Switching ruts

June 8, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

At times past, I’ve realized that I’m getting into a rut, posting too many images of a particular topic, mostly mantids and frogs. I have also said that I wasn’t much of a bird photographer, concentrating on other subjects (like mantids and frogs.) Well, at least I can switch ruts, because now we have even more birds. I’ll blame this one, at least, on Buggato, who keeps wanting to go down to Jordan Lake.

This outing, while seeming a little slow at first, nonetheless netted us a nice little variety of images, even though some of the subjects that we were after never materialized very well. The osprey didn’t want to fish anywhere within a decent photographic distance, and the bald eagles only did one pass. But that was enough to maintain my record for the year of seeing at least one on every visit – they really have been remarkably present lately.

This pair of bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) were adults, but still acting like juveniles, chasing one another in what did not appear to be an aggressive manner. I could be wrong – I didn’t do well in my eagle psych classes in school – but generally there’s more of a frantic air when it’s a territorial battle or something. Those open mouths mean nothing – eagles always have open mouths. Bad sinuses, I guess.

All of this was perfectly silent, without a lot of dodging, and proceeded in pretty much a straight line, so I can only give impressions, but hey, they’re eagle pics, which is what you come to photographers for. Mostly.

The great blue herons (Ardea herodias) were playing scarce, giving us only the nice pose that opened the post and a couple of passes like below, mostly choosing to maintain their distance.

We stalked a few of the osprey (Pandion haliaetus,) watching a pair fishing in the distance, and caught one as it cruised very close overhead, so close that it actually overlapped the frame at 600mm – no fish, no remarkable pose, but some nice detail at least.

Later on, I glimpsed a bird through the trees and suspected that it landed around the point, not far away, and so started a slow stalk. Eventually, scanning the trees with the long lens, I spotted a bird’s back in the foliage, but the view was semi-obscured, and as I took the camera away from my eye to get my bearings, I could never find it again. Even as we crept up more than close enough to make it out, there was no sign; I can only assume it slipped off as I was peering through the very narrow view field of the long lens trying to find it again. It’s one of those little hazards: a telephoto lens provides absolutely no peripheral vision, so using it to spot subjects can just as often mean the subject does something while outside of the narrow field, something that you might easily have spotted without the lens.

Disappointed after the minor victory of confirming that the bird had landed nearby, and only knowing it was a chocolate-brown back which could have meant either eagle or osprey, we turned to head back – and found an osprey in plain sight on a dead trunk behind us, directly over the path we’d just taken not three minutes before. How long it had been there, I have no idea, and we never saw any sign of one fishing nearby, but the damning evidence was right there.

It’s the time of year for feeding young, so either this one wasn’t raising a brood, or it was sneaking a meal while the spouse and young didn’t know – that’s a guilty look if I ever saw one, and we really weren’t far away. Within another thirty seconds, it decided we were too close and left with the remainder of its meal.

There was something else that I wanted to check on, and as we backtracked towards the car, I spied a species I’d never seen before, and endeavored to get a clear shot of it. This was the best that I got.

After several minutes of searching through multiple websites (none of which identified this as a North Carolina species) and my Sibley Guide, I pinned this down as a prothonotary warbler (Protonotaria citrea,) likely a male. There were a handful, all flitting around deep within the thicker brush at the lake edge, making the barest appearances out in the open – just long enough to find with the telephoto lens, not long enough to lock focus. Here’s the full frame so you can at least see the conditions.

Again, this is at 600mm, and the most open they ever appeared. But now I can add prothonotary warbler to my list, even though I can’t pronounce it.

What I wanted to check out, though, was the osprey nest we’d seen before, hoping to determine that there were young on the nest. This was several kilometers further south on another arm of the lake, and not the best time because it was still morning and we’d already determined that afternoon provided better light, but the session was for the morning, and better to cope with bad light than no pics at all. So down there we went. This time, the evidence was distinct, even though momma looks surprised.

Seeing the head raised under its own strength, we knew that feeding could now be witnessed reasonably well, so we waited patiently for the spouse to arrive with food – but, not patiently enough. After 45 minutes in the sun without water and no sign of a food delivery, we elected to call it quits, already overdue for our return. But the frames allowed me to confirm something not apparent even in the viewfinder: that there were two baby osprey in the nest. Only one would have its head visible at a time, but the wing or back of another would appear right at the edge of the sticks, in the case below, right in front of mom’s breast.

Now, initially, those were all the pics that I’d prepared for this post, and eleven is more than enough. But the weather was predicted to go shitty for all of the next week, and this is prime time in the rearing sequence, so The Girlfriend and I made another trip the following day, this time in the (godawfully sweltering) afternoon, and with a tripod, just in case – we had other things to do in the same general area, anyway, so it wasn’t too much of a side trip. And it paid off.

The sun was brutal, with the temperature hitting around 32°C or better, and the near-constant traffic on the bridge was noisy and set up lots of vibration; initially, all we saw was momma trying to cope with the heat and calling frequently. But… let’s let the video explain it.

And we need the still photos to go along with it. I’d switched away from video as dad made his appearance, but in a way I’m glad, because the still photos looks a lot more dynamic.

As I said in the video, it was only about ten minutes after we arrived that the male did, so excellent luck this time, and great light.

I had wondered if they would do a ‘changing of the guard,’ with the new arrival taking over rearing duties while the nest-watcher got to take a break, but from appearances (mostly the fluffed feathers,) the new arrival simply handed off the food to be administered by the nest-watcher, so I am considering them in the stereotypical roles, dad doing the hunting and mom doing the rearing, but who knows? There could be a lot of fluidity here, and I don’t want to perpetuate anything. No perpetuater I.

I’m not even sure that these are the parents at all, and not just some daycare center or kindly stranger. I won’t even commit to those being juveniles – we could be looking at “little birds,” or mere actors. It could all be a holograph for all I know. But it’s a damn good pose whichever way. And don’t miss the other appearing in silhouette back there.

At no point did I capture a portrait of all three of them in the light – one of them, at least, seemed to have the good sense to stay in the shade.

I have no decent estimate for the distance involved, so it’s just guesswork: 40, 50 meters? Not huge, but by naked eye, only the barest smudge of a nestling head could be made out when it framed against the open sky. It was serendipitous that the bridge was there to bring us up almost to eye-level with the nest; any other vantage would have shown little until the young could peer over the edge. Rain is scheduled for the rest of the week (and was supposed to have arrived yesterday,) so this was my one clear chance, and I’m glad it paid off. Someone, however, does not appear to agree with me…

Just because, part 41

June 6, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

I’ve had this one sitting in the folder since before the trip to the (one and only) beach, and that was a month ago, so it’s ancient and decrepit, in internet terms. But I need a buffer again.

We have a handful of American five-lined skinks (Plestiodon fasciatus) that live near or under the front steps and thus bask on them when the weather’s good, invariably getting Monster all worked up when the main door is open and she can see them through the storm door, right there. I try to leave them be when I can, but sometimes there’s just other stuff more important than allowing the lizards to sunbathe uninterrupted – strange but true. On the occasions when I exit from the back door but come around to enter the front (just to mix things up,) I’ll startle one of the skinks from the steps and they’ll scurry for cover in various locations.

Which leads to this photo, since the skink had found a small crack along the wall and disappeared, but then peeked from another crack to watch what I was doing – which was lean in with the camera for an odd portrait.

No, the house isn’t all full of cracks, but where wood meets brick, there’s rarely a perfect seam, and caulk gets old.

Last one, I promise

June 4, 2021June 3, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Last sunrise video, that is – I’ll have just a couple more beach trip photos after this…

I came loaded for everything on this trip, especially video, which I’ve been trying to tackle more often; naturally, there weren’t a lot of subjects that benefited from video. But there was one that I was really trying to get…

The last morning there, the conditions looked promising again, with only a couple of tiny clouds down on the horizon, as seen above. Unfortunately, they were right about where the sun was supposed to appear. While I was using a compass app and knew what bearing the sun was to break the horizon, this isn’t precise enough for perfect accuracy, giving a region that’s wider than the field of view of the 600mm lens; a smutphone app is not exactly a surveyors’ transit, you know? The best thing to do is to watch the horizon for the brightest glow, which generally provides a great indication of just where the sun will appear.

Looking at the rays and shadows against the sky, the sun looks almost perfectly aligned in the gap between the clouds. Meanwhile, some people much further up the beach were outlined nicely, and I started wondering if I’d get a sun smack on the horizon with someone right in front of it, which can be enormously hard to arrange. Where I was, the beach and waterline pointed over to the left of where the sun would appear, but it made a slight curve to the right in the distance and permitted this alignment, which I was unaware of until that morning. Using the edge of a building (cropped from the frame on the left,) I could do a semi-accurate estimate of the distance involved, which is somewhere in the vicinity of 1.7 kilometers, or a little over a mile – not too shabby, really.

But wait! Let’s take a full-res gander at that one person.

Perhaps a little softness from imperfect focus, or perhaps it’s atmospheric distortion, but there’s still enough resolution to determine that they’re wearing dark shorts and a blue shirt/sweater/jacket. I’m impressed – I wasn’t expecting any such detail, especially silhouetted against the brighter sky like that.

Though let’s not forget that the sun does not rise straight up, but at an angle to the right (in the northern hemisphere, anyway…)

Ah, well, I did what I could. Very little luck was with us this trip, but that’s the way it goes. If you noticed something odd sticking up out of the ocean when the camera jerked sideways, though, that was a fishing trawler, just slightly out of view over the horizon.

We’re going to return to that one person, though, after I switched memory cards.

Those raised arms certainly make it look like they’re shooting the sun with their phone, given how often this occurs anyway. But it’s a trick of perspective, because to aim at the sun, they’d have to be facing the same way that I am, back completely to me, since the sun is still 150 gigameters away – though they’re closer than I am. From the looks of things, the sun might not even be within their frame, but granted, smutphones tends to be wide-angle by default. Still, I like this image, and won’t be in a hurry to correct misconceptions…

On a previous day, I got a few frames of the semipalmated plovers (Charadrius semipalmatus) in flight, showing off their wing markings. The ‘semipalmated’ bit refers to their feet, which are partially webbed to help them in soft mud, where they like to feed, but I have yet to get an adequate perspective to photograph this; one day. They also have great calls in flight, but the Cornell page doesn’t have recordings of it, and didn’t even mention their ‘tapping’ behavior – I had to find that through the Audubon page.

Like I said, there’s a handful more beach photos on the way, and then I’ll have flogged this trip to death and won’t have any more posts. Until the next trip…

As expected, ‘snot art

June 3, 2021June 3, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Still at it, and still not art. But this is a hint of things to come, just to get you all excited and tingly…

Local news and weather

June 3, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

About a week ago, we were still struggling with a faint drought, having had no rain in roughly two weeks while temperatures were peaking in the 30s, and the rain barrels were rapidly emptying as we kept the various plants watered. That evening I took the misting sprayer and went around to the likeliest plants to give them a thorough misting, knowing the mantids, at least, would be pleased with it. I saw a couple, but they’re still small enough that a heavy rain is a hazard to them, and they jumped out of direct contact; I knew they’d still slurp the moisture from safe locations, so I considered it more beneficial than mean. One in particular though, out on the lizard’s tail plants (Saururus cernuus) in the backyard pond, was quite appreciative and stood bravely in the mist as it wafted down, but a little less brave as I leaned in close with the macro rig. It took a few attempts before I could get a straight-on portrait.

But after the first few tries, and as I started to ignore the mantis in favor of anything else on the same plants, the mantis became bolder and started showing off its agility.

This one appears to have taken up residency on the plant, happy with its own moat I guess, and is growing noticeably larger so it appears to be finding enough food too. With the lizard’s tail flowers just coming into bloom (everything is running late this year,) I’m not surprised.

Around the house at the front garden, a bit of movement after misting attracted my eye, and I’m not sure if this guy purposefully came out of hiding to bask in the falling moisture or not.

Most times, when I’ve seen the treefrogs while I’m misting, they seem to either just hunker down when it passes over them, or actively jump away, not frantically, but not seeming to relish the direct contact. What little movement I saw from this green treefrog (Hyla cinerea) however, seemed to be in effort of getting out in the open. It was quite small, larger than my thumbnail but smaller than the top joint of my thumb, and a little reluctant to pose, but you know how expert I am at convincing species to be pretty.

I didn’t see it again, which isn’t too surprising – some of the nights have gotten cold, and treefrogs can easily decide to switch their hunting spots, but just today as the downpours rolled in (finally,) I found it again in the same area, less than a meter from the last sighting, and again, appearing to delight in the water.

That one big water drop on the day lily leaf gives an impression of scale, at least, and about the only one I’m going to manage, because the frog’s still a bit spooky, which is fine; they should remain aware of dangers. I could take to wearing a ‘friend of treefrogs’ badge I suppose, but you know how often those are counterfeited by confidence hustlers; nobody trusts them anymore.

Profiles of Nature 22

June 3, 2021June 2, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

This week we meet Ermintrude, who specializes in playing unsettling parts because, man, even those nostrils stare into your soul. Ermintrude didn’t actually ‘get a start,’ as such – she simply walked (slowly) onto a set and said, “Put me on the payroll,” and they did, afraid of what might happen if they didn’t. She’s actually a very nice person, but no one ever sticks around to find out; she was scheduled to be the second Profile of Nature, only it took us this long to finish interviewing her. And we’re still worried about how she might take this. Ermintrude was named after a great aunt – not her own, just one her parents had heard of, though they actually got the named mixed up with that lady that didn’t like oatmeal. She (Ermintrude, we mean,) (the present one, we mean,) is very active politically, running (slowly) for office at least three times a day and exercising her prerogative on a regular schedule; she insists she’s quite fit, but you know it’s hard to tell with turtles. She enjoys listening to Warren Zevon, which we consider physically impossible, so we’re guessing she’s trying to work some angle. She also owns property in seven states, or at least, she’s wee’d on it. Ermintrude’s favorite songbird is the one that goes, “zakka zakka phweet vornto vornto gobba snee wi shoy bay.”

Not to be a downer, but we haven’t even reached the halfway mark yet, so take a pill and come back next week!

Throw numbers in the air

June 2, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Over at Universe Today there’s an article about rewriting Drake’s Equation, and after reading it some time earlier, it’s been stewing in my mind a little; potential posts about it have changed several times, and resulted in this one.

Long story short: an astronomer named Frank Drake wrote out a simple equation, back in the sixties, to examine the possibility of contacting alien life. This was right at the beginning of advanced radio astronomy, and it took place for a meeting that would give birth to SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, a project that is still going on today. I’ve written about this equation several times in the past, largely regarding how little it tells us and the bare fact that it’s all speculative. Recently, another astronomer named John Gertz proposed several changes to the equation, based on information that we’ve gathered in the time since. Here’s what he produced:

The number of spots on the sky within our field of view
X
The fraction of stars with planets
X
The average number of bodies within each that could engender life
X
The fraction of those that actually do give birth to life
X
The fraction of systems with life that evolve technological intelligence
X
The fraction of technological life that is detectable by any means
X
The duration of detectability
=
The chances of contact.

It was gratifying to see several of the points that I’d written about in the past get covered, but that’s just ego talking. A few other points were covered too, but those weren’t included in Gertz’s rewrite of the equation. But what came to me as I hashed this out was that there are three classifications of the information.

The first three factors in the equation are cosmological, able to be determined at a distance and hewing within reasonable estimates based on our knowledge of physics – they’re the ones we have the most confident numbers of (and it’s not all that confident, despite the huge upsurge in exoplanet knowledge in the past two decades.)

But the third is also biological, as are the fourth and fifth; they rely on the likelihood of life developing, moreover to a certain level, and we know nothing at all about that except for the conditions that we know are hostile, and that’s assuming life forms very similar to our own. Within our knowledge of physics, it seems that a carbon-based life form is most likely by far, but how life developed even on our own planet is still up for grabs, to say nothing of how likely this is to occur again elsewhere. These numbers are little more than wild guesswork, because we have nothing to support them. It’s the reason why I’ve said that the Drake Equation wasn’t actually an equation, because there’s no way to support it and testing it would require numerous examples of just the kind of contact it’s being used to predict.

The sixth and seventh factors are sociological, depending on the life from the previous factors actually engaging in practices or developments that we’d be able to detect, and to say that we’re spectacularly out to sea on these is putting it mildly. Intelligence isn’t this discrete concept; it’s a gradient, a spectrum of mental activity, and no matter what level you pick, you can find that it’s not necessary for life to sustain, not guaranteed or even likely to increase as a species develops, and possibly not even a lasting benefit (given how rapidly we’re depleting our resources and how serious our weapons of ‘defense’ are – targeted solely at our own species as well. But then again, as others have said, maybe we’re not actually intelligent.)

And as I’ve asked before as well, what are the chances of an extra-terrestrial species finding it a good idea to even make themselves known, much less initiate contact? Their own environment is going to guide how they develop, so are they competitive, or protective, or even just incurious about other life? It almost stands to reason that any species initiating contact does not feel threatened by this, and what should we infer from that?

Then there’s the attenuation of signal aspect. With all star systems light-years distant from us as well as one another, the ability to even transmit a signal would require enormous energy, becoming weaker with distance, so the species would have to be okay with disposing of this energy in the slim chance of making beneficial contact.

And if/when they do, what are the chances that they (or we) could even comprehend anything more than bare proof that it’s not a naturally-occurring signal? By what means are either of us going to translate any message?

So personally, I’d add a couple of factors into this equation, down at the bottom:

X
The fraction of technological life that is motivated to make contact
X
The fraction of technological life that would generate a signal that could reach us
X
The fraction of those signals that we would recognize as such
X
The fraction of technological life that would not present an enormous hazard to contact

That last one kinda throws a wrench in things, because it’s another number that we not only can’t calculate in the slightest, it can only be determined by taking the risk in the first place. I’ve mentioned before that we’re a stupidly gambling species, accepting certain risks if the reward seems worth it, and all too often the reward is entirely subjective. When we’re talking about an advanced species – one more advanced than us, since we’re considering it capable of something that we aren’t, yet – the risk of contacting something that could eradicate us is unknown in quantity, but undoubtedly present. For… what reason, really? Our curiosity? The chance that we might get some beneficial knowledge from them? The rather base instinct of being social? Yes, the idea of hostile aliens has been a science fiction trope for decades now – which doesn’t make it untrue in the slightest; some clichés are entirely accurate. Passively listening for signals likely entails little risk, but then, what do we do when we receive one? How low is the likelihood of any extra-terrestrial civilization openly transmitting useful information? Assuming for the sake of argument that we actually figure out how to translate such signals, how do we then figure out what the risks are? Are we going to psychoanalyze another species, much less based on their selected (and likely simple) transmissions? How trustworthy could we possibly consider this?

It’s funny; the more I think about the subject, the more I’m convinced that wild imagination and wishful thinking are playing more of a part than rational consideration. Receiving a definitive signal could be exciting and fascinating, but what happens after demands some careful thought.

* * *

Further posts along these lines:

Are We Alone? (Part One)
Are We Alone? (Part Two)
Are We Alone? (Part Three)
None of this looks familiar
Homey don’t play that
Let’s hope they’re cute

But then, ‘snot art

May 31, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Yeah, another from this vantage, but hey – we had the view right out the back decks, so we used it, okay? What would you do; go down among the trees where you couldn’t see squat? Gimme a break…

We didn’t know the kayakers, either – they were from one of the neighboring houses on the sound, the dock with the green heron altercation. But I did wait until they were in the best position, composition-wise, and fired off several frames, getting this one with both oars raised (which would have been almost impossible to time, given the different cadences on their strokes.) There’s also a boat going by towards the back, in the main channel, but that’s almost invisible and doesn’t add much to the scene regardless, too close to the horizon band of blackness.

By the way, I actually had the quadcopter out there, a little lightweight jobby that A) didn’t have the best camera available and B) wasn’t strong enough to fight even the lighter breezes present most times out, really, anywhere in the vicinity. I made a couple of attempts to do a sweeping circle view of the sound, condo, and environs, but watched it driven helplessly off to the southwest, unable to make headway against the shore winds, until I grounded it before it passed out of range or over the water. Not sure if I’ll ever invest in a serious one or not.

I’ll take this opportunity to mention that Saturday, June 5th, is National Trails Day (for realsies,) so you can plan accordingly and thank me later on – cash is always good. It’s the day when we at the very least take advantage of the nature trails in our area, but also help maintain them and perhaps even help create new ones – responsibly, of course. Take only photos, leave only footprints; pack it in, pack it out; get bitten by a venomous snake, make sure you run around blindly until you stumble off a cliff and shatter your smutphone. I’m not sure who created that last one, actually. The weather around here is not looking promising, but we’ll see what happens – there are a few places that I should check out, though I should never need the impetus of a holiday.

I’ll also use this space to mention that this is the 130th post for 2021 – not a specific milestone, but a comparison. Last year I set a personal record of 233 posts for the year, the highest in the history of the blog, and this year, I’m well past the halfway mark and it’s not even June yet. Last year was also a record for photos uploaded, and at 392 so far this year, I’m well past where I was last year at this time (355,) but I’m gonna have to work hard to beat the gout of photos that went up in October (192.) We’ll see what happens. But I could have separated all of these out into their own posts, and didn’t, so I’m not being too manipulative, at least…

May be not

May 31, 2021May 29, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Since today is May but tomorrow is not, that can only mean one thing: it’s time for the end of the month abstract! Did you have your alarm set to get up early just to see this? I bet you did…

Of course it would have to be from the beach trip, and in fact, we have two, just to let you decide which one you’re least indifferent about.

Stunning composition, textures, poignancy, atmosphere… what more could you ask for?

You didn’t get any of it, but keep asking. It might help someday.

Meanwhile, birds

May 30, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

As I’ve been whittling away at the trip photos and video, I’ve still been out getting current photos – I’ve just been setting most of them aside. So we’ll play catch-up a little here, concentrating on the avians this time around.

On the same day that I snagged the angry bird, I got a couple of others in the immediate vicinity, which means at the neighborhood pond. I would have missed this one entirely if it hadn’t attracted my attention.

This great blue heron (Ardea herodias) was hidden from view until I was almost directly underneath, not to mention that I was watching the pond edges for the green herons and snakes, but I was forced to look up by some soft grunts, which I can only assume were purposeful, though whether this was a half-hearted warning to me or simply commentary on my bald spot, I cannot say. Regardless, the heron stayed put as I passed underneath, which was almost startling given how spooky the herons have been over there for the past year or so, and descended down to the water’s edge to fish once I had gotten a safe distance away.

But we need a detail inset of another frame.

It’s a shame about the twigs, but this was one of the few gaps in the trees that allowed an unobstructed view, and I could at least dodge a little to get the eye clear. We’re talking somewhere around 10-12 meters distant, so, not far at all.

I mentioned the angry bird in there, so here’s a photo from a slightly different angle, before I managed to get head-on, just to illustrate – the heron really was crouched with neck fully tucked, relying on being motionless to avoid my attention. Ha! Like that ever works!

[Actually, it may work an awful lot, and I’m just incapable of telling you how often.] Not the sharpest pic, but of course, once I saw the other, that had to be the one used (I’m gonna force you to click on that link if you haven’t already.) This heron was not quite directly underneath the great blue, being on the opposite side of a narrow channel, but they were within easy sight of one another, and I have their photos intermixed in the folders because I was switching back and forth between the two subjects.

A little further on, I glanced into a bluebird box affixed to a tree and thought I saw a shape in the shadows, so I fired off a couple of frames. This one’s enhanced slightly.

I’ve already seen the parents feeding young in this box, so either it’s one of the juveniles peeking out (because the parents only stay in the box after hatching to keep the young warm, which wasn’t necessary this hot day,) or they’ve already moved out and a second brood has been laid therein by another couple. I admit to not inquiring – it always seems nosy.

We’re going roughly in chronological order here, so now we jump many kilometers away. Crossing a branch of Jordan Lake a few weeks ago, I looked over to the side and saw what I took to be (judging from the size) an eagle’s nest, and could have sworn I saw a white head peeking out. Several days later, Buggato and I made the trip down there to get a better look than driving past in a car (I was not driving for that initial view.)

Morning was not the time to do this, since we were aiming too much into the sun and it washed out all of the color and contrast, but at least it was enough to see that it was an osprey (Pandion haliaetus) nest and not an eagle’s – though the osprey may have appropriated an abandoned eagle’s nest, because it seems kinda big for osprey, to me. Its behavior indicated that it was sitting on eggs, and so I vowed to return to keep an eye on things, even though, from this angle, there would be little to see until the young get to be decent-sized, but I might get lucky enough to see some fledging behavior.

It was just over a week before I returned, this time in the afternoon with The Girlfriend, so the light was better but, as yet, no sign of hatching.

I’m not identifying this as a female, because the genders are identical and I’m not sure if the male takes turns warming the eggs; either way, this one spent a lot of time standing, fluffed out a bit, but it was a hot day so I imagine the eggs did not need constant body warmth. It’s also possible that the eggs had hatched, and Spouse 1 was waiting for Spouse 2 to arrive with more food. The region, a stump farm created by the flooding of the manmade lake, held more than one osprey nest and was overflown with other osprey, eagles (we spotted a distant juvenile,) herons, and crows, so it’s not unreasonable to expect a parent to remain in attendance for protection. Let’s have a closer look though.

We were a decent distance off, so no immediate threat at all, but we could still hear the osprey venting some faint cries. They do this often, especially on the nest, so it might also be a signal to the mate or warnings to any other birds in the vicinity – I can’t confirm or deny that they were about us, over on the bridge, but in this case the osprey sure looks like it’s eyeing us directly. We’ll see what develops with the young.

Okay, back to the neighborhood. A heron – whether it’s the same one or not I can’t say, because I’m not a spoiler – landed in some trees ahead and I slipped in for a couple of shots through the foliage, catching it panting in the heat before it flew off at my approach.

I mentioned earlier that this year has shown us the coldest May that I’ve experienced since moving south, and then we went into sweltering temperatures – it was about 32°C that day. And now, as I type this, it’s dropped below 16°. Enough already. But we got our overdue rains at least, filling up the nearly-empty rain barrels, so that’s good.

A pair of green herons played chase over the pond, the same day as the heron shot above.

I just missed getting them mirroring one another, almost perfectly aligned; there’s no way you can anticipate or time this with them wheeling in circles, and I’m lucky to get the focus this good because none of the other frames came out worth a damn.

A day later, I did even more birds – lucky you. You may recognize these from Blurred Bird Day.

An eastern kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus) provided a pose, I’m almost certain after it flew away from the nest. It’s possible this is intentional protective behavior, the contrasting coloration attracting attention as they fly away from the young, but remain close enough to keep an eye on things. Or maybe it saw the camera and is just vain.

You know, I’m glad my bird guide lists the various species under, for instance, ‘kingbird,’ and not, ‘eastern,’ because that would take forever to look up – ‘eastern’ appends a ridiculous number of species around here. The people involved in taxonomy need more creativity, and possibly a thesaurus.

Further on, a juvenile downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) caught my eye.

This one never made the faintest sound as it foraged, down low near the water’s edge which is far from typical, so I was lucky to see it moving when it was close. The lower light, however, did not play well with the hyperactivity of the woodpecker family, so it was a struggle to catch it while it paused long enough not to induce motion blur. It still had a little bit of a mangy, threadbare appearance, so I knew it wasn’t long out of the nest.

By the way, this is why bird guides can be slightly misleading; in the time since my copy of Sibley’s Guide was printed, the genus changed from Picoides to Dryobates. I have to double-check when doing these posts (though I don’t always do so.)

The Girlfriend had accompanied me on this outing, and we’d stopped to talk to a friend. While there, we heard the call of a pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus,) which our friend informed us was hanging around in the area. Shortly afterward, The Girlfriend spotted it poking animatedly down among the ground litter.

Pileateds aren’t ground or leaf foragers, but you can see the fallen, rotting limb that it was working on. The view was terrible, the bird obscured until it raised its head, which it did for no more than .3 seconds at a time. I want to show you the full-frame, initial view.

Bearing in mind that this was 600mm, so without a long lens, mostly what was visible was the red head bobbing up occasionally.

I started working my way around carefully, being lucky enough to have a path strewn with wood chips running alongside the woodpecker, and a large tree that obscured his view of me until I drew close (this is definitely a male, from the amount of red feathers on the head – the female’s red feathers do not reach the beak.) Then I leaned out slowly and had a much better vantage, though the sound of the shutter made him aware that I was close.

He kept a wary eye on me but continued foraging, not too spooked as long as I didn’t move much. Pileateds are bigger woodpeckers, not quite as large as a crow, compared to the downy which is about the size of a bluebird.

This is again full-frame, showing what kind of view I had – I was less than eight meters off. Note the leg sticking out there to the left; woodpeckers are tree-clingers, not ground perchers, plus they need the bracing of the tail to peck vigorously, so it’s an awkward position here. Now let’s go in for the detail.

I’m not knocking that at all, and editing this photo made me aware that pileateds have the reddest feathers that I’ve ever seen, far beyond cardinals, almost unreal – if I found a head feather in the woods, I might have been convinced that it was some dyed, decorative thing rather than their natural coloration. This will become a print someday.

That catches us up, at least for the birds. Some other subjects are coming later on.

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