The Girlfriend over.

three broods of Canada geese Branta canadensis approaching author
Moreover, they noticed me and approached purposefully, announcing by their behavior that they’ve been getting hand-fed and are far from overprotective of their young. I was able to do a few closeups as they cruised past, capturing their interim coloration between the dirty yellow of the younger goslings and the distinctive pattern of the adults. I have too many Canada goose photos, but none of this stage, until now.

pair of Canada goslings Branta canadensis transitioning towards adult coloration
Not the most prepossessing of birds at this age, are they? I should probably use this for another Profiles entry – it can’t be worse than tomorrow’s.

By the time The Girlfriend made it over there, I was standing within a few meters of two broods, with two others close, all having come ashore nearby. They quickly came right up to us, not outright begging, but making it clear that we were not upholding out duties, even though we have never been the ones feeding them (The Girlfriend was so delighted at their approach that this is likely to change very soon.) We had nothing to give them, and eventually they wandered slowly off, not going too far in case we wised up and changed our minds about the food offerings. One gosling, however, chose a handy patch of shade to plop down and take a short rest in the growing heat of the day.

older Canada gosling Branta canadensis settled in handy shade of author
It really couldn’t stay there long, both because the parents and siblings had decided to move on, and because the shade itself couldn’t remain there either; I’m never sure how obvious these things are, but that’s my own shadow that it settled down within, wide-brimmed hat and all.

None of these geese are domesticated, by the way; it’s just that Canadas don’t fear a lot and have become acclimated to humans anyway, and will quickly abandon any remaining misgivings if food is involved. In other areas, they can be aggressively protective of nests and young, but we’ve never gotten anything more than warning hisses from them.

Reality aves

Al Denelsbeck

On one of the cloudier days out at North Topsail, before the rains came, I was walking out the walkway/deck towards the gazebo when I saw movement in the reeds nearby, and had the long lens in hand (with a camera attached, too!) so I could take advantage of it. Unlike the green herons in the area, this one was pretty blasé about my presence.

willet Tringa semipalmata seen through water reeds
This is a willet (Tringa semipalmata,) a medium-small wader much like a sandpiper, though larger than most of those while a little smaller than a green heron. I would see them examining the edges of the oyster beds or the small tidal pool nearby while we were there, but never quite this close. Males and females have the same plumage so they’re difficult to distinguish, but the behavior lent weight towards it being a male, slightly. I’ll explain.

willet Tringa semipalmata preening with a difficult tuft of feathers
This one was quite intent on its preening, having a difficult time with a little misplaced tuft of feathers above the tail, and largely ignored me even though I was only a handful of meters away. I fired off a significant number of frames with lots of poses over the course of roughly two minutes.

willet Tringa semipalmata flying off a short distance
Then, it started calling, receiving an answering call from not too far off, and flew off in that direction. It was easy to follow, providing a nice view of the distinctive wing markings as it did so.

pair of willets Tringa semipalmata in apparent courting behavior
I tracked it until it landed again, eventually realizing that there was another there, the originator of the answering call, but with the muddy background I’d lost track of who was who. The light conditions and the clutter of the landscape there made it a little hard to discern details, even with the long lens (this is cropped a bit.) But the one on the left, who may or may not be the model from the first images, began a series of rapid, almost chuckling quiet calls to the other. Normally birds in close proximity don’t ‘talk’ to one another unless there’s a reason, and this reason was soon confirmed.

pair of willets Tringa semipalmata near consummation
The one on the left was soon revealed to be a male in courtship, as he raised his trembling wings and did a little dance, still talking up a storm, most likely mentioning his pending promotion to divisional manager with a company expense account. The female, as usual, showed no reaction to this.

pair of willets Tringa semipalmata as male mounts female
I couldn’t tell you how the species communicates, really, but without anything outwardly visible, the female signaled acquiescence, anyway, and the male soon made his move, showing off the form he learned from Mr. Miyagi.

pair of willets Tringa semipalmata during mating
I’m pretty sure the technical term for this is ‘wheelbarrowing.’ That’s what I’ve been told, anyway.

pair of willets Tringa semipalmata mating, male biting female's head
And then, perhaps, the mistake. The female turned the other way, and the male grabbed her entire head in his beak. Maybe this is normal. Maybe this was a protest. Maybe it was a signal. I just know, you should always be sure it’s cool first.

pair of mating willets Tringa semipalmata, female departing from under male
In the same second (literally – I checked the EXIF info,) she took flight. You can read whatever you want into the male’s expression; you don’t need my help.

pair of willets Tringa semipalmata as mating ceases
I know what you’re thinking: “Why weren’t you shooting video, Al?” (Maybe not.) And the primary reason is, I went out there for another task, without the tripod, and shooting video at long focal lengths handheld is just bad news, unless you’re partial to seasickness. Even if I’d had the tripod, the chances of setting it up for the initial shots were about nil; the willet was too close and it would have involved too much movement and noise. Once it had flown further off this wasn’t a factor, but then the process would have meant missing some of the action. I’m still pondering the wisdom of hauling the tripod (and microphones, and perhaps video light and external monitor) around a lot more often to be prepared for such opportunities, or if I’ll simply resign myself to shooting video mostly on dedicated outings and only carrying the accoutrements then.

By the way, I figured I’d show you the full frame of the above shot, so you know what I was working with, and yes, this was at 600mm.

same image at full frame

diagram of willet Tringa semipalmata range in North America, from The Cornell Lab
From and copyright by The Cornell Lab
What video would have provided, if nothing else, were the calls, but there’s a good recording to be found at this page from The Cornell Lab, which is also the source of the map at right showing the species’ ranges – you’ll notice that they’re not listed for North Carolina at all, much less for breeding, but other sources indicate otherwise, so they probably need their map updated. I’m not perfectly confident about some species ID, but I’m 95% sure about this one, given the plumage, calls, and habits; The Sibley Guide to Birds, my go-to source for bird info, lists them year-round along the southern Atlantic coast, including NC. It illustrates something that I’ve long known: using multiple sources of info is often more useful for accuracy than trusting any one, and contradictions are frequent. Updating info is necessary, too, since species names and classifications change way too often.

Within a few days, I was seeing a pair of willets foraging together in the same area, lending a very small amount of weight to this being a successful mating; willets are semi-gregarious, easily found in small groups as well as individually, so this isn’t conclusive evidence by a long shot.

pair of willets Tringa semipalmata in silhouette foraging at edges of oyster beds at sunrise
And no, that’s not that same difficult tuft of feathers sticking up, but a background oyster beyond the willet. I thought that too for a second…

And yet, ‘snot art

Al Denelsbeck

Yet another entry that couldn’t possibly be art, because I don’t do that.

sunrise over seafoam at North Topsail Beach, NC
Yeah, it’s almost the same as a frame from the first trip (a metal print of which adorns a door of my desk hutch at Walkabout Studios,) but you know, with the beach running in this direction, and at this time of year, there really isn’t a lot of variation available. And the pelicans weren’t being cooperative.

By the way, this was the last morning there, but I ended up doing a lot of shooting before heading back in to load the car – they’re still coming.

Podcast: Need a do-over

Al Denelsbeck

Did you ever wonder about the site title, “Wading-In Photography,” and the emphasis on sandals and water and all that?

It’s because I like things shallow.

On an unrelated note, here’s a podcast:

Walkabout podcast – Not A Vacation

overcast morning on the ocean at North Topsail Beach, North Carolina
Yeah, it could definitely have been better, but it wasn’t all blerk and haeerruummerruummph, which you’ll see shortly. I just come from a long family history of muttering irritably, and traditions must be upheld, you know? Can’t let such things die out…

People that run their lives around social media, though? They can all die horribly, and no one else will be bothered at all.

Magnanimous

Al Denelsbeck

Some experts tend to keep mum about their experience, their ‘secrets of the trade,’ and not reveal any information that may give an edge to their ‘competition,’ as if there’s something to be won with that. And some, of course, are fine with imparting information, but at a fee, and charge for everything; I teach photography, so yes, I do follow this concept to an extent, but I also give advice freely, and there are more than a couple of posts here that contain useful tidbits, despite the accompanying dross. And with some topics, I’m generous in sharing the experience that I’ve gained over the years, allowing others to benefit from the trials and lessons that have been hard-won in the field.

For instance, when you discover a treefrog in, say, a newly-constructed greenhouse, and already know that they’re notoriously bad about finding their way out the same way they got in – like an open roof vent – and you scoop it up to take it someplace safer, you should know that, no matter how inviting and appropriate the location you try to introduce them to, treefrogs tend to act much like teenagers, and will reject your proposal solely because you’re proposing it to them. As such, they will leap away from the inviting branch directly under their nose and land, oh, someplace not nearly as inviting, safe, or hospitable.

the author with a Copes grey treefrog Hyla chrysoscelis where it landed in his shirt pocket, by The Girlfriend
Usually, they won’t be so cooperative as to remain there while someone goes and gets their smutphone, but on occasion, you may get lucky. In very rare circumstances, you may even be able to do some point-of-view closeups while the frog resolutely remains in place, still out in full sunlight as the temperature rises rapidly. I wouldn’t count on it necessarily, but it’s been known to happen.

Copes grey treefrog Hyla chrysoscelis still in author's shirt pocket
It’s almost unprecedented that, on trying again, you can convince a treefrog to accept your initial proposal and clamber onto a spot boasting plenty of shade and hidey-holes, safely out of the way, and not require a comical chase into even more inhospitable territory as you mutter irritably about only trying to help, which treefrogs, again, believe not in the slightest.

Copes grey treefrog Hyla chrysoscelis betraying its true nature by remaining in an ideal location
Should this remarkable event occur, however, there’s no way in hell that you’ll get a decent frame of them afterward. Treefrogs are far too stubborn to let something like that happen.

Just a wafer thin one

Al Denelsbeck

sunset over sound with cloud layers[We’re back out at the beach again.] After the day of rain, we got a little better weather and a nice sunset, still with some high clouds to catch the colors, which in hindsight explains why I didn’t find something sooner – I’d been chiding myself for not paying attention, because I was aware of the moon phases for the trip and the new (dark) moon had fallen just two days before. So when taking the set of photos like the one here, I never looked around for the crescent moon like I thought I should’ve, but on reviewing the photos by date I realized I never would have seen it anyway, following behind the sun by roughly an hour. On stepping out a bit later as the last of the twilight was fading over the sound, I found the deep orange crescent, colored by the same conditions that made the sunset, riding low on the horizon, less than 15 minutes from disappearing behind the trees. I quickly got the tripod and the long lens and set about capturing the sharpest image that I could.

This was tricky. The crescent was so thin that lunar details could barely be discerned, already dimmed significantly by the humidity and thicker atmospheric angle. Autofocus was out; there was too little light to generate decent contrast. And the exposure time was also tricky, being long enough to suffer from camera shake, even with the tripod and boosting the ISO to 1600 (which definitely increases the schmutz that’s gonna appear.) I had the remote release in hand and had already set the custom functions for a mirror-lock-up, meaning the mirror slapped out of the way with the first press of the shutter release, and a second was necessary to actually open the shutter – after an adequate delay to let the mirror vibrations die down.

two day old orange crescent moon just before setting
That’s… okay; I’ve definitely gotten sharper, but I can’t tell if the softness was from imperfect focus, vibration from the shutter, the distortion of the atmosphere (we’ll see distinct examples of this later on,) or the movement of the moon during the exposure. Yet, some lunar features can still be made out, and you can’t beat the color.

That wasn’t the biggest challenge, though, because with a crescent this thin, the earthshine was visible too, and I wanted that. I needed a lot more light coming in to show the darker portion of the moon, and the ISO was already as high as I dared, so I was courting motion from the moon itself with the slow shutter speed, but so be it. The frame above was 1/8 second; the one below is 3.2 seconds.

crescent moon with earthshine and a trace of motion blur
Had I seen it when it was higher, the light might have been enough to minimize the motion blur, but then we wouldn’t have the orange color. You can definitely see a little smear from the moon’s motion in this one, but lunar mares are faintly discernible, and even evidence of Tycho’s rim and rays. I consider this a keeper.

The next night was clearer, and while the moon was higher, it was easy to see.

twilight over sound with crescent moon
Not much coloration to the moon, besides the normal hues, but I knew I’d get more details this time, and could use a shorter shutter speed. Thus:

slightly larger 3-day-old crescent showing Mare Crisium
That’s Mare Crisium on the right, but I’m most pleased with capturing some south pole mountain over on the left, a little dot peeking in while apparently separated from the crescent itself. And then, of course, we have the earthshine:

3-day-old crescent moon with earthshine and background stars
This exposure was half a second – the blur from the crescent is more overexposure than motion blur – especially since, if you look closely, you can see some of the background stars in the frame. Jpeg compression wasn’t kind; there are actually five or six stars visible in the full-res version (not noise, either – I checked,) but only two came out in the blog-size version, with perhaps two more faintly visible if you’re trying. Look down towards the lower border.

I even did a little video, but it wasn’t terribly interesting and I would have had to cut out the audio anyway, since the neighbors were singing along to Hootie and the Blowfish. This one’s much better (and Duran Duran.) It even shows the earthshine portions from these images illuminated fully, a nice counterpoint. Or at least I think so.

Almost went by me

Al Denelsbeck

Today is World Turtle Day, which I only discovered by reading Why Evolution Is True just a few minutes ago. As such, I am ill-prepared, and can only resort to a photo from a few days back for something current.

cooters, possibly Florida cooters Pseudemys floridana basking on stumps
Curiously, these might be Florida cooters (Pseudemys floridana) based on the habitat and their faint markings, but I wouldn’t confidently inform any investors of that – I’m more confident that they’re one of the cooter family (genus Pseudemys) anyway. This is a crop for better focus on our holiday subject, part of a lager frame that included more, like this:

cooters, possibly Florida cooters Pseudemys floridana basking on stumps
It’s only midday, so I may still get out and get some super-current turtles, especially since these were found down at a spot with an active osprey nest that did not appear to have hatched earlier this week, so I need to check on them anyway. Plus there are turtles near Walkabout Studios anyway, so all I have to do is get some frames worthy of the holiday. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? I should never say things like that…

Anyway, enjoy World Turtle Day! I’m not sure how you celebrate it, really – maybe read some Aeschylus…

Not birds, not beachy

Al Denelsbeck

I have just a couple of photos that were taken during the beach trip but aren’t beach related, so we’ll throw them down now.

Within the first day, we would look out the back side of the condo over the moderate expanse of lawn there, bordered by a thicket that separated the lawn from the sound, and see a little medium-brown mound moving around at times. I knew them on sight, having dealt with them before, though it had been a while since I’d seen one, but then I had to explain it to the others (like usual, actually.)

“Is that a rabbit? It looks too small for a rabbit,” someone said.

“It’s a vole,” I explained.

“A mole?” This is almost inevitable. Nobody’s ever heard of them.

“No, a vole.”

vole, likely meadow vole Microtus pennsylvanicus, realizing the photographer is getting closer
This was taken one evening as I spotted one and stalked it with the long lens; the vole has just realized that I was closer every time it looked up from foraging. There are several vole species and they go by a variety of common names, but this is most likely a meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus.) They’re larger than mice (and moles of course,) yet typically smaller than a rat, but only by a hair, with shorter noses and shorter tails, only half the length of the body – pretty much palm-sized. Considered a pest in many places due to landscape and gardening damage, I’ve only ever seen them foraging like rabbits, snacking on clover flowers and such. There were two that appeared simultaneously, so we know it likely wasn’t the same one we kept seeing, and they seemed fairly mellow, but like rabbits, they didn’t hang around for close approaches. This one decided I was looking too shady (which I’m used to by now) and scampered for the thicket, but paused at the edge to finish its meal with an easy escape.

vole, likely meadow vole Microtus pennsylvanicus, pausing while slightly obscured by grasses
If you know your Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, you know why I named this image, “Bugblatter.” The vole obviously wasn’t so spooked that it felt it had to be out of harm’s way, it just wanted less lawn to cover, should the need arise.

The second day we were there, The Girlfriend and I were just coming back from a kayaking excursion, bringing the kayaks up to their storage spot under the condo, when I noticed something on the neighbors’ walk only a few meters off. A big something.

yellow eastern rat snake Pantherophis alleghaniensis quadrivittata coiled protectively at edge of walkway
Ah, the impermanence of scientific names! This is a yellow rat snake, often just considered an eastern rat snake, but the consensus seems to be that this is a subspecies, Pantherophis alleghaniensis quadrivittata – the eastern (black) rat snakes have recently undergone renaming, so it’s all up for grabs. You may note that this isn’t exactly yellow, and I had to do a bit of research on it, because it also lacked the pattern that I was used to from yellow rat snakes. The thing is, the yellows and eastern/blacks can interbreed, producing a combined pattern – which still looks different from this, so I don’t know if it’s a straight yellow rat snake with a muted color variation, or a crossbreed of yellow and black, or perhaps even a regional variant of yellow since it blended fairly well with the sun-bleached wood of the entire area. All I had handy at the time was the little waterproof Ricoh camera, that could only get up to 140mm equivalent focal length, so I had to go in close, whereupon my motionless friend here coiled back from its original outstretched position and favored me with a marvelous deep hiss, something that I don’t hear too often from any snakes in the area. Since the snake was pushing two meters in length, this was a notable warning.

yellow eastern rat snake Pantherophis alleghaniensis quadrivittata not as threatened anymore
I know rat snakes, though, and paid it no mind, and since I was moving slow, the snake immediately relaxed a bit, though probably still not wild about my proximity. Which was less than half a meter, honestly; I did a little video.


[That’s The Girlfriend’s voice in there, as she maintained a discreet distance.]

Since I hadn’t recognized that color variation (but knew it wasn’t dangerous,) I did a little research when back at a computer later that day – and still never found the color pattern. Suspecting that I might have a rare specimen, I kept my eyes open for the rest of the week, hoping for another chance – I would have captured it and done a full set of photos, head to tail, top to bottom. Though probably with some difficulty, since no one else would have handled it or even gotten within a few meters, so it could have been challenging. Of course, I never saw it again, even with the enticing pudgy little vole meals hopping around the lawn. Ah well.

Broken promise

Al Denelsbeck

So Wednesday’s morning out at the beach got off to a good start…


… and almost immediately devolved into rain that lasted all day. Worse, it got damn cold too. We spent the rest of the day indoors, muttering over the weather and idiotic gas situations, but at least played games in the evening. This video was about everything that I shot.

By the way, I apologize for pointing out in there the trace of magenta that appeared as the sun separated from the horizon; it was visible in the raw files and as I was editing, but apparently didn’t survive the rendering into MP4. This time around I tried out Kdenlive instead of OpenShot, mostly because the latest version of OpenShot has some serious audio stutter issues during editing. Kdenlive has video blipping instead, but overall, it seemed a bit better and certainly didn’t have as many issues with rendering as OpenShot (which suffers from a million indecipherable options, most of which produce bloated video files.) Still working out the kinks.

Meanwhile, I snapped a pic with my (blerk) smutphone while the video was shooting.

smutphone shot of video rig at sunrise on North Topsail Beach, NC
This shows naked eye conditions with reasonable accurately, save for the ‘too wide’ effect, but it suffices.

You can also see some wind vibration during the vid, but seriously, at 600mm with the stiff gusts off the ocean, this is actually pretty damn stable; I wouldn’t achieve better without at least an extra stabilizing arm for the camera body itself (the rig was supported near the balance point by the tripod collar on the lens.) Perhaps it would have been slightly better had I used the tripod at minimal leg extension – the center column wasn’t extended at all – but that would have required plopping my ass on the wet beach just to frame and focus, and may have even obscured things more from the wave height closer to the camera. I’ll cope with the vibration, and hopefully you will too, but there are therapists around if need be.

The idea of doing this came from capturing the green flash in still photos a couple years ago, and realizing that it’d look much cooler in video. Those fishing boats would have also looked better, but no such luck this day.

More video (and naturally lots of still photos) will be along later on – I’m kinda building up here.

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