Sloooow

It’s slow right now, with nothing to see, no reason to go out, and so on. About the best I can say is that the avocado trees (three of them, all started from pits) are absolutely delighted with the greenhouse and have been growing exuberantly therein. I almost wish I had done a time-lapse sequence of them…

But otherwise, there’s little to appear here, and so, I’m tackling a few of the odd memory stories, all too short to make a complete post of – lame, perhaps, but then again, you’re not getting a single post out of each of them, so glass half full and all that.


In the town where I grew up [this is always awkward, because we moved when I was seven, and thus it can refer to two different towns depending on perspective, so if you’re a parent, think about what you’re doing to your child’s future blogging difficulties before you make that big move], we used to drive past this low brick wall, part of a landscaping façade on a particular piece of property that I always thought belonged to a church. This wall bore the cryptic message, “We thil M nor,” which I never understood and figured was Latin or something, because that’s what you get when you’re raised catholic. It was, literally, well over a decade before I realized that it was actually supposed to read, “Westhill Manor,” and of course no one in all that time had ever bothered to fix the damn thing.


For christmas one year, we were shipped four filet mignons as appreciation for some major project that my dad had worked on, and they arrived in an insulated container with a block of dry ice to keep them cold. Dry ice is of course an absolute blast to mess with, and my brother-in-law and I had a lot of fun creating fog clouds and bubbling jars of water. At one point he dared me to drink this witches brew, and I thought, Hey, it’s just carbon dioxide – as long as I don’t touch the chunk in the bottom of the jar, it’ll be fine. And so I took a nice slug, remembering that it tasted a bit sour but not otherwise remarkable.

I can vouch for this not being the wisest of moves, because the next day I came down with a throat infection far worse than any I’ve ever had before, taking better than two days to disappear. Carbon dioxide itself isn’t harmful, but whatever else it might be preserving in stasis within is another matter.

As a side note, we’d dropped a large chunk in a jar of water and left it on the porch to see how long it would take to disappear, which was quite a while, really. The next morning when I checked on it, the top half of the jar was frozen solid, with a little meandering channel up through the middle from where the expanding gas had continued to force its way out.


We always had cats when I was growing up, and were notoriously bad about having them spayed because it was expensive; thus, we had several litters of kittens throughout that time. The antics of the kittens were hugely entertaining, naturally, and while I cannot recall the particular maneuver that prompted this, they were responsible for the only complete ‘spit take’ that I’ve ever emitted, spraying the kitchen wall with the milk I was drinking from the spontaneous laughter. Which of course scared the shit out of them.

Not half as bad as the circumstance where one of the five-week-old kittens, obviously in search of the litter pan, darted out the back door onto the porch just as our German shepherd was coming in from the opposite, outside door. The shepherd was just fine with the kittens, but still big and overwhelming, and my mothers laughter and shout to come see brought me out onto the porch, where the kitten, every hair on its body standing out straight, arched back and tiptoe, viewed the dog with horror – with a large pile of shit directly under its tail. Apparently this really can happen.

Another time, the litter of kittens was at that age where they all cavort enthusiastically but a bit clumsily with each other, chasing their siblings around the room and across my parents’ bed. One spotted the full-length mirror on the closet door and realized that there was another entire room that it hadn’t seen yet, with more kittens hurtling around in there. It vaulted off the bed and darted straight for the mirror, but was brought up short right before hopping over the door sill (actually the exposed part of the closet door underneath the bottom edge of the mirror,) by another kitten suddenly getting in its way, nose to nose. There was a momentary pause at its own reflection, but the other room still beckoned, so it simply leaned to the side to jump past this new kitten into the gaping room beyond, and smacked headfirst into the mirror as the other kitten performed the exact same maneuver. There is this particular expression of confusion from cats, the ears laying back alternately with this little head wobble, and the kitten (the original, not the… well, both) displayed this before turning and hurtling off elsewhere.

I provoked this same look of confusion many years later on, when we had the abandoned kittens in the house getting socialized (one of which, though not the one from this story, is presently asleep on the desk immediately to my right as I type this.) Earlier that day, we had been to a promotional thing for area restaurants, where the restaurateurs were providing samples of their foods in a huge outdoor buffet, and I had sampled freely of chili, curious appetizers, spiced chocolates, and many exotic little things, a very eclectic meal of a few bites each. Hours later I was leaning back at my desk sipping a Pepsi with Marley, one of those kittens, nestled onto my chest, head almost beneath my chin. I felt a belch coming on, but it wasn’t fostered solely by the carbonated soda – everything that I’d eaten that day decided to vent forth as soon as the gate opened, and I accidentally blew this horrible rumbler straight into Marley’s face. All those myriad flavors repeated at once with no palate cleanser in between, not the best of experiences, and I knew Marley could sample them too by the look of horror that came across his face before he jumped down and ran away.


In the early nineties when I was working for the humane society, the staff all did rotations for emergency animal rescue on nights and weekends, and during one of my shifts I got a call about a snake in someone’s house. On speaking with the woman, I discovered that she hadn’t actually seen it, but could hear it slithering around above the ceiling over her head. This is unlikely, because snakes don’t really make sounds like the movies want to portray, and you can only hear them ‘slithering’ in certain circumstances, almost certainly not carrying through a ceiling, but at her insistence I agreed to come out and take a look.

The house was fairly deep in the woods and pretty old (for the US at least, built in the thirties or earlier,) and decorated to match, reminiscent of the style that elderly people still had when I was growing up, quite dark inside because the lighting all came from anemic single-bulb fixtures on the walls where the oil lamps used to be. The woman was a distinct match for this, an elderly black woman with a dialect that gave some indication that she’d lived there all her life. It was single-story house, and thankfully the attic had proper access via stairs instead of some ceiling panel, and even a single bulb in the roof peak illuminating most of it. I ventured up with my flashlight, noting the numerous boxes that filled at least half of the space, recognizing that I’d have to shift things for an hour to do a thorough search and not at all inclined to do so; we were rescue, not pest removal. I found several husks of nuts indicated that squirrels and mice had been using the space, and pocketed those to show her that this was almost certainly what she’d been hearing.

I was about to leave when I heard a faint sound behind me, indeed a soft slithering sound, and turned to see a massive black rat snake (properly eastern rat snake, but I didn’t know it then) slipping from between two boxes. About this time she asked if I was seeing anything, and I simply told her to hold on a second. Black rat snakes are harmless, even though this one was in the vicinity of two meters long, and I simply leaned over quickly and grabbed it. It made no attempt to bite but enthusiastically coiled around my arm and smeared me with feces, a common defense. I hadn’t bothered to bring a carrier or a bag with me, so I was going to have to carry it out to the van this way, and I started back down the steps with my arm wrapped in black snake.

eastern rat snake Pantherophis alleghaniensis in hand“Did you see anything?” she asked before I came into view, and I replied, “Might have,” as I appeared with the snake.

Her eyes grew huge as she said, “Oh lord, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I replied nonchalantly, “but could you get me a couple of wet paper towels?”

“What do you need those for?” she asked, momentarily confused.

“Because he just shit all over my arm.”

Shut your mouth!” she responded in the most southern way possible, seeming so stereotypical that I couldn’t help but laugh. The whole experience was like stepping back in time half a century, something that I’d never experienced before moving to North Carolina, but there really are rural sections that somehow resist change.

It was some years later that I discovered that she had had two other workers out there on other nights, perhaps even the same week, both discovering that the house was apparently a black snake hostel, though I think I’m the only worker that actually removed one. I can’t recall where exactly this place was, but I’d be delighted to go back just to see it again.


A year or so after this incident, I had just adopted my first cat Ben at the same time that I was dating a supremely psychotic individual, and I’m not using that word cavalierly. Ben occasionally traveled back and forth with me as I spent nights over at her place, and on the night that I broke it off with her, I was attempting to leave when all hell broke loose. That’s a story in itself, but suffice to say that at one point, in someone’s yard a little ways down the street, a police officer was shining his flashlight onto the back of my neck and saying quietly to another, “That’s a bite wound.” Take it from me: heed those signs, and don’t believe that you can change things.

As I was returning to my car to leave once and for all, I discovered that the driver’s side door was still standing open, and Ben had been in the car and not in a carrier. This whole altercation had gone on for better than 45 minutes at this point. I was even more anguished now, realizing that I would have to try and locate a solid black kitten at 1 AM, or return numerous times, and the chances of actually locating him were slim. I cursed despondently and the officer accompanying asked what that was about.

“Oh, my cat had been in the car – try and keep your eyes open for a little black kitten about four months old,” I responded wearily.

“Is that him?” the officer asked, and I could see that his light was shining through the back window of the car, where Ben was standing on the back of the seat, eyes glowing in the flashlight. Despite all the ruckus, the door standing wide open, and my disappearance for so long, Ben hadn’t left the car at all, and for that I will be forever grateful. He remained a faithful companion for eighteen years and several moves, with barely the slightest hint of trouble, and was always happy to meet new people. It could easily have been different from that very night, so all credit to him for staying put.


I find I have to add this one, from when Ben was about six years old. A friend of mine found herself needing someone to watch her dog for a few hours each week, and we wanted to see how my cats (three by this time) would handle it, knowing that the dog was already good with cats, and in fact quite fond of them. This dog (Maya) was a basset/golden retriever mix, basically a low-rider retriever, and stood about a third of a meter tall, so not a lot more than a cat in height (a bit more in mass, however.) So we brought Maya into the house slowly, bringing her down the entry hallway gradually. The two other cats scattered, but Ben always had this fascination with things that terrified him, unable to take his eyes off of them, and so Maya crept slowly up the hall while Ben sat frozen and watched. Eventually they deigned to touch noses, and because Maya had been so hesitant and nonthreatening Ben had held his ground. Maya turned back to her owner in delight at having made a new friend, but then turned a little too quickly back to Ben who, startled, swatted her on the nose.

Ben on the throneMaya, unable to fathom what change had just taken place, retreated behind her owner’s legs and viewed Ben with grave mistrust, while Ben observed this carefully. Now, I’m the first to say that Ben was not the brightest tool in the shed, and in fact was quite slow-witted, but he figured out this new dynamic and the advantages that could be had, and for the remainder of that evening, he stalked Maya around the apartment like the best of horror movie villains – not pursuit, just following in a slow, menacing way. At one point he convinced this thirty-kilo dog to clamber onto the couch and up along the back behind her owner until I removed him from the couch and put him in the bedroom (where the other two had long ago sought hideyholes.) Whether there was actual menace in his actions or just this curiosity to keep watching the dog avoid him, I can’t say, but it was certainly amusing to watch, and way out of character for him.

Just once, part 2

pair of redfin needlefish Strongylura notata in Indian River Lagoon, Florida
That our next entry has only been featured once is no particular surprise, since it was found during my couple of years in Florida and wasn’t common to see then. But while poking around in the Indian River Lagoon, occasionally I would spot a long narrow fish darting away, always a fleeting glimpse, and eventually I managed to get a couple of ‘ehhh’ images of a pair that drew close while I was holding still. The options for fish of that shape and coloration are minimal, so I’m almost certain these are redfin needlefish (Strongylura notata,) and these are not large specimens, somewhere between 15-25 cm in length – at least, according to the original post back in 2011, which was only seven or so years after the fact rather than two decades as we are now.

The huge accomplishment, for me, was somehow capturing a tiny specimen, ~50mm in length, that I was able to bring home and photograph within my macro aquarium – I don’t recall how I managed the capture, because they’re very fast fish, but here we are.

very small juvenile redfin needlefish Strongylura notata photographed within macro aquarium
The actual volume within this particular macro aquarium was about a deck of cards, so there wasn’t too much room for the fish to move away from the glass and I could manage to track tight focus halfway decently. This closer crop of the same frame illustrates this reasonably well:

close crop of head of juvenile redfin needlefish Strongylura notata within macro aquarium
You can just make out the tiny teeth lining those jaws, and only because I sharpened the image slightly for web display. That eye is in the realm of 1mm in diameter, so you can calculate the size of the teeth yourself; suffice to say that I wasn’t concerned about putting my hand in there. Hell, I have a stingray barb, taken from a dead specimen, that is about the same size and shape as my model here.

I’m long overdue for a trip to Florida, but there’s nothing imminent right at the moment. I probably should put some effort into scheduling one – not specifically for more photos of redfin needlefish, but I’ll snag them if the opportunity arises…

Two down, or up or something

Just a small moment of triumph, kinda. With the reformatting of the main computer under Ubuntu Studio now (a form of Linux operating system,) I had to reinstall several different things that I’d been using, and among them was the MIDI keyboard. MIDI is just a musical interface to take an electronic input (such as a small piano-style keyboard, as opposed to what I’m typing on right now) and create music with it. Or, discordant banging around. Linux does not play well with MIDI out-of-the-box, and needs a lot of formatting to recognize it and send it through multiple layers into whatever software you actually want to use, and this is where I give Windows full credit, because for all of the times that I’ve had to download new drivers and support software and ridiculous doodads for Windows programs, Direct-X and .Net framework and so on, it recognizes a MIDI keyboard effortlessly and with no extra fudging about.

But Linux, boy howdy! ALSA and Jack and PulseAudio and formatting input/output channels can take a while, and much longer when something fails to work and you end up trying to troubleshoot the issue. Notably, the audio handler PulseAudio is widely recognized to be both problematic and almost superfluous, and I was attempting to avoid it altogether to use its much-improved replacement, Pipewire.

Long story short: Ubuntu Studio came with most of this installed but not at all configured, and my attempts to use Pipewire came to naught. I did get the system working with just about a ground-up reinstall and reformat of the whole path, using PulseAudio, and can now produce the same vaguely musical sounds from the main system that I had been before. And, from the Backup Server as well, which has two operating systems determined at boot, Linux Mint and Windows 7; the MIDI interface is through Windows because it has a much more versatile bit of software (Reason Lite 11.) In Ubuntu I’m using Rosegarden, which works fine but hasn’t anywhere near the instrument variety without a lot more playing around. I’m also using Hydrogen as a drum emulator. Ubuntu Studio has a ton of pre-installed software for music production (and video, and graphics,) and I will be trying those out eventually. Right now, I can do what I was doing before. so I’m back on track.

Now, how long it’s going to take me to compose the new music that I’ve been meaning to get to, that’s another matter…

edited photo of green treefrog playing a synth keyboard

More exciting behind-the-scenes schtuff!

Think I’m overselling it?

It’s still winter anyway, and I’m not going to be out shooting anything unless we get some snow. I’ve been spending the time tweaking the computer and cleaning up some odds and ends, and among those was correcting some typos in the blog tags. Mind you, I correct typos in the posts themselves too (when I’m aware that they’re there – more on that in a second,) but the tags field does not allow spellcheck to function within it, don’t ask me why, so I get no little squiggly-red-underline reminders. I do get them when I dump the tags into a database (or at least when LibreOffice is working correctly,) but it also flags every last species name used, and there are a shitload of them – a couple of them probably are misspelled but I’m not going through and checking those. But for giggles, I’m going to list several of the legit typos here – don’t waste your time looking for them because they’re already corrected. Mostly.

afghanistan – Some of my tags are purposefully not capitalized, like “pope” and “islam,” but this was not one of them.

all the commments keep me confident

Blue Ridge Moutains

Dayight Saving Time – I knew to keep “Saving” singular at least…

Denelsbeckisms – I don’t know why this was flagged, because it’s absolutely correct, so probably an outdated dictionary

except in years evenly divisibly by 49 – I’m notoriously bad about typing “actually” when I only want “actual,” and I have no idea that I’m doing it, nor does spellcheck care about that. But it seems it’s not the only word that I do that with.

healh – Right alongside “healthfood nuts” in the same post, too.

Jum Jeffries – That’s supposed to be “Jim.” Yes, his name is Jum Jim…

Love Is a Battlefied

mallar – That’s a castrated mallard…

measureable benefit – I’m a fairly decent speller, but this is an honest mistake of mine – I’m never quite sure when the silent “E”s carry over.

misleading langauge – But that’s just from typing too fast.

molluscs – While “mollusks” is probably what the internal dictionary wanted, this is actually a legit spelling as well, and makes more sense.

not exactly photojurnalism

now with vitamn Meh! – It’s fine with “meh,” believe it or not…

one goddman thing after another – I actually kinda like this one and am letting it remain.

pattern recogniton – I had to load a new plugin that allowed for tags to be merged, because I knew this was already used properly in two other posts. However, I screwed up and ended up wiping out both the misspelled one and the correct one, and I’m not sure what posts featured it, so we’re just saying goodbye to that tag here.

resiving images

sounds pretty believeable – Again.

stablity – This is a real word, meaning “like a stable…”

But while we’re here for no good reason, we’ll have the image counts for the past year too, because I finished sorting (and the multiple backups that go alongside.) So the counts in my various categories are:

Aquatic – 41
Arthropods – 491
Beach – 95
Birds – 2,915!
Invertebrates – 33
Lakes/Streams/Waterfalls – 206
Leaves/Plants/Trees – 587
Mammals – 304 (with 205 of those being horses shot on a single day…)
Reptiles/Amphibians – 899
Scenic/Abstract – 370
Science/Miscellaneous – 398
Space – 513
Sunrise/Sunset – 196

That makes 7,098, only not really because some of those are duplicated across categories. That’s out of not quite 18,000 images actually taken during the year, making it roughly a 40% keeper rate. This may sound bad, but it’s within the average for working professionals, and when you’re pursuing subjects like diving osprey and lightning and meteor showers, a good number of those are gonna get tossed, and rightfully so. Chasing numbers in this manner may encourage a photographer to keep more than they really should, which is only going to reduce the overall value and impressions of their photos. And you can just keep your comments about that to yourselves…

[I have to note here that not counted among them are not just the various personal and project photos that don’t count as stock, but a whopping 35 photos of Mr Bugg chimping, because I know he’s anxious to compare counts and I challenge him to produce any photos of your truly in return ;-) ]

But that’s enough for now. We’ll close with one of the first images from last year, the first in the Space category at least, moonrise out on Jordan Lake as countless seagulls (I think) cruised past on their way to their nighttime roosts. Taken just over a year ago, meaning I’m already behind. Sheesh.

moonrise over Jordan Lake, early 2023

You’re a Grand Ol’ Tag

Oh great, you got the kid singing! I hope you’re happy now!

Oh, yeah, it’s January, isn’t it? That makes it time for the tag roundup. On your run-of-the-mill, everyday blog with, you know, real posts, tags just serve to help people (or search engines, or marketing bots) find ‘relevant’ content (like that’s a thing,) but here, they additionally serve as graffiti scribbled by high-schoolers in the margins of boring textbooks (or is that ‘textbeek’?) And but once a year, we revisit some of those used only once in the entire fifteen-year ‘life’ of the blog, for pertinent insights into just how snarky we tend to be. This of course serves no purpose at all – in today’s technology, at least. But one day…

So let’s get right down to it, shall we? And we do mean, “down”…

knockin’ boot – Even I couldn’t recall what this referenced, though it shouldn’t have been so hard. Is that a bad choice of words? Was asking that worse?

Portal tempestus – Maybe I’m getting a little overwrought in my habit of providing the proper scientific names…

wheezingblower – Has the time that has passed made it clear how appropriate this is?

should’ve fixed his boutonniere you slackass – I’d say I’m my own worst critic, but I’m pretty sure there are better out there. Yet I still worked a humblebrag out of it!

dance little monkey dance – Also, “Rock The Moron Vote.” How do so many people manage to miss this, anyway?

caterpillars think Plato was a wazzock – I started with something a little more alliterative: “Caterpillars consider Kant a – ” but let that one go.

out through the fly – I was probably a little punchy during this one…

why is this alligator shit weirdly tanned? – But it’s the best alligator shit – everyone is saying so!

Boba Fett will always be Bantha droppingsAt least Greedo got a shot off No he didn’t.

starts with a ‘BS’ – Nothing to add.

looking down here won’t help you – I’m hip to those kinds of shenanigans.

you let go first – Probably the slickest video from last year.

in the house of the lord there are doilies on the arms of the chairs – How did I miss posting this one before?

dance my puppet – Suckered by a birdbrain; what does that say?

never before seen here – Being snarky over the changing taxonomy of species, since I have hundreds of images of this species on the blog alone. This type of thing may well be seen again this year in the ‘Just once’ posts.

is there a point where I start taking it though? – I can’t put italics in a tag, but they were added here for proper emphasis.

little Nemo was a snotboi – as well as, “elephant shitload of parts.” Not mine, for once – great minds and all that…

this was meant to post six days ago – So, little story here. I make it a point that the holidays do not share dates – I mean, to choose holidays that do not share dates with other featured holidays – with one exception. Immediately upon posting this, I found that it was on the same date as an earlier one, and found it highly appropriate to backdate it for the previous day, given the context; too late to celebrate it now.

And since this was a holiday, that’s our cue to segue into the holidays that we all celebrated so exuberantly in 2023:

Arouse Suspicions, But Not Too Much Day, January 21
IMDB Day, February 20
Anniversary of Schnocklefausen’s death, March 31
Token Appearance Day, April 28
Use Something For Other Than Its Intended Purpose Day, May 18
Help Arthropod Color-Blindness Day, June 30
Get Busted By A Cat While Attempting to Procure the Month-end Abstract, July 30
International Capture A Red Sprite Day, August 1
Fuck Foresight Day, September 24
Expend Way Too Much Effort On a Pointless Project Day, October 29
Reflect on Anxiety Day, November 23
You’re Supposed To Be Behind Day, December 12

Now, a side note: I was going to include a short list of tags with typos right here, because I do not always look closely and spellcheck does not work in the WordPress tag field. However, in the past couple of days, I converted from Linux Mint over to Ubuntu Studio as threatened, eradicating all of the issues that I’d been having (proving that it was indeed Linux Mint.) However, for reasons unknown, Libre Office (the program that I use for spreadsheets like the tag dump from SQL) no longer seems capable of spellchecking anymore, even though it does indeed have a current dictionary. Not going to figure it out now, so you’ll see those at some other time.

We have to have the list of previous tag roundups of course:

2015: Tagged
2016: Tagged again
2017: Papa’s got a brand new tag
2018: So what did 2017 hold?
2019: Do not read tag under penalty of law
2020: Tagginses! We hates it forever!
2021: Tag ’em and bag ’em
2022: I don’t mean to tag, but…
2023: Tag me with a spoon

Which brings us to the site stats – I know you’re as excited as I am!

site statistics for 2023No records set this year, which was no surprise – few long philosophical posts and no major trips, so even the trio of super-cooperative ospreys didn’t keep the image numbers up. For the sake of it, I’ll list the counts: 815 uploaded images (to take fourth place); 252 posts (third); and 157,190 words (ninth, sheesh.) Grand totals for the entire history sit at 8,056 images and 2,755 posts containing 2,258,410 words – more or less. I think the static pages are included in there, and the post count from the plugin that tallies the words doesn’t match what I demonstrably have, so the word count is likely incorrect but within the ballpark franks, anyway. I imagine that the numbers will remain around these averages to a large degree, since it represents the free time and shooting habits that I have. Should I include the number of 3D prints that I’ve made in that time?

Once again, I know these numbers are nigh meaningless, and I check them only to see how my activity is holding up – despite last month’s post bloating to hit a nonsense anniversary, I believe that quality beats quantity. Not that I can achieve this in any manner, mind you, but I believe it, just like too many people think being religious makes them good.

That concludes our nonsense recap for 2023. We now rejoin our regular nonsense already in progress…

northern watersnake Nerodia sipedon sipedon offering commentary on this post and  Walkabout in general

Just once, part 1

So with the new year we have a new weekly topic, which I really just decided on yesterday: ‘Just once,’ featuring the various species that I have only photographed once (so far) in the 15 year span of the blog, and perhaps even longer as I dig out some of the older digital or even slide images. The slides are a little harder because I can’t search through that database as easily as the post entries – I already have an SQL query for finding single-use tags that is intended for other uses, but works quite fine for this too.

To begin with, we’ll go with a spider species that had a little serendipitous backstory, from 2012:

likely Euryopis funebris, female, in studio setting
likely Euryopis funebris, female, in studio settingThat year, I was routinely examining the dog fennel plants in the yard because they hosted numerous species, and I was collecting photos of the entire life cycle of ladybird/ladybug beetles. I did a couple of casual photos of a small black spider, not thinking too much of it, but upon unloading the memory card and examining the images in detail, I noticed that the grey markings on the abdomen seemed to reflect the flash in a semi-iridescent manner, looking a little like mother-of-pearl. I went back out for more detailed photos, and spooked the spider off before I could get better shots, unable to find it again.

I returned the next night to try again and never found the species, so I did a few other shots and set it aside for a later attempt. But back inside at the computer, I felt something walking on my arm and there it was, this tiny little thing – I can only assume I brushed against the particular stem that it was on and it tagged along for the ride. Considering that the body didn’t top 4mm in length, that’s pretty serendipitous, but I was happy to take advantage, and did a few studio shots (seen here) before returning it to the dog fennel plants.

This is likely an Euryopis funebris, no common name, and even that identification is questionable because the only source that I had for a match also considered it questionable. Not ever finding it again, even on the same plant, wasn’t too surprising, considering the size and the fact that only a close examination (remember, 4mm) would reveal the characteristic abdominal markings. But I would like to find it again, because who wouldn’t want to see more images of a blinged-up spider? Why, exactly, does a spider have a flashy ass to begin with? I can’t bring to mind any evolutionary advantage to this, but then again, I only have four eyes…

Too cool, part 52: Falcon transit

The latest ‘Too Cool’ entry comes from Astronomy Picture of the Day again, but wonder of wonders, it’s not a composite edited photo – I was starting to think this was a requirement for them. Instead, this is a carefully planned and timed shot, one that took a lot more effort than it might first appear.

SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket during launch transiting waning gibbous moon, by Steven Madow
SpaceX Falcon Heavy transiting waning gibbous moon, by photographer Steven Madow, from Astronomy Picture of the Day

Full credit to Steven Madow for this one, because it’s pretty damn slick, and let’s look into this a little deeper. First off, getting anything crossing in front of the moon is trickier than it seems, because it’s really a tiny patch of sky, about the apparent size of you fingertip, and it’s very easy to pass on either side. But having a launched space vehicle do so?

First, the moon can only be so high in the sky, so within a few hours of rising or setting – in this case rising, because the launch was from Cape Canaveral so you’d have to be out to sea to silhouette something launched from there against a setting moon. But the moon crosses the sky in a fixed arc and at a fixed speed, moving its own width in roughly 150 seconds (it varies a little because the moon varies distance from Earth and thus apparent width.) Neither the launch facility nor the moon can be adjusted in any way, so only the photographer’s position can be changed – essentially, if the launch is delayed, the photographer has to move north to keep the launch path aligned with the moon, since that’s moving south as it rises. There’s always a certain distance that the public has to be from the launch pad, so this means quite a bit of movement for every minute that launch slips. I’m guessing that this one was right on time, otherwise setting up the tripod would become impossible within minutes.

There’s also the launch path to consider. Sure, it’s easy to know where it will begin from, but it doesn’t take too long before the path starts to arc over to put the rocket into orbital position – again, this doesn’t have to be very far to miss entirely. You’ll notice that the rocket is not straight vertical, meaning that it had already started that transition.

Then there’s speed. Space vehicles accelerate rapidly, so not too long after launch it’ll be fast enough to cross the moon in far less than a second; not only does the timing have to be bang-on, but the shutter speed fast enough to freeze it and still get a decent exposure of the moon. Go the the original link and click on the photo to view the full-resolution version, and you’ll see the speckly artifacts and grain of using a high ISO setting. You will also see a glow on the bottom of the payload housing in the nose, illuminated by its own exhaust.

Finally – and I don’t know if this was planned or not – there’s catching the Falcon Heavy with the boosters more-or-less flat to the camera; I mean, you can see the gap between them and the main body. It wouldn’t take much rotation of the rocket to make this totally different and less dramatic.

So now I did a little plotting, because I do things like this. The launch of the Falcon Heavy was at 20:07 EST on December 28th from pad LC-39A. At that point, the moon was roughly 18° in the sky, azimuth 68° (East-Northeast.) That would put photographer Steven Madow about 248° from pad LC-39A, and there’s no location even close to that on the Cape where he’d likely be shooting from, even if he had permission from NASA to be there. This means he was probably on the mainland of Florida, Titusville area, and I’m guessing somewhere along Riveredge Drive just north of NASA Causeway – this would have given him the best unobstructed views and plenty of room to play with should the launch time slip. Which would also mean better than 20 kilometers from the pad itself, increasing steadily as the rocket climbed. Moreover, the moon was moving more ‘up’ than ‘south’ at that time, minimal change in azimuth, so not quite as hard to readjust if the launch time shifted.

All that said, just a smokin’ great photo from Steven Madow, and it’s not the first time that he’s done it either – but possibly the best so far.

Many birds, one mammal, two… things

And now, we return to Beaufort, but only in the bloggy sense, because we’re still right here vegetating in front of the computer. Because I know you’re not doing something insanely silly like trying to view this on your toy smutphone…

The day we arrived was ridiculously rainy, but in the late afternoon it stopped without really clearing, so all we did was grab a meal and do a little poking around downtown. The fog settled in nicely, but my camera was a kilometer away and the tripod much, much farther, so nothing to show for this, unfortunately. Day two was when we hit Shackleford Banks, and I chased a couple of other subjects, such as these brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) out over the breakers on the ocean side.

small flock of brown pelicans Pelecanus occidentalis skimming the breakers off of Shackleford Banks, NC
I probably should have either dubbed out the cargo ship out there, or extended the center masts so that it resembled an old sailing ship – maybe if the image had been stronger. Yes, I was aware that it was there, and yes, I tracked the pelicans until it was out of the frame, but then the breakers became flat and boring.

One of the regular (human) visitors to the island warned us about the likelihood of finding Portuguese man o’ wars (Physalia physalis) washed up on the Atlantic side, and sure enough, we found a handful on the beach. Not very big, but then again, if they’d been bigger they would likely have been less dangerous from being easier to spot before you were right on top of them.

Portuguese man o' war Physalia physalis washed up on shore of Shackleford Banks, NC
Often considered jellyfish, they are instead a siphonophore, a distinction that makes little difference if you’re not into biology, but they’re actually a colony of separate organisms, technically distinct but relying on each other to survive. The sting of the tentacles (nematocysts,) seen here looking like blue rope clustered underneath, can be pretty damn strong and painful. I neglected to check this out for myself but, you know, I was on vacation – this was not a working trip. Otherwise I would have. Really.

Portuguese man o' war Physalia physalis, backlit with flashlight, washed up on shore of Shackleford Banks, NC
Now you know the source of the month-end abstract; since the natural light was so dull, I supplemented with my ubiquitous pocket flashlight. The big blobby bit that dominates the organism is actually a sail that catches the wind and allows them to travel better than mere currents can provide. What this does for them, I can’t imagine, because not one of them displayed any decals of the places they’d been, so what’s the point?

willet Tringa semipalmata in winter plumage crossing legs in the shallows
A handful of shorebirds were plying the shallows inside of the breakers, and I did just a few frames; I liked this willet (Tringa semipalmata) practicing its salsa routine.

While on the beach, we also saw dolphins surfacing in the moderate distance, and the ferry pilot nicely took us among two separate pods on the way back, though to the photographer part of me (which is most of it,) this was more frustrating than helpful.

dorsal fin of Atlantic bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus surfacing alongside ferry
Atlantic bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) tend to surface randomly and without warning, and also extremely briefly, so this is among the best of the frames that I’ve ever gotten of them, solely because it was so close and reasonably focused. Another member of the ferry crew showed us a photo on his smutphone from just the previous week, of a pair entirely out of the water and nose to nose in a V-shape right in front of the ferry, fantastic shot, but I’ve only even seen them jump clear from the water once, and that was better than a half-kilometer off. I have no doubts they know what they’re doing.

They day stayed resolutely overcast until the very end, or what we often consider the end anyway, which is sunset. A break right down near the western horizon allowed the sun to shine through and illuminate the undersides of the cloud deck right after setting – this was the view from our room.

brilliant post-sunset colors over inlet at Beaufort, North Carolina
The next day was supposed to be perfectly clear, so I roused myself before sunrise to hike down the road a little, where it would bend and permit seeing the sun out over the waters of the inlet, rather than rising behind buildings. I wouldn’t have minded doing this over Shackleford Banks, but it was long before the ferries were running so I would have needed my own boat.

Along the way, actually in a tree right alongside the inn, a squawk and some fluttering drew my attention to a treetop, where a black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) watched me reproachfully, though I hadn’t even made any sound except soft footsteps.

black-crowned night heron Nycticorax nycticorax watching from treetop in predawn light
The sun was still several minutes before rising, so the light was dimmer. I vowed to watch for this one on the return trip, but it was nowhere to be seen then. This did, however, semi-confirm that what I had seen by the flashlight in the fog two nights previous, atop a piling out on the river, was likely another one – I just hadn’t seen any by day.

Along the way, a belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) was teasing me with its calls, audible but not visible, though as I walked I realized I was triangulating on its position. Sure enough, after a moment of searching I found it perched atop a pipe rising from the docks, and managed a few halfway-decent frames in the predawn light once I framed it against the sky and not the trees.

belted kingfisher Megaceryle alcyon perched atop pipes on river before dawn
You can see the beak parted slightly, and this is because I caught the bird in mid-call – this is as wide as it opens for that. I’ve been trying for a decent portrait of this species for years, and have never been close enough since they’re very spooky birds – this is cropped significantly, but not too shabby for the distance and light. Kingfishers are stocky birds but not very large at all, perhaps about the body length of a robin though with a much bigger head.

Sunrise was largely lackluster, having to break from a bank of distant clouds on the horizon but otherwise unaltered by scattered clouds or humidity – so, yellow. I did snag a distant ibis in there though.

sun rising behind clouds with distant American white ibis Eudocimus albus in frame
The previous day I’d seen a bird wheeling in the distance, a white bird with black wingtips, and didn’t get a better look at it but suspected it was a white ibis (Eudocimus albus.) That morning, several flocks of them passed through right before sunrise, one of them huge and flying in a V-formation, which I’d never seen before.

portion of large flock of white ibis Eudocimus albus passing overhead
I was used to seeing these frequently in Florida, but never as a large flock (only a portion of which you see here,) and I think I’ve only seen one in North Carolina [Edit: Not true] – come to think of it, foraging at the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, only a few kilometers west of here. But they don’t make it to central NC where we live.

On my return, I did a shot on the river just to show how clear it had become. Okay, actually “Taylor Creek” but it’s neither, just an estuary within the barrier islands and primarily saltwater.

sunrise light on river at Beaufort, North Carolina
See? Not a cloud in the sky, and barely any humidity haze left on the horizon – too bad this was the day we were leaving, because it would have been much better to be out on Shackleford Banks with the horses. But now that the light was better, I watched for my previous subject and was lucky enough to find it again.

belted kingfisher Megaceryle alcyon perched on pole in dawn sunlight
Much better, and a decent light angle too. It was perched here only for a moment as I paused, then took flight and went further upriver (upestuary,) not to be seen again.

Helpfully, someone else broke from the rocks along the shore and came out into the open, almost right in front of me, and I certainly took advantage of that.

common loon Gavia immer cruising in river at sunrise
This is a common loon (Gavia immer,) I think the first I’ve seen, at least clearly. Yet they appeared to be all over the place, albeit at a much greater distance and in the worse light of the previous days. A little bigger than a large duck in size, on average, though this one seemed smaller. I think it was just going out in the morning to start its foraging, and soon dove beneath the surface.

And then reappeared again, even closer, so definitely being cooperative from my standpoint.

common loon Gavia immer just after surfacing, showing water drops across body
The water drops are a nice touch, though not all of those are water – some are the natural speckling of the plumage at this stage. You can see the feathers are slightly ruffled, and this was a precursor, though the low light didn’t allow a decent frame of the follow-up.

common loon Gavia immer clearing wings after submersion
This is actually full-frame – I would have backed off had I anticipated this action properly, but that wouldn’t have helped with the slower shutter speed (from the dim light) allowing the motion blur. But this does at least show the speckled coloration quite well.

So, not too shabby for about 48 hours total time out there, and a lot of fun. We’ll just have to see when we get the chance to return.

trio of wild Banker horses on Shackleford Banks, NC
Once again, happy new year everyone! Here’s hoping that it treats you even better, which is silly superstition but you get the concept of best wishes anyway. Celebrate responsibly, and don’t mess with the blue rope.

Tripod holes 53

seagull silhouetted over rising sun, beach on Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina
N 36° 3’59.06″ W 75°41’23.29″ Google Earth location

Another where it doesn’t matter a whole lot where you are, but it represents something that I thought I’d accomplish more often in the intervening years. Bear with me for a second.

When I determined that I’d have 53 Tripod Holes posts this year and that the last would fall on December 31st, I slotted this image in for it – not because it was taken on that date, far from it, but because I’d taken another memorable frame on that date, of my nieces, in the same location, some years later. It’s stupid, I know, but we could also use the reminder of summer right now.

Best guess is summer of 1994, one of my first weekend trips out to the beach to chase photos – still using an Olympus OM-10 at that time, still using print film. Up well before sunrise to catch it over the ocean, and I chose the beach access that I knew would be almost devoid of (other) tourists at that time, up right alongside the Black Pelican restaurant in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. There was a bit too much haze on the horizon to see the sun break directly over the water, so I watched it start to appear through the haze, and was lined up, camera on tripod, ready to catch a silhouette of one of the many seagulls and pelicans, should one pass directly across the sun. It never happened, but this one was close enough, and happenstance meant that I caught it with its wings on the upstroke, where they look best. I didn’t really know this at the time – I just tripped the shutter as the bird came into position – but on seeing the print later, I was very pleased. It decorated my walls for years, and still remains in the website gallery.

Catching something silhouetted against the sun or the moon is a hell of a lot trickier than you might suspect. Both are terribly small in the sky, so it’s easy for even a flock of birds to pass through the immediate area and never right in front of the sun/moon. This says nothing, of course, of things like planes or the ISS or something like that. I did eventually get a couple of silhouettes of that nature, but not what I was trying for here, nearly thirty years ago. Maybe this coming year is the one…

Happy New Year, everyone!

I’m sorry, this December has expired

Already? But yes, December is shuffling off to Buffalo (I don’t even know where that ancient phrase is from,) and thus we have the end of the month abstract. Somewhere. I just had it – must’ve put it down for a second when I needed both hands. Maybe it’s in the bathroom…

Ah, yes, here we go. Salud!

I ain't telling
Is that abstract enough? I wasn’t really thinking of abstracts in the few sessions where I was shooting this month, so I fudged it with this one, but I think it fits the definition, anyway. Now, fartsy? Well…

I’ll be back later on and tell you what you’re looking at, if you’re so pathetic that you can’t figure it out. But c’mon, the context is there, clues from previous posts, and everything. No sweat, is what I’m thinking.

Since it’s also the end of the year, I should have another, but nothing new presents itself, so we’ll revisit my favorite abstract from this year. This surprises no one, I’m sure.

very young Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis just visible from under leaves of gardenia bush at night
It’s not too late to order an extra-large print of this for the holidays, you know. I mean, it won’t arrive in time for anything this year, but there’s never a point where I stop taking money.

I’ll probably be back later on today, but just in case I don’t make it (because my scheduling for the past several weeks has gotten wrecked numerous times,) have a great new year!

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