Straightening up

April 30, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

Just a handful of photos, some a few weeks old (from before the eclipse, even,) right on up to today, because I felt the need to update some.

We’ll start with another semi-abstract, taken on the day of the previous month-end abstract (though that post had already gone up.)

Japanese maple in greenhouse showing new growth
This is the favorite Japanese maple, a small one that’s remained potted but has the thickest canopy of any tree I’ve ever seen, even though it’s just over a meter across. This was while it was still in the greenhouse – it got moved out once I had returned from Ohio – and just after watering, so you can see some of the drops. The reddish edges denote new growth that quickly fades into uniform coloration.

And some updates on other plants, because I know you’re anxious to hear how those are going.

The almond tree, that started spontaneously in our compost pile some 12 years ago, is doing very well this year, in part because I started treating it with deer repellent even before it started to bud out. It now has quite a selection of developing almonds – which it had last year, but something stripped them off before they were ripe. This year, however, they’re remained untouched are are getting big; that’s my hand in the background. Though I have no idea what a ripe almond actually looks like – I need to research that soon.

The fruit trees in the back, moved from the greenhouse the same day as the Japanese maple, are kicking it as well.

This is one of the lemons, probably the largest so far, which means that it’s likely my bebby, one of the ones I pollinated by hand (well, by brush) while it was blooming within the greenhouse. This tree produced a whopping yield last year, so we’ll see how it goes this year.

In contrast, this is one of the lime trees:

We determined last year that these really were Key limes (Citrus × aurantiifolia,) and they pie they produced was fantastic. The blossoms are not very big, less than a third the size of the lemon blossoms, and don’t last very long, but you can see that a couple appear to be germinating. It becomes more evident elsewhere on the same tree:

I’m no botanist, but those certainly look like they’re developing, and they’re going to seriously weigh down that thin little branch. But they did the same last year with no damage, so we’ll presume the tree knows what it’s doing. Last year’s yield was about 15 limes, I think (for trees that we’d purchased as half-meter saplings that spring,) and this year already looks far better, so we’ll see how it goes.

And The Girlfriend’s cherry tree is kicking, too.

This was taken a couple of weeks ago, as the cherries on the Yoshino cherry (Prunus × yedoensis) tree were just fully ripening, and I expected them to be wiped out in three days as usual. However, they’re still quite present today.

This also shows that one of the emerging cicadas used the cherry tree as a molting spot – you’ll see more of those guys shortly. But I can’t say why the cherries went untouched this year; I’d credit it to the deer repellent, but we were applying that early last year too and the cherries still got wiped out. I have found two discarded pits (not a whole lot smaller than the cherries themselves – the tree is ornamental, not for produce,) but that’s been it.

A few days back, I happened to spot something new in one of the rose blossoms.

I mean, the property hosts plenty of green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus,) but this is the first I’ve seen using the roses in this manner. Granted, this is the first year we’ve had four exuberant rose bushes in pots on the back deck. This is a juvenile, about half size, and not terribly good at blending in, especially considering that it would match any of the hundreds of leaves better, to say nothing of the dense Japanese maple seen earlier, not two meters away. We’ll go in closer.

This might even have been the one I found on the screened porch two nights earlier, and removed to the base of one of the pots where the water reservoir was, in case he needed it. The treefrogs are notorious for finding their way onto the porch but not back off, and more than a couple have died tucked into screened corners, so I try to remember to do routine patrols at night. But this guy may have had the right idea now, since its food would come right to it.

[Side anecdote: A few days earlier, I’d been watering the roses when a honeybee appeared and attempted to partake of the ripe blossoms, but this was easily the stupidest bee I’ve ever seen. Unable to fathom looking for the center or even following the scent, it delved repeatedly into the spaces between the outer petals, came up empty, and tried again only a petal or two further in. Then it abandoned that blossom out of frustration and chose another, doing even worse in this case and starting from the bottom. I watched for about two minutes of this, on multiple blossoms, and the bee never achieved any kind of success. And we wonder about colony collapse…]

One last, the big finish:

Spotted one night while out patrolling with the headlamp, this one maintained this action post while I got situated for a good shot, something that rarely happens; usually, they realize something is going on and align themselves vertically on the post (or plant stem, or branch,) to blend in better and hide their outline. Don’t ask me what’s covering the frog – it was like this when I found it. The perch, by the way, is actually a support pole for a wind sculpture, the same one seen here – it’s been notably popular with the wildlife.

April’s been bugging me…

April 30, 2024April 29, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

… and it needs to go now. But we have a consolation prize, in the form of a ladies’ Speidel watchband and a lovely month-end abstract to go along with it:

I’d like to say this was intentional and it wouldn’t have been hard to accomplish, but this is simply evidence that I accidentally hit the shutter release as I was finished taking a few frames of pre-sunrise twilight, and the camera was moving slightly as I did so. Probably works much better with the faint pastel colors than it would’ve with a truly vivid sunrise. As to exactly how it produced such a mix of typical motion blur and fine, sharp details (look at the weeds near the bottom of the frame,) I really don’t know. But I assure you this is in-camera and not Photoshopped, or even GIMPed.

The next one was wholly intentional, though:

Even worse, this is only evidence of the misting bottle, but what else are you gonna do with roses? Stop and smell them? Sheesh.

Though I did think to try the same frame out with channel clipping – this is what it looks like in strictly the blue channel.

You could say, “There wasn’t even any blue in the image!”, but there is of course: white is a combination of all three color channels at full brightness, and you can also see that the edges of some of the petals go distinctly pinkish, which is produced by adding blue. And you could say, “Why isn’t this all blue then?”, but this is how such things display; when you’re looking at single channels, the only information there is brightness levels, though I suppose I could GIMP it into Blue, but the purpose was high-contrast monochrome, and this fits. The Blue channel is very often the blotchiest, and you can see evidence of this, but most of the detail came out pretty sharply this time around, and so it won the chance to appear here. W00t, as they no longer say.

Prepare for the onslaught!

April 27, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

There – now that I’ve mimicked damn near every news source out there, I can now say, don’t bother, and there will be no onslaught.

But, the emergence of the 13 year perdiodical cicadas has begun around here.

This is (most likely, anyway) one of the Brood XIX, 13-year cicada species, from the genus Magicicada, but right now I don’t think I can narrow the species down further than that – one of four, anyway.

Here’s the deal: There are annual cicadas, which is what most people see every summer, generally emerging in July and August, dark green with slightly paler eyes. They have a single-year lifecycle, hatching in late summer or early fall from eggs laid in crevices in tree bark, then making their way down to the base of the tree and underground, to remain there and feed on the sap from roots until emerging from the ground the next year in mid-summer, molting into a winged adult immediately after – those are those brown husks found on trunks and walls and such.

But there are also long-term periodical cicadas; same basic cycle, but the underground part lasts for years – in this case, thirteen. They emerge earlier – about this time, really – and have distinctly different coloration and body shapes. Because of this long cycle, they only appear every thirteen years, which helps them avoid over-competition with other species. This year, and the thing that the news has been harping on, there is another species of 17-year cicada (identified as Brood XIII,) also genus Magicicada, emerging at roughly the same time. However, there is likely only a very small portion of the country, like middle Illinois, where the two species will overlap, and the numbers seen there may be notably higher. But that’s not happening here.

Because they emerge much earlier than the decim, annual cicadas, they likely won’t even overlap in notable numbers with those, having either mated successfully or been eaten by the time the decims emerge, so even the songs aren’t likely to be heard in unison.

The Girlfriend spotted the first one, at top, late this morning, and then I started checking out the property and found five more, all clearly having emerged within the past twelve hours – many of them were in the immediate vicinity of their discarded exoskeletons, but all of them were dry and had fully extended wings, just warming up enough to get active. I will endeavor to try and find some either emerging from the ground, or getting ready to molt into adulthood – even though I’ve done that whole sequence before. But digging their way out would be cool to photograph. I’d have to be extremely lucky, but now’s the time to be watching for it.

Three were found clinging to just one of the rosemary plants, so I have a suggestion of where to look, anyway. And I’ve already seen them flying, appearing to be much slower and less agile than the decim cicadas, but with a distinctive rusty color-cast to the blur of their wings. They are also slightly shorter but notably narrower than the typical species, at least around here.

Maybe later on I can pin down a precise species, because I know you’re clamoring for it. For now, we’ll just see what I can find.

Down another notch

April 26, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

While I don’t allow the numerous enthusiastic and complimentary comments on these posts to influence me too much, I admit that they’re a boost to my ego, and then something like this happens to bring me back into perspective. I present to you an image from early yesterday afternoon, once again on Walkabout Estates.

I was delighted to see this guy, because this is the first appearance of one of the small, juvenile Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) from last year; true to pattern, they seem to come out a bit later than the full-grown adults do. I know there’s nothing useful for scale here, and this guy was already spooky enough that trying to introduce anything would have prevented any photos at all. But we have still something that we can use, and that’s the mantis egg case/ootheca attached to that branch, right underneath its left hind leg; this is one of the oothecas that I placed this year, and you can see the original smaller stick that it came with as well as the thread that I used to affix this to the branch (which was also placed.) I measured that after the fact, and the ootheca is 35mm in length. That places our subject here at roughly 90mm including that long tail, but the body itself is scarcely longer than the egg case. This isn’t as small as some of the ones I was seeing last year, but it’s less than half adult size, so definitely a juvenile. I did three frames and then left it alone.

Returning home later in the afternoon, I checked back on the odd chance that it was still hanging around in the area, and found something else:

Yep, there’s a green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus) perched on a fork of the same branch, and they tend to stay put all through the daylight hours. That would mean that I missed it entirely while standing there photographing the anole, and sure enough, it’s visible in the first pic above. This does not make me feel proud of my powers of observation.

In between those two frames, however, I did a quick stop at the NC Botanical Garden, doing some fartsy pics of a few flowers, but mostly seeing how many reptiles I could spot – there were a handful, though of course, how many I missed is now definitely in question.

It’s not like this one was hard to see:

This is a pregnant female American five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) – probably. There is also a southeastern five-lined skink which is pretty much identical, except the adults often have more orangey heads in breeding season. And this one is quite heavy, so the chances are (at this time of year anyway) that it’s a pregnant female, though the girth is not the same as the likely pregnant anole seen earlier. So much of this information is suspect, but how badly do you need to know? All right then.

However, it was out basking on a boardwalk/bridge where both skinks and fence lizards are routinely seen, so not hard to spot if you were looking for it. I waited for someone to pass, already having snagged a few shots and fairly sure that the skink would bolt as they drew close, but it never moved, so I went in much closer myself – I’m probably just over a meter away here without any reaction. Come to think of it, maybe this is just a lawn ornament…

The next one, however, was at least marginally mobile.

Some distance away from the other and much, much smaller, this is a juvenile, but could be either species; the way to tell is by examining the scales under the tail, so this ain’t happening with any subject photographed in situ, since they don’t tend to tan their bellies. This one stayed put briefly, then darted forward about two body lengths and paused again in uncertainty, so I know this was either a living specimen or a damn clever lawn ornament.

Now we get to the true powers of observation (he said in petulant self-defense.)

This was at 135mm, so it appears about three times closer than it was when I spotted it. Okay, fine, it’s bright green against dull grey wood with no plants nearby, so not exactly blending in, but it was still a decent distance off in a garden loaded with similarly-colored plants. Listen, just let me have my fantasies, okay?

Going in close revealed that it had likely been disputing territory with another recently.

All that scarring on the head is typical of what they receive in territorial battles, and it looked reasonably fresh, and since it’s that time of the year I feel pretty comfortable in saying this – but we’ve pretty well established the level of my bona fides now, so do with it as you will. Just, you know, keep it to yourself…

Just once, part 17

April 24, 2024April 23, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

This one jumped into the lineup when I snagged photos of it only two days ago, and as such, it represents one of the few that you’ll see here that I uploaded photos for, rather than pulling them out of the media library from their previous usage. This also represents one that was a bitch to identify. You see, this is a yellow-rumped warbler (Setophaga coronata,) but there are two variations of this, while apparently not subspecies: ‘Audubon’s’ and ‘Myrtle.’ Nearly every photo you’ll find shows the Audubon’s, which has a distinctly yellow throat, or the juveniles have buff throats. Only The Sibley Guide to Birds shows the Myrtle variation, and the white throat only appears in the adult males. I blew right past it on my first perusal of the Guide because this is only one of seven illustrations of the species. Even the online All About Birds guide from Cornell University has just one image of the adult male Myrtle, and you have to had already found the species to find that image.

If you have the faintest interest in birds, I have to heartily recommend using the Sibley books, since they’re the only ones that show all variations of plumage – male, female, juvenile, breeding/nonbreeding, different phases – as well as flight profiles and habits, ranges, and specifics of behavior. But alongside that, the online All About Birds guide is pretty slick and remains, naturally, more up-to-date that any book, which is important if you want to know the proper species; my Sibley Guide has numerous red asterisks alongside scientific names (including, now, this one) because they’ve changed since that particular printing. The online guide also lets you hear the specific calls, which is much more accurate than reading, “a short, high-pitched ‘chukka chukka‘ interspersed with, ‘pa-woggy, pa-woggy,'” (okay, I made that one up, but you get the idea.) Though they really do say things like, “Song like Audubon’s but higher-pitched with shorter phrases; tend to sound faster, more hurried, less musical,” [actual description for this particular species] which is of no help unless you’re already intimately familiar with that variation.

All that said, I knew that I’d found a new (to me) species the moment I saw the yellow markings, and was glad to get some clear-enough images of it – it was the follow-through that took so much time.

And then a day later (which makes it yesterday,) I came across this on theChive:

‘Course, I’ve been bird-watching since adolescence, but the cool birds, not the songbirds so much. Does this indicate that this is changing? Do I need to start a ‘life list’ now?

One more for Hubble

April 24, 2024April 23, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

Bubble nebula from Hubble Space Telescope, courtesy of NASA/esa — The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is an emission nebula located 8,000 light-years away. This stunning new image was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to celebrate its 26th year in space.

And so the Hubble Space Telescope was launched 34 years ago today as a joint venture between NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA) and ESA (European Space Agency,) and is still cranking out the classics, as seen here. Having a large telescope up above the atmosphere and able to make extremely long exposures has been a huge advancement in our knowledge of the universe (and physics,) and despite newer models like the James Webb Space Telescope, there’s still a lot that Hubble can tell us. But for now (mostly because I don’t want to write a long post at the moment,) we just have a couple of the better images that it’s produced – clicking on them will take you to the higher resolution versions. Above is the Bubble Nebula, NGC 7635, the visible interaction of an active young star within molecular gas excited by the stellar wind of the star itself.

By the way, I mentioned trying to spot the HST with the help of Stellarium, to no avail – apparently it is no longer listed among the many satellites that the program can plot, and I have no idea why not, since I’ve found it that way before. Heavens Above, however, gave me the current location, but it turns out that the HST is only rising above the horizon for my area during the day, so no go on that end. I did catch it one night a few years ago, however.

Carina Nebula NGC 3372 photographed by Hubble Space Telescope, courtesy of NSAS/esa — Hubble’s view of the Carina Nebula shows star birth in a new level of detail. The fantasy-like landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno. In the process, these stars are shredding the surrounding material that is the last vestige of the giant cloud from which the stars were born. The immense nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina the Keel (of the old southern constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts, from Greek mythology). This image is a mosaic of the Carina Nebula assembled from 48 frames taken with Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The Hubble images were taken in the light of ionized hydrogen. Colour information was added with data taken at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Red corresponds to sulfur, green to hydrogen, and blue to oxygen emission.

And this is the Carina Nebula, NGC 3372, a ridiculously complex region visible from the southern hemisphere. The caption gives a hint of this, but the digital cameras within the HST are all monochrome, only capturing levels of brightness. In front of them, however, can be inserted the filters of choice, occasionally for visual colors, but far more often for specific wavelengths of light that may be difficult or impossible for us to see directly. Multiple images are taken under different filters and composited later, usually with false, enhanced colors; the purpose isn’t to show the subject “as it is,” but to divulge information that isn’t readily apparent. This is far more useful to astronomy than dealing with just visible light wavelengths, but it does mean that no matter what telescope you buy, you won’t be reproducing these images or anything remotely like them (some of the wavelengths captured won’t even penetrate our atmosphere.) So while they’re pretty stunning, they’re not “true’ in most senses of the word – they’re actually far more informative. So there.

Pop on over to ESA’s Hubble site and poke around a bit – it’s pretty damn fascinating.

Sorting finds n+8

April 23, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

Just two today – or is it three? How does one count these accurately? I don’t want to get in trouble with the IRS…

This one comes from the same session as these, but I didn’t notice this detail until I had brought the image up at full resolution to see if it retained critical sharpness. I don’t recall the pair of circling bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) to be making any noise, but a sequence of images seems to show otherwise; maybe I’d tuned it out, maybe I’d lost it in the wind noise off of the lake. They definitely look more dynamic when the beak is open – and probably more representative of our nation as well. Is he saying something about getting to the moon without using the metric system, you think?

Meanwhile, an image back from the total solar eclipse.

As the sun was disappearing with totality beginning, I just held the shutter release down and fired off a long sequence of images as it vanished; this is the last one in the series. I had only guesstimated the exposure needed (intending to capture the diamond ring) and was well under-exposed, but it does show Baily’s Beads disappearing, and the barest hint of a solar prominence. It’s framed this way for a reason, however, because I then played with the exposure after the fact:

I was curious to see if I could make out the outline of the moon in the weak coronal effect, and I could – it’s grainy, but the outline is there. Two more prominences became visible as well.

Now, a small note: I originally edited and uploaded the eclipse post while working remotely on a laptop (of sorts,) but when I got back home and looked at the posted images on my routine desktop computer, I found that I could make out twice as much detail. I’d actually gone into the monitor settings for the laptop, before I left on the trip, and set them for a much better display, though I didn’t have a decent calibration image handy when I did so. My desktop monitor is clearly much better, though, and I’m not sure if this is solely due to being calibrated better, or if it’s a higher quality display – or both. But for your sake, if you can’t make out a faint outline all around the moon in the last image, your contrast or gamma settings could probably stand tweaking. And if you’re a photographer, it’s definitely a useful thing to have these set as well as you can manage.

I forgot…

April 22, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

… that it was Earth Day, but I’d gone out to the neighborhood pond for the first time in weeks, just to see what was going on, and so I have some pics for it anyway.

The turtles were out of course, but it was more necessary this time, because yesterday and last night it had gotten pretty cold. So we have yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta):

I have a more head-on frame as well, but it didn’t show off those nails as well, and if you’ve got nails like that, you want them noticed. Everybody notice them.

And then, we have an unidentified mud or musk turtle:

Is it a common musk turtle (Sternotherus odoratus)? Is it a striped mud turtle (Kinosternon baurii)? Is it an eastern mud turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum)? I don’t know – it’s Earth Day, not Scientifically Accurate day, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

But this one is, naturally, a red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans,) and a complacent one at that:

I saw this from a distance away and made sure I got frames of it before I approached, but the caution wasn’t necessary – it simply watched me but never even twitched from its position as I passed not five meters away. The blue-green patina on its carapace is likely from copper sulfate, which was used by the people living around the pond to control the weeds, for reasons unknown (I’ve heard that it’s to keep the pond from being “choked” with weeds, but the only species growing there is a shallow water type that couldn’t possibly choke a pond that size or depth.) While I’ve been assured that they’re no longer using copper sulfate, this might be evidence otherwise – or it might simply be from the turtle burrowing in the mud at the pond bottom over the winter, because copper sulfate remains there for a long time, another reason not to ever use it. That’s your Earth Day tip.

Also basking was a female double crested cormorant (Nannopterum auritum):

This is way too similar to many other images posted here, mostly because the cormorants love these pilings, of which I can only achieve two vantages of. Well, three, but the third is over a hundred meters off across the pond and not worth the effort. But we have a peek at the green eyes, and the light shows off the varied feather types, so there.

I have plenty of photos of great blue herons (Ardea herodias herodias) too, but it’s Earth Day – did I mention?

This one passed overhead before disappearing, never perching anywhere that I saw, nor hunting along the pond edges. But it came out pretty sharp against the background trees, which is rare – there must be something right with my lens.

A male red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) was industriously excavating a very old dead, standing trunk:

This one attracted my attention with its calls as I drew close, so I was able to find it easily, since its destructive efforts were in really rotten wood and thus making little noise. I took way too many frames, because occasionally it would send a larger hunk of wood flying and I was hoping (in vain, as it turns out) to capture one in the pic. But this particular frame shows a catchlight in the eye and a nice sheen off of the beak, which none of the others had – it’s the little things.

Back home, one of The Girlfirend’s orchids (that’s one of the orchids, not one of The Girlfriends) are in bloom, and I felt obligated to get some frames of it because I don’t think I ever have before.

On a hunch just now, I took the UV flashlight out there to see if any part of these fluoresced, but nada. Fluorescence, however, is the trait of absorbing UV and re-emitting photos in visible wavelengths, and has nothing to do with how much UV the flowers might reflect – which we can’t see without UV capable sensors. One of these days I’ll tackle that, but it’s expensive.

We need a closer look, though.

That… really does look like a trap, doesn’t it? Just the thing to knock off a member of an away team. Does the spike above come down, or do the three lower petals slam closed on your hand, or is the orange thing both sticky and caustic? Maybe there are simply some tendrils closing in behind you as you stare at it…

But finally,

The ‘Pink Panther’ variety of foxglove (Digitalis x ‘Pink Panther’) that we’d obtained last year spent the winter in the adjunct greenhouse, and wasted no time in springing into bloom once it came out – it may regret this as there’s a goddamn frost warning for tonight, sheesh. But for now, the first blooms look healthy and happy and I needed a pic of them, so here we are. Oh yeah, and it’s Earth Day, so they serve double duty.

More images will be along shortly – even two more from today that fit in better elsewhere. You’ll know what I mean on Wednesday.

Trying to be sneaky

April 18, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

Was checking over the potted plants out front of Walkabout Estates this morning, and spotted this tiny guy.

Now, I have several mantis egg cases/oothecas scattered in various locations and have been keeping an eye on them, and saw no evidence of hatching, but obviously this one came from somewhere – I might have missed the hatching while away, and subsequent winds eradicated the little telltale ‘beard’ that would have indicated this. Or I’m not paying as close attention as I think I am. Notably, this one was not very close to any of the oothecas, increasing the curious quotient.

Moreover, I cannot identify this one just yet. Normally, the first to hatch in the area, and the only ones that I usually have oothecas for, are the Chinese mantises – but these egg cases came from my brother in New York, and from some of the evidence that I’ve seen, these would instead be European mantises. When they’re larger I’ll be able to tell, because the European mantids have dark spots on the underside of their forelegs, ‘armpit stains,’ because of course antiperspirant isn’t as prevalent in Europe. Okay, that was a cheap shot and I know it, but some you just can’t let slide.

it would be nice to have known that this one did come from one of the oothecas I placed – but not too informative, because I don’t know for sure that the cases are either Chinese or European mantis anyway, and they look too much alike. But I’m reasonably sure that this is not a Carolina mantis, because they hatch later and typically display an upturned abdomen at this stage, or indeed, most of their instars before final/adulthood. So I’m going to say this is either a Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis,) common in this area and appearing thousands of time before herein, or a European mantis (Mantis religiosa,) never before seen here, I believe. So you should either be bored or awed.

Eventually, I located two more, both on the Japanese maple tree near the front door, which is near one of the placed oothecas, so better evidence that this one had hatched – though I cannot rule out these being from a naturally-placed ootheca that I never located over the winter, which has happened before. Basically, I’m waiting until I can get a look at their pits, and feel free to run with that quote. At least now I can say that the macro season has truly begun.

But while I’m here…

ANNOUNCEMENTS: I’ve been having reminders popping up in my calendar for a few days now, so I’ll use this space to address them.

The Lyrids Meteor Shower is presently ongoing, but is expected to peak around the 21^st and 22^nd, so go out and chase that if you’re so inclined. Last night was certainly no condition to try around here, but tonight might be better.

Earth Day is April 22^nd, and we’ll see what I scare up for that, but, you know, give something back to the planet or be more green or something along those lines.

And April 24^th is the anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, 34 years ago and still going strong. I just tried to determine if it would make a visible pass over this area that night, and found that it is no longer able to be found in Stellarium – no idea why, but likely something to do with the various upgrades I’ve done recently. I’ll be tackling this shortly.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go determine just how difficult it is to see the undersides of the forelegs of a shy insect that doesn’t measure 10mm in length. I mean, anyone can herd cats…

And now, the ospreys

April 18, 2024April 17, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

Plurals among the animal kingdom are always fun, and occasionally up for grabs. ‘Prey’ is a collective term, but bears no relation to ‘osprey,’ and so the plural of that is ‘ospreys,’ even though I’m probably none too consistent on that aspect myself. The plural of ‘ibis,’ as I recently checked, can be either ‘ibis’ or ‘ibises,’ and avoiding awkwardness makes me prefer the former. ‘Titmouse’ is also a proper name, for a bird and not a rodent, but the plural really is ‘titmice.’ While we’re there, the plural of the computer pointing device known as a ‘mouse’ is apparently ‘mouses,’ but I have to wonder how many people are even aware of that, much less use it.

All that aside, we’re going to talk about ospreys for this post, because back at the beginning of the month, I drove down and checked on a nest that I’d observed for a few years now; I’d watched the young being fed, three years ago, but then the following two years didn’t seem to produce viable young. And I’d driven past sometime in late March this year and stopped just to see if anything was happening, not only finding a pair hanging around, but getting a glimpse of what looked like mating (it was through the tree branches and I couldn’t maneuver for a clear view in time.) Naturally I did not have the camera then. So, on the 2^nd of this month, I had the camera in hand when I went down to check on things.

Not too far from the nest sat this lone osprey, Pandion haliaetus, and I have to make a quick observation here: I recently discovered that, properly, this is a Pandion haliaetus carolinensis, since it the subspecies on the American continents. There are also Eurasian (P. haliaetus haliaetus,) Caribbean (P. haliaetus ridgwayi,) and Australian (P. haliaetus cristatus) subspecies – how did I not know this before? But overall, when we’re talking about North America, nearly all sources simply use P. haliaetus and don’t distinguish the subspecies, so, fine. And this one was disinclined to do anything while I was there, not to mention the light was less than ideal, so I didn’t stay long, But I was specifically there to check on the nest, which looked like this:

I observed this for a short while and shot occasional frames, just in case some spare feathers peeked up from a low-crouching female, but nothing at all was evident. Still, the one sitting nearby seemed to indicate that the nest wasn’t being ignored, and off in the distance, another nest was clearly being used.

This one is too far away to make the trip down there worthwhile, but can serve as an incidental subject only if the first nest is occupied. Still, it helped confirm that my timing was correct, and nesting season had begun.

Now we jump ahead to a couple of days ago.

No mistake this time, and she appeared quite well settled in, either already on eggs or just about to lay them, which seems in line with the mating behavior seen earlier. Gestation period is 5-6 weeks, so I’m marking my calendar to be paying more visits in that time frame, though the best pics will come when the young are big enough to stand upright and peer over the edge of the nest.

I have to throw in the very first pic I got of her:

Look at that: eyes closed. It’s like school portrait day

Meanwhile, we had another sentry standing by, though in a different location this time.

I’m going to assume this one is a male, though since he was roughly in between the two occupied nests, I’m not absolutely sure whose mate he was. And no, it’s quite unlikely that he’s mated to both, even though some species do this; come hatching, he’d be hard-pressed to keep two nests stocked with food simultaneously. And the more distant nest remained occupied:

She was exhibiting the same behavior, right down to something that we’ll come to in a moment. Before that, however, I thought I saw something in the greater distance and trained the lens on that:

I didn’t realize just how far away this tree was until I’d unloaded the card back home, thinking it was the nest of a much smaller bird, but that color pattern certainly looks like an osprey again, making this perhaps twice as far as suspected, far enough that atmospheric humidity was softening the image. You think I’m making excuses for soft focus, but this is a tight crop from a full frame that actually looks like this:

Once again, this is at 600mm, but I can do a little better job of illustrating the distance. Here is the moon (shot much earlier) also full frame at 600mm:

Once you realize that you can blot out the moon in the sky with your thumb, you’ll know that the distant nest was barely discernible at all – I would estimate the distance but I would be wrong.

But while we’re here, we’ll have a brief video clip taken at the time, when the closest nest occupant stood up to do some housekeeping.

No sooner had she completed her tasks and settled back down, than the second occupant stood up to do the same thing – just that time of day I guess. Again, totally unsure if eggs were actually present or not, but the day was more than warm enough for eggs to be able to stand a little exposure. I’ll endeavor to keep an eye on things and maintain progress posts as we go, but the real changes will be in roughly a month – I’ll try to have some content in the interim.

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