Tripod holes reject

Al Denelsbeck

motion-blurred night exposure of city lights from landing aircraft
As the title says, this one was in consideration for a Tripod holes entry, because I could almost pin down right where it was taken – just, not quite. And I had other images that worked better anyway. But here’s the scoop.

It was November 2003 and I was returning to Florida on a flight from North Carolina, and we were on final approach to Melbourne International Airport, so these are the city lights of Melbourne. I knew which approach we were taking, and that blank rectangle in the middle there is pretty distinctive, so I thought I should be able to use that (and the line of the major road that stretches diagonally on the right side, almost certainly South Wickham Road,) to pin down a precise location. A rectangle without lights would likely be either an unlit parking lot, an empty field or lot, or a very large building. But despite my best efforts, I couldn’t pin it down; other areas should have been either just as blank or had more lights, things like that. So it’s only a curious abstract image not helped at all by the motion blur during the longer exposure needed to even capture the lights. It’s on slide film, by the way, so no EXIF info to check and see what the shutter speed actually was.

Less than ten minutes before this, however, I knew we were on descent though I had no idea what our altitude was, because there was nothing to be seen below us at all and it was a distinctly clear night. This had me convinced that we were approaching the airport from the east, because that would be from out over the Atlantic Ocean; Melbourne International only has east-west runways, with approach direction determined by the prevailing winds, so an approach from the west would be over the center of the state which should have provided plenty to see below. And then confusingly, I saw a small cluster of lights in the midst of total darkness, wondering if it was a fishing fleet before realizing that it was a crossroads – we were over central Florida after all (this might actually have been Deer Park.) I can’t emphasize enough how few lights there were to be seen, which really drove home the fact that much of central Florida is swampland and farms, too wet to consider making even small towns within. Sure, the coastal cities, and even most of the coastal small towns, are pretty urbanized and crowded – but get outside of them and almost immediately you’re all by yourself.

Human-wise, anyway – there are always reptiles of some kind close at hand.

Living in the past XXVII

Al Denelsbeck

submerged autumn leaf with glitter trail sparkles
An abstract from 2015, one that came out very well – this is not bragging (well, much,) but recognition that the odds played out in my favor. The reflections are all from the sun on rippling water, so each of those sparkles was only there for a millisecond in time – it would be easy to have too many clustered together, or too few, but the line meandering up the frame works well, and the two on the tips of the leaf are a great touch. Meanwhile, since the exposure was set automatically and was compensating for that reflected light, the darkness of the water and the leaf itself could have been distinctly different, but here it provides a ghostly quality. I’ll take credit for knowing that a smaller aperture would produce the starbursts better, but I’ve known that for decades – it’s not exactly an advanced trick. But all that said, it deserved to be seen again.

Nowhere to go but up

Al Denelsbeck

As of now – like, right now, as this posts (which is 10:27 PM local, or 03:27 UTC tomorrow) – we have passed the December solstice, and the days are getting longer again, for those of us in the northern hemisphere. The daylight hours, anyway – we’ve been through all this before. But that gives me something else to post about, and knowing this was coming, I took pictures, even.

Not that there’s a lot out there to take pictures of, and it’s even worse than normal because it’s been pretty cold for this time of year and this latitude. But I saw this and pondered it briefly:

surprisingly green leaf for December alongside molted cicada exoskeleton
I’m not sure where a leaf that green came from at this time of year, especially since everything but the evergreens have shed their leaves long ago (they’re like half a meter deep in the backyard.) I’m in charge of the stuff that we maintain through the winter, mostly in the greenhouse, and it’s not from any of them. I’ll take the opportunity to mention that the avocado tree that we started from a pit has been enormously pleased with the greenhouse and has grown at least 20cm since it got in there two months ago, and two more have sprouted indoors and have grown a similar amount, and will be joining their companion out in the greenhouse soon. But you noticed the molted exoskeleton of the cicada in there too, of course – that’s just a leftover from the summer, since this is right at the base of the cherry tree.

And another for fart’s sake.

dried flowers of oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia
These are the flowers or the oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia,) and they’ve been like this for months – well, not quite this threadbare, but they hang on longer than any other flower around, and will mostly be here in the spring when the new batch starts.

But we have a little discovery from today too. While working outside, I glanced up at a passing aircraft and noticed something that I’ve only seen once before.

section of circumzenithal arc with plane contrail
The sun is out of the bottom of the frame, so this is not the correct position for a rainbow or a sundog – this is instead a circumzenithal arc, formed by high-altitude ice crystals. This is the original image as captured, but I tweaked it a little, thusly:

section of circumzenithal arc, enhanced
I had to run to get the camera, and so it had faded a little by the time I got the first images, and it shifted back and forth fairly quickly as I observed it. Thankfully, the one contrail cutting across dissipated quickly.

enhanced section of circumzenithal arc
I never got a good display of it, though, and it faded as I stood there, then reappeared a little later on, but not as strongly. Still, something to keep an eye out for on sunny days, because these are the right conditions, and as the name implies, you’re going to see it just south of straight up.

I also did a couple quick frames of the moon while out there.

waxing gibbous moon during daylight
There was a point to this, and part of it was because I wasn’t sure that I’d have good conditions later on, so this was my safety image. But as we came closer to the exact time of the solstice, the sky was once again clear, and I was able to get the shots as planned.

waxing gibbous moon during December solstice
Now, this isn’t right at the solstice, because I had to write the post – it’s about 90 minutes early. But this is damn close to as low as it can get for as high as it is – make sense? Good – I don’t want to have to explain it again. Oh, all right: the solstices are when the Earth’s axis is angled the farthest from the sun, either the northern axis (right now) or the southern, which happens in June. This means the arc of the sun and moon drop the lowest towards the horizon on those days, even though a) we hadn’t quite hit the solstice yet for this image, and b) this was after the moon had passed the southernmost point of its path. It was very high in the sky, making photographing it awkward from having to be beneath the camera, but for the next six months, it will be higher when viewed at this same point in its orbit. Yeah, it’s all semantics and orbital mechanics and other mythologies, but it’s a topic to post about, so chill.

I’ll note that the conditions for the circumzenithal arc had possibly not passed, either, because at times the haze around the moon was plainly visible, though harder to capture in a photograph.

high-altitude haze around waxing gibbous moon on December solstice
It’s not like you’re likely to see a circumzenithal arc at night, by the light of the moon, because look how faint it is during the day. But it’s possible, I suppose, especially if you use a long exposure. Though if I’d even tried looking for that, this post would be late, and that’s simply unacceptable – I have an obligation, that I created myself, that even if I had readers, no one would care about. Man, that’s pathetic, isn’t it?

Living in the past XXVI

Al Denelsbeck

magnolia green jumping spider Lyssomanes viridis with unidentified midge prey
For a couple of years, I was on a quest to obtain detailed pics, and video, of a peculiar optical trait visible in one particular species of spider; many spiders likely have the same trait, but it’s only visible in the magnolia green. The anterior median (front middle) pair of eyes is used to accurately judge the distances for jumping, and as such are complex eyes, rather than the simple compound eyes that we associate with arthropods like house flies: they can focus and aim like our own, and when I say “like,” I mean quite a bit unlike our own. Since their cornea is part of their exoskeleton and is periodically shed with the rest, it’s fixed in place, so the eyes move internally instead, and because that same exoskeleton is largely translucent for the species, enough light gets through that this can actually be seen. Which is what we’re seeing here – the black circle in that right eye is actually the spider’s retina. Yes, they can aim their eyes independently – can’t you?

This image, and an accompanying video, is the result of planning/staging that went far, far better than expected, or even than it should have. I housed a pair of spiders in a small terrarium and provided a variety of ideal insects as food, and eventually witnessed one of the spiders immediately after a capture – only it wasn’t in a very good position for macro photos, and certainly not for the little USB microscope that I had at the time to do video. Somehow, the spider allowed me to not only lift the plant (that I’d provided as habitat) out of the terrarium without fleeing, but rode along complacently from the porch all the way into my office because the microscope could only attach to the computer. The results are a little disconcerting but very illustrative, so full credit to this spider for its patience. Or, because I’d already worked quite a bit with the species and knew they were as hyperactive and uncooperative as any jumper, giving them food is the secret to having them hold still.

Profiles of Nature 59

Al Denelsbeck

We’re trying to keep the post count up, so of course another Profiles was going to sneak in. You only have yourself to blame*

great blue heron Ardea herodias herodias frenching some unknown fish
Today we have the honor of meeting Enkhtsetseg, currently quite high in demand as an animal trainer for movies without a CGI budget. – you can interpret “animal trainer” in two different manners because they both work, just don’t use it in the third manner because you’ll get excoriated. Enkhtsetseg always knew that she would become famous, only she believed it would be for booking a major press conference at a landscaping company or something equally brain-dead, so she’s a bit gratified that it’s only for getting cats to cough up hairballs on command for the cameras – not entirely unlike many press conferences, now that we think about it, though much less audibly annoying. She takes no pride in her work, however, knowing that this only leads to abuse by employers, so she’s perfected the attitude of, “It’s this or nothing,” which makes them willing to pay much more for her services. You know it works. Seen here, she’s coaching her star pupil for a scene in the upcoming live-action version of Finding Nemo – yes, she’s getting paid up front. Enkhtsetseg has trained animals for appearances in such films as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Bachelor Party, The Shawshank Redemption, and Balls of Fury; if you look carefully, you’ll notice that a pond, fountain, or punch bowl is always visible nearby, which is where she coaches from. What? Wait, you thought Enkhtsetseg was the bird in the photo?! That’s stupid – who could imagine a bird as an animal trainer? They can’t even talk. She candidly admitted for our interview that, like many in Hollywood, she struggles with substance abuse: on her way home each night, algae harasses her. Calm down – we left out the gag about juggling her career, so you’re actually ahead of the game right now. Ingrate. Besides, you thought she was the bird, so who are you to talk? Enkhtsetseg will never admit it, but her favorite term to use routinely while having no idea what it actually means is, “dado head.”

You should be thanking us – we started the Profiles just shy of three years ago and are only up to 59, instead of the number it could have been. We think a nice gift card is in order. Or we could be back next week…

* Why, we’re not sure, but it works better for us this way.

Living in the past XXV

Al Denelsbeck

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis clinging to plant sprig
For as many photos as I have of Carolina anoles, I can easily recall the circumstances of this one, because of the distinctive ‘comma’ pose (helped by how it was framed, I’m sure.) I’d gone through the NC Botanical Gardens for a while and had seen not the faintest hint of anoles, which was rare, and I was on my way to the parking lot when I spied this one clinging a little awkwardly to a flowering sprig – that one hind toe seems to impart a faint hint of precariousness (incorrectly, as it turns out, because they can sleep hanging upside down from those same toes.) The soft lighting, the sharp eyes, the emphasis on one color, and even the implication that the anole is focused on something else that isn’t the photographer, just add to it. So we get to see it again.

We need some others

Al Denelsbeck

I first began this post just after Memorial Day in this country, which didn’t spark these thoughts because I’ve had them for a while, but it brought them up again at least. It’s a federal holiday, one of only a handful, intended to honor and respect members of the US military who died in service. We also have Veterans’ Day, which honors those who served, especially those still living, with little distinction save for being honorably discharged. Now, I’m not going to trash these sentiments and I don’t disagree with them on the basic principle, but I do find it curious how much we celebrate aggressiveness and, pure and simple, killing others.

“But these men protected everyone in this country, including you, from aggressors!” comes the inevitable protest, which is how these holidays are virtually always portrayed, publicly and subconsciously. Except we haven’t had to protect this country since 1945, and even then there’s a bit of fudge factor to be considered: our involvement in WWII was a) not a primary intention of Japan, only to try and assert their control over the Pacific, and b) not at all an intention of Germany, which was concentrating on Europe. Let’s face it: occupying and controlling a large and populous country on another continent is beyond the capabilities of any country on earth, and has been for centuries, but still, we’ll let this one slide. And all other conflicts since then have been foreign policy decisions intended to either influence world trade, hamper the efforts of other powers, or most disturbingly, make some grandstand display primarily for our own citizens (i.e., Grenada) without any even residual threat to the US; a lot of people (with no distinctions of nationality) died over what were only crass manipulations rather than “the defense of our country.”

This naturally also fails to address the behavior of far too many of our soldiers and leaders, which targeted noncombatants and civilian centers for various reasons, but none very honorable. If you have a uniform on, it’s apparently not terrorism or genocide, and our own military, at the very least, isn’t the slightest bit concerned with examining its own faults regardless of its stated policies.

We have been fostered within this country to treat our military with respect, as if all of their actions are altruistic and absolutely necessary, and the vast majority of our government spending goes towards defense – despite the well-known fact that defense spending is rife with waste, misappropriations, and pork barrel projects. Meanwhile, those within the military are steeped in a hyper-masculine, testosterone-driven environment in order to kill or die without question – funny how we somehow seem to feel this is necessary for ‘defending’ our country.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a pacifist who feels that every conflict will be solved with love and diplomacy. Yet to hear far too much of our population voicing it quite proudly, none of the conflicts will either, which is obviously a bit flawed. We consider it patriotic to celebrate death, under the guise of ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ and ‘independence’ – but in the US we really don’t celebrate life, or peace, or really just about any advancements that we’ve made, as a country or as a species, and certainly not federally or nationally.

Yes, we have Martin Luther King, Jr’s Birthday, which is a step in the right direction, as well as Juneteenth to celebrate the eradication of slavery – which only became a holiday two years ago. It would be nice if these were trends towards recognizing more positive and beneficial acts, and not just lip service regarding the abysmal attitude towards equal rights that’s been maintained for so long within this country – the holidays are deserved, certainly, but the cynical part of me doubts the sincerity of the reasoning, and can’t help wondering how much of it is simply a manner of saying, “We’re cool now, right?”

But what about the real accomplishments, the significant advances made, the mere recognition that there are peaceful methods of interacting, with other countries as well as within our own? Could we use a bit more emphasis on being a rational, thoughtful species and not the celebration of our base aggression? War should, at best, be considered a necessary evil, and I’m not entirely sold on the ‘necessary’ aspect, but we should be nearly ashamed when we actually have to resort to it. Certainly, several of the more recent conflicts would have been avoided entirely had we possessed this attitude, specifically our multi-decade involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan that had no clear goals and no supportable function; motivations to send troops anywhere would likely be minimized when ‘war president’ would be seen as an abject failure of statesmanship rather than as patriotic.

So what could we be focusing on instead? I’ve always been in favor of recognizing the accomplishments, insights, and policies that advanced us, rather than the specific people who made them – it’s more focused, and takes away the ire of the Woke crowd that wants to examine everyone’s personal history with electron microscopes. To that end, I suggest a handful of things that we could be celebrating, that provided indelible and perpetual benefit to us, completely devoid of tribalism, questionable historic events, and avoidable bloodshed.

Antibiotics, anesthesia, and the various non-intrusive manners of determining what’s happening within a living being. I don’t have to spell out the enormous benefits, do I? I mean, they’re only used millions/billions of times daily.

Electricity and electromagnetism. Not directly related, but our understanding of both of them contribute hugely to the quality of life that we have today. Yet a very large number of people don’t understand that electromagnetism is light, radio waves, microwaves, and so on – they’re the same thing, just different wavelengths.

Atomic physics. Everything from the constituent elements of atoms to the peculiar properties of quantum mechanics. Abruptly, this tied together chemistry and cosmology, starting a trend towards understanding the unification of universal forces.

Astronomy and cosmology. Our entire concept of the universe changed radically, several times over, within the past century or so – there’s some really intriguing and remarkable discoveries throughout these fields.

Evolution and genetics. Besides the obvious contributions to biology, they also bolstered medicine and vaccines to an enormous degree; the recent COVID vaccines and their blindingly fast development were only possible through a deep understanding of RNA. A subset of this is Paleontology, and the rapidly expanding knowledge of our own ancestry.

Semiconductors and Microprocessors. Seriously.

Space exploration. It’s easy to say that we’re not gaining any real benefit from what’s happening on Mars and Jupiter – many blowhard congressman have – but we have to recognize that the programs have also provided satellite communications, real-time weather tracking, GPS navigation, and yes, even spy satellites, which have their hand in avoiding conflicts by reducing a lot of surprises; WWII would have been entirely different with space-based reconnaissance. Moreover, it’s what can protect us from going the way of the non-avian dinosaurs when another massive asteroid comes calling – though it has to be a lot more advanced than it is now.

Among those, we could probably generate fifty or so new holidays, all focused on achievement – I realize that they’re primarily science-based, but you know, that’s where we make achievements. Should they all be federal holidays? Of course not, but when it comes down to it, we only have a handful of federal holidays to begin with, and most of the others are recognized and cultural but not ‘national.’ Everyone in this country knows when Groundhog’s Day is, for fuck’s sake, but how about the names of just half of the people responsible for the things in that list above? How about even when the Wright Brothers made their historic flight? We really could stand a bit of better focus here, more emphasis towards positive accomplishments, even just fostering interest in how things work. That’s something that I could salute, at least…

Tripod holes 51

Al Denelsbeck

juvenile sarus crane Antigone antigone in Sylvan Heights Bird Park, Scotland Neck, NC
N 36° 8’41.23″ W 77°24’51.27″ Google Earth location

Boy, did we need something cute after last week’s offering! The Girlfriend looked over my shoulder while I was editing this photo for inclusion, and so I asked, “Remember this little squirt?” She most assuredly did, and with good reason. Twelve years ago, we were paying our first visit to Sylvan Heights Bird Park, standing on the deck looking out over the duck pond with little idea of all the different species we would see. Abruptly, The Girlfriend began making desperate sounds to attract my attention while somehow forgetting that she knew actual words, the cause being this young sarus crane (Antigone antigone) that was following one of the park employees up the path like a puppy. On her return, the worker cooperatively brought her charge over for some portraits, a dangerous move around The Girlfriend because the temptation to bundle up the baby crane and steal away home with it was obviously great. I can’t say that I blame her; just the size was enough (it stood roughly 65cm tall,) but that muppet-felt blonde hairdo? C’mon…

I highly recommend Sylvan Heights Bird Park, because it’s very cool, filled with some pretty exotic and fascinating species, and you can get surprisingly close to many of them, including within some of the flight cages. It’s unfortunate that it’s a little ways off from any metro NC area save Rocky Mount, but you won’t regret the trip, especially when you hear a kookaburra in real life.

Living in the past XXIII

Al Denelsbeck

portrait of crab spider Tmarus angulatus
Yeah, another spider, but seriously, this was going to come up because it’s my favorite spider portrait. So far, anyway. Listen, I know that “favorite spider portrait” is a phrase that most people maintain really shouldn’t exist, but if you’re gonna do it, you might as well take a little pride in it sometimes, right? And to my warped brain and I, this worked; the light angle and intensity were right to bring up all those subtle variations in both coloration and shaping, with a catchlight in the eyes to boot, focus was bang-on, and even the position is dynamic and distances it from the typical ‘clinical illustration’ style of most arthropod images. It also helps that this is one of the few species with a pair of prominent eyes, which makes us relate to them better, just about ignoring all those other eyes that some inner sense tells us shouldn’t be there. But on top of all that, there’s the knowledge of the negligible size: the overall length with the legs stretched out in this manner is 15mm, making it just 1mm between the main eyes. Take out a ruler and look at that, and know that the whole spider appeared to be a dark stripe atop her rolled-up egg shelter.

That egg shelter says something else, too, in that not everyone found her ugly. Perhaps I’m identifying too much here…

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