A break

Al Denelsbeck

I was busy writing the ‘On this date’ post for this week, early this morning, when an app on my phone alerted me to lightning activity in the area. It’s been doing this for the past couple of weeks, due to the weather conditions, and it’s either been too far away to be worth pursuing, or late afternoon when lightning photography is not worth attempting. The one exception had been just after sunset when there was an active cell south of Jordan Lake, which might put in plain view with those nice low horizons along the lake, so I went down there. I was setting up the tripod and looking out over the water when I saw a nice simultaneous triple strike, right where I would be aiming the camera in, oh, about another thirty seconds. And they were the only visible bolts for the whole session.

But the strikes outlined in this particular storm looked promising, so I grabbed the camera and tripod and scooted over to the nearby pond, which provides a moderately decent horizon and foreground interest. And yes, there was definitely lightning activity to be seen, but mostly distant and hidden by clouds. Most frames held nothing, but the few that did featured a patch of purple clouds that were almost overwhelmed by the ambient light off of the low clouds, captured during the time exposures.

barest eviodence of distant lightning strike
There was no particular cell that seemed the most active, and rapidly changing conditions, with a smattering of rain (I had the rain cover on the camera so I was fine, and didn’t need one for myself.) I waited, because going in too soon is always a bad idea. So is going in too late, for that matter, but that can be my epitath.

And gradually, it looked like maybe things were developing a bit better, though still not all that great.

big lightning strike illuminating clouds while invisible
The sky would light up, sometimes brilliantly, but I wouldn’t see any but the barest hint of an actual lightning bolt – they were still too distant, and did not seem to be moving into range. Which was not typical, because I’m aiming mostly west here and that’s into the prevailing winds and storm travel.

But, patience.

brilliant high lightning strike over pond
Ka-powser!

While still pretty distant (the thunder took ten seconds or so to arrive,) this was a lot closer than all the rest, stretching way up into the sky, with all those branches and even that long arm disappearing and reappearing off to the left. And seriously, it was the only one so visible. Looking at it now, I regret that I wasn’t aiming vertically to capture more of it, but there was no indication that it would be so great.

I hung around for another 20 minutes, even capturing one that bleached the sky pure white in places, but never got any kind of distinct bolt again. Still, this one had occurred when I was thinking it might not be panning out at all, so I’m glad I was patient. I hadn’t captured anything in a while, and I was due.

Now I’m happy

Al Denelsbeck

So, you surely remember when I first noticed a Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) in the yard, and I was pleased because I was hoping to get some established and this was the first sign? And then, a month later I saw it again, proof at least that it was still hanging around? Well, I was wandering around the yard a few hours ago while on the phone, shining a flashlight around casually, and got greeted with this:

very young Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis perched on Japanese maple
That’s a very young one, obviously hatched nearby, because its overall length (with its long whip tail) is less than 60mm, meaning the body itself is maybe a hair over 20, and the head only 5mm wide – that’s less than a pencil. It could sit comfortably on your little finger, is what I’m saying, though here it’s perched on the Japanese maple, right up top where I could spot it easily.

Let’s go in a little closer.

very young Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis on Japanese maple
I’m doing a slight disservice with these photos, since being this close isn’t giving a good impression of how cute and tiny it is, but I had no way to provide useful scale without spooking it, and of course I’m still going in for the portrait shots.

This is more success than I was expecting – having a new brood, I mean, since I wasn’t sure if we even had more than the one adult. And actually, it probably shouldn’t be called a ‘brood,’ since they lay only one egg at a time, as I just discovered while researching details for this post. Certainly an auspicious start, but also slightly concerning, since a little over a meter away, one of the resident Chinese mantises had just molted into adult form, massing easily many times the size of this lizard, and quite capable of taking it as a meal. I’d feel better about there being more than one.

By the way, I tried to be welcoming, and provide a little mist for drinking water – the mantids adore this – but the anole got a little panicky at the touch of the water droplets so I stopped. It’s in an area packed with potted plants receiving routine waterings, with lots of prey insects, so it’s got the basics covered; it just has to avoid predators. We’ll have to see what happens.

Sometimes it works

Al Denelsbeck

Back at the beginning of the month, I lucked out and got some frames of a rare subject around here, but I was still in the throes of code mangling and didn’t want to do a post then. Looking at them later, I felt they didn’t stand too well alone, and wanted to get something to accompany them. Yesterday evening before dinner, I did a quick pass around the neighborhood pond and, to my utter astonishment (okay, maybe it was only mild delight,) actually got what I was after. As the title says, sometimes it works. But as my experience says, don’t get used to that.

juvenile yellow-crowned night heron Nyctanassa violacea stalking alongside pond
The Girlfriend and I were out in the evening just before sunset, back on the 2nd, and I was stalking the secretive green heron brood that I knew was in the immediate area, when this guy appeared between the gravel road and the pond margin, not terribly concerned with people being nearby. This is a juvenile yellow-crowned night heron (Nyctanassa violacea,) about adult size but bearing none of the coloration of an adult, save for the eyes.

Adult size, by the way, is roughly the same as a crow in body length and girth, with of course a longer neck – perhaps slightly larger than a green heron, but not appreciably. I usually find them more towards the coast, though I think they run the entire state of Florida. The Girlfriend and I spotted another juvie last year, poking around the edge of the pond at night, but I couldn’t determine for sure if it was a yellow-crowned or a black-crowned; as juveniles, they’re almost identical.

juvenile yellow-crowned night heron Nyctanassa violacea in profile
This one was definitely hanging around the green herons, which seemed a little odd to me, but it wasn’t half as spooky as those tend to be, so when my cautious approach nevertheless sent the green herons across the lake, my subject here glanced casually at me and went back to its hunting. The sun had set, the light was dropping, and I knew I wasn’t going to get a whole lot more opportunities – if past experience was any indication, the pond was only a brief stopover before it moved on to somewhere else. So while it was posed so nicely in a break in the foliage, I shot a little video. None of that is worth viewing, since handheld at 600mm is enough to make even me seasick, but I got very lucky in that it called during one clip, and I was able to extract the audio, to which I applied a little noise reduction to cull the sound of the main road a few hundred meters away.

Call of juvenile yellow-crowned night heron (Nyctanassa violacea)

juvenile yellow-crowned night heron Nyctanassa violacea looking at photographer
As disapproving as it looks here, the night heron really wasn’t too concerned with our presence, though we remained very low key. It vented a single call every few minutes, which was eventually answered in the distance – as you might imagine, they carry better than most bird calls – and mom (I suppose) appeared wheeling overhead, whereupon the young’un took flight and joined her, and they flew off over the trees. Haven’t seen a sign of either since, nor heard any calls.

A few days later (while checking, donchaknow,) there was a great egret (Ardea alba) that came in and perched high in one of the trees off the pond. This happens occasionally, and again, always temporarily, but I suspect part of that is because there is usually a great blue that stakes its territory on the pond, which is lacking this year. I was working at a much greater distance than with the night heron, so this is what we have.

great egret Ardea alba perched in tree
And again, every time I’ve been out since has shown no sign of it. I get the feeling this pond is a like a bus stop for wading birds…

But what I’ve been after for a while are the green herons (Butorides virescens) – off and on, admittedly, when time permits, so it’s not like I’ve been out for hours each day trying. Two years running now, we’ve had a brood that, if I’m reading the signs correctly, were hatched in a thicket of trees on the pond’s edge within easy reach, but they’re so thick, I can know that two herons are perched therein and never spot them. The edge is straight through there for a ways, so the only open view I might have is from on the water, something I’m not attempting with the photo equipment. So I watch carefully, hoping to see them hunting along the water’s edge, though usually they see me before I see them and fly off.

Not quite with last night’s attempt, though.

green heron Butorides virescens stalking on mudbar
I was only out for a chance encounter, intending to spend no more than a half-hour or so, and came across this one down at the quiet, shaded end of the pond; when I first spotted it, it was stretched straight and tall, watching me, trying to emulate a reed. I slipped back behind a tree and affixed the long lens, then slowly crept out and had a seat on the ground for stability, and got a small selection of photos, getting a little lucky with the sun peeking through the branches.

green heron Butorides virescens and reflection
The one thing I’ve noticed about green herons is that, if they’re actively hunting, they tune out the approach of humans a whole lot more than normally, and slow quiet stalking can produce a closer vantage. This one seemed torn between my presence and the minnow activity in the shallows, and hung around a bit, though staring frequently at me in suspicion; I wasn’t moving, but the shutter and motor drive was doing its thing.

green heron Butorides virescens stalking on mudflat
The heron did a little stalking, not even getting close enough to strike, then abruptly seemed to feel that I was too much of a danger and flew off. I’m cool; for a quick, casual attempt, I got enough decent frames. I went home, cooked dinner, and then got into game night online, so overall, I count yesterday as well spent – I did better yesterday with a half-ass outing, than today with a prolonged one (previous post.) Whatever works.

Today, a turtle

Al Denelsbeck

juvenile turtle likely eastern river cooter Pseudemys concinna concinna perched on rock in early morning light
Likely an eastern river cooter (Pseudemys concinna concinna,) even though we were not on the Eastern River, but the Eno River instead; it’s probably them damn unoriginal biologists wanting to call everything eastern, like there was some kind of east/west civil war that the east lost and still gets cranky about nearly 200 years later. This was from an outing today, about the only worthwhile frames from a slow and hot morning. I had lugged the 150-600mm along, which allowed me to get this kind of view of a turtle much smaller than my palm in the middle of the river.

I have more coming, but not from today, and not of turtles. I just wanted to post the two pics that will otherwise sit in the blog folder like orphans awaiting similar frames or subjects. Plus that one above seems to need a dramatic caption.

juvenile turtle likely eastern river cooter Pseudemys concinna concinna portrait

Here and… well, here

Al Denelsbeck

Continuing the posting of recent-ish photos (meaning those mostly taken while I was hashing out my ignorance of PHP to make things look ‘acceptable,’) we have these various offerings from the environs immediately surrounding Walkabout Studios, what the proletariat tend to refer to as the “front and back yards;” we will attempt to elevate this missive by using, at a minimum, the terms, “anterior and posterior meters.”

We’ll start off with a reappearance.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis perched on oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia leaf
A little over a month ago, I was pleased to spot the first ever Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) in the anterior meter, but then hadn’t seen it at all afterward – until a few days ago. It provided several poses on the oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) while eyeing me suspiciously. I’d like to encourage it to remain, but I’m not sure what I could do to make it more welcome, save for not bothering it too much. They like ants, but there are already beaucoup ants in that region so that bit’s covered. I have vague suspicions, from the coloration, that this one is female, so any male anoles that are looking for a neat place to stay should get in contact.

I had also remarked, many years back, that I was hoping to get the green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) more established in the yard, and I was certainly successful in that aspect, though the only part I played, if any, was providing a pond for breeding. The greens now outnumber the Cope’s greys by a significant margin and are easy to find just about any evening, and fairly often in the daytime, hiding out someplace waiting for the night’s food sources. Since they are prolific over at the neighborhood pond too, I doubt I had a hand in this at all, but hey, I’m good with the result. I’ll have to stake them out some evening and try to get video of them capturing food, but for the past few weeks, even the late-night temperatures are pretty uncomfortable, so I’ll need some motivation. Right now we gots still pichers, like this pose that I’m rather fond of.

green treefrog Hyla cinerea clutching upright plant stem
This was on a potted plant on the back deck, which they seem to like. I have to routinely check the grill over before each use, to be sure that neither the greens nor the greys have decided to hole up for the day under the cover. It occasionally leads to some interesting finds.

green treefrog Hyla cinerea spending the day under the gas grill
This is the supply hose from the propane tank. and while it was technically far enough to avoid most of the heat from the operation of the grill, I couldn’t be sure this guy wouldn’t get alarmed and jump someplace a lot more dangerous, so I moved it to a plant nearby before cooking dinner. Is it the same one in both photos? Could be – one of these days I’ll find a way to tell them apart. I’m reasonably certain this could be done accurately with a close examination of their iris patterns, but that’s not an easy method to implement.

Supposedly, we should have a lot more greys showing up too.

male and female Copes grey treefrogs Hyla chrysoscelis in amplexus on scouring rush Equisetum hyemale stalks
Back when we were actually getting rain, I would find a male calling from the posterior meter pond, and one night it became clear that this was successful. However, something odd has happened to the water therein, and none of the green frogs, nor the snails, nor any aquatic insect, seems to be living in there anymore, though the plants (like the scouring rush seen here) are doing fine. I can’t imagine why it suddenly became uninviting, but might have to drain it later this summer. I saw no evidence of eggs or tadpoles, though, so perhaps this happy couple found a better place to spawn.

A few weeks back, the meter suddenly erupted with tiny American toads (Anaxyrus americanus,) about thumbnail size and extremely well camouflaged, until they attracted attention by hopping out of the way. They didn’t like me leaning in with the macro rig, but I managed to follow one until it paused long enough.

juvenile Amercian toad Anaxyrus americanus in leaf litter
That bright red background is the same one seen here, though I have not seen a repeat of that performance since. C’mon, you know I couldn’t avoid posting it here if I did.

Only moments later and meters away (I mean, same posterior meter, but this time I’m referring to the 100cm kind,) I found a massive adult, so you can compare them.

adult American toad Anaxyrus americanus in leaf litter
Toads reproduce like frogs, laying their eggs in water to hatch into tadpoles before growing legs and emerging from the water, so the sudden abundance of toads right here would seem to indicate that the pond had been put to good use – except that I never saw any sign of tadpoles, much less the dozens that would have been necessary to spark the numbers seen in the meter. There are, to my knowledge, no other water sources nearby, save for the drainage channel off the back of the property, just far enough that I wouldn’t have thought so many toads would end up here, but I could be wrong about that.

We’ll be moving on to the arthropods now. Please return to your seats.

juvenile Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis with raindrop on back
Back when we were actually getting decent rains, I went out not too long after a storm and found this juvenile Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) sporting the latest in spring fashion – ha! That’s a brilliant joke, because this was taken on June 20, the first day of summer! While the flash unit didn’t cut through the leaves onto the mantis terribly well, I was pleased with how the drop showed the background, though it would have been nicer had it captured a blossom cluster of this butterfly bush for a splash of color. Ah well.

juvenile Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis on underside of butterfly bush Buddleia davidii leaves after molting
Later on that day, I found that the same one had just molted while underneath the leaves; I hadn’t noticed any signs of impending molt earlier, but they’re fairly subtle as it is.

At present, there are a wide range of sizes among the mantids, courtesy of both different hatching times and different species, with a nod towards more and less successful specimens I suppose. That same butterfly bush is now home to a pair of juvenile Carolina mantids (Stagmomantis carolina) – much smaller, and able to almost entirely disappear among the old and new blossoms.

juvenile Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina one new buds of butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
This species hatches over a month later than the Chinese mantises and as adults are only about half the size, so here, it’s not a lot larger than a newborn Chinese, probably 12-14mm in body length. As such, they’re not tackling a lot, but that’s okay; the butterfly bushes attract a very broad range of pollinators and nectar-seekers, part of the reason why I like having them in the meter. And here’s another:

butterfly bush Buddleia davidii with hidden white-banded crab spider - Misumenoides formosipes
I took this frame both the show scale and to illustrate how tricky it is to spot my next subject; if you’re familiar with butterfly bushes, you’ll know that the blossom clusters tend to be a little broader than your thumb, but about the same length, and if you’re not, well, they’re a little broader than your thumb but about the same length. And in there sits an occupant that I always encourage: a white-banded crab spider (Misumenoides formosipes) – look hard, you’ll find it. But sure, I went in for a better look.

white-banded crab spider - Misumenoides formosipes alongside blossom of butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
Even this close, it may not be very clear, given that there is only a partial view and at an atypical angle, but you’re looking straight into the face of the spider here, a row of eyes atop the hump of the head (cephalothorax) on the left, the legs spread wide in capture position. Any insect of the right size hits that one blossom and they’re toast, and crab spiders can tackle prey a lot larger than themselves. This one is still pretty small, but it has the opportunity to get a lot bigger. Provided it escapes the attention of the mantids, of course, yet chances are it will. Mantises hunt by movement, which crab spiders avoid, while if danger threatens the spider can dig deeper into the spaces between the blooms. They can easily share the plant.

Some of the mantises are getting big now.

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis perched atop new butterfly bush Buddleia davidii buds
While there don’t seem to be any of the Chinese mantises remaining regularly on the butterfly bushes, they certainly visit often enough, especially the two bushes that sit near the old Japanese maple in the meter – we actually have four Japanese maples now, but three are potted, at least for the time being. The big, original one, that was here when we moved here, has tons of hiding places and is always a favorite of the mantids, though the butterfly bushes attract more prey, so the mantids visit a lot.

And as I said, the rain has been scarce recently, with some overwhelming heat during the day (like low thirties, and that means celsius,) so not only do we spend a lot of time bringing all of the plants water, I go around fairly often with a misting bottle, dousing the prime hiding places. The mantids appreciate this, and will usually scamper excitedly (or so it appears) to the upper leaves to collect as much water as possible, slurping it off of their forelimbs and eyes before it has a chance to evaporate.

juvenile Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis after being misted
Never let it be said that I don’t take care of my photo subjects…

I will close with a couple of frames (well, one) of the largest mantis in the meter, measuring roughly 50mm in length now – about two-thirds adult size, and five times as long as when it was hatched. It gave me a suspicious look from the top of the Japanese maple, but I didn’t have the misting bottle handy. This is the full frame.

larger juvenile Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis perched in Japanese maple
Some idea of the thickness of the foliage can be garnered from this image. Below, however, is the same frame, cropped tighter and magnified more to show the detail captured – I always love it when I get the focus this tight, even though I have plenty of examples like this. Mantids, at least, can hold still for a photo.

inset of same frame showing eye facets
And yes, I wasn’t lying about not having the misting bottle, so those little dewdrops atop one eye were collected from the leaves themselves as the mantis crawled among them. But the false pupils certainly have a bizarre look, don’t they? That’s partially because they’re a little out of focus here – the false pupil is an optical effect within the eye, not atop it.

Coming up: more birds. Still cleaning out the blog folder of the recent stuff.

On this date 30

Al Denelsbeck

early instar katydid emerging from molted exoskeleton
Much earlier in the year, I was noticing (and commented on, I believe) how the weather was showing distinct variability for the same date, but now, going through the archives is only reinforcing how sweltering it is at this time of year. I mean, I wasn’t expecting snow in July or anything, but with many of them I can remember how I felt while I was out shooting, and in most cases it was, “sweating profusely,” even though it was late at night; I don’t need reminders of that.

In 2013, I happened across what I believe is a juvenile katydid molting, probably first or second instar. Instar is how entomologists refer to life stages, wherein we might use years, but most arthropods go through their entire life cycle from spring to fall; spiders and cicadas are notable exceptions. There is no fixed number of instars, since it is a period between molts, and some arthropods continue to molt as reproducing adults while others die off soon after reproducing, so their adult form is considered their final instar. And it occurs to me, as prolific as katydids are around here, that I have too few photos of them in different stages – basically this, and adult form. This is partially because they lay eggs within leaves, between the upper and lower layers of a single leaf, so spotting the eggs or the hatching takes careful examination. I believe I’ve seen the adults laying once or twice, but I’m not sure I have photos of it. If I do, and it occurred on a date that falls on a Wednesday this year, you may see them later on – katydids have a fairly broad range of dates for adult phase, and we’re already hearing them sounding off at night, even though the one pictured here is weeks from that phase.

closeup of eye detail and green frog Lithobates clamitans
We jump ahead (a ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, my, such sophisticated humor!) to 2016 now, alongside the backyard pond that is almost always occupied by green frogs (Lithobates clamitans.) You recall how I ragged on biologists about naming everything on this coast, “eastern?” Well, this isn’t a lot better, and shouldn’t be confused with a green treefrog, which at the very least has green as its primary color while this one does not. Granted, the name probably comes from long before the Linnaean taxonomic system and was simply adopted from the most common monikers at the time, but then again, they had no problem renaming the green anole into the Carolina anole recently, even though the Linnaean/scientific name had not changed, so…

Anyway, we’re just here for the eye detail. But notice the round catchlight, from the flash diffuser/softbox, and the single spot from the flashlight that I was using to find this guy – the only way I was only going to get this close was late at night.

Not done with the eyes yet.

closeup of raindrop on eye of periodic cicada
In 2018, I had photographed the entire sequence of a cicada molting into final instar, but that was two years ago yesterday. Then it rained immediately afterward, and I went out once it stopped and did some detail pics of the new adult. Then after unloading the memory card and noticing how the raindrop acted on the eye facets, I went out again to do it better. By this time it had passed midnight and was now the 22nd, so it counts. I posted this then, a few days later (because editing those photos and then writing it all up took some time,) but I like this particular crop a little better. And to close, another from that same session, also posted then.

juvenile Copes grey treefrog in extreme closeup
I mentioned then that I would make a big print out of this, and I did; it was even showcased in the public show that I had late that year, now resides on the staircase gallery here at Walkabout Studios, and serves as my phone background. And it’s a composite, or if you prefer, a stacked photo: the depth-of-field at this magnification (the entire juvenile frog is the size of your fingernail) is so short that focus is sharp on very specific areas, so I joined two frames to broaden the focus range. Physically, it wasn’t possible to do this in-camera; any lens can only stop down so far, and even before reaching the minimum f-stop, diffraction starts to affect the image. But in this case, it was with the reversed 28-105 which has a fixed f16 anyway.

I know what you’re saying: you’re saying the focus range isn’t that great even with the stacking. [No, you’ve probably given up already and are texting your friends.] But yes, it was even shorter than this before, and while this is abject cheating, something a real photographer would never resort to, I’m not getting paid for this anyway, so I’m pleasing myself. Go get your own photos.

Amazing luck

Al Denelsbeck

I was skimming Why Evolution Is True on Thursday night just before midnight, when I discovered that July 16th (that very day, for ten more minutes,) was World Snake Day. Not a lot of point in trying to post something, even when I had a photo all lined up – not for World Snake Day, just because I’d shot it recently and was waiting for the opportunity to post it.

As luck would have it, though, today is Celebrate World Snake Day Three Days Late, which I am certainly on top of, and in checking out the blog folders, I find that I have more things to post than I initially believed. So let’s get partying!

eastern rat snake Pantherophis alleghaniensis sprawled across quiet country roadOur first comes from ’97, I think, when I was still shooting negative film, a black rat snake that I found sunning itself on a quiet country road. My guess would make this morning in the spring, when the nights were still cool and the snakes needed the warmth from the road for the energy to digest the night’s meal, and this seems to be born out by the presence of flowering trees in the distance. Asphalt is a great heat collector, as barefoot people in the summer know, but countless snakes get run over because of this, so in honor of the holiday, I remind everyone that, if they see something suspicious-looking in the road ahead, swerve around it. Or, as I did, get out, get your pics, then nudge it from the hazard zone.

Hold on, I sit corrected; it is now an eastern rat snake (Pantherophis alleghaniensis,) because herpetologists have now distinguished this from a western variety, which got to keep the original name. You may hear about biologists naming new species in some creative way, after cartoonists or movie characters or some such, but let me tell you, those are the rare exceptions; if they can classify something as “eastern,” they’ll do it, because you can never have enough eastern somethings. Don’t believe me? Here’s a list of scientific names, just featured here in the blog, that demonstrate this:

  • common eastern bumblebee
  • eastern bluebird
  • eastern box turtle
  • eastern boxelder bug
  • eastern carpenter bee
  • eastern cottontail rabbit
  • eastern fence lizard
  • eastern forktail
  • eastern frustrated nature photographers
  • eastern garter snake
  • eastern grey squirrel
  • eastern hognose snake
  • eastern kingbird
  • eastern kingsnake
  • eastern leaf-footed bug
  • eastern lubber grasshopper
  • eastern narrowmouth toad
  • eastern newt
  • eastern pondhawk
  • eastern rat snake
  • eastern redbud
  • eastern tiger swallowtail
  • eastern towhee
  • eastern yellowjacket
  • southeastern five-lined skink

    • Okay, granted, one of those might not yet be recognized taxonomically, but give it time…

    ring-necked snake Diadophis punctatus in palm for scaleWhile visiting New York many years ago – fourteen, to be precise – my brother and I happened across this charming little ring-necked snake (Diadophis punctatus,) so of course I had to do a scale photo in my brother’s palm. This is not a baby or juvenile, but their average size, small enough that The Girlfriend finds them cute (not so much with the larger species, let me assure you.) They are, of course, wickedly venomous, but their teeth are so small they are only a hazard to thin-skinned species like caterpillars and Republicans.

    No, that’s a lie, they’re not venomous at all, and not rare either, but they don’t come out into the open much so finding them usually requires poking around in dark spots, under leaves and among rocks. I think I’ve found them once around here.

    For our next feature, we turn to someone else.

    eastern garter snake Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis from Baker Wetlands, by Jim KramerLong, long ago, when mankind still had jutting brows and hairy palms (I mean, all of us, not just some,) there were going to be a few guest posts herein, and one contributor was Jim Kramer. Jim never finished the post to his liking and I sincerely doubt he’s going to tackle this one anytime soon, so I’m featuring it here since it’s been sitting in the blog folders all this time. This is an eastern garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis,) despite the fact that it was taken in Kansas; it was taken in eastern Kansas, so it appears we now know where the dividing line is. In all honesty, I looked up the range of the western species and it appears to stop just west of Kansas, so I think I’m both correct and safe on this one.

    The thing I like most about this image, aside from the fact that Jim also likes getting the lower portrait angles on his subjects when possible, is that the snake seems to form a dividing line between monochrome and color, much like Dorothy waking up in Oz. I’m wondering if Jim ever noticed this…

    [The colors in this photo, I mean, not the bit about the Wizard of Oz – I imagine he caught that one.]

    Jim went on to forward a lot of images to be featured here over the years, so he contributes, just not in writing form.

    eastern worm snake Carphophis amoenus amoenus foraging through grass
    Did you see eastern worm snake in that list above? Well, this is one, the subspecies Carphophis amoenus amoenus, which I likely just identified as the parent species in earlier posts about them (because I know I’ve featured them at least a couple of times before.) At the same time that I was shooting the eentsy little frogs in this post, I was about to step across the drainage channel when I spotted this little guy in the grass, no mean feat because he was mostly obscured and about the diameter of a pencil. I’d sized the photo then but decided not to include it in that post, and it’s been sitting here waiting on the holiday ever since.

    And finally, the most recent one, the one that I could have posted on World Snake Day had I been paying more attention (i.e., been reading blogs instead of doing other productive things that day.)

    eastern racer Coluber constrictor possibly southern black racer subspecies Coluber constrictor priapus alert to photographer
    Okay, seriously. This is a member of the eastern racer species, sometimes known (especially here, because c’mon) as a black racer, but Coluber constrictor is the parent species. There are several subspecies, or which this is either the northern or more likely (from the range) the southern variant, which would make it Coluber constrictor priapus. The way to tell them apart – are you ready for this? – is by the penis, or to be more specific, the hemipenis, which is not a small organ possessed by Dodge owners, but snakes instead; on the southern variant, this organ has spines, because nature has a sick sense of humor. I have to admit that, amateur naturalist that I am, I did not determine this trait at the time, and for that I am ashamed/grateful. This one in particular was courting danger, in that it was perched in plain sight in late afternoon atop a mound of pine straw, against which it blended not at all, while I was out photographing the behavior of the Cooper’s hawks in the previous post; the spot on the ground where they’d been feeding was a handful of meters away. To its credit, it was holding perfectly still as I stood nearby, and I looked at the dark object on the pine straw for a few moments wondering if someone had discarded a length of hose before I discerned the raised head staring at me rudely. I had the 150-600mm attached for the hawks, so the apparent proximity of the snake really isn’t, and I could not have gotten such a tight closeup without it. Racers are aptly named, and can move quickly when threatened.

    But it’s after noon now, a little later than I’d aimed, so I will post this and let others celebrate the holiday. There are still more photos in the folder, so just sit right there and keep refreshing the page so you see the new posts the second they appear.

    [Don’t do that.]

    Right, let’s get to this

    Al Denelsbeck

    juvenile Cooper's hawk Accipiter cooperii perched and looking for parent
    [Claps and rubs hands together] So, I’ve had most of these photos sitting in the blog folder for days, waiting for all that jazz below to be done so I could devote the time to a larger post, one that I didn’t want to double-post and try to keep track of, and the time has arrived.

    I’d noticed last year that a sharpshinned hawk was starting a nest nearby, but nothing ever seemed to come of it. This spring, it seemed to be happening again, and I thought I saw the nest, in the neighbor’s yard, before the trees had fully leafed out and obscured it. Time went by, and I saw no further evidence, and figured that we were repeating last year’s performance.

    Then not too long back, I began seeing a hawk off of the backyard, fairly frequently, and hearing a bare kip! call. Before too much longer, a set of more desperate cries took their place, as an assortment of newly-fledged hawks began to appear quite frequently in the area, demanding rather distinctly that mom keep the feeding process going; naturally, she wasn’t, to encourage them to get their own damn food. But it meant that I had a lot more opportunities to snag some photos.

    First off, let me correct something. While the one I saw making a nest last year was definitely identified as a sharpshinned hawk by the shape of the tail, I almost accidentally discovered that these were instead Cooper’s hawks (Accipiter cooperii) – also by the shape of the tail: sharpshins have a nearly straight trailing edge to their tails, like a broom, while Coopers have a rounded shape like most birds. Otherwise, in coloration and habits, they’re almost identical. Coopers are larger, with larger heads, but size-wise they overlap; males of both species are smaller than the females, and a male Coopers can be about the same size as a female sharpshin. They are also both bird-eaters, extremely fast and maneuverable accipiters that hunt in the forest canopy and tend to be shy and a bit secretive about their perches. As adults, anyway; the kids are much less so, especially when they think they should be being fed.

    Another thing to note: off the back of the property, the trees get pretty thick, and it’s very easy to be within a few dozen meters of a bird and see not the faintest sign of it. I had to take a frame to illustrate this, standing in a clearing for buried utility lines just beyond our fence.

    view off back of property line
    I think that gives a good enough impression. It was easy to know one or two were around, even catch a glimpse of them flitting among the branches, but nice clear views were scarce. Still, over a couple of weeks I managed to snag more than enough for a post.

    juvenile Cooper's hawk Accipiter cooperii being noisy
    … especially when they attracted so much attention by calling. I would only have had half as many photos had they been silent, and I had to rely on spotting their movement or perched outlines, but hey, do you hear me complaining? And knowing that accipiters tend to be very wary of people, I took pains to be quiet, unobtrusive, even motionless whenever possible, but it appeared that the young ones hadn’t studied their own species’ traits very well, because eventually I realized that the Girlfriend and I could stand directly beneath one and converse quietly without provoking flight. This also made it easier. As did the occasional perch in one of the few clear patches.

    juvenile Cooper's hawk Accipiter cooperii calling from nice perch
    Yes, I was timing shots to catch them in mid-call, not exactly difficult; they don’t sit around perpetually yawning or anything. The Girlfriend told me that I’d missed mom feeding the young a fresh kill down in the clearing, because I hadn’t gotten home yet, but checking that spot some thirty minutes later, one of the brood was still poking around for scraps. I think this image is the first of the detail shots that I obtained, with everything else in this post coming later, some within the hour.

    juvenile Cooper's hawk Accipiter cooperii on ground looking for leftover food
    The young were also spending an inordinate amount of time down at low levels, perching on stumps and low branches, which seemed odd to me, but I may not be familiar enough with their habits either. Coopers are medium-small raptors, about the size of crows, and their lifting ability isn’t too impressive because of that, so perhaps they tend to eat their prey on the ground when it seems safe rather than try to carry it to a perch out of reach of other predators. Or, like all the noise they were making, perhaps they just hadn’t learned good habits yet.

    juvenile Cooper's hawk Accipiter cooperii calling from fallen stump
    They appeared to have a few favored spots, which made it a little easier to get some frames, but they were working an area perhaps 50 meters square and would pause where the mood struck them, making me shift position to try for the best vantage – very often, it would be partially obscured by intervening vegetation, so what you’re seeing here are the successes among a couple of hours, all told, of active shooting, spread among about two weeks.

    juvenile Cooper's hawk Accipiter cooperii with potential prey
    This stump was about twelve or so meters away, partially hidden behind thick undergrowth, so I was shifting position carefully to get the best view, trying not to disturb the hawk. I did not see it carrying anything when it came in to land, but the attention it kept paying to the spot at its feet seemed to indicate that it had something to eat, and what you’re seeing here is a closer crop – I wasn’t getting this good a look in the viewfinder, especially not with a handheld 600mm lens bouncing around unsteadily. All of my sessions were spur of the moment without a tripod, grabbing the camera when I was available and hearing the juvies making a racket. I’d intended to do some more ‘serious’ sessions, perhaps even with video (which would require a tripod to prevent motion sickness from the viewers,) but even a tripod is a questionable accessory, since it all depends on where they are and what they’re doing. It’s not easy to surreptitiously shift a tripod to a better position to get that view through the foliage, or aim it nearly straight up into the canopy overhead, when a hawk with far better eyesight than humans is sitting a stone’s throw away. I wasn’t doing too shabby handheld, for all that, but yes, the image stabilization was absolutely necessary.

    juvenile Cooper's hawk Accipiter cooperii showing prey on same stump
    This is the same hawk as above, same timeframe, after scooting (well, shuffling quietly,) to my right a handful of steps, and now the prey is visible. They would still vent a call at times even while eating, which was also slightly puzzling; I wouldn’t think any raptors, as competitive as they tend to be as soon as they can sit upright, would draw attention to themselves when they had food that could be stolen, but maybe the continued calling was misdirection, begging for food to disguise the fact that they had any. I doubt this myself, but for now, I can’t offer any explanation. Better to talk to an ornithologist; as I’ve said, I just takes picchers of ’em.

    A few days back, I got extremely lucky with my timing, coming down the back deck steps just as one cruised across the backyard, showing by its flight profile that is was coming in for a landing. I quickly grabbed the camera again and started the slow stalk across the backyard. Soon enough, I discovered that a pair was sitting on the ground between ours and our neighbors’ fences, unfortunately obscured by slats, but I stayed put and watched, hoping they had prey and I could slip closer while they were occupied. This kinda worked, but they were aware of my presence, closer than it had been before.

    pair of juvenile Cooper's hawks Accipiter cooperii perched on tree near backyard
    Wary of me, the pair flew up to a nearby branch and watched carefully, which I was fine with because now they were in better light and a clear view. To the best of my knowledge (judging from the coloration and behavior,) these are both still juveniles, and thus demonstrate the size difference between male and female, the female being on the right. Again, about crow size, so maybe 35-45cm in overall body length counting that long tail. But I had to save the best for last, of course.

    juvenile Cooper's hawk Accipiter cooperii perched on author's backyard fence looking cooperative
    One of them opted to fly up to our own fence and perch in direct sight, not eight meters off – that’s the neighbor’s fence in the background. Nice view of the long, thinner legs and the remarkably long talons. Accipiters can catch birds in midair and are adapted for this, while the buteos like the red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks strike their prey violently on the ground more often, so have heavier legs and shorter, thicker talons. I’m gonna peg this one as the male, comparing it with the image above and noting the fewer dark fathers under the chin.

    But yeah, it’s been a productive few weeks photographically, even when it hasn’t been reflected here. And more are on the way.

    Podcast: About damn time

    Al Denelsbeck

    Do things look different around here? They should – or perhaps not, if you delayed seeing this for too long and I actually got around to making the changes that I’d been hoping to. Yet as I type this, enough has been changed/corrected/altered/muddled/permitted/unborked to move forward, but I’ll let Noisy Al explain it:

    Walkabout podcast – New host

    The WordPress White Screen of Death: if you’ve been using WordPress for any length of time, or like experimenting with plugins and themes, you’re probably already familiar with this and how to get out of it, but if not, here’s a link to help you work through it. And by the way, always back up your database, at the very least, before making any changes to WordPress – it just makes it easier to roll back to the previous version.

    Present theme is Coral Light from CoralThemes – Though if you go there, you’ll notice how a damn popup comes up right smack in the middle of the screen after you’ve been there a few seconds. Yeah – that’s the kind of fucking bullshit that developers do because other developers have done it, and the reason why my site will never follow stupid fucking fads.

    And as a bonus, I’ll include a recent photo that has nothing to do with the podcast or anything else in this post, but it sits alone in my folders and expresses fairly well my current state of mind: resigned to yet another problem cropping up, a bit walleyed, and unable to be assed about much of anything at this point. Dyspeptic, I think is the word.

    possibly overweight Copes grey treefrog Hyla chrysoscelis looking dyspeptic

    On this date 29

    Al Denelsbeck

    female dark phase eastern tiger swallowtail Papilio glaucus on unidentified flower with unnoticed intruder
    July 15th seems to have been a slow photography day throughout the range of my digital stock, for unknown reasons, so we have only two for this week’s post, and both from the same day at that, in 2013. I can’t remember where I was when I shot the female dark phase eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) above, and have never tried to identify the flower; I suspect I was in a botanical garden, though.

    unidentified flying insect on base of flower from previous imageBut what’s this? Unseen at the time, some tiny insect is lurking underneath the same blossom, conveniently highlighted by a spot of bright background that gives it a small halo – either that or it’s divine in some way. Ya never know. Shown at right at full resolution, it’s obviously tiny when scaled against the swallowtail, and since I never spotted it at the time, I never tried to go in closer to get better detail shots. It looks supremely funky, but I’m betting it was simply cleaning its wings in that moment and so they were pitched out at odd angles, and it’s only a variety of fruit fly that uses patterns on its wings to camouflage itself against predators. There remains the possibility that it was having body work done and it’s spotted with primer before the finish coat is applied – it may be embarrassing and unsightly, but fruit flies gotta make a living too.

    No, huh? Okay, moving on.

    Later that evening, I was playing with astrophotography – no, not of the Jetsons’ dog, just the moon. And another interloper, but one that I knew was there.

    the moon and Spica in the same frame and exposure
    Noticing that a star was still visible as it was drawing rather close to the moon, I endeavored to get them both in the same frame, knowing that an exposure that showed both to advantage was physically impossible – this is the frame used to capture the star, while another was used to get the moon in ‘normal’ view, one that caused the star to vanish entirely.

    I brought up Stellarium and set the date and time to match, determining that the star in question is Spica, a fairly bright entity this time of year (well, any time of year, but easy to spot at this time of year.) Which helps explain why it was still visible by eye against the moon’s glare.

    screenshot from Stellarium program from same date identifying bodies in previous image
    Of course, I could have done a quick archive search on the blog and determined it that way, too, but I couldn’t recall if I’d done a post about it then or not, and Stellarium is more fun. Yes, I said that about my own blog, but I’m a little bleary about it right now. It’ll pass, and I’ll be back to my usual egomaniacal self, don’t you fret.

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