Per the ancient lore, part 31

Al Denelsbeck

kite surfers bringing in the sail
We’re doing the third pass through the Beach folder, but this actually came from the same day as our first pass, back in part 3. My brother and I watched as a pair of kite surfers brought the sail, or the kite, or the chute, or whatever, slowly down to ground level to pack it up, and I happened to catch this dramatic angle.

This had, in fact, been in the gallery for a little while, until I decided that it wasn’t really showing off my work or style (what there is of it) very well. And I still occasionally look at it and think I should have tripped the shutter just a little sooner, before the canopy had ‘touched’ the horizon – it would have had a stronger impact being clearly in the air. It also could have been stronger if the closer guy had a hand raised, or if he’d been carefully centered in the mouth of the Pac-Man notch of the shadow. Maybe this is being nitpicky, maybe this is bringing things to your attention that you might not have noticed otherwise (or not consciously been aware of anyway,) but it’s sometimes the little details that can make a significant difference.

I am not a sports person, and while kite-surfing looks like fun, it’s definitely something that was always well beyond my condition or skills, and would have taken months of work to actually reap the rewards of. However, while shooting one wedding I saw someone tooling down the beach in a little 3-wheeled cart pulled by the same kind of kite, and that I would have gotten into in a heartbeat. Look up “kite buggy” if you want.

It’s funny; for two years I lived within about 10 kilometers of the ocean in Florida, could even ride my bike there (though it took surmounting that causeway,) but really didn’t go to the beach much. Mostly, I think, this is because that area was pretty distinctly developed, lined with high-rises and a bit too crowded; I had gotten used to the Outer Banks of NC, which are about as unspoiled as it’s possible to get in this country, and so the appeal paled in comparison. And now, I’m not getting there enough. Gotta find a way to strike that balance…

Let’s get this over with

Al Denelsbeck

common snapping turtle Chelydra serpentina showing snout and carapace damage
Once again, I undertake this task with the complete and abiding knowledge that no one will give the faintest damn about it, which is of course my way of celebrating it. Yes, there’s another holiday coming up: National Grouch Day falls on October 15th, which is appropriately enough a Monday. This is the day when you buy a cake for the grumpiest person in your workplace, then ‘accidentally’ drop it on the floor as you present it to them. The day when you put on underwear that no longer fits, before it’s fully dry.

The day that you give your delivery driver a nonexistent address, then keep calling to find out where the hell they are.

The day that you set the oven temperature and the timer with your eyes closed.

The day that you answer every phone call with an agonizingly slow, painfully obvious script recital.

The day that you change all of your passwords into something incredibly hard to remember.

The day that you sneak the batteries out of someone’s car remote.

The day after you leave the garbage in the car overnight (preferably if you have to make a long trip.)

The day that you show your actual level of disinterest in other peoples’ stories.

The day that you readjust all of the car seats.

The day that you forget your doggie poo bags (preferably with lots of witnesses.)

The day that you get really pedantic about other people’s spelling and grammar online.

The day that you throw some coins in the drier when you have to be nearby to hear it.

You get the idea (but if you don’t, or need more inspiration, I’ve covered this before.) In short, it’s for you, me, and everybody – we all must wallow in the Pit of Petty Irritation. Note that this is not National Asshole Day – that was June 14th (figure it out.) We do not take delight in other people’s misfortune, we may only share the pissiness among ourselves.

All of you bright, optimistic, cheery-ass twits out there are forbidden by law (or at least should be) to try and change our moods for the better. Not like you could anyway – nobody’s buying that fake Snow White horseshit. But if there’s one day when you have to cram a sock in it, it’s this one. We don’t ask for much (we just complain when we don’t get it,) so you can let us have this one. Merely making the attempt should get you down to our level anyway, but if it makes you feel better worse, we still won’t like your company.

So have at it – indulge your inner cantankery with the full recognition that some mook will try to deny that it’s a real holiday. Embrace the wincing at embracing. It takes more muscles to frown, and you are ripped. it doesn’t matter – it only lasts a day, if that, and will be forgotten about immediately, ’cause people suck. But feel free to comment and tell me how your day went, and I’ll be sure to delete it or make some petty point in return.

[What’s the opposite of “Cheers!”? Stupid worthless thesauruses…]

A little more groove

Al Denelsbeck

hairy-stem spiderwort Tradescantia hirsuticaulis blossoms with dew
A month ago, I commented on an outing to the NC Botanical Garden where I didn’t really achieve much; this time around, I did notably better, even when still not seeing some of the subjects that I was hoping to. Naturally you can’t plan on finding particular subjects – if you could there’d be no challenge to it – but you can aim for them at least, choosing the best conditions and all that, yet you’ll still have to take it as it happens, and find other things to make the trip worthwhile. Above, I just happened to like the two hairy-stem spiderwort blossoms (Tradescantia hirsuticaulis, I think anyway) with the dew on the buds beneath, and used the soft light of the near-overcast conditions.

Overall though, I’m not much of a flower and plant photographer, so garden visits are aimed more towards arthropods and reptiles and all that, which were a little scarce. Or I’m not on top of my game as much as I think I am, but we’re not going to devolve into existentialism right now. There are still plenty of things in bloom, and those were attracting not just the things that feed on them, but the things that feed on the things that feed on them, and I did manage to scare up a few of those. On the same variety of phlox as that previous linked post, I spotted a very small crab spider trying to be subtle enough to escape the attentions of any blundering pollinator (that was the right size, at least.)

crab spider possibly Mecaphesa on phlox blossom
Given that the flower was less than 20mm across, you can imagine the size of the spider itself, but this one was much bigger than several of its relatives that I found in another section, hanging out on the black-eyed Susan flowers (Rudbeckia hirta.)

minuscule crab spider possibly Mecaphesa perched on black-eyed Susan Rudbeckia hirta flower
I’d made a small mistake, in that I didn’t pack an extra set of batteries for the macro flash rig and they were pegging out here, so I only had a couple of tries at this with a lot of time in between (or at least, a lot of time when you’re looking at a subject and waiting for the flash to recharge from nearly-depleted batteries, which means maybe two minutes.) After this, I simply went with existing light, but I did at least snag a frame with enough detail to show off the eentsy occupant – for which we now have to back off a bit to illustrate just how visible it actually wasn’t.

minuscule crab spider possibly Mecaphesa on black-eyed Susan Rudbeckia hirta blossom, showing scale
If you’re not familiar with black-eyed Susan blossoms, they’re about 50-70mm across, a little smaller than the width of your palm. But they virtually never produce pale whitish spots in the center, so that’s the cue to look closer if you see one. I spotted several of these spiders, all in the same general vicinity, which led me to believe there was likely a hatching nearby, but I didn’t see any with prey, which is a shame because I really wanted to see what they could eat at that size. Given how adept crab spiders are, however, it’s quite possible they could tackle my next subject easily.

hoverfly on black-eyed Susan Rudbeckia hirta blossom
This patch of flowers was a little removed from the previous yet there were no crab spiderlings to be found, so the hoverfly could partake of that sweet, sweet nectar (so I’m told, anyway) without risk. There were a lot of hoverflies around, but it took a few attempts before I found one that was tolerant/oblivious/stupid enough to let me lean in close enough for the shot, and got a little iridescence off of the wings for my trouble.

That’s enough yellow – how about a bit more blue?

Aconitum blossoms
just an abstract compositionThe Aconitum blossoms above go by a variety of names, and one of them is ‘monkshood’ – when we choose that one, this now seems to have a faintly accusatory feel to it, as if we’ve just caught the eyes of the monks from across the monastery while doing something unmonkish (which is just about everything, I think.) Or maybe that’s just me.

Meanwhile, I chanced across the composition at right and just liked it, though I couldn’t really tell you why (it’s on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know,) but here it is anyway. Feel free to do all the Rorshaching that you like over these peeks into my psyche.

I will note that all of the moisture visible, despite the hints provided by the muted light, came from overnight dew, not rain. A little later on in the day it did rain, but not until I’d done all of the shooting that I’d wanted to and left, so my timing was down for that at least.

On the side of one of the small ornamental ponds – the same as this one, actually – sat a pair of green frogs (Lithobates clamitans) mostly screened by the surrounding plants, and I endeavored to capture them both in the same frame.

green frogs Lithobates clamitans basking alongside small pond
It was challenging getting the right angle to see their eyes, requiring a very specific vantage through the plants, and depth of field probably wasn’t going to get high enough for the sharpness of both in that light, but upon unloading the memory card I found that it almost looks like there’s only one frog, with a mirror in the bushes. Or maybe there really was a mirror and I simply missed it. Maybe I only thought I was in the botanical garden.

green frog Lithobates clamitans peeking from barrel planter
In a nearby section, another green frog had been perched fetchingly on the rim of a wooden barrel turned pond/planter, but dove into the water the moment that I started centimetering closer. I waited patiently for a little less than two minutes and it resurfaced, but submerged again with the slightest twitch of the camera. Making another pass about twenty minutes later, I found it floating again and this time managed to creep quite close, firing off frames the entire time. From some angles, the water reflected the blue-grey sky and added a little more character to the frame, which is what I went with here. And I have to note that I cropped out both the edge of the barrel and an identification signpost rising from the middle of the tiny pond, one of the hazards of shooting in a maintained garden.

I was pleased to see this next one, though.

monarch Danaus plexippus on chrysanthemum
While monarchs (Danaus plexippus) are considered the most common butterfly in North America, they certainly aren’t around here, and I’ve barely seen them in the past several years – they’re outnumbered hugely by the swallowtails. This one was being exceptionally shy; while it was feeding openly on a patch of chrysanthemums, it didn’t like me creeping closer and flew off multiple times as I drew in for more detailed shots.

monarch Danaus plexippus on chrysanthemum blossomEventually, it settled in on a bloom that was a bit closer to me, and ignored my approach, so I was able to get in much closer and get the detail that I was after. Once again, I think the muted light helped; it’s easy to believe that bright light is better for colors, but the truth is, bright light increases contrast and makes the shadows seem deeper while it can wash out the colors at times, so hazy to overcast light is actually better for such colorful compositions. And of course, bright sunlight would have burned away all of the dew by this time, eradicating an element that I was making good use of this trip.

The image at right is the full frame, while below is a detail crop from the same frame, showing off what I captured (because that’s what a blog is for.) I’m just a little disappointed that I caught the proboscis (‘siphon’) in such a straight line, abruptly disappearing deep within the flower instead of showing a nice sine curve as is often the case.

monarch Danaus plexippus detail showing proboscis, flower details, and interloper
But wait, what’s that? Right there, below the proboscis. I certainly never saw it as I was shooting, but there’s another tiny fly, perhaps even too small for those crab spiders to make a meal of, hanging out on the same flower – see the little patch of pink and blue from the iridescent wings? It looks further out of focus than its surroundings, so I suspect it was actually starting to take flight in this image, blurring slightly in the 1/400 second shutter speed. Yes, I’m sure it was a fly, because it shows in other frames as well.

And one last shot for posterity, because you know I like this kind of photo. I’m thinking something might have bumped the leaf on the right side, causing the dew to combine into that larger drop, but it might simply have been the curve of the leaf. Whatever – it lends a little asymmetry to the shot and provides a focal point. I like it, anyway…

dew on unidentified leaf

Good evening

Al Denelsbeck

copes grey treefrog Hyla chrysoscelis looking menacing somehow
“Might I interest you in a… nightcap?”

Okay, did that text read as vaguely ominous as the photo appears? Maybe it doesn’t actually appear ominous to you. Treefrogs aren’t particularly known for striking terror into the heart of anyone, since even their prey tends to be oblivious to the threat that they might provide.

All that aside, this is just a teaser because a lot more photos are coming – it’s just gonna take me a little time to put the post together. I went for too long without shooting much of anything, pretty much since we returned from Tybee and Jekyll, and this was one of just a handful of photos that I did get. But I had an outing today that got me caught up, as it were, so there will be more to see shortly. Keep refreshing that page…

Per the ancient lore, part 30

Al Denelsbeck

black and yellow argiope Argiope aurantia during extremely humid morning
This one is reasonably appropriate for the time, because we have entered the season where we often hit the dewpoint not long after nightfall, and NC humidity means this isn’t halfhearted at all. Not to mention that, as I type this early yesterday morning, I am about to go out to see if the sunrise is worth pursuing.

For this photo (from, surprise surprise, the Arthropods folder,) I was out before sunrise for a whippet trial, where people race their pet whippets (like mini greyhounds) in casual competition – which is a little interesting to contemplate because the greyhound racing industry itself is a bit questionable and produces umpteen thousand discarded dogs each year (one of which The Girlfriend had, but much later than this was taken.) Yet, both breeds were bred for running and they like the competition, as do many other dog breeds because it reflects parts of the pack dynamic.

But back to the photo. This wasn’t the most dew-laden morning that I’d seen, but it ranks in the top five at least, and this black-and-yellow argiope (Argiope aurantia) demonstrated it better than anything else. It seems funny to us that something living could have dew form on it, but that’s because we produce a significant amount of body heat which would prevent it – arthropods, and to a lesser extent reptiles, do not, so they offer close to the same conditions for dew to form. In this case, it was almost indistinguishable from a heavy rain – most times dew forms in tiny droplets with even distribution, and shows better on the webs than on the spiders, but given the farm lowlands where I was, there was a good chance the night had been foggy as hell, which would have contributed. I saw no other indications of rain such as wet roads, so I’m presuming these were the conditions, but if you really need to know, I can’t help you; I can’t even remember where this was so you could look up the meteorological reports for that date, but maybe you should stop obsessing over such pointless things anyway…

Projects, projects

Al Denelsbeck

First off, a brief but appropriate celebration.

Woo hoo! Hot damn! Who da man? I da man!

In short, I have just repaired one of my lenses, and it’s working perfectly. The lens in question isn’t one of the old manual ones that I fiddle with off and on, and have repaired many times past, but a complicated modern one: the Canon EF-S 17-85mm 4-5.6 IS USM. Those last bits mean “Image Stabilized” and “Ultrasonic Motor” for autofocusing, and this is one of the real-time models where you can turn the focus ring at any time, while in auto or manual focus modes, and not damage anything in the lens – most lenses cannot do this. All of those things are handy to have, but naturally they increase the complication of the lens assembly to no small degree, and make it challenging to disassemble, but much more challenging to reassemble correctly and have it work properly.

Repaired Canon EF-S 17-85mm F4.0-5.6 IS USMA little background. This particular lens is actually a notorious one from Canon, since this failure issue is well-known and frequent, which may be why I picked it up so cheaply with the Rebel T2i when I got that. It worked fine for me for a year or so, then I began having the dreaded “Error 99” messages when attempting to use it, which basically means the camera body is not getting the expected responses from the electronics within the lens. Sigma was fairly known for this same kind of failure, at least in the 2000s, and they were mostly caused by the same thing: damage to a ribbon cable within the assembly.

Here’s the deal. Both autofocus motors and electronic apertures need to have wired communication with the camera body, to no one’s surprise, but these electronics are usually buried deep within the assemblies on ‘floating’ mounts, meaning they have to move back and forth when the lens is zoomed, often within multiple support barrels. So to maintain electronic contact, ribbon cables are used, flat and flexible plastic with very thin layers of copper laid inside, and these can flex back and forth as the interior bits move. Until they age out, become too brittle, flex too much, or become overheated. Or simply if the lens was poorly designed and they have to flex more than the materials can stand up to. Once they crack or break, the communication ceases and the error messages pop up. This was actually the failure in the old Sigma 28-105 that I am now using reversed as a super macro, and is likely the failure in a Sigma 24-135 that I have gathering dust on a shelf.

Aperture assembly and ribbon cable for Canon 17-85 IS USMThe part itself is quite inexpensive from many sources; it’s just getting to it and replacing it effectively that’s the royal bitch. And I will offer this choice bit of advice to anyone wanting to tackle this themselves: for the Canon 17-85, buy it already attached to the aperture assembly itself. It’s a bit more expensive but well, well worth the extra cost, because said assembly is not intended to be desoldered and resoldered and likely will not stand up to the abuse. I found this out the hard way (which means this was the second attempt.)

There are several videos of the lens disassembly on YouTube, but I won’t recommend any of them: none that I found were done by professionals, or even very good videographers, and all of them left out very crucial details that are absolutely necessary for proper reassembly. Some people just don’t have the knack for instruction, especially of something so complicated and requiring very specific details, and then again, some people shouldn’t even be fucking with the lens in the first place (“I broke this trying to get it apart, so be careful.” No, maybe you have no business trying to tell someone how to do this correctly.) I am presently considering doing my own video, including all of the details (hopefully) that others have missed, but I’m not in a hurry to disassemble this lens again. Perhaps if the failure happens again, or if someone asks me to repair their own…

It also helps to have the right tools, and the right work environment – a house with cats isn’t recommended, though I can’t change that right now. But since I’m involved in car and house repairs, fine-scale model work, and electronics, my tool selection is fairly significant, certainly better than any of the people whose videos I watched, and I wasn’t hunting around for what I needed at all (by the way, I cannot stress enough how useful forceps/hemostats are – I use mine constantly. Get some.)

But all that was Project 2. Project 1 was rebuilding the macro softbox that’s been in use on the Sunpak Auto 322 flash for the past couple of years. The original was made of black matboard, the same stuff you border prints with, and while it worked just ducky, it was showing its age – let’s face it, something made of cardboard isn’t going to last forever, and it’s a wonder that it lasted as long as it did with my usage, really. I’d been meaning to build it out of stronger materials and finally did, making some slight design changes as I did so – not many, really, because the first was carefully planned. I’d added a focusing light mount back in March, and that was a weakness because of the drag that the light itself and the USB cord put on it, but now that it’s acrylic it’s a lot stronger, and the light stays firmly in place.

new homemade macro softbox
You can see that I wrapped the base, where it slides onto the flash unit, with wires to maintain strength; the flash head is tapered so the softbox slides on until it gets tight, but pushing too hard could crack the seams in the acrylic sheets that the box is constructed from, thus the reinforcement. Also, if you notice the bright spot on the decking boards at lower right, that’s actually the beam from the focus light visible in the patchy shade of the day – I was only putting the rig together for this illustrating photo, but I realize now that I should have at least aimed the box so the spot fell in front of the lens, and it looked like I was all set for macro subjects.

underside of new softbox showing focus light port
tight crop of treefrog's eye showing softbox spot effectAnd one other thing that I was wondering about, which was answered when I used it with my subject a few days back. I’d used sheets of clear acrylic for the construction of the entire box, and simply left the big circle unpainted for the flash light to show through. I very lightly sanded it from the inside to make it more diffuse and less harsh, but I left a small circular area directly under the focus light unsanded to keep that as bright as possible, for better assistance in focusing. The concern was that this might show up in sharp reflections on the subject itself, like for instance water droplets, or eyes. As you can see, it does – but if you go back to that original image, it’s going to be pretty damn subtle in nearly all cases. Nonetheless, I’ll probably give that spot a light sanding to soften the effect, at least, and simply deal with the hit to the brightness of the focus light. Since the last version was aiming through a diffusing cloth, which has a heavier effect than sanded acrylic, I suspect I can cope.

Initially I had intended to add a Velcro (hook-and-loop) strap to the top to help secure it to the flash unit, because the rubber band on the old one wasn’t sufficient, but so far the fit has been so snug it hadn’t been an issue; I’ll probably add it anyway just for security. But otherwise it’s doing the job well and I’m pleased with it, even with that little dark spot in the reflection – which exists in the photo of the lens at top, too. You missed it, didn’t you? I used the macro softbox for fill light on the front of the lens, with the Metz 40 MZ-3i as semi-bounce for the main light; Metz on the hot shoe, Sunpak on a flex arm triggered by PC cord. The photo of the aperture assembly and cable was all the Sunpak and softbox, though. I’m feeling pretty good about my lighting rigs now.

Odd memories, part 19: Citation needed

Al Denelsbeck

It’s funny – I knew what I was going to name this post almost as soon as I decided to tackle it this evening.

This… is a Chevrolet Citation.

By Herranderssvensson – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

It was a subcompact car produced in the early 1980s, popular briefly until enough people found out how mediocre they were. There was also a four-door (or five-door, counting the rear hatch) version, but this is what we want to see for our purposes here.

Back when I was one of the managers at the animal shelter, as I’ve said before, we didn’t just see dogs and cats – we got a little of everything, especially when there was a new fad in popular “pets,” which is in quotes because in many cases these weren’t really good pet choices, like potbellied pigs. We had our share of hamsters and budgies, ferrets and pythons, and since we did wildlife rehabilitation we often had a couple of selections from those as well – at one point someone brought in an armadillo, which was a distinct first because we were well north of the latitude where such critters could be found. A bit later in my tenure there we built an expanded facility with, among other things, a small barn and stable, but this particular anecdote occurred before then when we had just your plain ol’ dog kennels and cat cages. So when Animal Control brought us in an impounded cow, we were a bit challenged as to what to do with it.

There wasn’t much we could do, so into the largest dog kennel she went, while we attempted to find out a) how long we were likely to have her, and b) where else we might put her if this ended up being more than a few days. She wasn’t the biggest example that I’ve seen, especially since I grew up next door to a dairy farm, but this was a full-size cow nonetheless. She was very docile and quite friendly, which helped a lot, and she was immensely popular with at least one of our regular volunteers. I did not get the opinions of any of the kennel staff, who now had entirely different job duties when it came to cleaning the kennel, since it was full of straw bedding and the old “flip up the drain cover and hose everything down the drain” wasn’t happening.

Now, you may be wondering why exactly Animal Control would impound a cow (Failure to Give Milk? Protective Confinement during a rash of tipping?) and truth be told I don’t recall exactly myself, but I think it had something to do with inadequate housing/conditions. Within the week, the impound was lifted and the owner was free to come pick their cow back up, and this happened to occur right at closing time when another manager and I were the only ones still available to process this transaction. Animal Control had borrowed a livestock trailer from someone to do the original impound, the typical kennel trucks not quite adequate to the job, but they were not permitted to return the cow – it was the owner’s responsibility. The other manager came up and got me when the owner arrived to do the transport, telling me that I had to see this. We went out to the vehicle gate to find the aforeillustrated Chevy Citation sitting there. No trailer. Not even a pickup truck. Just this podunk little runabout.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

The manager shook his head with a grim smile. “Nope. That’s what he has to bring the cow home in.”

“Well, good fucking luck with that,” I failed to say, also neglecting to return to the front office and leave them to their own devices. I am quite sure some consulting with the Executive Director took place, and a few questions thrown out in vain, but it all came back to the same looming response: we were going to have to help him get a goddamn cow into a two-door hatchback.

Dog only knows how we did it, especially since it not only required getting the stupid bovine up over the rear bumper and hatch lip in the first place, but then also convincing it to lay the fuck down, and if you have the faintest familiarity with cows, this is not something that they do on command or for that matter practically at all – the shits even sleep standing up. There is this one moment of terror saved in my brain from when, sprawled across the folded-down rear seats and attempting to convince this heifer to bend her legs, she almost toppled over on top of me, but in less time than expected, we succeeded in getting her inside, laid down, and the hatch closed. Filthy and sweaty, the other manager and I watched the Citation pull out, sitting decidedly lower on its rear shocks than the manufacturer ever intended. Whether the owner actually made it all the way home without the cow bursting out the rear hatch glass I’ll never know.

This was of course in the early 1990s, when no one routinely had some kind of video-recording device ready at hand, so you just have to take me at my word. Or if you can find Sandy, I’m sure he’ll corroborate the story. You don’t forget a thing like that.

September is outtahere!

Al Denelsbeck

massive catfish looming towards surface
I’m not celebrating that, really – I happen to like September, don’t ask me why, but its passing also means autumn is nearly upon us. This occasionally provides some nice landscape opportunities (more often selective little tableaux, at least for me,) but what it mostly means is the end of the active season. Some of us can’t just pop down to Costa Rica in November…

All whining aside, this month’s-end abstract is a rather large catfish that was a resident in Our Hosts’ pond when we went down to the Savannah area, who eagerly partakes of their offered daily feedings despite hardly needing such largesse. I don’t think this is one of those walking varieties, which is good, because no one needs some ominous knocking on the door late at night to remind them that they forgot to feed the fish that morning. I mean, they have small dogs…

Per the ancient lore, part 29

Al Denelsbeck

Atlantic stingray Hypanus sabina resting on bottom of Indian River Lagoon, Florida
And now we enter round three of the passes through my categories, back to the beginning (alphabetically anyway) with Aquatic. Our subject this week is an Atlantic stingray, known to its friends as Hypanus sabina, one of the many scientific names that has changed since I first started adding such to the posts and gallery pages (you may or may not see the new name there, since as I type this I haven’t yet changed it but I will. Eventually.) Atlantic stingrays were formerly known as Dasyatis sabina, and the taxonomic change was first proposed, at least, in 2001, but I’d been finding it under the former name for several years following that so it appears this takes some time to propagate throughout the webbernets – in fact, it is still identified as such on various sites. Man, it’s hard enough for me to remember these (and this was one that I did remember) without biologists changing them all the time…

This is a wild shot, in the Indian River Lagoon where there were always plenty to be seen, but photographing them was a different matter. Suspended sediment, rippling water surfaces, and reflections all conspired to make most attempts pretty ratty, to say nothing of getting close enough to one in shallow enough water to make it worthwhile in the first place. Despite the reputation for stingrays to bury themselves in the sand and stab their barb into hapless waders, I never once witnessed such behavior, and most times the rays were far too shy to even let me approach – they could easily sense my movement, no matter how stealthy I tried to be, and usually sped off before I was in decent range. This particular photo is thus a rarity in that regard, and in two others. You can see a small collection of glass minnows passing over the ray, meaning that I managed not to spook them either, and the focal length listed in the EXIF info indicates that I wasn’t shooting from a great distance off either. But glass minnows (actually, according to my quick search, a variety of anchovy – they’re colloquially identified as such in the region mostly because they’re used as bait for fishing) are wary of moving stingrays, as I found when a ray swam towards a large school of minnows while I watched from a dock. The minnows parted for the ray and maintained a margin of maybe a handspan around it as it passed through their midst, giving a distinct impression of something like magnetic repulsion. This, and the fact that I have another frame where the stingray is in the exact same position in regards to the bottom details, tells me the ray was motionless at the time of this photo.

Swimming stingrays are fascinating to watch, as I was reminded, and The Girlfriend and Her Sprog got their first chance to see, during this recent trip to Tybee Island. They move with a lovely rippling motion of their outer wings, very much like a flag in slow motion, looking much more like the current is simply moving past them. We were able to look down on several as they foraged in the shallows under a dock, looming from the murky sediment and vaguely following the waterline before disappearing into the depths again, always hugging the bottom because that’s where they find their food. For a while we thought there was only one, but eventually realized there was a decent collection of them mostly appearing singularly.

Atlantic stngray image before color tweakI feel obligated to tell you that the above image is altered noticeably from the original, by removing a lot of the color cast from the water itself and increasing contrast – again, shooting down into the water is not the best set of conditions. It might also have helped to be in an area with much clearer water, but we have what we have.

Once, I came across a partially dismembered and decaying carcass of a stingray, and wanted the main skeletal structure for display, so I brought it home and began simmering it gently in hot water, which breaks up the soft tissue to allow it to come away from the bone. Don’t look at me that way – that’s one of the easiest methods, and lots of people do it. Unfortunately, while I knew stingray skeletons were cartilaginous, I didn’t realize this meant that they simply crumbled under such treatment, and I ended up with nothing. However, on a different excursion I had come across another dead one with an intact tail, and managed to remove the barb itself, which is quite a bit tougher; since I still have it, I could do an illustrating photo for this post. Overall, it’s 50mm long and 3 wide at the broadest point, and quite easy to see why they’re such a pain to remove. And bear in mind, Atlantic stingrays are among the smallest of the barbed rays.

barb of Atlantic stingray Hypanus sabina against finger for scale

A recent few

Al Denelsbeck

I’m trying to get back into shooting a little more regularly, not at all helped by not seeing much to shoot, not having a lot of free time that isn’t taken up with projects, and now not having the best weather. And yet, despite those overwhelming difficulties, I can still come through in the clutch!

[Ahem] Anyway, I snagged just a handful of frames this past evening, most of which I shot while on the phone, because multitasking! This first, however, was earlier in the afternoon between rain showers, as The Girlfriend’s new hibiscus plant began blooming earlier this week. The petals were starting to show wear and weren’t as healthy looking now, so I went selective.

hibiscus blossom in closeup after rain
While I had the camera in hand chasing other subjects, I happened across this lesser meadow katydid nymph (genus Conocephalus) and did a quick couple of frames before it leapt away.

lesser meadow katydid nymph genus Conocephalus
A few days earlier, I had seen this next one twice, surprising me a little because the green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) have been absent from the yard since spring, but now at least one has reappeared. I kinda wish I’d had the time to shoot it when I first saw it back then, because it was perched on a much more photogenic setting than our porch railings, but so it goes.

green treefrog Hyla cinerea perched on porch railing
There’s a detail in this image that we’re going to see much closer in a later post. Just to, you know, get you all anticipating and stuff.

I was pleasantly surprised to find this juvenile Copes grey treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis,) obviously one of the many broods hatched from the backyard pond. They’ve mostly been scarce recently, though whether this is from moving on, spending more time in the upper reaches of the trees, or falling prey to predators, I can’t say. This one isn’t significantly bigger than the last couple of times that I’ve photographed one, maybe about the size of your thumbnail.

juvenile Copes grey treefrog Hyla chrysoscelis in repose
I’m not sure why the grey treefrogs haven’t been cooperating by posing on something appropriate and interesting; they seem to really like plastic somehow, because I’ve been seeing them on rainbarrels and now a recycling bin, hardly the kind of natural setting that’s going to make a better shot. But I still like how well the skin quality came up with this one, equal parts translucent and almost-iridescent. They gain a lot from going in close. I mean, seriously, those toes just look like jelly, making it easy to forget there are teeny little bones in there.

southern flying squirrel Glaucomys volans peering from bluebird boxAnd this last one I’m only going to show at minimal size, because focus was slightly off and this is obvious when viewed any larger, but it proves that we have a resident (for the time being anyway) southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans) – in fact, we have two, because there’s one occupying another bluebird box in the backyard as well. They have two nesting seasons a year, spring and fall, and so we’re expecting two broods, but whether I can manage any better photos will wait to be seen – I’m very wary of scaring them off. In fact, I’m going out later on today to pick up some mealworms and nut mixes to place in visible locations near the nest boxes, to help convince them this is a cool location and assist in the feeding demands of the young.

If I make any noise at all in the front yard, I will often see this one peer out to check on me, and have routinely noted the bedding inside, visible in the opening when her head’s not in the way, in different positions, so if there isn’t presently a brood within, there soon will be. Now I’m leery of mowing the lawn, but I suppose she’s settled in enough to cope, and the food offering might help ease her concerns. This shot was obtained by manually focusing with the headlamp while using the Canon 100-300 L and the powerful Metz 40 MZ-3i, which hasn’t been getting a lot of use recently since the macro workhorse (the Sunpak Auto 322) has been what was called for – and used for all other shots in this post. Given the distance that I want to work from to avoid spooking the squirrel, the Metz is likely to see a bit more activity. Again, we’ll just have to see what transpires.

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