On the negative, and positive, side

Al Denelsbeck

Doing a little recordkeeping last night, I found that I already have 190 posts for the year, not counting this one, while last year’s total number of posts was 233, a personal record (the dumbest kind of record.) That means, in order to beat this number, I’d have to post at least 44 more times, or eleven posts per month. Given that I’m still doing the Profiles posts and there are 20 more of them, that’s a mere 24 of other, quality content to go. That’s like, pssshhffftt. I mean, we all know there will be posts showing the mantids mating and laying eggs, and the green flash on video, and a tornado and the aurora borealis (perhaps together,) so, yeah, no sweat.

Granted, one of those posts was The Manatee’s, so if I want to get technical, I have to have at least one more than that to count as mine – perhaps more if said The Manatee appears again, which I cannot rule out at this time. Ohh no, now the pressure’s on! Yeah, whatever.

Given all that, what we have for this post is a negative scan prepared when I knew I was about to leave on that trip… somewhere, up north, I forget where… but ran out of time to actually do the post, and it’s been sitting in the blog folder since then, staring at me, taunting me, wheedling in that annoying little voice negative scans have (you know exactly the one.) I thought it was kinda cool, and it represented an easy post to write, and I knew I would be uploading it sometime before the end of the year anyway, so there you go.

reflections of city lights on Indian River Lagoon, Melbourne, Florida
An experimental shot from nearly twenty years ago while I lived in Florida, this one came out amazingly well, the variety of colors far better than imagined – clicking on it, by the way, will open a larger version in a new window. I touched out the obvious bugaboos from long exposures, but left the grain intact, for a couple of reasons. The first is that the grain wasn’t that bad in the first place (much better than some films I’ve used,) and I consider it just a character of the image, indicative of film in the first place, which makes the colors of the lights that much more impressive. The second reason being, clearing the grain by filtering or blurring within a color selection would either have to be limited to the clear sky/water areas meticulously, or it would end up eradicating some of the finer details like the trailing ends of the reflections or the arms of the starbursts, and that was unacceptable. By the way, this was long before LEDs were in routine use on streets and buildings, so they’re not the source of all the colors, but this is facing a business district, so you’re probably seeing lots of advertising stuff. Only a guess at exposure time (about 30 seconds) because there’s no EXIF info to check, but I kinda wish I’d framed a little differently to get that sailboat on the left edge into the shot better, though to be honest, I may not have even known it was there. I was shooting from a well-lit causeway (you can see the edge plants peeking in, lit by those sodium streetlamps) and my eyes were adjusted to that lighting, so the unlit sailboat might have been lost in the darkness, only revealed against the faint skyglow in the longer exposure.

This is the Indian River Lagoon, which has appeared often enough before, and you’re looking at the city of Melbourne, Florida. Maybe someday, I’ll return to this spot and reshoot it in digital, just for comparison. Not as a special, dedicated trip, mind you, just if I happen to be in the area. Unless you want to fund it out of curiosity?

Profiles of Nature 32

Al Denelsbeck

wood stork Mycteria americana Ada Mae Luella wading in surf
Yes, it’s been seven days. No, we haven’t been playing with the calendar or the clocks. No, we cannot skip a week for good behavior.

This week’s featured model is Ada Mae Luella, which everyone agrees has to be a southern name, because southerners like to hear themselves talk; that’s why, “damn,” can actually be three syllables. We’re just gonna call her “A” for short, and pretend she’s Canadian. Seen here while dashing out to pick up a kid at daycare (which resulted in a big hoohah since she doesn’t have any kids,) A demonstrates why no one will ever tell her she looks better without makeup; Adobe created a whole new version of Photoshop just for her. She’s been banned from Instagram for crashing their network, twice, while attempting to apply filters. Her ‘personality’ is so good she makes people think Tom Hanks is a douche – feel free to use these. A was employed very briefly as a model for sculpting classes but was let go because, c’mon, there’s no challenge here. But she now plays to her strengths and is in high demand as a ‘Before’ model for plastic surgeon ads, and created her own lucrative business as a paid bridesmaid that won’t upstage the bride. She also picks up a lot of extra money all during October. Her favorite commission was cover art for a fantasy novel where she posed as the ogre’s club. But A has a dark side too, because her photographer doesn’t know how fill lighting works – just add in the drum stings as needed. She hates being asked for her autograph though, because she can’t read cursive and never knows if it’s hers or not. Her favorite nonexistent word is, “fartumulous.”

Join us next week. Join us.

Convenience

Al Denelsbeck

That’s what I’ve been trying to accomplish: convenience. I mean sure, it’s great to see all sorts of exotic critters by getting abused by the airlines, staying in crappy accommodations, and spending large amounts of money, but there’s a lot to be said about stepping barely outside your doors to find subjects to photograph. Granted, they’re mostly all the same subjects, but when I start getting paid a decent wage for the photos, then we’ll see how my attitude changes. Not about the airlines though – they’ll still suck.

So yes, these are all within meters of the house, and I can honestly say that some of my efforts to encourage species have been working.

newly adult Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis among vinca minor leaves
First off, a frame I shot for illustration, though using a different lens would have been better. It gives an impression of what happened when I spotted a subject with no camera in hand (I keep doing that – you’d think I’d learn by now,) and coming back properly armed only to spend some time trying to locate it again. But imagine being further back, because this is a mild telephoto shot, using the Mamiya 80mm macro. The color match is excellent right now, so the key is finding the shapes instead.

newly adult Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis on vinca minor
If I were to judge from the location (and I do,) this is the same Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) that got hydrated on film. On sensor. In memory. Man, we need a new phrase to replace that, don’t we? Anyway, the primary change this time, aside from being a little larger, is the appearance of the wings, which means this is now a reproducing adult. Well, capable of reproducing – I didn’t inquire too deeply into its personal life, just the standard chatty stuff. The first I’ve seen this year, too. And no, I didn’t forget my manners, and fetched the misting can.

newly adult Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis sporting water droplets
While not spooked under cover by the sudden jump in humidity, the mantis didn’t react favorably, either, possibly because the dewpoint had actually been reached that evening and its thirst was already quenched. The dark eyes betray that I was doing this at night, which was better for both of us, since the days are ridiculously hot right now. But the mist was photogenic anyway.

A few meters away, another mantis was spotted, this one also flashing its successful bar/bat mitzvah.

newly adult Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis underneath sapling
It just goes to show that I’ve haven’t been out enough watching for molting, because both of these were ones that I’d spotted before and knew where to find. Most likely, anyway.

Now for some scale shots. Nearby, a Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina) was perched, and this was another one that required an awkward position, but as convenient as I like it, I’m willing to bend over awkwardly (maybe not backwards) for the shot.

still juvenile Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina perched under weed
Technically, this should be rotated to the vertical, head downwards, but I’m leaving it this way for a reason. Carolina mantises are smaller than the Chinese, and hatch later, so this isn’t surprising, but I shot this frame and the following at the exact same magnification, both full-frame without cropping, so you can see the size disparity.

newly adult Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis at same magnification
What was the magnification, you ask, or more specifically, how big were they? The smaller Carolina mantis was roughly 30mm in length, the Chinese was roughly 70. The Carolina had a ways to go to get to adult size, where it might top out at 50-60mm, and the Chinese could get perhaps another 20 longer itself. But yes, now I have to start watching very closely for mating behavior. No, not between the two species – stop being indelicate.

There was another super-convenient subject out there too, literally on the post on the front porch.

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea on front porch
Yes, another juvenile green treefrog (Hyla cinerea,) but this was notable in being the same size as the new emergents across at the pond, and we’ll get scale on this one too. Some days back I’d noticed tadpoles getting big in the backyard pond, but subsequent checks (in the hopes of catching the legs and/or their emergence,) turned up nothing at all, and I was a little suspicious that something had gotten them. Seeing this little spud, and this wasn’t the only one, encouraged me to believe they’d simply struck off on their own while I wasn’t there to see it. But let’s see how close I can get.

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea in portrait
Being against the post as it was, I couldn’t get to eye-level, and did the best I could. I had switched now from the Mamiya 80mm macro to the reversed Sigma 28-105, my super-macro even though it was never designed that way. Yet this isn’t the closest it can manage.

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea in extreme closeup
This is again full frame, and still not the closest the lens would allow, but about the best I was going to do with the post and flash unit and all that. Still doesn’t show scale either, but we can fix that.

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea shown next to photographer's thumbnail
Yes, that’s my own thumbnail – I’d been working on the car, hush. The fixed aperture in the broken Sigma allowed me the free hand to insert in the photo, and the frog didn’t leap away as expected. While the only one that I’d photographed last night, it’s far from the only one found, of all different sizes though with enough representatives this eentsy to be encouraging. And also anxiety-producing, because they’re hard to see even with close examinations, and I have plenty of things to do in the yard. I’m gonna shuffle a lot and watch for sudden movements, but at least I know they have a strong tendency to stay on leaves well off the ground and thus not directly underfoot.

New York: Enough with New York already

Al Denelsbeck

northern flicker Colaptes auratus peeking from behind limb
I’ve already done posts on the birds seen during the New York trips, both the raptors and the non-raptors, but didn’t go through the photos thoroughly enough, because there were several more that I intended to feature, so we’re now getting to that (with a couple of other subjects thrown in as a bonus to you, the 10th visitor to this blog.) Above, one of a quartet of northern flickers (Colaptes auratus,) which I’m fairly certain were new fledglings, peeks out at me during an extended but mostly hidden foraging session at the Gatsby mansion, taking place over more than an hour – much of the time, I was concentrating on the ospreys nearby, even when I could hear their distinctive calls as they flipped between the trees. The black cheek stripe (malar) pegs this as an eastern, or yellow-shafted, variant, distinctively colored yet apparently not a subspecies.

On one of the visits to Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, both The Girlfriend and I heard the sharp call of a green heron (Butorides virescens,) but she was the one that spotted it, peeking out from the top of a tree alongside the channel.

green heron Butorides virescens perched in treetop
The distance was significant and the car was motionless, so I doubted that it was reacting to us, but it soon flew off without any other apparent provocation, so it was either us, or it spotted something else that it felt merited attention, perhaps an interloper out of our sight beyond the marsh grasses. But I snagged a nice action pose out of it.

green heron Butorides virescens taking flight
For some reason, I’m having a devil of a time getting decent photos of a belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon.) I mean, I know they don’t like close approaches and fly off whenever I seem to get within 30 meters, but they’re fairly common birds around the ponds and streams, all throughout the US – I just can’t seem to get a solid shot of one. On another visit to the refuge, I spotted two perched in the open, and within a refuge you’d expect the birds to be more conditioned to people, allowing better opportunities, right? It certainly held true for many species that I saw, and it might have been true for the kingfishers too, except that their perches were far enough off to prevent that nice tight shot that I was after, and both were towards the early morning sun, so backlit. Sheesh.

female belted kingfisher Megaceryle alcyon perched on fencepost in Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York
The first was a female, and was at least facing me but, you know, sun and distance. And the choice of a perching spot was less than photogenic. At least it turned enough to get a little light on its eye, so, yay?

The male, a few hundred meters further on, was no better.

male belted kingfisher Megaceryle alcyon perched on sign in Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York
This one found another sign to perch on, because why use nice scenic snags or anything? With his back turned, you don’t even have a good view of the orange breast, though there’s a peek here. There was no chance of circling around or trying for a better vantage, even if I flouted the proscriptions against leaving your car in these areas, because they were many meters off across a thicket of marsh grasses and swampland, treacherous and above all noisy to navigate. But I still don’t understand how I’ve gone so many years and never gotten a frame of this species that I’m really happy with.

I previously mentioned following one of the walking trails, which didn’t produce a lot of interest, but I snagged a handful of frames nonetheless.

brown-lipped snail Cepaea nemoralis in Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York
Land snails of any kind were almost nonexistent while I lived up there, much less sizable, colorful specimens, so it was curious to spot several back in 2015, and I found the same species on this trip. It goes by countless names, though the most common seems to be the brown-lipped snail, but better to stick with Cepaea nemoralis. It’s an invasive, European species, and what I found both times fit within the typical size, which is roughly 25mm across. The others were in the frame just for the sake of it, and remain unidentified.

I also came across a curious tableau right at my feet, which I misinterpreted until looking at the photos later on – otherwise I might have done more examination, at least.

collection of turtle shells and two holes within Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York
I initially though this was a collection of dried, bleached crayfish fragments outside the burrow of whatever ate them, but looking at the photos I realized that these were instead turtle shells, evidence of a nest that had been there. Since I’d seen a painted turtle laying eggs the last time I’d been up only a few weeks previously, this was in the right time frame. However, another detail caught my eye, so we’ll go in for a closer look (even though my photos aren’t the best.)

empty turtle shells and a possible casting or feces of predator
The larger, grey item at lower right is the key bit, since the size, shape, and texture lead me to believe this is either a fecal deposit, or a casting (a pellet of undigestable hair and bones coughed up by raptors some time after a meal.) The hairlike texture, especially that tapered end, sure look suspiciously like either. So now I’m not sure that I didn’t discover evidence of a raided nest, since I would think that the eggshells would remain buried and hidden if the young turtles hatched out normally. Raptors typically do not dig for food, so I’m leaning towards raccoon or opossum.

While we’re on the subject of mammals…

eastern gray squirrel Sciurus carolinensis with red-blonde tail
… The Girlfriend pointed out this eastern grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) while we were at the Gatsby Mansion, since it sported this brilliant red-blonde tail, well outside of any color variation that I’ve ever seen them in. It did not appear diseased or otherwise different, just a dye job only on the tail itself. The best view we had of it was, naturally, when the camera was not in hand, and by the time I got it ready, the squirrel had scurried much farther off, so this is what I got. We never saw it again, despite keeping a careful eye out.

Okay, back to the refuge.

willet Tringa semipalmata within reeds, Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York
I featured a teaser image for the end-of-the-month abstracts, and finally got around to posting the better photos. I was a little surprised to find a willet (Tringa semipalmata) foraging along the edges of a marsh pond in the refuge, thinking they were shorebirds and perhaps southern at that, but it appears that their range is well into the central New York region, so phooey on me. This one was fairly close but always partially obscured by reeds, so much so that even snagging sharp focus was tricky.

willet Tringa semipalmata deep in reeds within Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York
I’m not sure who was spying on whom here, to be honest; we’ll call it a draw. Unlike the kingfishers on the exact same day, the light and the shooting distance was in my favor at least.

great blue heron Ardea herodias in front of spray of marsh reeds
Just a great blue heron (Ardea herodias) using the spray of reeds behind it to try and show off, obviously a case of peacock envy, according to Freud.

And finally, a couple of still photos from the same time that I was capturing video.

bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus fending off attack from northern harrier Circus hudsonius, Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York
This was better than 330 meters off (I measured it with the map afterward,) so cropped significantly because even 600mm can’t handle that distance easily. It’s a bald eagle of course (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) fending off the attacks of a pair of northern harriers (Circus hudsonius.) The eagle was trying to mind its own business, but the nest of the harriers must have been close by, because they wanted the eagle gone; I watched their attacks for several minutes.

bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus fending off attack from pair of northern harriers Circus hudsonius, Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York
A little wider here to show the pair in the air, alternating on their strafing runs even after the eagle hopped down to the lower limb; I never saw either make contact, though there was at least one close call when the eagle was too slow in raising its beak in warning. While there, with the much smaller view through the camera, I thought I saw the telltale white rump, and examining the photos afterward confirmed my identification. You can see the white rump of the male over to the right, at the base of the tail, while other frames of the female (not as dynamic as these,) show her largely white underbody and underwing coloration with the dark trailing edges.

The building in the background, by the way, is the Refuge visitor center, recognizable by the purple martin houses alongside, those large white boxes on poles – it is nearly three kilometers off, on the opposite side of this part of the refuge. All of that in between is marsh and bog, the soggy region off the northern tip of Cayuga Lake. These particular photos were taken from an observation platform next to the interstate, right alongside the excellent eagle sculpture by James Seaman, that we discovered was damaged by high winds not long after we’d visited and is presently in for repairs.

bald eagle sculpture by James Seamn in Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, New York
Anyway, now we should be done with the NY photos. Probably. I think…

Just because, part 43

Al Denelsbeck

I’ve got a longer post, the last tattered remnants of the trip to, you know, the state and not the city, but that’ll take some writing, and I’ve had these images sitting in the folder for a little while now, so you get this quickie.

unidentified dragonfly silhouetted against sunset reflection in pond
I went over to the pond, oh, eight days ago now, since the sunset looked a little promising. As usual, that promise was broken and dashed, since the sunset performed quite poorly, but while there, I did this quick abstract of a dragonfly. This was not against the sky, but the reflection of it in the water, using the Canon 18-135 STM at 135mm – I liked the faint difference in sharpness between the dragonfly’s twig and the surrounding leaves, courtesy of the shorter depth of field at f5.7. But what I really liked was the focus, which was bang-on, all credit to the autofocus. What you see above is full frame, while below is an inset, almost full resolution.

unidentified dragonfly in detail silhouette
That’s some mighty nice detail right there, sure enough. Any sharper and it’d scratch your screen.

Can’t leave ’em alone

Al Denelsbeck

… but c’mon, would you be letting these pics just sit around in the interests of ‘diversity?’

Last night, I went over to the neighborhood pond again, but this time with a slightly more specific reason, which actually turned out to be beneficial. We’ll get to that in a second.

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea perched readily on leaf
The juvenile green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) were just as active as before, perhaps even more so, and easy enough to get a few action shots of. I wasn’t intending to do a full photo session, but it was effortless (well, for, you know, an experienced, accomplished macro photographer) to snag a few pics, and I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. But what’s that peeking in at lower left?

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea with finger for scale
It’s The Girlfriend’s forefinger, slowly creeping into the frame to provide scale, and the frog was not disturbed by it (though granted, she moved very slowly and silently, and did not make contact with the frog or the leaves.) I had taken her over there because she never saw the previous sessions and really needed to witness just how many there were, once you got used to watching for their diminutive presences. I’d been thinking of trying to get my own finger into a pic, on any of the earlier sessions, but the Mamiya 80mm macro requires manual aperture activation of a spring-loaded lever, so taking my hand away to appear in the frame would mean shooting with a wide-open-aperture, reducing depth-of-field down significantly and requiring a commensurate adjustment to the flash output (these are all shot at f16, 1/200 second, with a fixed flash output.) I do have a project to have the aperture lever lock into place when needed, but it hasn’t been tackled yet. So The Girlfriend provided the simpler solution.

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea coaxed onto The Girlfriend's hand for another scale shot
In fact, we even managed to coax a different frog directly onto her hand for a few frames, where it sat cooperatively and with no apparent concern (yes, she kept her hand over the leaves in case the frog panicked and jumped away.) Once I had my shots, we had to coax the frog off of her hand again, gently nudging it onto a leaf. It’d be nice if all my subjects were so easy to work with.

I considered doing video, since the frogs were active enough to actually have something to show – most times, what you see in the still photo is exactly what any video would look like, unless they leap away. But yesterday evening, they were actually wandering around and climbing a bit, and demonstrating their gangly, bow-legged gait is something I’ve long wanted to do (without resorting to my own efforts at pantomime,) so I returned a bit later with the video cage. Alas, the batteries for the video light were lower than expected and inadequate for the amount of light necessary for 60 fps, so I had to give it up, but it also told me that I’d need a tripod – too much wandering in and out of focus, not helped by the wide-open aperture that would be needed. Have to try another night.

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea peering away between leaves
This one did an expressive pose among the leaves, peeping through as if the parents were watching a cool-sounding movie, so I didn’t hesitate. And wonder of wonders, I could actually get to the other side without having to crawl into thick undergrowth or wade into the pond (all of this takes place right on the water’s edge, no doubt alongside their recent emergence from tadpole stage.)

same juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea seen from other side
Considering how difficult I’d had it a few days ago trying to get a decent portrait angle without them turning away, backing into shadow, or simply leaping to another branch, this kind of behavior is most welcome. So yeah, another rut, but if I gots the subject, I shoots the subject, and it works better in close sequence rather than delaying the posts until a later time. Plus you have the dates to know what time of year this kind of thing tends to take place. As I’ve said before, I can continue justifying this if you like…

Glutton for punishment?

Al Denelsbeck

I know I am. That’s why you’ll see me down at the lake in a few nights, because the Perseids meteor shower is peaking on August 12th, but of course, you’re likely to still see some within a few days before or after, so whenever the conditions suit you, have at it.

The nicer bit is, the moon will be a waxing crescent, so setting in the early part of the evening and long gone by midnight, which is when the best opportunities begin. The satellites, of course, will still be there, but again, past midnight fewer of them show because the sun is blocked by the Earth for all but the farthest ones, or those nearer the poles.

You have plenty of time to plan, so boot up Stellarium or check out Heavens Above and see what satellites might go through for your area. Or just scout out some prime locations to do long exposures within, preferably something with a nice foreground – maybe you’ll get extremely lucky and get a nice brilliant bolide over top of something scenic. The possibilities are endless! Extremely thin, granted, and requiring a shitload of luck, but still endless – an infinitely long hair.

One of these days, I’ll have an image to illustrate these announcements…

I did

Al Denelsbeck

Meaning, I did go back out to see how things looked after the rain, as I closed the previous post with. However, since these are displayed in reverse order, newest first, this post appears above that one and well away from that simple statement, ruining the continuity and requiring all this explanation. Plus there’s no sense of building drama or developing photo accomplishments, unless you’re reading these as soon as they post. Man, I can’t tell you how often simple formatting issues cramp my style…

All that aside, more froglets.

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea on stem
I shot two photos purposefully for scale comparison, keeping the magnification the same for each (easy enough to do with a manual focus lens – these are at closest focus for the Mamiya 80mm macro, without the extension tube.) Above is the juvenile, while below is an adult found less than half a meter off. Maybe someday I’ll be able to get both in the same frame.

adult green treefrog Hyla cinerea on sapling
You should already know that adults don’t get more than 60mm in length, roughly the same size as the one seen here (even though that’s a different species.)

This time around, though, the frogs were being much more dynamic in their poses, and not leaping away half as often. Was this due to the rain, or was I being more inconspicuous, or something else entirely? Got me, but I’ll take advantage of it all the same.

wet juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea spread across weeds
I’m pleased with this pose, partially because I know they won’t hold it for long and will typically leap away within a few seconds – which this one did. Before that happened, I captured this nice ‘action’ shot that also shows the abundant moisture and gives a hint of scale, since you can see the water forming ‘webs’ across the joints and a nice droplet at the bottom of that flowering sprig. Also note how transparent that uppermost foot is. Kewl.

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea sitting up on reed
A note about behavior. Treefrogs show no curiosity at all, and generally display two types of response to approach by a photographer (or at least, by me): Getting away, or hunkering down in place, legs tucked, and pretending they’re just a brilliant green, shiny, striped, bump on a log. So when this one actually sat up higher as if trying to see something better, right as I was lining up directly in front for the portrait angle, I was a little surprised. I’m not sure what that was about, but again, I’ll take it.

bronze juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea preparing to leap
Just a lovely color variation. Is this what writers means when they refer to someone as a “bronze goddess?” It’s certainly what I’m going to imagine from now on.

Seriously, the color variations were all over the place, and I’m not sure how much control the frogs have over this; is it largely genetic, or do they alter it to suit the situation, and if so, how quickly does this take place? I’m fairly certain that, if it does occur, it’s much slower than the Carolina anoles, because I’ve watched that happen – it can take place in a few seconds. I’ve never been able to keep track of an individual frog, or even differentiate one, over a period of days to see if they change and when but, judging from the variants that I see in the same locations where I’ve been observing a particular one, it seems to be occurring. Annnddd now I have a new project.

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea looking up belligerently
The faintly belligerent expression, coupled with that one leg sweeping down in a smooth curve to open toes as if it just swatted at something, prompted me to call this one, “Damn Biplanes.” Hopefully that reference isn’t lost.

[Another note: I wanted an upward angle for one of my subjects this morning, and spotted this one in a decent position to exploit, but like most of them, it was quite low to the ground, which is still wet from the rain. I hadn’t thought to bring along a ground pad, essentially a tough sheet of vinyl that I use to prevent my ass from getting wet, so I was endeavoring to get the correct angle while sacrificing only my knee to the muddy terrain. I couldn’t quite get as low as I wanted, and it was an awkward and uncomfortable position, but the result is more than satisfactory.]

And finally, we revisit the molting mantis, because as I passed, it was in a nice position for the portrait, and I couldn’t resist.

juvenile Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina posed underneath leaf
I’m pretty sure this is the exact same leaf that it molted on so, lazy day or so for the mantis. Hell, even I get around more than that, and I have a handy fridge of food. Then again, from the expanded size just in the past week, it appears to be finding enough food, so who am I to judge?

Not even a day

Al Denelsbeck

Man, I didn’t even have the ‘Sort’ folders cleaned out for an entire 24 hours before I had to add to them again. Not that this is a problem – I can quit anytime I like…

Last night, I was poking around the yard a little by the light of the headlamp and ran across a couple of subjects worthy of getting the camera for, and so I did, crazy and unpredictable person that I am. One of those is below:

Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina in middle of molt
You’ve seen this one before, because of course you watch all of my videos the moment they’re posted (surely one of the two people subscribed) – this is the second mantis getting favored by my generous misting, a Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina.) The scale is difficult to discern here, as it was before except for the water drops, but it was roughly 40mm in length now, nearly twice the size that it was earlier; maybe I should have cut back on the water a little. I just confirmed that measurement by going out while typing this to check, since it hasn’t left that spot now almost a day later. Yes, it’s the same one, found in almost the exact same place in an area sparse for mantids of any kind. This is the latter stages of molting, with the exoskeleton that formerly covered its entire body sitting there towards the top of the frame. That never seems right, thought I guess insects might feel the same if they see a discarded bodysuit of ours lying around. I bet they do.

Earlier that day, I’d been at the neighborhood pond briefly and saw a lot of activity among the higher reeds and plants on the water’s edge – lots of stems swaying suddenly and wildly from the jumps and landings of something, though I was having a hard time actually seeing what; I’d spotted both a tiny treefrog and a grasshopper when searching, so it could have been either, but I suspected the frogs. So, after the mantis, I went across to see what showed by the headlamp, knowing it would be easier to spot the source if they couldn’t see me (the light not being identified as a threat.) As I suspected…

juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea on reeds
… a lot of juvenile green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea,) newly emerged from tadpole stage, were loitering about the various plants like hooligans. I cropped wider on this one to show that one leaf, which gives an impression of size a little better – the largest of the frogs (and this was not one of them) didn’t exceed 20mm in length. They had the widest variety of colors that I’ve seen, from brilliant gold to almost mud grey, but all with that faint translucence that helps show that they’re young.

It took little effort to see scads of them, and only a little playing around to communicate this photographically.

three juvenile green treefrogs Hyla cinerea in close proximity
Inserting anything for scale would have spooked them off, but these are just plain ol’ planty plants, garden weed kind of things – I wouldn’t quite have been able to touch the outermost two with the fingers of my spread hand, but my foot would have spanned the gap.

two juvenile green treefrogs Hyla cinerea hanging out on reeds
I got lucky with these two in that they were close together, facing upward, and not spooked off by my close approach (I make every effort to be unobtrusive, but leaning in amongst all the plants without disturbing them, as well as keeping camera and hands out of the beam of the headlamp to not betray my nature, while obtaining a clear shot at a decent angle, isn’t always successful.) These reeds probably measure about 3mm in diameter.

very tiny juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea hiding in leaf shadows
This was the tiniest, literally small enough to perch on your fingernail, but in my endeavors to get close enough for a good shot, the frog became suspicious and backed up further within the shelter of the leaves, making it impossible to get the flash at a decent angle – yeah, the flash unit on its separate arm with attached softbox also figures into the equation, and can also disturb leaves – the quarters are tight when you try to get in close. A ringflash would work in such circumstances, but I largely stopped using one because I never liked the way it rendered the light, plus the highlights and reflections look ridiculous.

lone juvenile green treefrog Hyla cinerea looking unconvincingly earnest
This is my favorite by far, not just for the detail and the color rendition (if a little bright,) but especially for the expression – I could have saved it for a Profiles post, but naaahhh. It has that unconvincingly guileless look of the kid that’s listening to admonitions to behave while you’re gone, and you just know you’re gonna be taking away a Playstation when you return.

I’m motivated to go back out and see how things look now, after a decent rain (finally,) but wanted to get this post out before midnight. Can’t have too many gaps – people will think I died…

Profiles of Nature 31

Al Denelsbeck

unidentified mating grasshoppers possibly Orphulella Zlatina and Wyeduck
You tell us, which is most horrid: The dread of the impending Profiles post, or the content that exceeds your worst imagination?

Doesn’t matter, really – we only ask to try and sound like we care. Today we meet the lovely and talented Zlatina: singer, dancer, actress, writer, and budding politician, along with her husband Wyeduck, who’s had a small part in two bombed TV pilots but manages to appear in nearly all of Zlatina’s promotional photos. It’s been fun watching the media trying to establish conjoined names for them. They met at a celebrity charity event and bonded over their mutual love of trashing Oprah, and the fact that there aren’t too many Orphulella at such events; they’re not even sure they are Orphulella, to be honest, since entomologists are never invited. Zlatina is a natural, well-rounded (ahem) talent, adapting easily to new challenges and always ready to push her boundaries, while Wyeduck flunked out of the acting school taught by the Olsen twins. Nonetheless, he believes he’s only inches from being discovered, not realizing that he’s already been discovered, much like that experimental eggplant casserole intentionally forgotten in the back of the fridge that no one wants to deal with right now. Zlatina, meanwhile, manages to glom onto every last fad and conspiracy droolpuddle that comes along, thinking that believing in things that almost no one else does makes her clever; she pronounces, “mainstream,” like most people say, “diaper blowout.” Some have speculated that this is why Zlatina’s agents allow Wyeduck to keep appearing, to draw attention away from her various soapboxes, but aside from that being yet another droolpuddle in itself, it would require talent agents to have reasoning powers; ’nuff said. Wyeduck’s favorite way to describe the USB-B connector shape is, “Six-sided, but not evenly,” while Zlatina’s is, “Almost like a little barn.”

Weeks. There’s weeks left. And only seven days in each. That’s like no time at all in between.

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