Okay, that’s probably not the best lyric to use in the title. It’s the beginning of the chorus from ‘Planet Earth,’ the first release from Duran Duran, but the very next line is, “There’s no sign of life.” I’m using it ironically, so it’s okay – in fact, I get bonus irony points because I think hipsters are dipshits. I’ll let you puzzle that one out…
I didn’t get out on my Earth Day quest for too long today, but I managed a few yard shots and a circuit of the nearby pond. On the Japanese maple very close to where I deposited the mantis the other day, my super-acute vision spotted the pale green assassin bug (Zelus luridus) seen above, despite its remarkable camouflage. If you’re having difficulty, keep trying – you’ll spot it eventually.
The parasites seem to be the most prevalent arthropods to be found, and doing a fair amount of damage to the new plant life in the area. The Girlfriend’s prize weeping cherry tree, purchased last year to decorate the front yard, produced a marvelous canopy of flowers this spring, much to our surprise, and even followed up with some fruit. These cherries are smaller than peas, so not exactly heading for the fruit salad, but as can be seen, something has been both damaging the leaves and trying out the cherries themselves.
This new rosebud is also showing the damage, producing a nice cutaway view, but this was the only one I found in this condition, so either the responsible party decided this wasn’t that palatable after all, or it was discovered by the birds in the area – we’ve got plenty of tufted titmice, and they like critters of this nature for food.
The likely culprits really aren’t hard to find, despite the next image. In two places in the yard we have what I believe to be silky dogwood trees (Cornus amomum,) which do not produce the broader four-petaled flowers that most people are familiar with, but clusters of tiny white flowers in a umbrella-shape or cyme, roughly 5cm across. The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog describes the scent as, “wet dog covered in cat food” – she’s studying to be a professional wine taster and so knows all these technical terms. The flowers last barely any time at all, a few days at most, and so on the bare stalks I found the critter below.
In an S-curve through the center of the photo is the body of an inchworm, showing the dark dorsal stripe, and its head is tucked in right alongside a few buds at upper right – impressive, isn’t it? Most times, actually, they’re much easier to see, not only as bright green as the assassin, but often dangling on weblines from the trees – in my perambulations I’ve ended up with an untold number hitching a ride. And I’ve found several on the weeping cherry tree, removing them. I’ve also found them on the Japanese maple but they don’t appear to be doing any damage to that at all.
Yesterday at the botanical garden I found a couple of amphibians, both unidentified frogs; the one above was quite young as you can see, but how could I pass up that pic? I’m still keeping an eye out for treefrogs, though it remains a little early in the season for them yet.
On today’s cruise around the pond, I espied this small turtle, likely a species known by the unsophisticated-yet-descriptive common name of ‘stinkpot’ (Sternotherus odoratus,) propped between two tree trunks not far out of the water. They have earned the name, and the other common name of ‘musk turtle,’ by their defensive trait of emitting a foul-smelling musk when threatened. Most aquatic turtles bask in the sunlight to warm themselves, so the position shown here isn’t necessarily unusual behavior, but I admit I was a little concerned that it had slipped and gotten wedged into the space and was unable to extricate itself. Usually, this is not at all hard to determine: turtles are typically quite shy and bolt into the water as soon as they suspect you might be dangerous. So, slowly to allow for as many photos as I could obtain, I started closing in on the little spud.
Not a twitch, of its head or feet, even as I got right on top of it. I’m going to pause here to point out the bubble seen beneath it, a curious capture due to the gusty conditions today that also severely limited the amount of macro work I could do – check out the water in the previous photo as well. By now, I was far closer than any turtle would allow, and quite certain something was wrong. Even as I set the camera down (yes, it happens sometimes, hush) and reached for the amphibian, there wasn’t the faintest hint of consciousness, and I wondered if I was far too late. But when my hand closed on its shell, the turtle responded with a hiss and a sudden withdrawing of its head, and I believe now the little dude had fallen asleep in that position; even if it wasn’t facing me, their hearing isn’t that bad, so I’m guessing it was zoned out completely.
Of course, now that I had it in hand, I had to take the opportunity for a couple more images before I sent it safely on its way. With no one else around to hold it for a scale photo, I settled for resting it on my sandal; when describing these, I usually just tell people they look like hand grenades. You really want to be careful if attempting to handle one, though, since they have a wicked bite and the neck is surprisingly long and agile. This one was quite sedate, perhaps embarrassed over sleeping on the job, and only dashed off as soon as it was permitted.
I close with another photo from yesterday, a spindly small tree in the backyard that revealed itself exuberantly this spring as a white azalea bush – I admit to being unaware of the cranefly on the back of the blossom that I chose to focus upon until after unloading the card.
Well, never mind that now. At some point, get out, relax, look around you, and soak in the nature. Or, if need be, visit Earth if you haven’t had the chance before – it’s probably the most interesting planet in the system, even if the natives can get pretty goofy.
I photographed four different spider species last night, and at least two had meals – a third appears like it might also have had one, but I was unable to get a clear enough shot to be sure. Note that I was unable to determine it for any of them at the time, only discovering it once I’d seen the photos, though with this wolf spider (family Lycosidae) I suspected it, since I could make out some motion in under the face – I’m guessing, since I see them all over the place, that its meal is an inchworm; you can see the splash of bright green alongside the victim’s head. The captured images are often different from what I see through the viewfinder, especially for small subjects. For macro work, I usually have to shoot with the assistance of a small gooseneck flashlight attached to the softboxed strobe; it’s significantly dimmer than the strobe and often coming in at a different light angle, so it’s not until I unload the memory card that I know for sure how much detail I’ve captured (and for the very high magnification shots, whether I even achieved critical focus.) 
But this is the other side of the coin. Found on Morgan Creek, again, on the same outing as the previous post, this fishing spider (probably Dolomedes tenebrosus) was quite a bit larger than the wolf spider, perhaps spanning 6 cm across the legs. I would have done a face shot for this one too, but she was far too shy and darted under cover as I moved into position. I’ve been watching for the fishing spiders for the past couple of weeks, having seen only a small one on a tree trunk until now, but this trip netted me at least five.
If you’re looking for water snakes in central NC, this is the place to go – I’m not sure I’ve ever been here during their active months and not seen a snake. These are both northern water snakes (Nerodia sipedon,) which tend to be large, impressive snakes, almost always less than a meter in length but sometimes as thick as my wrist. Both were seen from the concrete apron that crosses the creekbed, which yesterday was showing the effects of the recent rains in that the creek was spilling over the top up to 15 cm deep. These two images give a faint impression of how hard it is to illustrate snake markings; even though they’re the same species, you can see the difference in coloration, and the brightness can vary even more than this, partially due to genetics, but also due to how long it has been since the last time the individual has shed its skin – they’re darkest when due, and brightest immediately afterward. It also varies depending on how long they’re been out of the water, appearing brightest when wet. Not far from here, we also saw a queen snake (Regina septemvittata, what a great name,) which is considerably less impressive in appearance though similar in behavior.
We hadn’t really exhausted all of the possibilities of Duke Forest, but I had an errand to run, so after that we went back to Mason Farm Preserve for a short while, where I stuck to fartsy images, like getting into Morgan Creek and taking this frame down just above water level. I’m shooting with a Canon 30D, which doesn’t have a fancy swing-out LCD or real-time display (old-fashioned optical viewfinder – I know, right?) so this one was shot blind. Except for a slight tweak back to level, this is the perspective I was after.
I guess I’m not shocking anyone when I say this is not how I intended this image to look at all. And it’s a shame, because it was a rare opportunity that might actually have come out with some artistic merit. 
Or, kinda chartreuse.
I’ve said it before, numerous times, but lightning photography can be challenging. Where and when the bolts will appear is, of course, wildly variable, and getting a good setting, preferably with some foreground interest, lined up with the active part of a storm is also tricky. And then there’s the rain, which naturally you won’t want your equipment in even if you’re cool with it yourself. It was raining hard enough that I not only was shooting out of the open side door of the van, but I had to back up a bit to keep the wind from blowing rain onto the camera. In the image above, you can see the edges of the van intruding into the photo, but one other thing which I would have liked to have occurred more often: a bright strike had occurred behind me, illuminating the foreground trees just enough to give them a little color and distinction beyond ‘silhouette.’ Too bad that’s the only thing that image has going for it. Both of these have barely visible bolts within them, but well off to the side, small and undramatic. That happens a lot too, but I have even more frames with just cloud glow, no visible lightning at all.
