Now we’re talking

Al Denelsbeck

red-shouldered hawk Buteo lineatus perched in good light
The saga of the red-shouldered hawks (Buteo lineatus) continues apace, as The Girlfriend spotted something specific when one landed in the backyard trees, two mornings ago, confirmed with careful examination with the binoculars. Unfortunately, it didn’t persist long enough for me to bring the camera out and didn’t repeat its behavior later that day, or anytime that I was watching on the following day. But this morning, one at least was quite cooperative.

As I mentioned within, I’d spotted two potential nests much earlier, also in the backyard, but this is neither of them. Instead, this is not quite straight out the back of the house, right at the edge of the pond. I expect this view to become almost completely obscured once the cypress trees leaf out in the spring, but maybe we’ll get lucky. I’ve done a little scouting and there are a couple of vantages that may remain open, though so far none that allow the height of the deck to provide a better view. All I can say is, we’ll see. The nice thing is, the hawks are so complacent about our presence that I can probably pick any spot in the yard and they won’t be bothered – wish I could say the same for the wood ducks.

likely mated pair of red-shouldered hawks Buteo lineatus perched on dead tree in distance
This one came from the day that the nest was originally confirmed, narrowly missing becoming an Estate Find. This dead tree overlooks the bayou-like stretch of the pond, obviously much further off, but it appears to form the boundary of their home territory; I can hear other red-shoulders giving their own territorial calls further off in that direction. But yes, we now have no reason to believe they’re not a couple, especially having seen them both on the nest simultaneously.

I should be using either a video or a gimbal head on the tripod for further attempts, but neither is intended for lenses this long anyway, so I can’t guarantee rock-steady results in the future. I also need to see about eliminating the hiss in the audio, which appears to be the fault of the camera, because I’ve used the same mic with a standalone audio recorder and it was much better; however, I’ve also done separate audio recording while shooting video, and syncing them up is a right bastard. Have to work on refining some part of this technique, anyway.

What the hell?

Al Denelsbeck

Stepped out last night and caught this noise coming from someplace across the pond, but centered in a couple of different regions. It surged and faded, at times going completely silent, so I’m sure it was critters of some kind, but I’m just not sure what. Take a listen before we go any further:

Noises in the night

I had to increase this by 10db and it’s still quiet – headphones are recommended. You’ll also have to do a little self-editing, because I have no way of doing this myself, but there’s recorder hiss of course, and then the lowest hum in there is from traffic not far enough away (I’m always amazed at how far car sounds travel – it’s annoying.)

My guess is frogs, though it was almost exactly like the muttering of ducks – it’s just that I’ve never heard them this active after dark and never going on that long, plus it’s too repetitve. It was quite warm last night after an almost-hot day, and this was still early evening though well after sundown, about 8:45 PM EST. Right in the middle, you can hear a solitary croak from one of the chorus frog species, the sound of someone opening a creaky cupboard, but the others are something that I’ve never heard before, perhaps only from not being on the side of a pond at the right time of night, the right time of year. If you recognize it, let me know – I’ll be doing my own searches.

MMM boy, another Estate Find!

Al Denelsbeck

First off, as the title hints, this is the three-thousandth post on the old Walkabout Exercise in Thinly-Veiled Narcissism; I really had planned to do something bigger, but nothing was coming to mind or hand, and now I’ve got this schedule to keep. Note that I formerly had a goal to reach this by the third week in September of last year, because reasons, but we’re way off that mark, aren’t we? Ah, well, we’ll all cope. So it’ll be pretty much a normal Estate Find post, but you can have a soda pop while you’re reading if you like.

This week’s find dates back a few days to the foggy morning featured in the previous post, when I went out looking for fun things to photograph, among them the subject that is about to be featured. I missed a few small songbird photos, mostly due to the light levels being too low for the shutter speed necessary for such targets, and got out about as far as that path would take me, the edge of the bayou-like pond area – beyond that it’s wading, and I don’t presently have the heavy-duty boots or waders that should be used for that at this time of year. On the way back, things were still pretty quiet, until I heard the odd noise, which I initially took for an unknown bird call, being a repetitive rasping squeak. I paused and looked around carefully, determined not to scare it off before I had the chance to photograph it, and eventually determined that it was actually gnawing. Ah, that’s better!

And it was coming, as I slowly determined, from just over the edge of the streambank that forms the back border of the property, just a handful of meters ahead. Listening carefully as I inched forward, I surmised from both the sound and the occasional ripples extending out into the water that the emitter was right there, and eventually got a peek at the top of a head. Figuring that it would bolt the moment I hove into view, I leaned forward with the camera raised and kept firing off frames as I got a glimpse of the eye.

North American beaver Castor canadensis gnawing on wood at stream edge, seen through foliage
This is a North American beaver (Castor canadensis,) which I knew had a lodge on the property yet hadn’t seen the occupant(s) clearly yet, but it was one of the goals for the morning so I was pleased. And to its credit, the beaver wasn’t too concerned with my proximity.

North American beaver Castor canadensis gnawing on wood at stream edge, seen through foliage
I was able to lean further out and get clearer photos – the beaver had to be aware of my presence, but it was being nicely complacent and I was being as unobtrusive as possible, given the appearance of the long lens and the sound of the shutter.

Eventually, it realized I wasn’t going away and might just pose a threat, and so it swam away from its meal, but not quickly and without diving, instead curving around out in the open where we both had a much better look at each other. I’ve seen this before: beavers can be very curious sometimes, and it still had deep water underneath that it could resort to if needed.

North American beaver Castor canadensis swimming in open water with curiosity
This was a decent-sized adult, so probably in the neighborhood of 10-12 kilos. I had to back the zoom down because it was too close for proper framing, and then I backed it all the way down to 150mm and switched to video.

Yeah, I wasn’t prepared to do video, so unsteady and without the proper mic, but there you go. I’d actually pulled the same stunt before, back in ’91 I believe, with the first beavers that I was witnessing directly – their curiosity gets the better of them, perhaps because the noise is too close to their own gnawing sounds, don’t know for sure. But it worked fine, and as I said in the video, this one closed to about four meters distant.

North American beaver Castor canadensis pausing to consider the noise the photographer was making
Now, you know what’s slightly annoying? I took The Girlfriend out there again the next morning to see what we could see, and the beaver that we barely spotted (same one? Don’t know,) refused to come within fifteen meters and dove twice in alarm, even though we were making less noise and virtually no movement. I have no idea what the difference was.

So, here’s hoping that I can top the previous experiences (and video) of the species this year. It’s at least a convenient location…

Up too early

Al Denelsbeck

One of the cats making a lot of noise this morning woke me up far earlier than I ever should have been, given the time that I went to sleep last night/earlier this morning, but once up, I noticed the nice pall of fog out over the pond and went exploring. One set of photos is going to wait until Friday’s Estate Find, unless I get something even better before then, but we can have these now:

pair of Canada geese Branta canadensis in lower, bayou-like pond
That’s a pair of Canada geese of course (Branta canadensis,) and I’ve been hearing them out of sight down in the lower pond, but never spotting them. The Girlfriend told me that they visited the main pond right out back while I was away the other weekend though – figures. I was working at a pretty good distance, probably in excess of 75 meters, so the fog had its chance to soften and bluify (it is too a word) the frame. Makes it fartsy.

But there’s something that’s not immediately apparent in that one, so we go to a later frame as they swam further out.

pair of Canada geese Branta canadensis in lower, bayou-like pond, showing distinct size disparity
They didn’t overlap above like they do here, so it was easy to miss the perspective thing, but the closer one is quite a bit smaller than the farther one. The species is known for having a range of sizes, though, and has now been recognized with not just 11 subspecies, but a separate, new species for the smallest variations, now known as the cackling goose. We are not seeing one of those here though.

These two were conversing quietly in their way until I came into sight, whereupon they decided to maintain a little discretion, and swam out into more open water just as a precaution. I wasn’t going to get any better than this, though, and so I let them be. There was also the possibility that the mallards and wood ducks would be along soon and I didn’t want to spook those either – they’ve been visiting off and on for the past two weeks now, though the wood ducks are maintaining their sneaky ways and not letting me get a nice, clear portrait shot yet. It’ll come.

Estate Find V

Al Denelsbeck

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis out in late January in pale grey coloration
If you’re seeing this, it means I failed in finding something newer or unique or somehow more exotic like I think the Estate Finds should be, when I went out looking yesterday, and so kept this fallback image. It is of course another Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis,) but curiously, one from just a few days ago as soon as the temperature peaked above 10°c after about two weeks of near- to sub-freezing temperatures – this was the day before the turtles had even ventured out. I’ve never seen one quite this pale grey, however, but I suspect that it was immediately before starting to shed its skin; I’ve seen them in mid-shed and the skin color supports this idea. But that distinct, straight-edged patch at the waist? Got me. Looks like someone trying to match paint colors unsuccessfully.

But yeah, I’m really aiming for subjects that I haven’t photographed thousands of times before. I’ll try harder…

Ta ta, January

Al Denelsbeck

And as January vents its last shuddering gasps, we dance happily on what will be its grave (just so it can see us do it) with the month-end abstract. Ss. Plural, actually, and they all have a theme, though they didn’t have to, but such is the nature of nature abstracts. Sometimes.

sun reflections on thin rough ice on pond
During the first of the cold days, we’d get some patches of ice on the pond here and there, and this is one of them, reflecting the sun – that was the angle that I approached at, though it would have been better with the sun at my back so there was less chance of spooking it, but my exemplary stalking skills were still up to the job and I got quite close. The starbursts are courtesy of a smaller aperture, of course.

Later in the month, we had a different composition.

Japanese maple tree loaded with snow
While we brought along four or five Japanese maples when we moved, there were still two that were already in residence, and you’ll see more of this one throughout the year, since it’s a wonderfully twisty and gnarly one right in the backyard. Some varieties drop their leaves readily as autumn passes through, and some want to retain them like little tree hoarders, thinking they’ll come in handy one day, and I suppose they did. Shows me, right?

And finally,

very rough ice on pond reflecting blue sky
This was long before any hint of snow, and I don’t know what causes ice to form so roughly – probably something to do with the last vestiges of duckweed or other plants and differential cooling. It certainly sounds like I know what I’m talking about.

And so we roll into February, which shouldn’t be spelled like that, with its closer deadline for the month-end and thus the distinct chance that I’ll do worse than this. Can’t wait!

No more nights like that

Al Denelsbeck

You certainly recall a few months back when I awoke quite anxious that my business cards needed updating, and I’m happy to report that this has now been taken care of.

This takes a surprisingly long time, even longer this time around. Part of that is, I have multiple designs for the cards, all example photos of mine, so I don’t change one, I change several. And part of it is due to routine graphics issues.

example business cardsIt’s actually been a while since I’ve changed them, and the last versions were done in Photoshop. I’m now using GIMP, which opens Photoshop files just fine, and have even loaded the obscure font that I like to use (Eras Demi ITC.) Except that Photoshop never could render that font in italics, so I had to copy it over from MS Word, and that disagrees with GIMP on what the ‘proper’ slant for italics is supposed to be (why is that, anyway?) Whatever – it meant I couldn’t just change the address, I had to retype everything. This also meant that I had to pick the font size that worked best too.

While doing all this, I decided that some of the older designs needed updating, especially with more current photos, and so I designed seven more, some of which are seen at right. Those were all easy, since the original photos all had not just adequate blank space, but low contrast and relatively smooth backgrounds that wouldn’t interfere with the laid-in text. Naturally, I’m aiming for complementary colors, and so I often try a couple different ones to see what stands out best. For most of the designs, this was a simple issue, and I’d like to think my choices are aesthetically pleasing, especially for the second anole image, the one that’s mostly black; the font color is actually a dark olive, but it seems to work well against the image itself, maintaining the ‘muted light’ and letting the anole head take precedence.

Now, how well does any of this work? Does it make the slightest bit of difference, and if so, how slight? Probably not much at all, but I do at least get compliments on my cards, so there’s that. Would any design, or other aspect, lead to more sales in some way? Not very likely, but at least they’re not boring or too simple. Though someone might say I’m too fussy I suppose…

[By the way, the actual cards have more info than this, but I tend to leave a lot of personal info offline so it’s not readily available to snooping assholes, in case this hasn’t been obvious.]

Occasionally, my choices have led to more difficulties, however.

two examples of cards with more cluttered backgroundsThe top one, for instance, had more contrast, a bit of clutter from the branches, and necessitated laying in a drop-shadow behind the text to delineate the edges more – I’m still not entirely sold on this one, but I’ll probably print it anyway. The bottom one is fine, but I made a small change: the background to the right, where the text goes, has been dodged a bit, lightened from the original image to let the text stand out better – you can compare it to the left side, behind the woodpecker, to see how it originally looked. It’s very subtle and doesn’t look altered at all, so it works for me.

[You may or may not have noticed, but there is definitely a tendency for subjects to be oriented to the left side and looking right, leaving the text over on the right side. I can’t say for sure if this reflects simply my choices for card images or if I really do shoot the original photos more that way; possibly a little of both, because it seems more pleasing to me like this. There’s probably something psychological to be found underlying this, and if I get really bored I’ll attempt to figure out what it is. Feel free to speculate.]

And a few times, I have to abandon my selections.

rejected card design with red-headed woodpeckers
Now, I really wanted to use this design, because it shows behavior and seems to me to speak more of “active nature photography” or something like that. I mean, I really do shoot a lot of nature portraiture, but I’d like to have more behavior photos. This one, however, just couldn’t be made to work: the details and contrast of the trunk simply interfered with the text and made it hard to read, regardless of the color choice – you can see that the trunk transitions between light grey and deeper shadow, with lots of fine dark details. It would have taken too much alteration to eliminate that; I’d already dropped one previous card design for exactly that reason, because I don’t think images that look too edited send the right message. There’s also the fact that the woodpeckers crowd towards the center more, but I couldn’t frame them better for the card proportions – it’s already against the left side of the original frame, and cropping tighter would trim off portions of the adult woodpecker. Some choices simply won’t work.

I admit we’re a bit heavy on birds in this post, but there’s more variety when the other designs are included; these are just some of the new ones. Still, a mammal card would be nice, but my stock is notably low on good mammal pics – they tend to be more nocturnal around here and thus harder to get. Yet, prompted by these thoughts just now, I started rooting through my beaver stock, and so far haven’t found anything that would work. They either suffer from poor lighting (see above about nocturnal) or too much clutter from the surroundings. I’ll keep looking, though. I’m not going to resort to deer, since everyone has deer pics – it almost suggests that I’m not very good if all if I have to feature those.

[Leave it alone.]

So, yeah, you might think it’d be simple, but it takes a bit of thought and effort to master a new set of business cards. Or at least it does for me…

A figment of imagination

Al Denelsbeck

Photography has been a little slow for the past few days, though this is also due to my own lack of effort. Still, things occasionally pop up.

Take, for instance, the conditions on the pond a week ago today:

small tussock in middle of pond devoid of turtles
… versus today:

small tussock on pond flaunting eight turtles, one week after being frozen over
Seriously.

These guys (which would be yellow-bellied sliders, Trachemys scripta scripta, and eastern painted turtles, Chrysemys picta picta,) wasted no time when the temperature got up above 18°c today, even though lower portions of the pond still have some slushy ice. Having grown up in central New York, I still can’t get over how North Carolina winters behave, as indecisive as a squirrel in the street. Mind you, I’m not complaining about being out today without even a sweater on, but you know, if you’re going to take a two-week trip to NC during January, well, pack everything.

I have to show you a close crop of the above frame:

close crop of reflection from previous image showing perfect clarity
Just the reflection in the water in front of the tussock, where you can see the details of the turtles quite well. The way the pond is, even with a stiff wind it doesn’t have too many open stretches which would show distinct rippling, but still, that’s not too shabby. Come spring (which may be the weekend, dunno,) the various pond plants and algae will get a toehold and the surface will be much more obscured – it’ll be interesting cataloging the changes that the pond goes through during the year.

Estate Find IV

Al Denelsbeck

Yeah, it’s liable to be birds for a while, though I missed my chance at some deer the other morning. I try to keep variety in mind, but at this time of year? Ya got birds.

The morning after the overnight snow storm, the sun broke out (which usually happens in NC, so credit for that at least,) and I was out using the light. The birds were extremely happy with the new selection of feeders that The Girlfriend had provided, and some of them weren’t too concerned with my presence, as long as I stayed back a bit. One, however, flew in but quickly passed, just not thrilled about my proximity, and it happened to photobomb the frame in doing so.

brown thrasher Toxostoma rufum flying through frame of bird feeders
That’s probably enough to identify it to any semi-experienced birders, just by color and tail alone, but I got a better opportunity moments later, when it perched in a nearby tree in great light.

brown thrasher Toxostoma rufum perched on snow-covered branch
That’s a brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum,) and I’ve seen them plenty of times before, but their habits have made it hard to get a photo. They tend to be pretty shy, but worse, they forage underneath bushes and in foliage, rooting around in the fallen leaves and ground litter for food in a manner that spurred their name – they can make quite a racket while not uttering a sound. I’ve rarely seen them perched in trees, especially this high up, but I suspect this one was waiting for me to vacate the area of the bird feeders so it could get back to feeding.

brown thrasher Toxostoma rufum possibly scolding photographer
I’ve never heard a peep out of one, or at least not to my knowledge, even though the Cornell site lists them as quite melodious, and the sound samples provided at that link are supportive of the claim. This particular individual, however, favored me with something like a cross between a growl and a hiss, a bad transmission grinding to a halt, and I suspect it was because I was right there. I’d almost switched to video, but the distance was a little large (this is cropped significantly,) and I wasn’t carrying the long lens, which I wouldn’t use for video anyway unless I was also using the tripod.

They’re largish birds, the same size as an American robin (both are thrushes,) but the bright rust color sets them apart from most other species in this area, save for Carolina wrens. I knew, when I started spotting them using the camellia bushes so often, that I’d have to stake them out for good pics, but this one was much more cooperative than usual, and provided my first decent images. There will be more.

Now in daylight

Al Denelsbeck

Naturally, I wasn’t going to leave the snow pics at just some night time exposures – not when we got such a decent, scenic coverage. It’s been a few years since we had a proper snow, and my basic attitude is, once a year, for photos’ sake, and that’s it.

frozen pond on Walkabout Estates
Nothing too scenic here, just the northern portion of the backyard pond – the wood ducks from last week had been hiding out right under those branches straight back on the opposite side, but they’d vacated a day or so before the storm. You can see a hint of blue sky there, since the clouds broke by late morning and the sun was out for the afternoon – I think it’s crystal clear out there right now (it’s 10 PM as I’m typing this,) and I might try to do some time exposures to show both the snow and the clear skies, but I have to get motivated to get even colder, and I’m not sure about that.

small tussock in middle of pond devoid of turtles
The turtles were disinclined to come up and bask in their favored spot, despite the sunshine. Huh.

And while I’m linking to past posts, I provide an update on one from long ago:

bird nest balance sculpture almost hidden under snow
Same sculpture, or decoration, or balance-thingy – I’ve never determined what to call these, but The Girlfriend has several. This one has not yet served as a perch for the anoles, and I don’t expect it to anytime soon.

snow-covered yard balance decoration
No anoles peeking out of the ass of this one, either.

snow-covered camellia Theaceae bush still showing bright red flower
There are a couple different varieties of camellia (Theaceae) bush around the property, and the flowers of most immediately wilt when the temperature drops below freezing, but this one seems a bit hardier. No bees, though (weren’t we just there?)

The magnolia (Magnoliaceae) trees on the border of the yard were heavy with snow like most other things, but they have deep green, slick leaves and were receiving bright sunlight, so on occasion (like every ten to twenty seconds,) they would dislodge the snow from a selection of leaves and cause very localized blizzards.

magnolia Magnoliaceae leaves dislodging burden of powdery snow
Despite the sun, the temperatures stayed pretty low so the snow wasn’t getting wet, and the falls were all powdery and blew in the wind – including straight into the camera lens (and of course, down my neck.)

stretch of Spanish moss Tillandsia usneoides bearing clumps of snow
Here’s something you won’t see too often: Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) with patches of snow – the ranges of both simply don’t overlap very much. Though as I’ve heard it, the Florida panhandle got its own blizzard with this one, which is extremely rare, and most of the residents are likely in a state of shock – the remainder are bitching loudly because they moved south specifically to avoid such occurrences.

bird feeders being patronized by a variety of avian species
The Girlfriend put up these bird feeders about a week ago, fretting for a day because the birds hadn’t found them yet, but this soon changed. Before the storm there was plenty of activity, because the birds knew it was coming, but they also wasted no time after it either. Without being able to approach easily from the sunlit side, I got close enough from the opposite side and managed to get eight in the frame at once, of at least four different species. I need to start a list…

heavy snow cover on back deck of Stately Walkabout Manor
You can see portions of the pond on both sides of the railing bends; the upper, northern portion where the wood ducks were congregating is out of sight to the left, while the channel to the lower portion, the bayou-like area, is just off to the right. Very convenient.

I haven’t looked to see how much snow we got ‘officially’ – it’s always less than it appears, but I’d say 5-8 cm (2-3 inches, for Amurrikins.) Not a blizzard, but it qualifies as a proper snowfall anyway, and it’s not supposed to get very warm at all for the next several days, so only the sunlight will wear it away and that won’t be too quickly, I suspect – it’ll be here for a little while. But we don’t have anyplace to be and can even walk to a grocery store if needed, so we’re good.

More pics will probably sneak in here and there – still debating about going out again tonight.

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