To beat twenty-three

August 17, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Last night I took The Girlfriend out to the side of the driveway (livin’ large, you know it!) because the previous evening I’d found that the overgrown spot was loaded with newborn Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) all sleeping on the tall weeds there. Not quite as many there last night, seven as opposed to the eight that I’d seen the night before, but it was still a nice find for standing in one location and just spotting the little beggars hanging from the grasses – it’s fairly easy since they turn pale green at night and they stand out against the darker foliage. However, this led to crawling the property to see how many others there were, and we ended up with finding twenty-one newborns in various locations. Yes, this is a breeding ground.

Tonight I decided I’d try to beat that, or at least match it, and did the rounds alone, coming up with only twenty. I reported this to The Girlfriend, and she asked if I’d checked a particular spot from last night, which I hadn’t. Back out, and upped the count to twenty-three. So that’s the number to beat now.

But I needed a few pics – not all of them, just a few cute ones – and so, back out again.

This is actually the Japanese maple tree closest to the door to Walkabout Studios, the same one that might have displayed the anole that had hatched while I wasn’t looking, and it routinely hosts three or four. This is the closest together that I’ve found a pair snoozing, though, so of course it needed a pic.

Linking to that previous post reminded me about the tail damage, which I’d forgotten, and the pics that I’d gotten weren’t clear enough, but it looked like one of them might have a damaged tail. So I went back out again, just now, and checked that tail:

Yep, that’s evidence of a tail growing back, cockeyed too; it seems likely this one is the same as the one first seen on this tree. I love it when I can actually tell them apart – I’ll have to go out with a pair of scissors…

[NO, I’m not going out with scissors. It’s a, I say, it’s a joke, son!]

The other population explosion on the property has been the green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus,) which can suddenly be found in lots of places, almost all smaller than a thumbnail. One that I’d come across tonight resisted my attempts to get it to face the camera, and instead hopped onto my hand, so we have a handy (a ha ha) scale shot:

Nice of it to be so cooperative even while it was being uncooperative, and after this frame I coaxed it back onto a leaf for a more natural portrait, though blocked from getting that head-on perspective that I was after by foliage.

Look at those little translucent toes…

We’ve found that a collection of these tiny sprites has taken up residence near the kitchen window, up to six at a time, so we leave the light on over the sink to attract food for them, which seems to work since they’re not just routinely present, one of them appears long before darkness falls to get a head start.

Now, I can’t even speculate as to why this is, but it’s disturbingly quiet out there right now, with almost no sounds from any of the numerous frog species that inhabit the environs. Meanwhile, I came across several different examples of the same species, out well away from the pond:

While there are several species relatively new to me that I’m chasing images of, these were not among them. The ‘vein’ running from the eye down to the hip pegs this as a green frog (Lithobates clamitans,) of which I have numerous pics. Well, I have even more of the green treefrogs, but they’re cute. All of the ones that I found tonight, and this might hold true for all of this particular species found on the property so far, were bronze in color and sported little green, so I’m pushing to establish a better common name for them that’s more appropriate and less confusing. Perhaps ‘foley frog,’ since their call sounds like a cheesy bouncy sound effect from cartoons.

Every time I was on my way back inside, I found something else to photograph, and this was one of them.

On the underside of an old plastic table sat this cicada, likely one of the annual cicada species, so we’ll just go with Family Cicadidae. It was still drying out from molting into its final instar, adult phase, as revealed by the blue hue to the wings (well, and the discarded exoskeleton right there of course.) Those wings actually look pretty cool up close, so up close we go.

Both the slightly-translucent veins and the distorted view through the wings was worth a close look, don’t you think?

Finally, I saved this one for last because it was easily my favorite, so let’s return to the green treefrogs, or at least one in particular.

Hopping away as I was maneuvering for another attempt at a head-on perspective, this guy made it even better by clinging to the bare tip of a blade of grass. It’s actually smaller than the one above, and you can compare it with the foley frog by looking at the grasses in both images. But who could resist this action pose?

So, not too shabby for only intending to get the two anoles sleeping together…

Well, yes, and no…

August 17, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Today marked another opportunity to capture a transit, and this time, we had clear skies and I kept the timing straight in my head and everything. The target was the Tiangong space station, China’s own entry into low-Earth-orbit experiments and observations, and the waning crescent moon. I checked everything, was on location (several kilometers south of Walkabout Estates Plus,) did my focusing and exposure tests, and was ready to go with the high-speed shutter setting when the time came.

And it did indeed work:

My timing was actually bang on, since I caught the space station on approach and completely past, as this animated gif (pronounced, “em-pee-FOR”) shows clearly.

What? You didn’t see a damn thing? But it’s right there! I even made sure to travel to the location where it would pass right across the center of the moon!

All right, sheesh. Here’s an annotated version – look to the left of the yellow pointers:

Yeah, we see the problem here, that the 600mm wasn’t anywhere near the magnification necessary to show anything but a speck, especially when aiming only 34° off the horizon, meaning Tiangong was much more distant than overhead and allowing even more of the humid air between my location and the station. So it was successful, but not at all in a way that I wanted. At least I have an inkling what to attempt next time, which will likely reveal even more refinements that should have been done.

By the way, if you look at the moon you can see that it appears to travel downwards, which it is; the frames represent just over a second of actual time elapsed, and that’s how far it moved. More or less, anyway – you can also see some lateral twitching, which is either due to atmospheric distortion or twitching of the tripod, or both. The shutter speed was 1/1250 second, so fast enough to stop all but the most egregious of camera shake, but that doesn’t mean that between those frames there wasn’t a little vibration coming into play.

Still, the 2X teleconverter is probably warranted, if I don’t actually opt for the telescope instead, but I’m still working out how to get the clearest shots from that, much less have the tracking motor working properly. Still chasing this goal and not particularly close to it, is what I’m saying.

Other attempts can be found here (except for the Falcon one – I’m just linking to those posts tagged with “transit”) and the site I’m using to plot these is Transit-finder.com, which has been working well after that first attempt.

Estate Find XXXIII: The secret is corn

August 15, 2025August 15, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Last week’s Find was still fresh on the, um, server memory thingy, whatever, when I got the first clips of this week’s. A few days later I was able to add to the stock, so we have a couple of days worth of observations, which also added in the number of other species appearing. So without further ado:

Now, this was not a total surprise, because we’d been down at the neighbor’s house late last year, one that lives further down The Bayou, actually just past where our portion ends, and had seen one then; just like this time, I had mistaken it for a beaver (only because I hadn’t seen the tail yet,) until the neighbor corrected me, but then never saw any sign of one again until now. I was a little surprised to find that they were this far inland, since my experience had only been with one on the Outer Banks, but here we are. And the beavers do actually come into the pond, or at least did for a while, decimating the yellow cow lilies as they did so, but those are growing back so it appears they’re not visiting much anymore.

The nutria seem pretty mellow about sharing their territory (well, except for the green heron,) but how are they with beavers, or beavers with them? Don’t know yet. The wood ducks also seem fine, though they didn’t show when I had the video camera going.

Most places you will find in the US, nutria are considered an invasive pest, and they can do a lot of damage, as well as carrying several zoonotic diseases that can transmit to humans. They were imported from South America for the fur trade and got established after escaping or being released upon the collapse of that trade, many decades ago. We apparently don’t have the same level of predators (or health hazards) here as in South America to keep their numbers in check, so the byword in many areas is, “Shoot on sight.” As far as The Girlfriend and I are concerned, they can stay here since there’s little they can damage, but we’ll see if their numbers start increasing significantly.

At least one has made an appearance every day this week, at different times, and I thought I’d seen a smaller one as well, but have not confirmed that yet. As for their lodge/burrow, no idea where that might be yet either, but I’ll keep an eye out.

But this time, I did the voiceover in the afternoon so the Copes grey treefrogs did not have a chance to contribute. Now all I have to do is work on dead air…

Visibly different, part 55

August 14, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Sure, this was the weekly topic three years ago, but who says it can’t be resurrected?

I mentioned a few days ago that I could illustrate something better, and now I’m keeping my promise. We’ll start with an image from several years back, with new annotations.

With the light angle of approaching 1^st quarter, waxing crescent now, Theophilus crater stands out quite clearly as it reaches its own personal sunrise, and Langrenus has the barest hint of shadow from one wall. We now compare this to the image that I uploaded earlier, again with annotations.

It’s rotated, but that’s what the moon does as it traverses our sky – or more specifically, our viewing angle rotates as the Earth does. But now you can see that Langrenus is slightly more distinct, but Theophilus virtually disappears, only visible as a faint circle with a dot in it. This shows how the full moon loses so much detail, texture, and shaping, since the direct light disguises most of the surface irregularities that the lower light angles of other phases will enhance.

Maybe one of these days I’ll see if I have enough moon pics to do a full animation of the phases tracking across. It’ll be a royal pain in the ass due to the different angles, just like this, and the different colors from atmospheric effects, but it’s sure to garner recognition and acclaim, right?

It’s a start

August 12, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

The other evening I was out, for some reason without the camera, and witnessed something that I knew was going on from time to time, but usually too far off to do anything useful about. I debated about specifically trying for some pics, which would require a nighttime stakeout, but never got beyond the contemplation stage.

Then tonight, I lucked out a bit.

North American raccoons (Procyon lotor) of course, a mother in the middle with two of her four progeny, who are getting quite big now. What I’d found the other night is that, as long as I didn’t make any distinctly human sounds and kept the headlamp on them (and avoided silhouetting myself against a light behind me,) I could approach reasonably close. ‘Reasonably close’ is like a minimum of eight meters – this is at 135mm and cropped a little – because raccoons can be quite convincing when they want someone to leave. I had been shooting macro and saw the eyes reflecting the headlamp, so I carefully removed the softbox, changed settings on the camera to something more appropriate, and quietly walked closer. Mom suspected something was up and moved into the middle of her young’uns, occasionally standing on her hind legs to see better, but they never panicked or got aggressive. The flash didn’t seem to faze them either, since this is one of six frames that I fired off. I knew that the moment I turned around and shone the light on something behind me, showing the outline of me standing there, they’d be off like a shot.

I might at some point try video, but I’d have to set up the tripod and spotlight them pretty seriously, which may or may not work, and they don’t seem to appear on any particular schedule. We’ll see what happens.

The Magic Bucket doesn’t differentiate

August 12, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

The other night I checked out the waste can outside the door to Walkabout Studios, otherwise known as the Magic Bucket of Variety (the can, not the studios,) to find that it had snagged yet another capture. This one was a small-ish wolf spider (Genus Lycosidae) and I noticed as I tipped it out that it looked a little odd. A closer inspection told me why, and once again I got the camera in hand.

This is pretty small, overall length in leg spread less than 30mm, so the fuzzy bits on her abdomen took fairly high magnification to see clearly, in this case the reversed Mamiya 45mm. Yes, they’re her newborns, just two of them, though a closer inspection of the can told me that a lot more of them were scattered around within, so I left it upside-down in the yard and set the few items of trash that had been within alongside it, so they could all escape. The image above is full-frame, though what we find when we crop in close is much better.

Awwwwww! Lookit those huge eyes! They’re like real-life Lucas the Spider!

The credit for this goes to the big round custom softbox, and by chance getting the right angle to reflect from the eyes so distinctly. Most times, the young riding their mother are so thick and oriented for protection, so you mostly see the abdomens and nothing else, but that’s hard to do with just two siblings.

Still, the Magic Bucket was almost responsible for starving an entire family, so I still need to keep checking it routinely. I suppose I could just use a lidded version, but then what would I do for new content?

LATE BREAKING NEWS: I set this aside to post a little later on today, and checked the Magic Bucket in passing:

Yes, another crayfish. I mean, what the hell, man?

Feisty one, too.

Earlier, I thought that perhaps critters were getting caught in the corner between the house and the latticework that sits above the Magic Bucket (see here,) crawling through the lattice and dropping into the can. However, I had a couple of lightweight items sitting on the ledge that runs beside the steps and these had been knocked over, so there’s evidence that this one crawled all the way along that ledge. Still can’t answer why, and I haven’t seen it happen, so it remains a mystery.

Some other night

August 11, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I don’t know, I think this was three nights ago, I just didn’t post it then. But while doing something else in the yard, I went past a dog fennel plant that was starting to get a little tall and found this:

Now, “a little tall” is relative to the surrounding grasses, which weren’t topping 20cm, but this was a bit less than a meter in height, and far from what dog fennel can accomplish at full growth. Not at all like the trees that most of their brethren were using to sleep upon, and the top curling over is from the negligible weight of the anole.

As much as it looks like an action pose here, the anole was motionless and quite secure in its sleeping position. These are both newborns, because it’s that season, and they seem to be sprouting up all over the damn place.

As you can see, this one was aware of my presence (or at least the bright light of the headlamp,) but did not otherwise react. Had a stiff breeze come up, they would have been going for quite a ride since dog fennel isn’t particularly sturdy, but I think they adjust to this fairly well – I know I’ve disturbed the branches that others have been on before and gotten only a slight shifting in readiness.

The next night only one was on this plant, and last night none at all – you might credit this to predation but it was likely only picking a spot close to where they’d been hunting during the day, and I don’t imagine the dog fennel was big enough to provide much in the way of food choices. Though over ten years ago, they served as the setting for a lot of images, mostly lady beetles.

I’m selfish

August 10, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I’ve been having reminders popping up from my calendar that the Perseids meteor shower is peaking within the next few days, and various sites that I’ve visited have been promoting it as one of the best showers of the year, insofar as number and display. But I’ve been neglecting posting about it for two reasons, the first being very self-centered: the skies have been overcast or semi-overcast for days (which has brought a much-needed respite from the heat,) and so visibility was zilcho. But that’s here, and maybe not where you are, should you actually exist and are not simply a figment of my imagination, which again is self-centered.

The other reason, however, is that the moon has just passed full and visibility, no matter what the atmospheric conditions, is going to be seriously affected by that, limiting the number of dimmer meteors that can be seen. Now, the radiant of the Perseids is right near the constellation Perseus, imagine that, which is to the northeast (if you’re in the northern hemisphere anyway,) so facing away from the moon – this helps a little. Except, the radiant isn’t the best guide to where to see the meteors – it’s simply that, on average, they seem to orient as if they were coming from there, though they can appear anyplace across the sky and don’t always adhere to this rule anyway. So my advice is, aim were you have the darkest skies, because the meteors are virtually guaranteed to appear most spectacularly exactly where you’re not aiming anyway.

Earlier this evening I was out, glanced up, and the moon was shrouded in scattered thin clouds which were illuminated by it, brightening the entire sky. So I went out a little later just to illustrate this to you (me,) and the clouds had cleared, except for the faintest haze. So I shot the moon anyway.

As I always say in every moon post I think, the full moon is boring, little more than a circular painting of greys, but any other phase shows more detail and character. So here I’ve selected the side that’s beginning to drop into shadow again, at full resolution, allowing you to see how the detail and texture and three-dimensionality are beginning to show. I’m actually going to be back later on to illustrate this better, I just don’t feel like typing it all up right now.

So if you’re inclined, so see the Perseids. You’re bound to do better than I, even if you’re imaginary – my luck with meteor showers is that bad.

Estate Find XXXII: Always have fresh batteries

August 8, 2025August 7, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

While occasional Estate Finds are kind of lackluster, others serve as the first time that I’ve witnessed something cool, and this is one of those – though be warned, it’s also graphic and features nothing but snakes.

Yes, both of these species have been featured before – but not like this (geez that sounds like clickbait.) Doing some tasks out in the back yard got sidetracked for quite some time when I heard a commotion, and luckily the batteries in the camera were fresh because it was time for video, and a lot of it. The clip is long (24 minutes,) and bear in mind that I cut an awful lot out. Part of me thinks that I’d be doing a disservice to aspiring wildlife photographers by featuring only two minutes of highlights with no indication of how long such things take, and part of me sends a hearty, “Fuck your dismal attention span,” to social-media gluttons who think a thirty-second video is ideal.

The subtitle refers to spending an inordinate amount of time to capture interesting behavior, which is what it takes often enough; the first example was here, though this one counts too. I ended up with 80 minutes of video clips, a lot of them just waiting at the ready should something really start to happen. And I was also remarkably lucky in that conditions were pretty conducive to getting clear shots without great discomfort or lots of shenanigans; at one point I was regretting not having switched to a longer lens on a tripod where I could maintain a more discreet distance, but eventually realized how much I likely would have missed with the limitations of such a setup (the lower angle allowing leaves to obscure more, for instance.) It worked out pretty well.

I was suspecting that I’d handled both of these specimens before, here and here, but I’m pretty certain that the red-bellied water snake is actually another, since it lacks the truncated tail tip that can be seen in those linked photos. And since there are at least two kingsnakes visiting, I won’t bet heavily on the other either, though it was the right size.

While getting all of this together, which took hours of editing and prep, I learned how to do subtitles, but also discovered that the timestamps on the video files (in UTC times for reasons unknown even when the camera displays otherwise,) are when the file is written, not when the recording starts. Technically I should have been subtracting the length of the video from the timestamp, but maybe next time. However, this time I tried out something that I’d been meaning to, which was adding a second video monitor and switching the project preview window over to that, so I could see details of the clips larger than a smutphone display as I was working on them. This helped tremendously, despite the hit to my desk space (meaning I’ll only be doing it for video editing.). The preview window is the one at top right in the image below, now able to be seen full-screen.

Overall, though, one hell of a show, and I don’t regret the time spent.

Just because, part 56

August 7, 2025 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Heard the distinctive calls of the Mississippi kite (Ictinia mississippiensis) while working at my desk, which is somewhat unusual – ~~I’m never at my desk~~ they don’t call very often, usually wheeling overhead silently. So I went out with the long lens and eventually snagged a nice shot of one perched in a tree nearby.

The bird passing overhead is a blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata,) a pair of which were very unhappy about the presence of the kite, to which the kite paid little heed; this does serve as a great illustration of the size of Mississippi kites, though. The behavior of the jays was such that I would have said there was a nest nearby if it had been anywhere near that season, which it is not. But then again, jays are pretty territorial overall and have been making a fuss the past few days anyway.

Curiously, this appears to be the first time that I’ve ever featured a blue jay, which seems quite odd to me until I recall that they were almost never seen where we used to live, why, I couldn’t say. But the very thought made me dig out one of the earliest digital photos that I have of them, just shy of 20 years old now, a couple of recently released juvie rehab patients being clumsy with a tray of mealworms – I just loved the expressiveness of the frame.

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