I’m tired of ‘May’ puns…

Al Denelsbeck

… but it’s the end of the month anyway, so let’s see what that entails from the nonsense tradition of month-end abstract images that got started by accident, shall we?

sunset on facade of old hunting lodge in New York
Why, it’s the sunset on part of the Gatsby mansion that I’d stayed in on previous visits to central New York – not this time around (I was on my brother’s couch instead, not a comparable substitute,) but we had to go out there to check on some things anyway. For this frame, the glare from the sun’s reflection off of the glass helped set the exposure lower, giving a moodier look to the building, and I cropped tighter for better effect. I could have done without that stray wire in there, but whatcha gonna do?

And I have another abstract, though it’s a shameless repeat of others that I’ve done in the past, but I liked the colors and contrast and you probably haven’t seen the others anyway or have forgotten if you did, so here it is:

sunset colors on rippling waters of Cayuga Lake
Maybe I’m in a rut, but I like these kinds of images, in this case the hastening sunset over Cayuga Lake reflecting from the rippling water, essentially the ‘glitter trail’ that leads towards the sun itself (but falls short by, oh, about 93 million miles.) These two images were taken only nineteen minutes apart, the same day that we’d had multiple downpours, so not bad conditions for that.

May’s been a little bit slower month for photos than normal, but we’ll see what can be done about that shortly. I still have to check in on the osprey nests, for instance. Something will be along soon enough.

Had the potential

Al Denelsbeck

While spending a few days in Tennessee last week, a wicked thunderstorm rolled through (as it did for much of the east coast,) and I made the attempt to get some lightning photos. I was borrowing my brother’s tripod since I’d left mine behind – I know this sounds like poor planning, but the trip was to drive him back up to NY since he’d injured his shoulder and couldn’t drive that far, so I’d traveled there by bus and would be returning by plane, thus my luggage load was necessities only. Yes, the camera is a necessity – what are you, stupid?

Anyway, it was well after sunset when the storm broke, though you wouldn’t know it from some of the photos.

clouds brightly illuminated by internal lightning
We were deep in the Great Smokey Mountains – or is that the Blue Ridge Mountains? – near the NC border, but it wasn’t as dark as you might imagine, since everyone there had decided they needed streetlights in their yards. All of this light, however, came from lightning within the clouds, quite a light show. There was a distinct mountain peak quite close by, and I was holding out hope that a bolt would strike it because I’d have a front row seat – we were safely under the porch overhang, at least until the rain began driving sideways.

storm clouds illuminated by lightning over Tennessee
The peak in question is the tallest one off to the left there, not looking like much here because of both the wide-angle perspective and the fact that it’s blending in with the others nearby, but I was later to determine that it was just under 2 kilometers distant and fairly steep. The sharper one to the right of it, under the telephone pole, is only 250 meters further off. But wires everywhere – not a nature photographer’s ideal locale for sure.

rain starting from violent thunderstorm in Tennessee mountains
Only a slightly different angle here, as the rains started (note that the peaks were invisible to me when aiming the camera, shrouded in total darkness because the sky behind wasn’t even lighter – the lightning was the only thing that defined details, and my eye wasn’t up to the viewfinder at those moments.) But you can see the haze from the rain starting to shroud the mountain, and again, this is only in millisecond bursts from the lightning. It got worse, though.

rain from violent thunderstorm in Tennessee now completely obscuring nearby peak
Annnndddd now it’s gone completely, hidden entirely by the rain. I have to note that, despite a lot of strikes in the area, the thunder didn’t indicate that any of them were particularly close, though certainly not far off either. You can see the porch overhang in this shot illuminated only by the interior light coming through the storm door, and that same light was now revealing the waves of rain passing between us and that neighbor – it was really coming down, is what I’m saying. Those same waves were starting to get on the camera, and so we wrapped it up about this time and headed inside, but it was clear that the brunt of electrical activity was now past, and subsequent examination of the frames revealed not one visible lightning bolt. Figures.

The next morning was sunny, and showed how the mountains got their name.

mist rising from overnight rains among peaks in mountains in Tennessee
Again, this is that nearest peak (again, a bit wide-angle,) with the mists rising as the rainwater was evaporating, thus the ‘Great Smokey Mountains’ – and just a hint of the ‘Blue Ridge’ as well, the haze from all the humidity turning them more blue with distance. But let’s take a closer look at that nearby peak to the right.

rising mist from overnight rains almost obscuring nearby peak in Great Smokey Mountains, Tennessee
Remember, there’s only a quarter-kilometer separating these two peaks, so all that humidity is concentrated in that narrow valley – my guess is the sun just started hitting that portion. This is not a spot for decent sunrises or sunsets, both being obscured by nearby mountains, though it would be even worse for Northern Lights, since the property was on the side of a mountain rising to the north. It also bordered a large forest, to the point were black bear tracks were routinely found right behind the barn. I had the opportunity to stake out the area for potential images (my only black bear shots are at a great distance,) but passed on it for two reasons: 1, I hadn’t brought any flash at all with me, and it would take a powerful one to snag a bear at night, and 2, there was no safe location to be staking out from – any spot that had a view of the locations they visited was far too exposed, and no pic is worth risks like that. There is now a trail camera set up there, though, so maybe there will be something to show later on. We’ll see.

I’ll throw down one last shot for giggles, closing on sunset the day before the storm.

near sunset clouds in Tennessee mountains
This is looking east-southeast, a bit to the left of the nearby mountain peak, and the differing colors of the clouds indicates their relative height, the white ones being taller and still getting the sunlight uncolored by the sunset angles. It also gives another hint of how many mountains surrounded us, especially since the nearby trees are already in shadow. Nothing great, but as I said, I was only snagging shots of opportunity and not actively seeking out areas for high art – just wasn’t that kind of trip.

I have a handful more from the trip coming along, but first we must deal with the end of the month.

Just once, part 22

Al Denelsbeck

female common yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas maybe, Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, NY
This week we have a female common yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) – I believe, anyway. It was the closest match that I could find, but since there were no males in evidence, I won’t say that I’m 100% certain (the males being more distinctly colored.) I snagged this almost offhandedly while touring through Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in central New York three years ago – which is where I was not quite a week ago, though the day this was taken had considerably better conditions than the most recent visit, which was overcast and rainy. So, I had the chance to remove this from the ‘Just Once’ list only days ago, but saw nothing of the sort in the brief visit. Now, they’re also supposed to be found around here in central North Carolina, though I have yet to positively identify one, but they’re marsh birds and so more likely to be found nearer the coast.

[As a stupid bit of trivia, I had only days before switched the incoming text alert sound on my smutphone over to the call of a marsh wren, obtained from the same video clips found here, and this was firing off while we were driving through the refuge – the sounds of home, as it were, though they elicited no response from anywhere therein. But it did serve to confuse my brother a couple of times…]

Flanking turtles

Al Denelsbeck

Last week, I announced that the 23rd was World Turtle Day, but also that I’d be unlikely to do anything about it that day – this was because I knew I’d be traveling, and in fact, all of last week’s posts were written ahead of time and scheduled for certain days, none of them reflecting where I really was. Family matters (nothing serious) required that I shoot out to Tennessee, then up to New York, and the 23rd was slated to be a driving day, which it was.

However, I managed to snag two turtles on days flanking World Turtle Day, so I observed the holiday better than expected, though not in any remarkable way.

male eastern box turtle Terrapene carolina carolina being shy after being disturbed
In Tennessee on Tuesday, I came across this eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) at the edge of a small cleared area where I was staying. Reluctant to do anything after being disturbed and likely wanting to escape the rapidly-warming sunlight, it never poked its head out or posed fetchingly, but I did determine from the eyes and the plastron that it was a male, and comparing the photos taken by my host of another turtle from a few days earlier indicated that this was not the same specimen, suggesting that the property was home to several – not surprising, really, but this was the only one that I found.

And then on Saturday, once up in central New York, we found another just after crossing the road.

smallish common snapping turtle Chelydra serpentina just finishing a road crossing
This is a common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina,) extremely common in New York – it’s a smaller specimen, roughly 15-18 cm in carapace length. This was immediately following a downpour and we saw no reason to disturb it, so this was taken from the car window and then the turtle was allowed to go on its way. Had it actually been World Turtle Day, we might have given it a cake or taken it out to dinner or something, but being too late for the holiday, it would have to wait for next year.

There will be more coming along, even though I didn’t do a lot of photography on this trip and conditions conspired against it too often anyway, but I got a few frames of interest. They’ll be along as time permits.

Today, by the way, is also a holiday of sorts, in that it’s the tenth anniversary of our moving to this house – that’s almost scary, really. But we’re available for dinner if you’re so inclined…

[I realized as I linked that post from 10 years ago that there were mantids on the same Japanese maple out front, and so I went out just now specifically to take a commemorative shot. Same tree, but certainly not the same mantis, since they only live through a season. There’s a semi-reasonable chance that this is a descendant, though, since I suspect that mantids return to the same location where they had hatched to produce their own egg clusters. There is a degree of resemblance, you must admit…]

immature mantis, likely Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis, perched on Japanese maple

Saved for today

Al Denelsbeck

Yesterday was one holiday, and today is another (don’t ask me who schedules these things without any breathing room): National Where The Hell Did This Come From? Day, and I’ve got a nice example for you, discovered in the back yard here at Walkabout Estates.

probable sunfish Centrarchidae found in middle of back yard far from water source
First off, ignore the brown wormy thing, which is just a millipede that was passing through as I snapped the image. My brother tells me this is a sunfish, but there are several species and the state of this one isn’t making it easy to pin down, so Family Centrarchidae anyway. The thing is, we’re not terribly close to any water source, and I even know a four-hour time frame of its appearance in late afternoon since I had been through that area earlier and it wasn’t present.

Best guess, of course, is that it was snagged from the neighborhood pond by an osprey and accidentally dropped, either as the bird was passing or as it landed in a tree to knock off its meal, though this seems odd in itself; ospreys have wicked talons and can easily hang onto something as small as this, and even the damage to the carcass seems less than I would have thought they’d inflict in capturing a fish from the water and hauling it off through the air. Not to mention that there does not seem to be any osprey living nearby or frequenting the pond, even though they make the occasional appearance. Mid-afternoon isn’t any time for raccoons, opossums, or neighborhood cats to be slinking around, especially inside the fence. I’m not the kind that watches all of those TV forensics shows so I didn’t try evaluating the angle of the wounds or the impact impression underneath, and it’s too late now; this was a couple of weeks ago. So I’ll go with clumsy osprey and leave it at that I suppose, always wondering what sinister story might really lie underneath. It wouldn’t be the first time…

Just once, part 21

Al Denelsbeck

Bobcat Lynx rufus drinking
While I would be totally chuffed to have obtained such a pic of a bobcat (Lynx rufus) in the wild, alas, this is not the case, and this was taken in the NC Zoological Park, part of the reason that it’s only appeared once before. The other part is that, while I’ve seen bobcats twice before to my memory, both times were fleeting and far too brief to bring a camera to bear. As I look at this however, I chide my older self for not framing this better, but I’m fairly certain I slammed the frame out in the bare moment that the bobcat made eye contact.

Bobcats are common throughout North America, and in fact there are now two recognized subspecies: Lynx rufus rufus in the east, and Lynx rufus fasciatus in the west – given that I took this in a zoo in North Carolina, I’d tend to believe this is the former, but who knows how they obtained their specimen? Yet while common, bobcats are also quite shy and tend to be nocturnal, so the chances to spot one are rare, and you largely have to be either very lucky or specifically trying for the subject; up until this writing I’ve never spent enough time in an area they were known to frequent. Both of those that I’ve spotted have been bounding across the road ahead of me, come to think of it: once on Pilot Mountain in NC, actually on the drive into the park (late morning,) and once in Merritt Island in Florida (late afternoon) – that one was huge, and crossed the two-lane road in three bounds. There was a chance that I saw one near Jordan Lake right around here, but it was a fleeting glimpse (true to form, seen in the headlights of the car,) and I’ve found no evidence of them there before or since, so I may have been mistaken.

So let’s put it this way: if I ever discover that they’re frequenting an area that I can spend a little time in, I’ll definitely make the attempt to snag some truly “wild” images – much more effort than I’d put into chasing any songbird, for instance. Or if, you know, there’s some chance of commensurate income from such photos, I’ll even make a dedicated trip – we can deal.

I leave it up to you

Al Denelsbeck

Thursday, May 23rd, is World Turtle Day – but I’m sure you already knew that, at the very least from reading it here several times before. This time around, however, I am unlikely to have any free time that day to pursue it in any form, and will have to catch up later, so I’m putting this in your capable hands – no, not those hands, and you really should wash them, but your capable ones. Go do something turtley, or educate someone about turtles, or even do a little research on them yourself. How many do you have in your own state? Okay, that’s an extremely tall order, so let’s shorten that down to how many different species? Can you dependably find one? At this time of year, you should, especially if you’re on this blog, so go ahead and prove it to me.

Yeah, I know, throwing down challenges in a somewhat condescending manner immediately after claiming to be too busy to do it myself, but you know, things do come up. Whatever – I’ll be back later on and make up for it to some extent. Right now we have a pic from a few weeks back, while checking on one of the osprey nests.

pair of likely pond sliders Trachemys scripta perched on barely adequate snag
Not close enough to be sure, but I believe these are pond sliders (Trachemys scripta,) and there are only two – the third head is only a bump on the stump. And for the record, the most recent turtle image that I’ve obtained, as well:

barest peek at turtle head protruding from lake
Yeah, I know it sucks, and it’s not even going to survive the sorting cull, but it’s the latest, a grab shot right before it disappeared. I provide it in good faith, or some shit like that, establishing that at least I’ve done something within the month without even trying. Yeah, “That’s obvious,” ha ha ha, go do something better…

It’s, like, cosmic, man

Al Denelsbeck

On this date a whopping 60 years ago, there came an accidental discovery that helped confirm, and inform, our present view of the universe: the cosmic microwave background (CMB) was first measured.

Here’s the quick run down. Observations of many stars in the observable universe, generally around the early 1900s, showed light spectra that were very similar to our own sun, with gaps in certain wavelengths that likely came from wavelength absorption by certain elements. These gaps were near-perfectly aligned, but shifted lower in wavelength consistently – some by small increments, others by larger, still with the same spacing between gaps. As an object accelerates away from us, the wavelengths get longer and thus more red, which nicely explained this shift (called redshift or doppler shift – it happens with sound as well, but of course in pitch and not color.) The thing was, every star so measured displayed this redshift, meaning that either they were all accelerating away from us, which has no reasonable impetus, or the universe was expanding uniformly, so everything got farther away from everything else, and the same redshift would be viewed from any planet around those other stars. This suggested that the universe was once in a much smaller state, and various other bits of evidence began to support this, but it had not yet become accepted as fact.

spectrum of our sun
spectrum of our own sun, courtesy of NASA.
Image Credit: Nigel Sharp (NSF), FTS, NSO, KPNO, AURA, NSF

One line of reasoning suggested that, given all of the measurements of speed and distance and even radiometric decay, the universe began this acceleration between 10 and 20 billion years ago, and should have displayed some residual energy left over from this very small state, visible everywhere – except that it was so weak and so attenuated in wavelength that it was invisible and immeasurable with any radio telescope at the time.

[Brief explanation: electromagnetic radiation is defined by its wavelength, and between about 400 and 700 nanometers it becomes visible to our eyes, but on either side of that it’s invisible and is called ‘radio’ waves or ‘microwaves,’ and you see where this is going.]

That residual radiation was proposed for a few decades to pop up at certain wavelengths, but it was in 1948 that it was shown to likely exist in the microwave spectrum, at roughly 160 Ghz or 1.8 million nanometers (the science geeks are losing their minds right now but that’s how it compares to the visible light figures in the paragraph above) – also, extremely weakly. There was no way to detect this, so it remained theoretical.

Then in 1964, Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias were calibrating a new radio telescope and couldn’t achieve an empty baseline – in other words, they couldn’t clear the ‘static.’ After many attempts that retained a persistent reading at a certain wavelength, they made the connection with proposed efforts from physicists at Princeton University and contacted them, and it was soon determined that they’d found the CMB; bear in mind that the theoretical paper had been published 16 years earlier and wasn’t even part of college courses.

xkcd comic of graph of detected radio waves, by Randall MunroeWhat this meant, however, was that of the two main competing theories about the nature of the universe – the ‘big bang’ theory (itself originally a derogatory term) and the ‘steady state’ theory, almost the default assumption for centuries that the universe is as it always was and will be – the discovery of the CMB tipped the scales very much in favor of the Big Bang and put a distinct age to the universe. Just in my own lifetime, this age has gone from as stated above to 13.787 billion years (+/- 0.14%) due to refinements in measurements and technical abilities.

Primarily, this is exactly the kind of confirmation that we look for when we make predictions, and while there still remains a level of uncertainty about both the numbers and the underlying process itself, any new theories have to take into account how well the CMB fits into the initial numbers; it’s there, it’s measurable, so something must have caused it. Moreover, one of the coolest and most impactful discoveries in modern astronomy was initially a source of significant frustration for Penzias and Wilson, who weren’t even trying to find it.

The radio antenna itself, long disused now, still sits where it was constructed, with plans to turn the area into a park and preserve the antenna itself. Which is good, because we have too few science-themed parks and too little recognition of those that made many of these accomplishments. Seriously, why should we give a shit about some sports figure?

Profiles of Nature 60

Al Denelsbeck

least sandpiper Calidris minutilla Abelard posing winsomely on mud flat
It’s been exactly five months since the previous Profiles, so we’re definitely overdue, and we’re not buying that you haven’t fully recovered from that one; you have undoubtedly noticed that we’ve avoided saying “last one” and likely suspect there’s a reason for that.

This Profiles we have Abelard, who self identifies as an influencer, proudly we might add; even worse. Typical for the breed, Abelard spends his time posing in manners no one ever achieves casually, making bystanders believe he has palsy or perhaps a lizard in his shirt until they see the ringlight and stand. He’s so deep in the mindset that he’s mounted his home TV in a vertical position as well and doesn’t understand why everything is sideways. He heard that camera shops sold filters and bought a bunch, but couldn’t figure out how to get them into the card slot on his phone. We could go on like this all day, but we figured we’d stick to form and ask Abelard about his career background – this only made him turn and look behind him in confusion. Eventually, by exercising far more patience than should have been necessary, we found that Abelard couldn’t remember how he got his start, or indeed, most of the countries that he’d traveled to in pursuit of his obsession; there was, “the one with the big cool tower,” and, “the one where everyone spoke gibberish,” which we later determined was his parents’ house. Nonetheless, he does have plans for later on: he would like to investigate the rumor that other people had social media accounts that were not just to follow his own, and he’d also like to indulge in a wild streak and eat at a restaurant without posting about it. And yet, tragedy has marred his life as well; he watched his friend dying after getting gored by a bison, and the video was ruined by the idiot that kept repeating, “Call 911,” like someone’s gonna know how to do that. Plus who would have suspected those horns weren’t just that cool ‘Viking’ filter? Abelard tried to form his own band but kept finding people who wanted to “play music” rather than simply pose for the album covers. When we pressed him for a favorite, he maintained that the absolute best Pantone was 2308 C, which again, tells you enough.

It won’t be next week, but the Profiles will return, and notice that we didn’t say it wouldn’t be this week. Sweet dreams!

But this one did

Al Denelsbeck

Not every project that I tackle comes to fruition, and I’m forced to abandon more than a couple (like the tracking motor to use with the eclipse, for instance.) But, as the title says, this one did.

For the record (Hah! I keel me!) this was the previous incarnation of it mentioned within the video. But here’s what I was dealing with this time around:

I have a decent audio recorder, and a decent lapel microphone. But the mic is intended for use with smutphones, and so has the quad-pole connector that those use, which allows for earphones and phone controls. This does not play well with the audio recorder designed before those were in constant use – that instead wants a tri-pole connector (stereo.)

I still have the little microphone seen in that linked post, but its audio quality is not very good and produced too much residual noise, more than I really wanted to edit out (especially since, with ongoing ambient sounds, there was no way to record a patch of ‘silence’ as a baseline to subtract this residual noise.)

So I switched to using the nice lapel mic with the smutphone as a recorder, but then went through three different audio recording apps before settling on the fourth, since the others wanted to do their own thing with auto-levels, essentially deciding what the base volume (okay, gain) should be. This produced some really terrible effects, given that the ambient sounds could get quite loud, especially in the height of cicada season, and quite variable, with the goddamn traffic too close by. What this produces is a lot of warbling and vague underwater-like sounds, very unrealistic and distracting.

Those ambient sounds were quite a chore in themselves, since at times the cicadas really started winding up, and diesel trucks were passing, and so on. The day I chose for the video above was the quietest of all my attempts, and you can hear how un-quiet it really was.

And then, once I got decent audio, it was time to synchronize it with the video – which came with its own audio track that was quite useful in itself, though it captured absolutely none of the nest sounds. Meanwhile, the nest mic captured too little of the ambient sounds, making the adults seem incredibly distant. That’s what they’re made for of course, to record the wearer and not everyone else, but it did mean that I wanted to keep both audio tracks.

Since I simply set the smutphone to record in its position underneath the nest and left it there, it produced one long recording track, while I was able to start and stop the video camera as appropriate to the action and lack thereof. This meant that I had four video tracks of two to five minutes and one audio that was eighteen minutes long, with ambient noise none too distinguishable throughout. You know those little clappers that you see right before they shoot a movie scene? That’s what those are for: syncing separate video and audio tracks. Without such a thing, I was forced to sync them by finding unique sound fragments that appeared in both recordings, such as some other birds and distinctive passing vehicles. Note, however, that these largely had to be down to fractions of a second, or curious ‘echoes’ would be produced by the sounds that carried onto both tracks but weren’t perfectly aligned. There may be methods to jog the track alignments by milliseconds in the editing program that I used, but if so, I didn’t know where it was, so I was doing it by twitching the mouse – a bit tedious.

screenshot of Kdenlive editing program showing the subject video
Once these were aligned, then I had to trim them down, ensuring that all tracks were cut in the same place and stayed aligned. Add in selecting the right gain for each (boosting the nest audio slightly, reducing the videocamera’s by an almost-equal amount.) Once satisfied with the running edit, then I had to record the voiceover track on another program while watching the video, clean that up, insert it into the video editing program, and then play with the gain and synchronization on that. Oh, yeah, and add in the title and close images.

And then, upload it to Vimeo and do all the little doodads that that requires. This means a five-minute video can take several hours to get together – be nice if it better reflected all this effort, right? Keep your commentary to yourself.

So while I like including video and know that this comes with its own learning curve, sometimes this drags on a bit, you know?

* * *

For the record, I am presently using Kdenlive for the video editing, and Audacity for the audio – both extremely capable programs for completely free software. For the nest recording, this was through ASR Voice Recorder from the Google Play Store (yes, Android.) But I also can’t stress enough how much easier it is when your microphones are decent. The lapel mic was a solid find from some generic source, far less expensive that its capability reflects, while the main recording mic on the desk (voiceovers and podcasts) is a Samson G-Track – expensive, but I picked it up used and it’s been superb.

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