Little bites. Maybe

May 16, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

As intimated in the previous post, we just got back from a week’s stay at the beach, and of course this will be covered in excruciating detail. However, I think I may take a different approach this time, doing shorter posts of singular topics – which means more posts, but of fewer words at a time. Or at least I’ll try; this is me we’re talking about, so who knows whether I’m even capable of that.

Right now this is just a teaser, mostly because I don’t feel like writing much at the moment. This trip wasn’t the best we’ve had, marred by bad weather, cold temperatures, and some idiotic gas situation, which illustrates one of the reasons that I don’t like pre-planned trips: you’re stuck with the conditions that you couldn’t foresee weeks or months ahead, and seriously, this has to be the coldest May I’ve experienced since moving south.

But I’ve still got plenty of photos to feature, so brace yourself.

Ugly truths

May 15, 2021May 5, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

I’ve known this for a long time, and would like to deny it because it’s a quality that I’d rather not have, but at the same time, I can see nothing to do about it, and simply have to face the music: but damn, I can pack a lot of shit for a trip.

Not clothes, oh no – I can get by with the minimum, and don’t care how I look so that’s just enough to cover the number of days I’ll be away – often less, really. Not sundries or snacks or whatever; I keep my overnight bag of toiletries packed and simply add an electric razor as needed, and snacks are purchased for the day of travel, if it’s by car. Not even emergency weather items so much, though I usually try to come at least a little prepared, but I’ll layer on shirts rather than pack a jacket.

But the photography equipment.

I hate being unprepared for a rare opportunity, and most times, it’s not a situation where I could ‘make do’ with some shortcut or repurposing or something of that nature. It’s the same reason why I can’t carry a light bag with ‘just the essentials’ in it, because these are all essentials. Possibility of macro work (and that’s virtually always a possibility)? That means a couple of lens, the macro flash and softbox, the flash bracket and arm, and spare batteries. Video work? That’s a cage with an arm for the video light, and if I’m the least bit serious, another arm holds the external monitor (because using the LCD on the back of the camera is stupid and annoying,) at least one mic but usually two because the shotgun mic picks up wildlife sounds a hell of a lot better, and at least one tripod, possibly the custom macro tripod. That part is a little amusing, because I’ll eschew it for most macro photo work, counting on brief exposure durations and the output of the flash to ‘freeze’ things – the flexibility of freedom greatly outweighs the benefits of a tripod – but for video work, a tripod is almost essential, and much of my video is of macro subjects.

female marsh crab Sesarma cinereum showing clutch of eggs within pleopods — We wouldn’t have this if I wasn’t loaded for bear

The large, heavy long lens virtually always comes along. The waterproof camera now of course, and this often means the snorkeling equipment too (no small bag, this.) The quadcopter, sometimes. Usually a laptop, only it’s not a laptop but a giant tablet, with memory card reader, and the ability to check e-mail and occasionally work on a post if it seems warranted. The headlamp, naturally, and often a UV flashlight for those esoteric subjects. Batteries and chargers for all of these. A spare set of water sandals because I’ve had them fail before and it’s not fun. Spare glasses now, too.

About the only plus to all this (aside from being able to get damn near all of the photographs and video that might provide an opportunity,) is that I can pack efficiently – all of this will be in the smallest possible space, organized and with ease of access dependent on its importance. But I still feel like a teenage girl when going on trips, though I’m probably much worse.

There’s a particular reason that I bring this up, and you’ve likely already determined what it is – you’ll see soon enough. Even sooner than you might think, because I don’t admit on the blog when I’ll be away, only when I’m back again. Sit tight.

Profiles of Nature 19

May 13, 2021May 6, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

The appeal is still pending, so we’re still going! This week we meet Eulalia, here in her scene from Baywatch performing mouth-to-mouth on her co-star, sure to keep the ratings high. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth and a set of hemostats in her duodenum, the malpractice settlement allowed Eulalia’s family to move away to Chicago, where she was eventually discovered, packed away with the cleaning supplies. Even later, she was discovered by a casting agent and got her big break in the Broadway production of Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins when she played Forgettable Token Ingenue. From there, the parts and the fame just kept rolling in – mostly to other people, but hey, she enjoyed the spectacle of it anyway. She boasts of having an Entourage, the Blu-Ray version, and tries to work Versace into the conversation every chance she gets, only she thinks it’s a type of caviar; this has led to some pretty horrified looks from others at parties. She’s a fitness buff, but what else is new? Eulalia is still single, and admits that she’s looking for a man that’s not afraid to cry when he takes a hard hit to the nuts after wrecking his bike, which makes us wonder about past dates – and the future ones as well. Her favorite manufacturer of slip-joint pliers is Knipex, despite the public shaming this earns her.

Yup, next week. Be strong.

* * *

I have to add this, and even worse, be serious for a moment here. I’d featured this image back in 2014 and credited it (and another) as a fishing spider, because they both were hanging out in a bucket of water, diving underneath the surface to escape attention, and capturing prey while skating atop. And just now, while preparing this post, I looked at the eyes and said, Wait a second. In the intervening seven years, I’d discovered the method of determining spider families by eye arrangements, and now knew these weren’t fishing spiders, but wolf spiders instead. That were acting like fishing spiders. This is not unknown to entomologists, but it was news to me, and something that I’d never seen before or since. It’s not like they were forced to use the water through that being the only available habitat; the spiders had an entire yard at their disposal, and like I said, this was only a bucket, not exactly a teeming metropolis of arthropoda. But hey, you do you, little spiders.

Dittyday 3: Gotta have the funk

May 11, 2021May 5, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

I’ll be featuring three songs this fine day, and will estimate that the majority of readers, should any such creature exist, will be familiar with only one – but that particular one might be different among different readers, and I’ll explain shortly. Yet they all have their appeal and should certainly be better known. Let’s do this in reverse order, with the most recent first.

‘Most recent’ does not qualify as ‘recent’ however, in that strange quality of the English language (well, possibly a lot are like that, but I only speak English) – we’re going back to 1992 for this one, from a new album by Peter Gabriel. It had been a decade since So, which was okay because that was a damn good album, but Us had its own strengths even though it didn’t have quite as much that made for appeal on the pop charts – there was a lot more subtlety, more moodiness from Us, and I was about to say a bit more experimentation, but that’s silly – Gabriel has always been one for experimentation, genre-skipping, and cultural inclusions. And among the slower, background-heavy tracks thereon leapt out ‘Kiss That Frog,’ one of the best songs to test out the bass response of your system, barging around kicking empty drums in the sub-basement. Attached to that we have a wonderfully compressed, ’70s electric guitar, some soul harmonica (is there any other kind, come to think of it?) and eventually an electric piano from the same era. R&B background singers round out the ensemble, though they’re hardly a new factor among Gabriel’s songs. And of course, paying attention to the lyrics is important:

Kiss That Frog – Peter Gabriel

Now, I’ve never heard for sure what the song is supposed to be about, but I know what I think, and it fits in line with the lasciviousness that tends to occur more often than not with Gabriel. I get the impression that he really wanted to sing more as a bass than a tenor for this song, though, but it’s good that he didn’t try too hard to accomplish this, because that often just sounds wrong.

By the way, Gabriel’s live performances are definitely something to see – I passed on the chance back in the early 80s when he did the So tour, not knowing enough of his music then and regretting it within the year, and finally managed to catch a concert in 2003 for the Up tour, but Secret World Live (following the Us album) is available on DVD and well worth the money if you have even the faintest interest in his music. The Girlfriend prefers the live version of ‘Kiss That Frog’ from this video while I’m a fan of the album version, but ‘Across The River’ from that concert, although brief, has drive.

Our next exit on the Wayback Highway is 1976, with the soul/R&B group of Rose Royce. The song does this phenomenal build, new instruments stepping in like multi-part choral harmonies, introducing yet another nuance as the song works its way up to the main riff, and even afterward, the different sounds slotting into place provide a slick feel; listen to the bass carry the chorus sections out. This was produced while disco was still dominant and has the horns section to prove it, but it lacks the ‘glam’ feel that a lot of that music possessed (and ultimately carried it out of popularity.) Here we have, ‘Car Wash.’

Car Wash – Rose Royce

Lead singer Gwen Dickey (identified at the time of this release as Rose Norwalt) did not learn to sing in her church choir, for which I am grateful, since there is a definite trend in that style among black female singers and I personally cannot stand wailing (Whitney Houston is a pox on the ears.) The song itself was created for the soundtrack of the movie by the same name, a ‘day in the life of’ story that I saw many, many years ago – the song is far more memorable and entertaining. If anyone asks you what “groove” is, play them this song.

Now we get to the part of the post where I confess to corrections. First off, I would have sworn that the next song was at least a couple of years before the one above, but on doing a modicum of research, it appears that they came out the same year, all part of our nations’ bicentennial celebration (no they weren’t.) Second, I was all set to claim this was so obscure that most people had never heard it, only to discover that it had been used in the soundtrack of Avengers: Infinity War (which I’ve never seen.) So a lot more people have heard it, or at the very least parts of it, than just a few years ago, but I can pull my hipster cred in saying that it’s been within my music collection since shortly after it could be found on YouTube. This is another one that builds, not quite as distinctly as ‘Car Wash,’ but more triumphantly – I will, one day, be able to play that keyboard riff. So let’s get to ‘Rubberband Man’ by the Spinners:

Rubberband Man – The Spinners

The very compressed, clipped sound of the bass and percussion, no sustain at all, is counteracted by the keys and horns holding their notes for many beats, nicely mixed. Much of the melody comes from the vocals, and lead singer Philippé Wynne gives the impression that, after the song was written, he was still too excited to stick to the penned lyrics and had to embellish, which carried the idea quite well, but good luck trying to accurately sing along. Even as the last chord crashes into silence, you’re kind of waiting for him to still interject something (which would have fit right in with Avengers.) Numerous people have covered this song at one time or another, mostly back during its popularity, and this should never have been done – no one can come close to the original, including other lead singers in the Spinners themselves after Wynne left. It’s not exactly dance-able, which is funny because it has enormous energy, but hey, I don’t dance anyway (white boy here) so I’m not bothered by it. And if you want a great example of the era, look for any live performance of it; you’ll see the gaudy jumpsuit line-dancing that was popular at the time (you can also look up The Osmonds for the same, without anywhere near the funk.) And curiously, both of the latter two songs work quite well for relaxing, just mellow sound even with the tempo, so keep them handy. It’s cheaper and far less stupid than alcohol.

Odd memories, part 25

May 9, 2021May 5, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Wow, it’s been over a year since the last – that’s disturbing, because I have odd memories, like, a lot; I’ll leave it to you to determine if this lapse is deplorable or welcome. This one goes way back, to before I left New York, and before I had a decent camera. And it falls right around this time of year, so it’s, hmmm, 31-33 years old? We can call this its anniversary, just between us, and no one will be the wiser.

Not too far away from our house back then were two glacial drumlins, longitudinal hills running parallel to Cayuga Lake nearby, which had been great fun to drive over when we first moved there in the 70s, but soon after they excavated and dynamited a flatter path through them, spoiling all the fun but creating four hills instead of two, and one was forested and a nice place close by to explore. One morning, I was venturing within along the wildlife paths and saw a fox scamper off for cover, a very rare sighting for me. I paused to see where it had gone and if it had stopped not far away, but saw nothing. Turning back to where I’d first spotted it, I saw a hint of movement and looked carefully.

It took me a moment to realize that I was seeing a fox kit; in fact, four of them. They were very small, deep brown and snub-nosed, and it seemed that I might have stumbled across them on their first day out of the den. They were unsteady on their feet and peering around without recognition of anything. Without venturing any closer (wary of momma’s return,) I quietly sat down, then stretched out on my back, propped on my elbows to watch their behavior. Like puppies, they were determined and curious, but lacking any dexterity at all; one decided to chew on a nearby weed in case it turned out to be meat, following it along its length until the kit tumbled over on its side, off-balance, while I stifled a chuckle.

After a short period of time, a couple of them started wondering where mamma had gotten off to, looking around with that air of growing concern that you see in newborns sometimes. The mother might well have been not far off, watching me carefully, and I was planning to leave them be in a minute or so. Then the woodchuck happened along.

The area was laden with them, fat, waddling blobs with barely any legs at all, but massing as much as a medium-sized dog, in the vicinity of 10 kilos, give or take. I saw it approaching along a trail that almost intersected the den and the exploring kits, initially thinking it was the mother but soon being corrected in that regard, and it was ambling along purposefully, intent on its own thoughts. A few meters from the kits it stopped dead, staring at these unexpected and clumsy oafs. It massed many times what they did of course, even all four together, and possessed the teeth and jaw power to render any threat from them nonexistent, but not according to its own behavior. It stared, frozen, at them for a few moments while they carried on oblivious to its presence, then decided on discretion and departed the path almost directly away from the den.

This, however, carried it on a direct line towards me, lying supine in the leaf little about ten meters away. Not that it noticed at all, and the woodchuck had doubled its pace to leave the dastardly little foxes behind, though I surmise it was thinking more of dealing with an angry parent. I watched in delight mixed with some trepidation as the woodchuck approached, not quite directly towards my feet. Woodchucks typically choose flight, but they can be scrappy fighters when provoked, and more than capable of doing some serious damage.

Less than three meters from my feet it realized there was another interloper in its quiet little forest and stopped dead, staring at me with no expression (of course,) but what I imagine to be shock and distrust. For my part, I didn’t move a millimeter, wondering what it might do, already the intrepid (or something) wildlife observer. After a couple of seconds, the woodchuck vented out a low, guttural growl, like someone clearing their throat for attention. I still did not move, though I was considering just what my options were if it charged, lying back in a poor position to leap up and dodge away. The woodchuck growled again, a little louder, still unsure if I was mobile, and I watched in fascination.

Finally, with a distinct air of, “fuck all this,” the woodchuck turned again and hurtled away at high speed, obviously very displeased with what its happy little forest had become. I took that as my clue to vacate myself, allowing the mother to return. But I went back a few days later, this time with camera in hand, to attempt some photos of the kits, and still have those negatives – one of the few sets from New York that I retained. Not that it matters a lot.

What I had at the time was the old Wittnauer Challenger, a 35mm rangefinder with a fixed 50mm lens – not the kind of camera to shoot wildlife (or indeed anything) with. What you’re looking for is the dark blob in the light spot, just left of center. Oh, hell, we can go in closer for, you know, that detail…

Yeah, this is full resolution and as good as it’s gonna get. Remember: rangefinder, with its shitty focus mechanism, 50mm lens, and old negative film. But proof of the fox kits, as much as of the Loch Ness Monster, so there!

More mouths to feed

May 6, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Luckily, I’m not the one to do it.

I was busy with other tasks this morning and neglected to do my morning check of the mantis egg sacs, but judging from how many were swarming around when I finally did notice this one, they’d probably gotten started in the very early morning hours. Only a couple were still displaying a slight forehead bump that’s the last vestige of the bullet-head they have for hatching, while most were scampering around freely with little display of stiffness or clumsiness that indicates recent emergence. Ah well.

No masks, no distancing – must be Fox News viewers. Here you can see the string that I used to attach the collected ootheca/sac to a larger, stronger branch for placement around the yard, while the background leaves are the day lilies that aren’t yet in bloom. Actually, most things aren’t – it’s been a slow spring, but we’re getting there.

They were just as spooky as the last batch, starting to disperse as I leaned in for closer photos, but I managed to snag a couple of decent frames anyway – and a lot of indecent ones. Well, no, not in the way that sounds – let’s just say crappy frames; English is weird. Here are a couple up at the tip of the branch having that tense movie moment before the big showdown in the third act.

I lie; they weren’t in any movie, even my own. And they weren’t tense or even facing off, but just happened to get in each other’s way as they explored their environs. There was a lot of that going on, really, but luck allowed me to be in close enough with decent focus to catch one.

I went in even closer, but was working without the focus assist light, because I’m lazy/stupid, so using the reversed 28-105 for high magnification meant a little guessing in the dark because of the aperture fixed at f16. This was as sharp as I got – I know I can get sharper, but it also requires subjects that don’t leap away as the lens looms close.

The facets of the eyes are almost discernible here, though they might also not be too distinct yet because the eyes have only been ‘inflated’ to proper shape within the past couple of hours. And sorry, but I had to go for the long vertical framing on this one, to show the little ‘thorns’ on the forelegs too.

But this very shot prompted me to go out again and pursue another, specifically for you readers (and, well, anyone that might want to pay me for such things – don’t let your ego get too carried away.) It’s one thing to have detail, but another to know just how small those details are, so I went out with the paper millimeter scale in hand to try and illustrate this. All I had to do was place it somewhere near the gathered mantids and wait for one to amble across it.

Well, no. First off, most of the lily leaves they were now occupying were vertical, so the scale wouldn’t stay put (and would drop down into the dense middle of the emerging leaves when it slipped.) Second, the mantids didn’t like my hand, or even the tweezers, coming into their territory like that, and mostly dropped away into the denser undergrowth as I did so. Placing it at an acceptable distance and then trying to coax one closer, given that they now opted to freeze in place with my own activity visible, resulted in mostly the mantids heading in some other direction, but on the rare occasions when I got one close to the scale, they quickly dodged off of it, seemingly aware that it was foreign and wanting nothing to do with it (again, Fox New viewers.) On two occasions, I actually coaxed one onto the open tweezers, but then trying to introduce them onto the scale failed. Eventually, I managed a faint success; not what I was after, but perhaps just sufficient enough.

As shown, they’re roughly 10mm in overall length when hatched, so the entire width of the head falls around 2mm, so you can scroll back up and judge for yourself how small the details that I did capture were.

This one was almost cooperative.

Seeing it perched on the edge of a large planter nearby, I placed the scale well ahead of it and then attempted to shoo the mantis in that direction, figuring that it would stick to the upper edge without too much difficulty. Ehhhhh, kinda. It tried going in other directions, and climbed a nearby leaf before I coaxed it back down to the rim again, and finally headed in the direction of the scale. Getting the camera in hand, I leaned into focus, and the mantis dodged down the side of the planter and soon disappeared. I spent far more time in trying to get a scale shot than with all the other photos combined, with far less success.

While this was going on, I glanced down into a planter behind me and noticed a much-larger fly sitting complacently on the side, and fired off a few frames of that one. This was much easier.

I don’t know what this is and am not doing the legwork on it right now; I’m leaning towards it being a syrphid fly of some kind. Not quite twice the body length of the mantids and a hell of a lot more cooperative, it shows the detail that can arise if your subject holds still. And proof that I don’t suck too bad.

Profiles of Nature 18

May 6, 2021May 4, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Welcome back – it’s good to see you again! [I told you they hadn’t gotten any brighter – pay up, dawg!] Our model this week is Osmar (one syllable,) a recent arrival in the states from New Mexico – which is still in the states, but it’s disturbing how many people don’t know that (mostly Republicans, we’re betting.) Osmar, as might be obvious, specializes in dual roles, multiple personalities, and of course, modeling for that boy-band, ‘what-the-fuck-is-a-comb?’ look. He doesn’t actually have a midsection at all – there’s just a void, due to a mishap on the dynamic range when he was in the military, but he’s turned that to his advantage because it’s easier to Photoshop in whatever waistline is desired. Osmar has trust issues, though, due to few people maintaining eye-contact with him for more than a second or so but, seriously, can you blame them? Damn. He was pushed into modeling on the failed aspirations of his father, who had attempted to become clay but couldn’t pass the regionals. He’s really tired of being asked to go mountain-climbing, nothing to do with stereotyping, he just despises the type of people and has been known to mutter, “‘Because it’s there!‘ Vapid dingwalladers.” Osmar hopes to make his first million by the time he’s thirty, but he didn’t specify the “what” for either number, which would have pissed off our 9th-grade science teacher no end, but so did everything else so who cares? His favorite symbol to mispronounce and misuse is §.

Next week. Thing. Be there and be square.

In comparison

May 4, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

Just a sunset shot from last night. The passing storm had left some clouds in the sky, which haven’t been there at sunset for literally weeks; even when we had them in the late afternoon, they’d magically cleared by sunset. Without clouds of some kind, you get no colors and nothing to show the light strata as the sun disappears. It wasn’t a remarkable display by any stretch (saturation has been boosted in-camera here, and a slight tweak to contrast,) but compared to what we’d been seeing over the past month or so, it was notable. Could have posted it yesterday, but we already had enough posts for yesterday.

More things happening

May 3, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

In the next couple of days (May 5th and 6th, to be precise,) the Eta Aquarids meteor shower should be peaking – this is one of two meteor showers caused by debris from Comet Halley (the other being the Orionids in October.) However, Aquarius is the radiant and that doesn’t rise above the horizon for the northern hemisphere until roughly 3 AM, and soon afterward the moon follows in the same general region of sky – it will be only a crescent, but too close to the typical origin point. You may get lucky since, again, meteors might appear all over the sky, just on average more from Aquarius, but it’s not the best of conditions. My recommendation would be to start after midnight and aim towards the southeast, if your location allows clear skies in that direction.

Saturday May 8th is World Migratory Bird Day, so stay indoors because it’s their day – there’s gonna be a bird parade and probably a lot of cookouts, pulled mealworm sandwiches and all that. I keep finding that we have plans for that day, or at least portions of it, but I imagine that I’ll get some chance to observe the holiday. Really, I observe it a few dozen times a year at least, so I suspect I can cope even if I get no opportunity on the day.

I have this feeling there’s another holiday coming up, but can’t for the life of me remember what it is. I’ll figure it out eventually – stay tuned. And keep your calendar open.

Running a little late

May 3, 2021 Al Denelsbeck

The rains mentioned in the previous post did indeed come, but many hours after they were predicted – about twelve after finding the mantids. We’d gotten a bare sprinkling in the morning, which wasn’t anywhere near enough, so I’d gone out to water all the plants. Later in the day, naturally, we got a thorough soaking, which is how it goes, isn’t it?

On the back porch, a green treefrog (Hyla cinerea) sat at the storm door like a Dickens waif; frogs are good at looking forlorn.

Why it’s sitting like this, I can’t say, because they like the rain, and several frogs are out there right now voicing their approval – I think we just happened to catch this one as it hung out for the day. Or maybe its Frisbee got inside somehow…

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