July to me?

July 31, 2021July 30, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Another long, eventful month to wave toodle-oo to, and so we have the month end abstracts. And all three were shot within the month, so, good on me? I guess that depends on how good the photos actually are.

From an outing early win the month with the Unforeseeable Mr Bugg (who it appears is not dead,) this was one of the few images worth keeping – at least by my standards, and that word is used with almost cavalier abandon. I might have had to tell you what this was if it wasn’t for the little bit of lichen in there.

Moving on.

One thing that I regretted not doing on the first NY trip was checking out a walking trail in Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, and after dropping The Girlfriend off at the airport the morning of my last day there on the second trip, I realized it was my last chance. Not a lot to see, but the low sun and the still-present dew made this pop out, and I cropped tighter to draw attention to the scribbled detail.

And finally,

I’d somehow missed this one when doing the post about the refuge, and better pics will be along eventually, but I liked the nature of it here, so it’s a late addition to the lineup. This is a willet (Tringa semipalmata,) and there were at least a couple of them lurking about – this one got chased off soon after by a territorial rival. Yes, of course this was manual focus – autofocus would have just freaked out and gone on a vandalism spree until tackled by numerous police officers.

All right, August, let’s see what you have for us…

Are you kidding me?

July 30, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

I’d seen the skies looking quite clear yesterday evening, the first time in days, so I thought I’d try for the meteor storm, and early this morning (like a little after midnight,) I drove down to Jordan Lake, the best night sky spot in the area, to see what I could see.

The first thing was, the humidity was very high and the haze had rolled in, so only stars of higher magnitude were visible anyway, but what I was hoping to get weren’t the little, typical ‘shooting stars’ but a bolide, a nice fireball or at the very least, a brilliant, larger example – those would come through despite the haze.

On the first frame, I had the custom function of Long Exposure Noise Reduction set to ‘Auto,’ so it activated itself for the 800 second (13 minute, if you don’t know metric) exposure. Don’t do this; the noise reduction process can take as long as the damn exposure does, so I spent quite a while simply waiting for that to finish, unable to take any more exposures of the sky during that period, nor even turn the damn thing off in anticipation of the next frames.

It gets rid of sensor noise, but that’s a lot faster to do after the fact, and it didn’t significantly reduce the blotchiness of the night sky otherwise, which you’ll see in a second. And playing with the menu during the process might have been responsible for the bit below.

This is almost a full-resolution inset, and you can see that the color speckling is still present. This is ISO 400, by the way, so not particularly prone to this – any higher ISO setting would be progressively worse. But note the star trails themselves, and the little squiggle off to one side. I would put this down to tripod vibration in the stiff breeze, or even bumping the tripod, except that this doesn’t make sense. First off, in the length of exposure, vibration of any kind would be too minimal to register, taking place over the period of a second or two at most, and the stars would have barely moved across the frame in that time. Second, it displaces only to one side and returns right back to the original path, like the tripod was bouncing against the ground, prevented from going further to the right than it had been. For gaps to appear in the paths, ones that left squiggles behind, the tripod would have had to have moved that way very slowly, at least over ten seconds – and then returned to exactly where it was. In other words, horseshit. I can find no other reasoning than the process of noise reduction itself.

I shot several exposures, in some cases while watching the same area of sky, and in others watching all over the place. I caught a small flicker that might have been a meteor, out of the corner of my eye, but little else (I did see a bird going over quite low, though, an ominous dark and silent shape against the sky, but I couldn’t tell you what it was for sure – vulture, heron or eagle in size, anyway.) For one ten-minute frame, I attached the Tamron 10-24mm lens at 10mm for a wide field, aiming towards the plane of the ecliptic solely to show the diverging curves that occur, though the wide field can still distort the trails unrealistically anyway. But while that one was going, I saw a distinct meteor cut right across its field of view. Cool! I finally had one that I knew was a meteor, and knew it was within the frame.

Except, when I got back and unloaded, it really wasn’t visible.

The meteor was not dim, showing quite clearly against the stars, so it was at least their magnitude, and had a noticeable trail, not short – though it would have been reduced by the wider field of view. By my reckoning, it should have appeared in the upper left side of the frame (pretty damn close to the radiant of the alpha Capricornids as it were.) You can see some blotching up through just left of center, which does correspond to the position of the Milky Way at the time, even though I couldn’t make it out while there. The best I can say is that the meteor was aligned largely with the star trails and can’t be differentiated easily from them, though I’ve viewed the entire frame at full resolution and haven’t been able to find it. You may be looking at the one bright streak at upper left and thinking it’s too bright and too long, but here it is at full resolution:

I didn’t directly measure it against its dim neighbors, and I’m not sure I could get an accurate length off of them anyway, but it’s damn close. And the distinct uniform brightness along the entire length isn’t a good sign, nor being that precisely parallel to the others. No, that’s a star. Maybe, at some later point, I’ll find the evidence that I was sure I captured, but who cares? It certainly wasn’t what I was after no matter what.

The moon had risen right around the time I’d arrived at the lake, but remained behind trees from my vantage, and wasn’t bright enough to make more than trivial contributions to the brightness of the haze, but upon returning home, I had a good view of it and decided not to waste the entire morning.

That prominent crater down low on the terminator isn’t Tycho (which is off directly to the left of it, with the prominent ray pointing to it,) but Maurolycus, and yes, that’s sunset on the central peak – I could just barely discern this in the viewfinder, which told me that I was getting focus close. Still, I tweaked focus for every frame, knowing that critical sharpness is more a matter of chance that what can be determined through the viewfinder screen. White balance is set to Sunlight, so this is the color that was showing through the haze.

Maybe in a couple of days, I’ll aim for sunset on Tycho too, because why stop obsessing now?

* * *

Unrelated, but I’d mentioned waiting on a car window mount for a camera, which would have come in handy for this past trip to NY (well, both of them, though I hadn’t ordered it until after the first one.) After seventeen days in Greensboro, it finally left that facility (having been scanned as ‘leaving’ three times over two days) – only to arrive as a damaged, empty box. The staff and management at the Greensboro USPS Distribution Center is completely, utterly incompetent – this has been going on for years. Worse, the Inspector General knows about it, has audited multiple times, and it still goes on. Fucking hell, guys.

Profiles of Nature 30

July 29, 2021July 28, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Now, at least, the numbers are back where they’re supposed to be, and should remain that way provided The Manatee doesn’t show up again. This week we get to meet Boaz, which is a feat in itself since Boaz is goddamn sick and tired of fame already; he’s actually a peacock, but this is the disguise he dons to try and avoid the papparazzi, which obviously didn’t work and simply started lots of distasteful rumors concerning his sex life and skin care. He came to fame in a very roundabout way, which means through England, and really only wanted to reach his fans through his music, requiring him to put little notes in his record jackets and drop them in various locations around town; the switch to MP3s really put a crimp in this. Boaz’s talent is unparalleled, or at least it might be if we could figure out what exactly this is supposed to mean; it doesn’t intersect with anything? Is that good in some way? We’re lost on this. It’s like saying something is unprecedented: it was previously unprecedented perhaps, but now that it’s occurred it’s a precedent itself, right? Anyway, Boaz just wants the media to leave him alone, but now that he’s admitted this publicly, everyone wants to know how it’s coming along. Plus his rants are really damn funny. He has a gambling addiction, and has bet very large sums of money on the claim that he’s immortal, having failed to think that one through but, if you’re gonna do it, at least this way involves the lowest losses and the greatest ire among his heirs, so win-win. His gym equipment is unparalleled. Boaz admits that is favorite air molecule is that one there. No, not that one; there. Look where I’m pointing, you moron…

Does the calendar still show a week next week? Then we will return.

New York: The raptors II (On the Move)

July 29, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Yeah, it’s a terrible movie reference, but you weren’t expecting better anyway so get over it.

The second trip to central New York netted a whole selection of new raptor photos, but unfortunately not as much video as I’d hoped for or intended to get – kinda. I went up there with no particular plans, given that it wasn’t a vacation or shooting trip, but when the opportunities seemed to present themselves and I thought, Hey, this might make a cool video, it didn’t pan out very well (for the raptors, anyway.) There will be some clips in a little bit, but the still photos are plainly better.

First off, the nice views of a juvenile bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) from the first trip were a pretty good indication that this one would be better, coming as it did later in the fledging period as the young were hunting on their own. While out early one morning and actually on the phone with a friend (worked best for both of our schedules,) I had to beg off of the call when a pair of juveniles decided to play tag almost directly overhead. Okay then.

Too young to breed and late in the season anyway, plus the fact that there was no aggression being shown, leads me to believe these were siblings just out ‘playing,’ wheeling in big circles in a lazy manner. But they were only two dozen or so meters in the air, so within easy sight – I had to back off the zoom setting to keep them both in the same frame.

Unfortunately, I somehow missed dialing in exposure compensation for some of these, which kept the sky blue but rendered the eagles as little more than silhouettes, and the early-morning sun was still somewhat behind them from my angle.

But they were being remarkably cooperative, since I have ten consecutive frames with both of them in the photo, completely unprecedented; quite often, even when a pair of birds are flying together, getting them both in the frame requires sharp timing. These guys were my buds.

Now I’ve got the compensation on, so you see what it does to the sky, but at least you can see the eagle – this is at 600mm now. The highlight on the beak indicates that the sun is pretty much due right, not high at all.

Both our bedroom and the foyer windows looked out over not just the cove, but the dead tree on the lakeshore (purposefully retained because it serves so often as a perch,) and thus we could see how often it was occupied. One day, this was by another juvenile eagle, quite possibly one of the same ones as above, given that they were only a few hundred meters away from this spot. Then again, the area is loaded with eagles and it’s an ideal fishing ground, so who knows?

It was raining off and on most of this day, so the raptors were largely remaining perched, and while the eagles normally don’t like close approaches, this one was being patient and I was endeavoring to remain nonthreatening: pausing frequently, gazing all around with a casual air, and otherwise looking like an adolescent boy at the beach trying not to stare. It seemed to work, in that I drew quite close, provoking a little visible discomfort from the eagle and the first indications of wanting to fly off, but it never did.

I suspect the rain had a lot to do with it; it was just too annoying to take flight and chance getting the underfeathers wet too, so the eagle tried to put up with me unless it was absolutely certain that it would have to flee. Given that we left it alone soon afterward, we did our part in conditioning it to tolerating people nearby (The Girlfriend was out there too, but purposefully hanging back to lessen the stress on the bird – she knows.)

The ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) were even more active, and effortless to see much of the time. This is one in the same tree, on a much better day.

I was purposefully playing with exposure compensation for these shots, to see what rendered better – the goal is to have both the details from the bird and some sky color, and the truth is, without resorting to tricks like ‘high dynamic range’ (which is basically digital compositing,) you’re usually going to take a hit on both to have the best frame. The above is with a full stop over-exposure, but bear in mind, the camera doesn’t know how bright the sky should be and typically sets exposure for a middle level anyway. Thus compensation is not really overexposing by that much, but rendering the light closer to the way it actually was.

This is only 1/3 stop overexposure, probably closest to reality in these conditions – osprey back feathers are pretty deep brown. You can see that the neck feathers are standing up in the stiff breeze off the water, but osprey neck feathers tend not to lie flat very often to begin with – not sure why.

This dead tree sits just off the end of the dock, and on more than one occasion, a perched osprey ignored us as we passed underneath to go out onto the dock, sometimes giving a little territorial cry but otherwise being cool. It was good to see.

Twice, we watched an osprey in territorial dispute with an eagle, which was fascinating.

Osprey on the left, having just blown past the juvie eagle on the right, taking a slash as it did so. Ospreys are smaller and much faster and more maneuverable than eagles, so the eagle was largely relegated to defensive moves, and not much at that, but the osprey also knew, should the eagle actually make purchase with one of those talons, that might be all she wrote. Meanwhile, I was just endeavoring to maintain tight focus and keep them framed during the close passes.

I’m not complaining about this one at all; I consider it enormously lucky to get both in the same frame with such expressive poses. Not to mention that it shows the size disparity more accurately; the previous photo caught the eagle edge-on and minimized its mass a bit. I also can’t vouch for how old the osprey is, but that looks like adult coloration, while the eagle appears to be first year, thus, newly encroaching on the osprey’s territory. This might have been the same eagle as the earlier visit and post, and certainly not any of those shown above, even though it was in the same airspace that the wheeling pair had been.

This is what I typically get when two birds are interacting, with one just out of view, but I can’t deny the expressiveness, and it’s possibly The Girlfriend’s favorite frame.

The eagle, for its part, just wasn’t taking the hint, and the osprey eventually gave up, though the same thing was repeated the next day in nearly the same location. I didn’t have the camera anywhere close by at the time (we were helping with some of the work out at the Gatsby mansion,) and so it was just a viewing experience, but it was easy to see just when the wheeling flight paths of the two birds would intersect, and the osprey definitely made some solid contact. Did it manage to penetrate the eagle’s feathers and do any injuries? I haven’t the faintest, but again, the eagle was unconvinced.

I mentioned earlier my regret in not getting any of the osprey platforms that dotted the roads, perhaps every kilometer or so, but this time around, the young were big enough to be seen easily, and so I corrected my oversight.

We drove past this particular nest constantly, and I thought at one point that we’d missed the young fledging out and leaving the nest, but another day later it was clearly occupied again. That’s one of the adults on the lookout perch, the juvies in the nest, and they deserve a closer look.

Given that these are ‘teenagers,’ I’m attributing those eyes and overall appearance to sneaking out last night to attend a party with friends. But maybe I’m reading too much into it.

[Honestly, the juvies’ eyes are always red, and while it wasn’t terribly cool that morning, it was humid as hell so they were likely trying to dry out. You’ll see more shortly.]

This was one of those ‘planned but missed’ video opportunities. I’d just dropped The Girlfriend off at the airport for her flight home and arrived back at the Gatsby mansion right at sunrise, so despite my lack of sleep, I set out in this ideal light to see if the young wanted to demonstrate any flying practice for their adoring fans. Alas, they were resolutely uncooperative.

Immediately before, on the long driveway from the mansion, I passed another osprey perched directly over the driveway, and stopped for more pics, advancing slowly, while the osprey viewed me with distaste but considered me too minor to worry about.

The reason for this is there, if you look closely: it already has a fish that it’s munching on. Let’s have a slightly better look.

I don’t think I even saw the fish until about this point, and I’m pretty sure that I was shooting through the open sunroof now. But that expression! And the bird never moved, allowing me to do a few frames when I’d passed beyond it and now had the sun at my back, kinda – note the orange light on the tree limbs. Those frames were fine, but nowhere near as good as this shot.

One day while driving on the outskirts of town, I spotted a bird perched on a wire and braked hard, bringing the car to the shoulder, because it looked like a peregrine falcon and I’d never seen one in the area (or indeed, anywhere outside of captivity.) Cornell University, at the opposite end of the lake, has a comprehensive raptor program (potentially the source of the numerous osprey platforms – I never did determine this,) and had one of the first captive breeding programs for peregrines, so seeing one wasn’t out of the question. But no, it was a case of misidentification.

This is merely a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis,) very common in the area and exhibiting their typical behavior. But those facial markings aren’t typical, and you can see the ‘mustache marks’ that, driving past at 90 kph, made me suddenly think it was a peregrine. Look at the photos here (which is Cornell’s own site), and you may forgive me. Probably not.

Now let’s get to the video, what there is of it.

Nothing great, but not through lack of trying. For most of these I was even using the tripod, the shotgun mic, and the ‘dead cat’ wind guard – fully prepared. Just, without the cooperation of the subjects.

With the exception of a small handful of photos, I think that covers the main subjects that I wanted to feature from this past trip. So we’ll close with an osprey again, giving its overall opinion of all these damn people on its lake. Ah well.

No one needed to know

July 28, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

So, here’s how my thinking goes sometimes. I have a few images largely unrelated to other things that can thus be in a short post, and was considering when to put them up. These kind of things serve as a buffer between longer, info-heavy posts, and I do have one of those coming – but I also have the Profiles of Nature post tomorrow, and that does the job too. And I’m also trying to keep the post count higher, but no one knows why.

Meanwhile, yesterday while entering the greenhouse, I spotted a ~~green~~ Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) on the tree just overhead. I’ve been encouraging them (mentally, mostly) to proliferate in the yard, but generally there’s the barest proof that they exist and that’s it. Returning with the camera, the lizard was nowhere to be seen, naturally. An examination at night by the headlamp yielded no sign, nor did this morning’s check.

Then I went out on the front steps to fill a couple of watering globes for the basil, sitting there for several minutes since they’re slow to fill. All set, put the pots back where they were, turn to the side, and a meter away on the balloon flower I find this.

Since this is the opposite side of the house from the one I spotted yesterday, I’m 99% certain it’s a different one, so that means at least two in the yard, which is good – not the goal, of course, but a start. Most likely it was there the entire time I was filling the globes, being inconspicuous and waiting for me to get the hell out of Dodge. It remained long enough for me to scamper in and get the camera (no, I did not have it in hand, again, stop rubbing it in and making me feel bad,) and lean in for several frames, while generally the only motion it made was with its eyes, scanning the area ensuring that its paths of escape remained clear.

Of course I played with the framing while the anole was holding still. The splash of color was right there, so incorporating it more strongly just took some repositioning.

And closer.

This one, however, needs a tighter examination. Even handheld in natural light, the Mamiya 80mm macro performs pretty damn well (I’m certain all the praise that I heap upon it has caused a run on the used lens market, from all my avid readers,) and there’s a detail that I wanted to bring attention to.

This is not quite full resolution, and focus was ever-so-slightly off from perfect, but I wanted to point out the ear hole there to the left, where you can see inside of it. Considering that this is 2mm across at the most, I’m pleased.

Plus the mosaic nature of their skin deserves plenty of attention, even if they do tend to go heavy on the eye-shadow.

(If you go back to the version above, which is full-frame, you may notice a little hair on the anole’s chin, which I shamelessly removed for the closeup. There – I said it, and I’m proud.)

But since we’re here, we’ll have a look at the ‘buffer’ images that I’d already had prepared.

There’s been a Chinese mantis, probably about the same length as the anole, hanging out on the plants of the front porch area, most recently seen about three meters from the anole on the other side of the steps. I think they’d ignore one another, the anole preferring smaller insects like ants and the mantis tackling stuff a little bigger, but not lizard size, though at some point I may be proved wrong. This was a nice detail shot, though.

The same one served as my subject yesterday for some video work. I occasionally go around and mist the thicker plants in the yard during the hottest weather, because the various species enjoy the opportunity to get a drink, and the mantids are often very demonstrative of this, coming up directly into the spray, even gathering more with their forelegs by waving them in the air, then settling down to slurp it off of their legs and the leaves themselves. So I found this one and set the camera on tripod with a good view, before activating the video and then hosing the misting sprayer over the mantis. Who very kindly… did not do a damn thing. Ingrate.

In the pond in the backyard has been a six-spotted fishing spider (Dolomedes triton,) but every time I went out with the camera in hand to try for pics, she was nowhere to be found, and then, days later, I’d find her again. At least two green frogs share the pond, and I know they wouldn’t hesitate to scarf her down, so I kept wondering if she’d met that fate. Finally, the other night I went out with the headlamp and snagged some tight shots, but first, yesterday’s.

This was in daylight, shot with the on-camera flash since I wasn’t carrying the macro rig (I know, shut up,) but then as I drew closer she vanished under the water as they do. This led to my fetching the macro tripod and setting up at the pond edge for video work, so I could get her emergence in motion, as it were. Her first reappearance was before the video had started, and she quickly dove back under again, so judging that timing as ‘typical,’ I waited a couple of minutes before I started the video again, to save memory on what would certainly be a motionless surface. As it was, I didn’t save much, because there’s still seven minutes of video before she pops back up again. I’ll save that until I have some clips of them catching food or something.

But that night that I mentioned, the spider was up on the leaves of the lizard’s tail plant above the water, so I could get a nice portrait angle, and made the most of it.

It was the dark conditions and the headlamp that allowed me to get this close, since the spider likely had no idea what I was – she certainly dove under when I was a lot farther off during the daylight, which may also be why I’d go periods of time without seeing her, since she’d spot me before I spotted her. Yeah, I know, but count ’em – eight eyes versus four, so she has the advantage.

And I think that resolves the post timing dilemma, anyway.

Closer than meteors

July 27, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

… in more ways than one.

On this recent trip, we had one good electrical storm come rolling in with plenty of warning, and being on the open lake meant that we could see it in the distance while approaching. Ah, the perfect opportunity to get lightning that would normally be hidden by ‘the horizon’ of trees, buildings, and basketball players! Except that it was before sundown, so time exposures were out, and video would be required, like the previous trip. So be it.

Unfortunately, what the video shows is largely the sum total of visible strikes, which were not that visible at all, before the encroaching storm meant we had to get the hell off the dock (this time The Girlfriend was out there too, and urging us most urgently to get out of the storm.) We made it back to the Gatsby mansion with only the barest hint of rain hitting us, though the wind was again so fierce that the tripod wasn’t going to be standing on its own.

Having seen how many lightning bolts were hidden by the rain, I wasn’t expecting much as the storm rolled in around us, and by now it was almost fully dark; time exposures were possible, but only from indoors through a window, and I considered it pointless. Then, as we looked out the bedroom window, a brilliant forked bolt like an inverted bare tree split the air right across the cove from us, perfectly framed straight out, and I thought, Well, maybe…

I set up on the landing halfway up the stairs, same view out over the cove but without screens. The place is old and has latticed windows – real ones, none of this plastic insert crap – which would have to be part of the framing within the shot. So would all of the old spiderwebs, because this was a place on the lake and come evening time the bugs were plentiful, not to mention that the window was unreachable from the outside except for a bucket rig. So be it.

As expected, many of the bolts were hidden by the now pouring rain (the same rain that created the fog from the previous post, a day later.) Some, naturally, fell outside of the camera frame, because lightning is perverse and anti-social.

And of course, the moment I moved the camera to a different position because the lightning was showing a definite tendency to be over there, it stopped showing up over there. See above about perverse and anti-social.

The orange glow towards the bottom, by the way, was the downstairs foyer light reflecting from the glass – we could have turned it off but then we wouldn’t have seen what we were doing, because the purple light from the lightning was only a few milliseconds in duration, spread a minute or so apart; it would have made moving around very slow going.

In time, I managed a few okay frames, nothing exciting, just proof of concept really. It would have been far better to have a wider field of view, but no window provided it and we would instead had to have been outside without any adequate overhang.

Yep, that’s the dock we were just on, with the far side of the cove beyond, though as the storm approached we were facing 90° off to the left, which was west.

Below is probably my favorite, cropped down a little to give more of the haunted house vibe.

What would have been ideal (he says long afterward) would have been to have someone standing in a hooded robe down there in the foyer, just off to one side and subtle enough to escape initial attention. I’ll have to remember to pack my monk’s robe for the next trip…

[By the way, some friends met us out there and got a tour of the entire house during normal daylight hours, and told us they got this unshakeable spooky feeling from the whole place, almost foreboding. Neither The Girlfriend or I got the faintest hint of this the entire time, just finding the place historic and rustic, and I’ve slept there alone several times now. But then again, you wouldn’t really expect me to get that kind of feeling.]

The most impressive bolt, however, should have been better.

I was between frames with the remote release in hand, about to open the shutter again, when a massive and blinding bolt lit up the entire sky. Reflexively I jammed the shutter button down, which would often be too late to capture anything, but this was one of those intense bolts that keep flashing in the same spot repeatedly, and I knew I was capturing it in camera. As it faded, it left behind what I am surmising was superheated air or plasma, a dotted line in the same path as if the bolt had dissolved into tatters. We were stunned at the spectacle, and knew it was remarkably close. I quickly closed the shutter, knowing I needed no additional exposure for the foreground or anything, and chimped at the image on the LCD (yup, you missed it again, Buggato.)

Son of a bitch…

This was the exact same settings as the other frames, except this was only a four-second exposure while the others are all over twenty. I’ve even slammed the settings over in GIMP to see if any vestige of the bolt can be brought up, but nada – the exposure went way off the scale of the camera.

As another point, you see the details on the inside edges of the window moldings? Yeah, there was no light in there, so all of that came from the light of the bolt itself, reflecting off of the interior of the foyer – which was all dark wood paneling. Some of the longest exposures show a faint orange glow from that downstairs light, but for this one it all came from the bolt itself.

And one more thing to show you.

This is two consecutive frames taken without moving the camera, cropped in tight to show some particular details. In the bright frame, the arrow points out the bleed from extreme overexposure along the edges of the window frame, giving a strong indication that this was precisely where the bolt crossed the frame. While in the dark frame the arrow is pointing out the lights and horizon line of the opposite side of the cove. Meaning the bolt was down at least to that point, perhaps below it.

That means the bolt hit, at its farthest point, immediately on the point of the cove, but more likely on the water within, closer to us. The cove is a mere 600 meters across, so that’s the maximum distance. I can believe it, from the intensity of the light and the close-following blast of thunder. Had we been outside during that, we probably would have shit ourselves.

But yeah, by all rights I should have a better image than this. I feel cheated.

New York: The ungulates

July 27, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Considering how often and in how many places we saw the species, I’m a little surprised that I don’t have more photos, but then I remember the circumstances most times. At the Gatsby mansion where we stayed in New York, the property was absolutely loaded with white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus,) but they remained a bit spooky and tended not to stick around when spotted (Ha! ‘Spotted.’ Didn’t expect that one, did you?) In fact, the vast majority of times we sighted them, like above, while on the long and remote driveway that led to the place, which meant I was driving and the long lens wasn’t even attached – the camera was within reach most times, because I’ve learned a little over the years, but it would mean changing lenses, opening the door slightly, and leaning out to have a clear view; don’t ever try shooting through the windshield. This one was in good light and pausing to evaluate the curious blue threat approaching slowly up the drive, so I snagged a few frames, including here as it flicked its tail in consideration of fleeing.

As I look at this, I realize these were all the same day, but some four hours later, after snagging some shots of a really red sunset, we looked out along the big fields of the property and discovered a young buck, antlers still in velvet as they developed, stalking within the growing fog.

The light was falling rapidly and I was pushing the absolute limits of handholding a 600mm lens and getting reasonably clear frames, large aperture, boosted ISO, and image stabilization notwithstanding – there are a lot of discards among these.

It moved on, not fully trusting me, but after a handful of paces, it stopped again to browse in an area that showed the fog better.

The fog was courtesy of a fierce storm a day earlier (we’re getting to that,) which left the grounds oversaturated and broke loose about half of a walnut tree worth of limbs to deposit in the big lawn, which The Girlfriend decided to start gathering up after the deer wandered off; naturally I had to join in. I can’t recommend tackling something like this in muggy conditions, with a loaded camera bag and large lens case that both want to swing forward every time you stoop down – we were soaked in sweat and humidity within minutes, but the lawn looked much better.

New York: The non-raptors

July 26, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Between the two trips, I got a remarkable number of images and video clips, which has taken no small amount of time to sort, resize, and/or edit into finished video – there’s one included here, and at least two more waiting in the wings. I will apologize in advance for the instability of the segments therein, since the visits to the refuge were as time allowed and I never planned on doing any specific shooting; it was only through finding so many subjects that video became a necessity. Add in that nearly everything had to be shot from the car (I cheated a little, and you’ll know where and why,) without any decent method of stabilizing a long lens out the car window. Between the two trips, I ordered a car-window mount, but it failed to arrive in time for the second trip and is, in fact, still caught in the USPS black hole that is the Greensboro Distribution Center, a bastion of managerial incompetence and negligence that remains unparalleled (and somehow ignored by the Inspector General, so add them to the incompetence list.) The thing is, there really aren’t that many opportunities to use a car window mount around here, so it may sit on a shelf for a long time, but on the trip when it would have been most useful, I didn’t have it.

Anyway, we’ll start with the video, shot entirely at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge – I have to admit, I never saw anywhere near this number of species while living only a few kilometers away, and not even on previous trips. Even more will show up in the still photos further below.

Let’s do this in the same order that they appeared, shall we?

This one was almost planned, as I progressed along the drive and wondered how well they would line up as I drew abreast of them. Pretty damn well, I have to admit, though that one in the foreground is the slacker that’s gonna let the invaders through the perimeter.

Great blue herons (Ardea herodias,) of course. This one was really intent on its preening – must’ve had a hot date (I did say it was breeding season.)

I was watching this take place, and still can’t figure out the position of its neck and head – I think it’s arched back a bit. If I’d made a loud noise right here it probably would have sprained something.

On another visit, one was doing its best to resemble a pole, though for what purpose I cannot offer an opinion.

I couldn’t resist the intent look here, though within a few moments, it relaxed and stalked down towards the water, offering something even more expressive.

It would be easy to believe that someone was in trouble here, but that’s entirely misleading – as far as I can tell, the heron was simply yawning as it ambled down to the water for a snack. But yeah, this invites all sorts of interpretations, doesn’t it?

The male red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) sports the distinctive coloration, which it purposefully puffs erect when calling, and I’m willing to bet that those feathers also have a decent response in ultra-violet, which many birds can see – some birds, at least, have many times the color distinguishing ability in their eyes than we do. It also serves the purpose of, when predators draw close to the nest suspended in the reeds or grasses, drawing their attention as the male flies off, leaving the well-camouflaged female hidden on the nest. And it occurred to me as I typed this that I’d gotten a photo of a nest, but hadn’t edited it for posting, and so had to dig it out and get it in here (to the right now,) adding yet another photo to a post which promises to be absolutely overloaded with them. Ah well.

The very first day I visited was, apparently, peak breeding activity, and the birds were abundant and noisy, and not too concerned with the presence of the car or the long lens, as we can see here. There’s even a hint of the deep brown iris in there – the light conditions were perfect this particular day.

The same may be said for this eastern kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus,) pausing after doing many frenzied circuits above a still pool in its quest for insects. We’ll see more of them shortly.

And a basic pose from the American goldfinch (Spinus tristis) – I got a few still frames on the yellow flowers with the fluffy seeds, but they’re not as sharp as this one. The refuge really does allow them to be much more acclimated to close approaches, at least within a car, than virtually anywhere else, so tight shots were much easier.

To a degree, anyway.

The roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) was found on the second trip, spotted in the distance by The Girlfriend, and the hint of pink made me think ‘flamingo’ until I got the long lens on it – no wonder a line of cars was parked right there. I think I’ve photographed them only once, in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It certainly seemed to be making the most of it, though how much food it was actually finding, I can’t say.

The other players here are a Caspian tern (Hydroprogne caspia,) which is rare enough in the area and a decent find all by itself, and a common-as-muck herring gull (Larus argentatus) – the unlikely criminal investigative trio. The scale is deceptive, because none of these are small birds, all massing much larger than crows. There was also a black tern wheeling overhead in its hyperactive feeding circuits, which I’d seen on the previous trip too, but snagging a decent photo proved as difficult this time as it did the last.

Oh, yeah, let’s get a look at that heron sculpture, near the visitor center.

This was a solid four or more meters tall, much taller than life size, and very well done, by sculptor James Seaman – he also has a huge bald eagle sculpture visible from both the wildlife drive and the interstate. Excellent work.

We didn’t drive through the Refuge this day, since it was pouring off and on, but The Girlfriend wanted some detailed shots of the sculpture and we had a little time to kill before a nearby winery opened (we obtained some excellent, authentic New York wine from Montezuma Winery – I’m not much for wine, or any alcohol really, but this is good stuff.) The close examination allowed us to realize there was a nest within, and thus the video clips, so serendipity there.

And now on to some things not in the video.

I had seen plenty of sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) in Florida and always considered them a southern bird, but it appears their range does include all of New York, so not shocking to see a pair here. They actually had a chick with them, and I was endeavoring to catch a glimpse of it at a great distance before I realized, on my return home, that one of the pair (the one with the muted coloration) was the chick, at adult size and ready to fly. That is, of course, not the one seen here – I couldn’t get the damn lens to lock on and remain sharp for anything.

Just mallards (Anas platyrhynchos,) a female (second from left) and four nearly full-grown chicks, deep in the reeds and trying to be subtle, though it would have worked better if they’d been quiet.

I’m fairly certain this is a female common yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas,) which is slightly unfortunate because the male has the cooler coloration, but I certainly saw no sign of one. Or I could have misidentified this… but naahh, no one would believe that.

I don’t need to tell anyone these are Canada geese, almost despised as much as seagulls in some places though I’ve never seen the fuss, myself. To give an idea of how many were breeding here, beside the fact that half of those pictured here are chicks, when the breeze came across the marsh flats immediately behind the geese here, the only smell that carried was goose shit. It was impressive, though not exactly pleasant.

One of the real finds came soon after these, though.

I’ve only seen American bitterns (Botaurus lentiginosus) maybe four times, and one of those was during a visit to the very same refuge in, like, 2009. They’re pretty well camouflaged normally, but if they suspect that they’re being observed (as this one soon did,) they drop their heads and slip through the reeds almost magically, disturbing nothing as they dodge among the stalks. That previous time, I managed to track it for a short ways, but this one vanished from all sight, leaving me with only three frames. That was the first visit to the refuge on the first trip to NY this year, and I watched carefully on all subsequent visits but saw no further sign of one.

And now, for a handful of images not from the Refuge – these are from the grounds of the Gatsby mansion where we stayed.

The behavior of a pair of kingbirds as I drew close to this tree clued me in to the nest that was within, which was pretty well hidden and completely silent. Since both parents were off the nest and watching warily, that gave some indication that there were young and not eggs within, but I saw and heard no sign of them, Nonetheless, I shot a few frames of the nest from different angles for closer examination later.

Yep, there’s a couple of beaks just barely peeking above the edge of the nest, when the right angle is achieved. We can get a closer look.

Nary a peep from them, but then again, the folks weren’t handy with food either. As I found out from my brother a day later, though, they did not escape the attention of a kestrel, who apparently made off with one of the young. Unfortunate, but that’s the balance of nature; I’m sorry I missed it myself, since that’s the kind of behavior that I try to capture, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a kestrel – they’ve gotten scarce around here.

Down near the lakeshore, I was picking a leaf off of a bush with brilliant translucent orange berries when something exploded almost out from under my hand. Let’s take a look from only two meters off.

I have just determined that this is a tatarian honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica) bush, and the nest is right there in front of you. It’s easy to see why I missed it, but yeah, intrepid nature boy should have spotted it before I almost put my hand on it. It took a couple of attempts later on to capture the mother on the nest before she flew off.

That ‘rufous’ crown pegs this as a chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina,) and I would have thought July was a bit late to still be sitting eggs, but this is central NY – the lake water was still a bit chilly for swimming (not that that stopped me.) I was just trying to get her to come up sharp, but the berries added a nice touch to the frame.

Okay, so that’s, what, 24 photos, 16 species, and a video? That’s enough for now, and catches me up a little bit. As I said, two more videos are in the works as well as quite a few more photos, so I got content to spare for a little while, even if I don’t shoot anything for a week (and that’s not likely to occur.) Will probably be another record-setting year.

Work in progress, be patient

July 25, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

I mentioned, just over a week ago, coming back from a trip, and that I’d be following up on that clue as to where. So before I continue, I offer the above photo as another clue, to let you guess again (or stick with your original answer.)

All set? Want to examine the photo for more details? Those aren’t palms, so despite the impression, there’s no actual indication that it was semi-tropical. Except for the spoonbill, because I’ve only ever seen them in Florida.

Except for now.

Enough stalling. The trip had been up to central New York, the exact same location as the previous trip – you probably figured that out from the casual remark in the previous post. The first trip had been to visit family, especially my dad on Father’s Day, because that trip had been delayed a year. The second… was to attend his funeral. Within about a week of my return, he’d started crashing, and we discovered that he had advanced color cancer, and so he passed on the 7th. He was 91, and had soldiered through numerous issues including a stroke, two different C-Diff infections (nasty, those,) a few UTIs, and freaking COVID, so, unexpected, this was not. I’m glad I got the chance to visit, and some may say that he held on until then, or he himself might have said that he made sure that wasn’t going to happen again (trust me, that was his sense of humor, and not something I’d take offense at.) No real regrets.

This, by the way, was the third family member to pass during the run of this blog – I just don’t talk about those things, especially when I find typical funerals to be fucking annoying, and while others may use such platforms to hash out their problems, issues, and feelings, that’s not me, and not the purpose. Enough said.

I have countless photos and video clips from both trips, and I’m getting to them – I just spent about two hours figuring out how to run sequences in slow-motion and getting them lined up, so hopefully at least one will be along soon. I’m also trying to catch up to mental goals of posting numbers, which is stupid, but still better than social media.

So the sunset above was once again over Cayuga Lake, at the Gatsby mansion, which the owners were again very kind to let us stay within – this time The Girlfriend got to see the place firsthand, and she’s enamored of it. So many thanks, again and always, to John, Jay, and Jim. The wildlife on the grounds and in the immediate area was performing much more readily this year – we’re getting to that quickly. And yes, the roseate spoonbill was there in central New York – how and why, I cannot say, since this is way outside of their typical range of southern Florida, and my Sibley Guide doesn’t even show any sporadic appearances in New York at all; again, Hurricane/Tropical Storm Elsa might have something to do with it.

I close, for now, with an image that was entirely intentional, and not due to any wandering autofocus, but instead a carefully composed artistic abstract and exactly the way I intended it to look. Really.

Lots more, coming soon.

Just so you know you missed them

July 24, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

In a few days at the end of the month, both the southern delta Aquariids and the alpha Capricornids (both meteor showers, and that’s apparently the way you should capitalize them) will be peaking, though I really should have told you about this earlier, because now the moon will be still a bit bright and visibility thus greatly reduced for all but the brightest meteors – both were ‘active’ for the past couple of weeks and will remain so until mid-August-ish. This means that you have lots of chances of missing them, and can blame it on numerous factors.

Funny – early morning on the 15th, both The Girlfriend and I looked up at the clear skies above central New York, seeing both the Milky Way and small patches of cloud that were about identical, and a meteor streaked right through my line of sight (not hers, though,) reminding me of how good the visibility is up there. I used to see them very frequently, even during non-peak periods, while out walking at nights when I lived there, far more frequently than here even when I was out specifically during peaks to view meteors. Did I see a southern delta Aquariid, or an alpha Capricornid, or one totally unrelated to either? I don’t think there’s a way to tell, or even a reason, to be honest – the goal is to see a momentary streak of light, or preferably a huge trail with particles splitting off and residual airglow for some minutes afterward – who cares what the origin is? I’d be happy with a few satellites colliding during re-entry.

Speaking of that, there’s enough damn satellites (the manmade ones) up there now that avoiding them in time exposures is next to impossible; the last six or more meteors that I thought I’d captured were all demonstrably satellites, so, don’t get excited with streaks across your frame anymore. What we should be pursuing now is the rare, brilliant bolides that light up the sky. I’ve only seen them a handful of times, even during the spectacular 2001 Leonids, so it will take more effort and luck than even lightning.

But, you can’t miss them entirely unless you’re actually trying – otherwise it’s just, “Oh, yeah, there was a meteor shower last week, wasn’t there?” That doesn’t count. So get out there and stare fruitlessly at the skies, and then stare at the resulting exposures and compare the frames before and after to see if there’s a continued trail (meaning goddamn satellite.) Only then can you take pride in the failure, or something.

Of course, if you do actually photograph a brilliant example, you’ve failed at failing, and you might take some pride in that (and the resulting image,) but rest assured that I won’t think better of you.

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