It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve had a couple of images set aside for this purpose, and just added a few more. Let’s see what we have now.
The color version can be found here, but in this case, after converting to individual color channels, I reduced the topmost Red channel to 50% opacity over the underlying Green. Sometimes any one channel is too contrasty, or lacks details that another has, so mixing them in this manner can occasionally produce a useful blend of elements.
Same basic idea, but here, it was the Green channel reduced to 50% over the Blue, necessary to balance out the sun among the clouds – in the Blue channel, the sun was merely a partial disk with no flare, but the Green lacked contrast within the clouds.
This one was Red at only 25% opacity over the Green, mostly bringing out details that had little green within them.
And now for some more recent ones, without any blending.
As I was looking for candidates, there was no question that this had to be tried, since it was already pretty sharp in contrast to begin with. In this case, only the Blue channel was necessary. As usual, it produced a little blotchiness from the background, but so did the Red channel, and the Green made the background too bright, so here we are.
This is only the Red channel, with a slight tweak in contrast, but it’s cropped differently than the original, mostly to eliminate the foliage which became just an expanse of low-contrast darkness without detail – the Green channel would have improved this but then it reduced the contrast of the sun rays too much. The Blue channel, as is often the case, didn’t have much to contribute overall.
And now a curiosity from the same general subject.
The Blue channel held its own here, despite the prevalence of green from the color version – most especially, it highlighted the subtle spots on the skin behind the head onward, ones you might easily have said weren’t even there (I know I did.)
But then there’s this:
This time it’s the Red channel, and while those color variations were much more visible this time, they’re highlighted more in the monochrome version – well, you know what I mean. If you’d only seen this first, you might suspect that the color pattern on the anole was more varied than it really is.
So play around a bit, more than simply converting to greyscale – you might be surprised at what you can bring up. It doesn’t always work – I rejected as many as I included here – but sometimes you stumble upon a nice new variant to use.
It’s been a few days since I got these, delayed partially by being busy (I keep saying that, and we’re close to finding out why) and partially because I knew it would take a while to write up the post. And I’m going to do things out of order because it’s better that way, maybe.
Once again, Jordan lake, but before the trip down to catch the ISS transiting the moon, which it never did. Well, I’m sure it did, if you were in the right spot, and we weren’t. And once again with Buggato too. One small section of woods was incredibly busy with bird life, noticeable only if you listened carefully and paid close attention, since most of it was from the smaller species.
I wasn’t sure whether this tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) found this acorn in the end of a broken trunk, or brought it there, but it juggled the nut for no small amount of time in the apparent effort to lodge it securely enough to crack, which we never witnessed. If you’ve ever heard titmouses, they’re quite talkative, but not loudly, and a few of them were chattering away as this was going on.
Close by, a pair of downy woodpeckers (Dryobates pubescens) made an appearance, virtually silent except for very quite drilling.
Differentiated from the hairy woodpecker by their smaller size and shorter bill, it’s extremely easy to mistake one for the other, but I’ve only ever found the downy around here anyway. This female worked her way up a trunk subtly, spotted only when she flew over to it in the first place because those markings helped her blend in against the rough pine bark. After a minute or so, however, she was chased off by a male, for reasons unknown.
Key part here of course is the red MPB fringe, and with the sun largely behind the tree, this was the best lighting that we got (which woodpeckers also seem to exploit more often than not.) We worked our way around to the sunlit side of the copse of trees, and then of course few birds chose to show themselves. The American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) aren’t shy, however.
Perched in perhaps the most obvious spot in the whole woods, this one was calling enthusiastically, but not alarm calls – it simply seemed to be territorial, and this was bolstered by it taking over this spot from a red-headed woodpecker. The light angle worked for its jet-black plumage though.
Nearby, a green heron (Butorides virescens) was being shy and waiting for us to leave.
Small and unobtrusive (for herons, anyway,) the greens can be hard to spot and even harder to get clear photos of; this one was giving us a run for the money, unwilling to leave its prime hunting spot but not happy with our presence. It did a lot of slinking around on the water’s edge.
These were all shot with the longer lens and a lot of careful sidestepping to try and get a clear shot through the undergrowth, but eventually it moved just a little ways further on where we could maneuver for a cleared shot.
A little bit of a pose in the sunlight, and that was it. The great blue herons (Ardea herodias herodias) were a bit more cooperative.
This was one of a pair that were fishing along the lakeshore but refused to let us get too close, though at least it flew past in good later afternoon light. At another location, the subject there was more cooperative but there was no way to get better lighting on it:
The barred/speckled markings on the throat and chest, as well as the overall more brownish hue, pegs this as a juvenile, this year’s brood. It was quite complacent in its spot on the docks, and even let a boat approach to within eight meters or so before it decided that was too close.
Typical adolescent: done grooming but missed a spot. This was closing in on sunset but without any kind of decent sunset colors. Am I surprised?
Actually, I was slightly surprised by this one, ninety degrees away anti-sunward at the same time:
That’s a single osprey (Pandion haliaetus) up there to the right, hanging out with an entire flock of black vultures (Coragyps atratus.) There’s no animosity nor prey competition between these two species, but osprey tend to be solitary birds and this is the first I’ve seen one perching among other species, or even a flock of its own. I mean, sure it’s way out there away from everyone like the kid with the eight-crayon box, but at least it’s in the same tree. And you have to admit the body positions all give the same cliquish impression.
Further on, I heard a belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) chattering as it came closer, and I tracked it carefully when it came into view. The species is notoriously shy and my attempts to creep closer to its perching spot didn’t net any decent frames, foliage always getting in the way, and the bird flew off while I was attempting to subtly slip past this; so much for my stalking. But it took a perch twice as far away on top of an old snag, and I could get a few frames there:
You can’t make out the brown neck band that denotes this as a female, but it’s there in the other semi-obscured attempts, so take my word for it. The raised crest feathers are very typical of the species, always seeming upset about something – now I have to snag a photo of one with the crest down. But at least I could manage an angle without the bright sky directly behind the bird bleaching out the edges (or forcing the exposure much lower.) Tiny victories.
How about another vulture? (he asks, plowing ahead without waiting for an answer…)
This one came cruising in for a landing as we stood there, and we endeavored to remain quiet for the portrait – look at them nostrils. It’ll it least distract you from the rest of the head – which, because it’s bare of feathers, seems tiny in comparison to the body, but having handled many birds, I can tell you that the body feels scrawny too and matches the head in appropriate proportions. Owls are the most startling; they seem to have no neck at all, going from shoulder to head dome. but then you reach in to secure the head against tearing into you (this is from wildlife rehab, so chill,) and you find this measly little thing buried in the feathers between head and shoulders that isn’t much bigger than your thumb. It’s disturbing.
But now let’s get to the real captures of the day, which actually occurred very early on. It was a quiet day and as we worked our way along the lakeshore, I suggested keeping an eye on the bordering trees, especially high up, because I suspected there might be some raptors perching there and it would be better to see them before they spooked. But then, not twenty meters away, I hear something crashing down through the pine needles, heavier than a pine cone, and suspected that it had been dislodged up above – I was expecting a squirrel or something. Yet the shape that was revealed told me that my intentions and abilities were not in alignment, because we were far closer to this guy than it should have allowed.
That’s the juvenile plumage of a second-year bald eagle, and it was roughly ten meters above our heads in the pine tree. We fired off tons of frames as we crept closer, knowing that at any time it would decide we were too close and fly away – which it did not do. The potential explanation for this was forthcoming.
While I was in a bad position – not this one – the eagle vomited something up, and then again a minute or so later, which I missed because the pine needles that were intervening at that point grabbed the autofocus away from the eagle itself. It was likely this that I’d heard crashing down through the pine needles, though a subsequent examination under the tree only turned up half of a minnow and a medium-sized patch of fish skin. There was what appeared to be a fresh-ish persimmon nearby, which eagles don’t eat – had it consumed this by accident and was trying to get rid of it? I can’t say. Meanwhile, the eagle regarded us without alarm.
What a great pose, and to our credit, we were remaining silent and casual, not alerting the bird with predatory fixation behavior, though as high up as it was, it likely wasn’t very concerned. But we’d gotten right underneath the eagle and it simply watched us curiously so, great opportunity.
Off in the distance, another was wheeling out over the lake, and we fired off some frames of that one too.
This is a third-year juvenile instead, so not a sibling – or at least, not an immediate sibling. Nonetheless, while we were watching this one and further away than we had been, the second-year one overhead took flight and headed in this direction. They never drew close together or exhibited any kind of territorial behavior, so the reasoning behind this was lost to us, but at the same time the apparently ill specimen was showing no signs of distress.
Getting even more frames as it flew off allowed me to compare the markings, especially under the wings, with photos from previous outings to the same location in an attempt to see if we’d photographed this one before. Answer: not to any appearances – the markings all have distinctive differences. So how many eagles are actually hanging out in the area? It might take a lot of long-distance photography and cataloging plumage variations to determine, and this can only be done between molts, since that act alone can change the appearance.
Anyway, you can see why I left these for the end, even though they were close to the beginning of the outing. Far more luck than we’ve had on many days out there, but that’s why you keep returning.
A couple weeks back, I came across another photo of the International Space Station in front of the sun, and it renewed my interest in trying to obtain an image of this on my own, especially since I now have a working solar filter – I’d be fine with the moon, too. Thus began the research into how one got an accurate prediction for the passes as seen from one’s own location.
Here’s the deal: the ISS is close, in relative terms, and both the sun and the moon are pretty small in the sky. The path across the Earth where you can see one intersecting (transiting) the other is pretty narrow, maybe 20 kilometers wide, and of course the timing has to be precise too, not only to account for the motions of all bodies but also to have sunlight still striking the ISS so it can be seen. After a bit of poking around, I settled on ISS Transit Finder, a site which allows you to put in your exact geographic location and will produce any predictions for a particular time frame, including a map of the path where this will be visible (because chances are it won’t be exactly where you are at any given time.)
Before you get excited, I can tell you not to bother, at least with this site. It predicted a transit of the moon for last night right before 8PM EDT, and Mr Bugg and I made sure to be in the path and ready to roll. The ISS showed up at the right time, but passed quite far away from the moon, at least three diameters. That’s pretty wide of the mark.
Not only that, but when I first plotted this and planned the photo session, it predicted it for Monday night, and I dutifully noted down all the details. About a week later when I went in to confirm, that prediction had switched to Wednesday night (but almost the exact same time and path) – that was my warning. And right now as I started typing this post, I went back in and searched with backdated info (which it does allow,) and the pass didn’t even show at all despite the fact that we saw it, albeit way off target. Conclusion: the site does not have their math down, and I strongly recommend against trying to use it at all.
Now, we did get a few pics of the ISS passing, quite some distance away, so we’re not talking great detail here. This is at full resolution, but I’d also started backing off from 600mm because, as it was passing near the moon, I thought I might be able to get both in the frame at least. This was a waste of time, and I did not track back out to 600mm for this shot. Now, I would have thought it would be sharper, since I had meticulously focused on the moon for maximum sharpness, but there’s something that I’ve noticed with the Tamron 150-600 G2: it’s extremely sensitive to small tweaks of focus near the ‘infinity’ point – which is why I meticulously focused in the first place, shooting a frame and then chimping at it (which Mr Bugg failed to catch) at high magnification on the LCD to ensure it was as sharp as possible; repeat as needed. So is it so sensitive that the ISS, considerably closer than the moon yet still a few hundred kilometers off, was faintly defocused? I can’t be sure without more testing, and there aren’t too many subjects I can test with that are a few hundred kilometers off, you know? Certainly none that will hold still.
Here’s the same shot at 200%:
Enough to determine that it is rather oddly shaped, but not to see any real detail. It got a little better on as the station continued to pass, not overhead really, but closer at least. This is the entire frame, now at 600mm, to give you an idea of how little could be seen.
And now at 200%:
That looks a bit more like the ISS, or maybe a tie fighter, or a floating letter ‘N’ – something other than a bat, anyway. But worth the effort? Not really.
Of course, we shot the moon while doing this.
See? I can focus the lens halfway decently. The ISS would have passed diagonally across the bottom ‘limb’ (don’t ask me why astronomers use that term,) including across the shadowed portion, and it was soon after sunset and the station was strongly illuminated by the sun, to a magnitude of -4 (so I was told) – it should have shown up against both portions just fine, given that the moon was significantly brighter at magnitude -11 (the smaller the number, the brighter – again astronomers.) Yet there’s something else that was captured, wholly unintentionally, but I’ll take it. We’ll go in closer for this.
That sharply-contrasted crater in the near-center of this crop is Tycho, and if you look closely, you’ll see a tiny spot of brightness in the middle of it; that’s the sun catching the top of the central peak in the crater, something that, for reasons yet to be determined, I like trying to capture. Wasn’t even thinking about it this time, believing that it would be a day later without actually checking, but there we go. Note that this is also about 200% resolution and looks much better than the ISS, though granted, the moon was also moving slower.
Anyway, got something for the efforts, which also makes me strongly reconsider making the attempt again.
This week we have both a male and female bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus,) found in the tall grasses of Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, South Carolina. Now, why there has only been one appearance of them before, I cannot say, since they are found throughout the eastern seaboard, but it might have something to do with there being no fields of tall grasses and grains anywhere near where I usually spend my time. This guy does at least appear to like his grains. It’s the male of course, while the female is below:
When I re-use these images, they come along with the original ‘alt data’ from the first time I posted them, both of which had typos within them – sheesh. And while I’m not a ‘birder,’ I will take the opportunity to record species that I haven’t seen before, as long as they’re not just some variation of sparrows or ‘brown birds’ – not that I have anything against brown birds, mind you, some of my best friends are… well, not really, but regardless, I’m cool with them, I just find them boring.
I took that same opportunity to do some brief video clips as well, braced against the open window of the vehicle we took through the refuge – mostly just feeding behavior, but I did get their calls in there.
I believe this was the last time that we passed through that refuge, which has been a little long – I’ve been to Montezuma in New York three time since then, though I can put those down to extenuating circumstances. Still, we should get back to Savannah at some point…
I often have to explain to students that camera and lens manufacturers tend to exaggerate abilities, and the students should automatically drop off, for instance, the upper two ‘factors’ of any claim that is made about their equipment. For instance, while the ISO setting in a new camera body can go all the way up to 12800 or whatever, you will typically find that useful results can only be obtained two stops or more below that, 3200 or lower, and even then it depends on the usage and how picky you are (and how much noise you want to filter out after the fact.) For things like the umpteen different names for in-lens stabilization to combat camera shake, the claim may be for up to four or six stops of improvement, but take two away from those numbers right off the bat.
Occasionally, however, such failures produce – well, not a gem, but an interesting composition nonetheless. Such as…
When a great blue heron cruised past at twilight against dark background trees, I didn’t have time to change settings on the camera and fired off in Aperture Priority at f9.0, ISO 250. The stabilization in the lens (which for the Tamron 150-600 is dubbed ‘Vibration Control’) did its best to cope with the lousy 1/4 second shutter speed, but there’s a limit, and we were well beyond that. Even had it been perfectly capable of handling my unsteadiness with a long lens for that period of time, the heron was still flapping, and how much of the camera movement was due to intentional panning? What we have is this, a ghostly blur of an image that contains two heads and two pairs of legs in there, semi-sharp, and wings in two positions as well as blurring in between. Without the VC activated, it probably would have been evenly blurred without those specific details among the bits, so, good? It has a neat, impressionistic effect, to me at least, but I can’t take credit for it at all since I wasn’t trying for anything like this. Maybe someday I’ll experiment…
These are the most recent images, taken late last night, because we needed a buffer between posts of too-similar images, and I don’t feel like using the raindrops-on-roses pic right now (they’re coming, Julie Andrews.) Plus, I was a little surprised by two of these, anyway.
I’m trying to remember if I’ve seen this species twice this season, or only once. Regardless, it’s a Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina,) now in adult form and sporting what appears to be a baby bulge. This was right outside the door at Walkabout Estates, on the balloon flowers (Platycodon grandiflorus) within the planter, which was curious because the last time I had seen the species was weeks ago at least. She provided a few useful poses but then vanished within an hour or so, and I’ve been carefully examining the plants nearby since then, both for her and for any egg sac that she might have left behind – no luck on either account yet.
Then at the same time (well, a minute or so later,) I found this pair on the oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) in The Jumgle:
I could be wrong, but there was a size disparity between these two specimens of Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) and I believe they may have been courtin’, as it were. Both were making only minor movements and stayed roughly in position for well over an hour, but the one in the foreground (likely female) seemed to be paying little attention to the (likely) male, who remained fixed in this position facing the female – isn’t it always the way? Don’t take that bait, fella! You don’t need a gal that resorts to that old ‘feigned indifference’ in your life. What might remain of it, anyway…
[It does not appear to be true that the female consumes the male after or during intercourse – this seems to have occurred only in captivity – but no matter what, they’ve both got only a few months to live anyway, being single-season arthropods. Despite trying to get out of ‘single-season’…]
By this morning, I could only find one, which I’m taking to be the male judged on size, but I didn’t specifically measure either of them so I could be wrong. The Jungle has countless places to secure an egg sac that I might never find, so even if I look carefully it could be a waste of time. And it wouldn’t get placed this quickly anyway, though I admit that I don’t know how long it actually takes to gestate to egg form within the female.
This hydrangea sits only a few meters from the small Japanese maple that marks the corner of The Jungle (mostly for mowing purposes, because if they had their way the various vines within would expand their range significantly,) so I had to check while there, and sure enough, my newborn friend is still using it as a sleeping spot.
This was actually a little surprising and gratifying, because the day before both The Girlfriend and I had seen another, slightly larger specimen that appeared to be getting territorial over the tree, with this one about as far out on an outer leaf as possible, away from the interloper. I don’t intervene often, but this guy seems to really like his tree, so I gently slid my fingers into the foliage and convinced the other to move off a bit. Appears to have worked. And in fact this morning, as the sun was just getting high enough to shed some heat onto these leaves after the crisp night, we found this guy easing along and sipping dew from the leaf surfaces.
You know, while I’m here I’ll clear out a few photos from several days back, since they’re closely related.
I have yet to snag one of the newborns anoles on the a leaf of the hydrangea, at least this year, so we don’t have any comparative shots with this adult. Not that it would matter too much anyway, since those leaves come in a very wide variety of sizes, but you might be able to get an idea of the anole’s size by looking at the ratios of head and body girth. Meanwhile, we slide further out for a more establishing shot:
This is roughly the entire width of the plant, though it’s twice as tall. It gives a good idea of what it takes to spot them – they’re not terribly subtle, yet still blend in well enough that you have to be looking.
And a closeup:
I can’t tell if this is intentional or only a factor of my shooting angle, but you can make out a hint of the pink dewlap under the anole’s neck. This is for both territorial displays and to show off for females, and I’ve seen other specimens treat me to the full display – probably a warning, but who knows? This one, however, did nothing more than watch me warily, so I’m taking this to be just a casual capture. Meanwhile, check out the brown eyes.
No whiskers on kittens coming along, but more birds are in the post lineup. You know where to find them.
The Simian Mr Bugg and I had an outing to Jordan Lake the other day, once again ostensibly for a sunset that never materialized, but during the run-up to that time, we chased a few bird photos. Yet as the title says, there are fewer here than it seems. Above, an osprey (Pandion hailaetus) remained perched on this dead tree for a long time – you’ll see it again a little later on.
The wind was extremely gusty with numerous apparent thermals rising, so the soaring birds were effortlessly cruising in circles – mostly quite far away from us, but occasionally getting closer, like this one:
One of several bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) that appeared, more than we’ve seen in months, this one is a first year juvenile and thus this year’s brood. Unlike the next one.
We couldn’t make this out from our vantage point – these are all cropped significantly, even after being shot at 600mm – but this one is just transitioning into its adult plumage; you can see the dark streak along the face and a little leftover mottling on the body. That makes this one four years old, despite it holding up six feathers on the wingtip, trying to lie its way into kindergarten. Not an auspicious start for our nation’s symbol (which is not a collection of handguns, despite what every other country believes.)
We saw no hunting behavior at all, and just one instance of an aborted attempt – no surprise, because the wind made the water very choppy. And I failed to snag a sharp photos of it, but here it is anyway:
That coloration makes this one a second year juvenile – no, I didn’t manage any photos of a third year juvie. But I did get a much better photo of this same one, the showcase shot:
Can’t complain about this one – well, yes, I can, because it’s in the middle of molting and there are gaps and lots of uneven wing feathers. You can see the number four primaries (out at the wingtips) just sliding in, while there are two patches of feathers on each wing that are a little shorter, indicating that they came in only a little earlier than the number fours; four feathers (each wing) a little inboard from the tips, and then three more after three longer ones intervening. As noted before, birds generally molt out matching feathers on each side to maintain equal lift and balance, but this is a lot to have lost at close to the same time.
The osprey were also active, including one that suddenly appeared nearby with a fish, having snuck the capture past us.
Breeding season is past, with all the young having left the nest and out on their own now, so this one was not making a beeline back to the young, instead almost lazily climbing higher in wide circles – not sure why. But it gave me the opportunity to do several frames as it did so.
Just enough detail to make out that it’s a catfish, and it might have been taken from the small pond that adjoins the lake in this region, since it was shielded from the wind by surrounding trees and thus considerably smoother, easier to see through the surface.
One osprey flew along in a straight line in the distance, and passed within sight range of the one perched on the dead tree shown in the opening pic. That one took flight after it, though well behind, but they caught a thermal not too far away that began bringing them closer to us, and they drew closer to each other as well. We watched, and sure enough, they engaged in a territorial dispute:
Again, still at a great distance, so this was the best that I got. But the feet being down is a hint, since ospreys (most birds, actually) normally fly with them tucked well up behind them, and drop their legs only when they’re needed – and they ain’t no fish up that high.
The angles of the heads is a telltale, too – they’re paying close attention to each other.
A clash, some dodging, some aerial maneuvers… but something was amiss. Instead of both wheeling around each other into combat positions, or one of them hightailing it out of the area, they both continued on in the same directions (still circling with the thermal,) remaining in reasonable proximity. And in fact, the lower one repeatedly did a sudden twitch and dodge every time the upper one drew close, even when no aggressive acts were in evidence:
This, more than anything, convinced me that these were siblings and simply engaging in mock battle. And since this was in the general vicinity of the nest that we’ve seen numerous times, it’s entirely possible they were raised within it this year. Still fun to watch.
In the opposite direction, the clouds were reasonably dramatic, at least in some patches, and finally an eagle was convinced (through sheer nature photographer willpower) to go do some poses against them.
Not as much as hoped, and this was low enough that the eagle soon got close enough (in line of sight anyway) to the powerlines along the causeway, making the frames about useless. How is it we’re still suspending electrical lines from poles up in the air?
A turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) was a little better at posing, even though I wasn’t after one of those – they were enjoying (or at least employing) the thermals too.
It was getting close to sunset by this point, necessitating that we head over to another portion of the lake that had a better view to the west. This did us no good at all, since the sun refused to break from cloud cover to provide more than the barest hint of colors, but I did think to check out the nest hollow seen over a month earlier – I’ve never had the chance to get back there since. Unfortunately, this was not the time to do so, since the sun was behind it and clouded, but some activity could still be confirmed.
Without the long lens, I would never have been sure that I’d seen this nestling red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) peeking out. And it definitely required 600mm to make out the detail in the next frame:
“Yeah, I see you too.”
[I had to lighten this frame up a little, even with the exposure compensation increased to account for the brightness of the sky and the shadowed side of the tree.]
Patience paid off, because the parents were getting in at least one last feeding before settling in for the night.
Hey! You’re not allowed to feed your kids praying mantises! Don’t you know that’s illegal?
But yeah, this is one of the reasons why mantis egg cases produce dozens to hundreds of young each spring – only a few will make it to adulthood. Should we root for the mantids, or the woodpeckers? Which is more beneficial to the environment? Actually, we should root for neither, since it’s all a balanced interaction that’s been going on for eons – even when we have a certain fondness for some photo subjects. And the young woodpeckers don’t seem to have a problem with it.
I may see if I can return in better light conditions before the young fledge out of the nest, but I might already be too late, given that this was a couple of days ago. Again, quite busy here, but for good reasons, and my photography only sneaks in here and there. I still have a small collection of previous images to feature too, so they’ll be along.
Man, I am getting backlogged with photos now, since my time to write things up keeps disappearing. Well, not true – I just keep using it for other things. I know, I know, after all that my readers have done for me…
Anyway, a few pics of a recent find at Walkabout Estates:
This is another Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis,) this time on the small Japanese maple in the front garden we call The Jungle. I’m confident that this is an entirely new one because it’s in an entirely different locale from the ones featured here previously, and because it’s even smaller. I have yet to see one hatch, or even the unhatched eggs, so I can never be sure how long after hatching I’ve been seeing them. But at least I can give a scale comparison for this one.
You can understand why I have the best luck seeing these guys at night when they’re sleeping on leaves, and not during the day when they’re foraging in the foliage. I can occasionally spot them peripherally when there’s a tiny movement where there shouldn’t be, generally the small flip of a leaf as they leap across to another, but if they stick to just slinking around in a typical lizard manner, they’re incredibly easy to miss.
How about a close-up of our new arrival here?
Very often at night, they’ll awaken as the headlamp looms close, yet do nothing more than open their eyes for a bit before closing them again and going back to sleep. This one, however, was starting to contemplate going to a safer location, especially given that I was pretty close with the reversed 28-105 lens, so I let it be following a few frames.
A few nights later, after a day of heavy rains, I wasn’t really expecting to find it back out in the open on its favorite tree, but it presented quite a sight when rediscovered.
I don’t think that’s rain, since even just passing the mister over the adult anoles sends them scampering for cover – they don’t seem to like the rain. I think this is just the residual humidity gathering on its skin as its body temperature dropped overnight. But I was glad to get a catchlight in there, despite the fact that the flash was coming from the other side.
As of last night, this one was still using the Japanese maple as its sleeping spot, though I expect that to change soon. We’ll see. Meanwhile, other pics will be coming along shortly.
So once again we fudge things a little, because this has only appeared here once identified (by Genus only) – yet a few years previously, I’d come across a recent hatching of spiders that I couldn’t pin down until after I posted about them – by the time someone at BugGuide.net provided the info, the newborns had dispersed. Both are trapdoor spiders, Genus Ummidia, and I would love to get more detail photos of them, specifically with their namesake trapdoor lairs.
If you’re not familiar with trapdoor spiders, they have an interesting way of hunting, Instead of wandering and ambush hunting like wolf and fishing spiders, or making a suspended web to capture flying insects like damn near all the rest, trapdoor spiders make a burrow, only they create a false lid for it out of debris held together with webbing, so the opening is perfectly camouflaged, while they also run web strands out of it across the ground by the entrance. They then lurk under the cover until something disturbs the strands, whereupon they pop out and seize their prey, often grasshoppers, crickets, and other such wandering insects. Which means they spend most of their time hidden under a little round hatch perhaps up to 20mm across, someplace on the forest floor, so finding their burrow can be next to impossible.
They also have a distinctive body shape, and while I’d only seen photos and video of them before, when I found this one wandering across the path, it immediately rang a bell, so I captured it within a film can, and once back home confirmed that it was indeed a trapdoor spider – take a close look at the body, chelicerae, and leg shapes if you’re inclined to try and spot one for yourself. While we’re here, also take a look at how the eyes are all clustered together on that little hump right in the front center of the cephalothorax.
This one was undeniably annoyed at my probing to get it to pose, and bit my stick with those chelicerae twice – this pose is exactly as menacing as it looks. They’re not terribly big, but certainly give the impression of being bigger just from looking badass.
And if I really want to capture behavior, I’m either going to have to do a meticulous search for the burrows and stake one out for dog knows how long, or capture one and convince it to make a burrow in a terrarium somehow – neither one seems easy. This specimen, if I remember right, I simply released out back and hoped to see again, which did not happen. Nor had I seen any sign of the entire brood from three years previously once they’d left the holly bush, so my work is cut out for me.
I certainly don’t have to look up that title to see if I’ve used it before…
Some time back, I featured a few photos of a jagged ambush bug (Genus Phymata) on one of the butterfly bushes (Buddleja davidii) out front, and I check from time to time to see if it’s still visible. I’ve now been finding one dependably on another of the bushes, and there’s no way to tell if it’s the same one or not – the separation of the bushes is not significant, but it’s still a serious trek for something this small that probably has to go all the way down to the ground and back up. Honestly, I’ve never seen them doing more than minor adjustments in position so I don’t know how ambulatory they can be.
Back on August 25th, my subject was displaying its capture.
The prey is likely a common green bottle fly (Lucilia sericata,) while you can see that the blooms on that particular flower spike are aging out – still, they were enough for both the ambush bug to feel it could feed effectively, and to attract the fly. What you can also see are the rudimentary wings of the ambush bug sticking out diagonally, indicating that this specimen is not yet an adult.
Unfortunately, in maneuvering for a better shooting position, I bumped another branch of the bush with the flash, barely setting up any motion, but it was enough to alarm the ambush bug into dropping its meal.
Noticeably bigger now than on previous photographic attempts, but still only about the size of a housefly – they don’t get much bigger regardless. I have to wonder what function those huge shoulders fulfill, but really, the entire anatomy of the jagged ambush bug is pretty flamboyant, the insect equivalent of a Jeepney.
Another illustration of the age of the flower spike – these are the last couple of viable blossoms on the tip, not providing any camouflage, but as we’ve seen it definitely works for the ambush bug.
Then an September 2nd, after some horrendous rains, we find that this one’s still holding fast on the exact same spike, despite the blossoms now being completely dead.
However, there was one distinct difference, and that was in the overall appearance of the specimen, faintly visible here but I quickly changed angles and magnification for a better illustration.
You’re looking down on it from the top here, head towards the lower left. If it hadn’t been in exactly the same location, I would easily have suspected this was a different individual, but in the intervening time it molted into final instar, the adult phase with wings, and gained better camouflage against the dead flowers, though this strikes me as both a bit late and unnecessary, given its prowess in capturing meals with no camouflage at all. The perfectly centered raindrop is a nice touch though…
It was still lightly raining as I took these, with a vigorous downpour not long past, but this guy chose not to even move to the underside of the flowers for better shelter. I find it curious that the eyes are no longer the same color as the rest of it, and haven’t the faintest idea why this might be.
Five hours later, it had dried out a bit, and somehow my subject snagged another bottle fly.
Again, these are quite small, and the fly initially escaped my attention as it blended in with the dead flowers. But we have this small enigma not only of the ambush bug continuing to stake out dead flowers, but successfully too. It started me thinking, and I stopped typing this post to do a bit of research that failed to confirm my suspicions. I wondered if the elaborate shape of the ambush bug, along with its coloration (and potentially any scent it might emit?) served to actually attract the fly, since it seems clear that the flowers shouldn’t be anymore. There is no mention of this at all anywhere that I looked, but it might explain the distinctive body shape and the failure to tuck in amongst the blossoms and blend in, much less go where the blossoms were healthy – you have to admit, the dorsal view is more than suggestive of a flower, though none that I’m familiar with. So if you see me in the yard apparently trying to sniff dead flowers, you’ll at least know that I’m engaged in important research.
Now, we did get a few pics of the ISS passing, quite some distance away, so we’re not talking great detail here. This is at full resolution, but I’d also started backing off from 600mm because, as it was passing near the moon, I thought I might be able to get both in the frame at least. This was a waste of time, and I did not track back out to 600mm for this shot. Now, I would have thought it would be sharper, since I had meticulously focused on the moon for maximum sharpness, but there’s something that I’ve noticed with the Tamron 150-600 G2: it’s extremely sensitive to small tweaks of focus near the ‘infinity’ point – which is why I meticulously focused in the first place, shooting a frame and then chimping at it (which Mr Bugg failed to catch) at high magnification on the LCD to ensure it was as sharp as possible; repeat as needed. So is it so sensitive that the ISS, considerably closer than the moon yet still a few hundred kilometers off, was faintly defocused? I can’t be sure without more testing, and there aren’t too many subjects I can test with that are a few hundred kilometers off, you know? Certainly none that will hold still.
And if I really want to capture behavior, I’m either going to have to do a meticulous search for the burrows and stake one out for dog knows how long, or capture one and convince it to make a burrow in a terrarium somehow – neither one seems easy. This specimen, if I remember right, I simply released out back and hoped to see again, which did not happen. Nor had I seen any sign of the entire brood from three years previously once they’d left the holly bush, so my work is cut out for me.
