Tripod Holes 41

Al Denelsbeck

monochrome photo of flowers spilling over wall at night
N 28° 8’49.32″ W 80°38’37.62″ Google Earth location

Part of the challenge of doing these posts has been seeing just how specific I can get about a location, and this one is within a meter or so (though I probably should have more decimals in the Lat/Lon coordinates for that.) I knew the rough location and started cruising through Google Earth, and with Street View and some comparisons I’ve pinned this down to the exact location, so you can be utterly confident when you visit. This was nearly twenty years ago though, so those flowers probably aren’t there anymore.

Once again in bona fide black & white film, Ilford delta 400 to be exact, out at night with an Olympus OM-10 and only winging it at exposure times, but this came out just fine for that. Perhaps a tad overexposed, but not egregiously so – if I recall correctly (and why would you doubt it?), the wall was a pale cream color offset by the white accent tiling, the flowers yellow, while the almost-directly-overhead streetlight provided good contrast and brought out those textures, far better than if it had been further away or across the street or something.

I was trying to recall if this was the same night as another particular shot, and eventually dug out the negative binders to check; it was. This wasn’t far from a set of train tracks and I wanted a time exposure of the train passing, but had no idea of the schedule other than, ‘at least once a night.’ I was likely stalling when I took this frame, waiting for the train, and had given up and moved on, no small distance either, when I heard the train whistle and rushed back to get the tripod set up in time for a single frame. I did better later on.

Also along this same road, someone’s massive grapefruit tree extended well out over the sidewalk (this being Florida, but of course you knew this because I gave you the link and coordinates,) and some nights I’d steal one when they were ripe. These tree-ripened grapefruit were fabulous, if a bit sticky, though I used to feel a little bad about helping myself until, a few weeks later, I glanced through the fence there to find the ground littered with rotting grapefruit, so I’m guessing they weren’t missing the ones I scarfed down. But emboldened by the fresh flavor, I also found a ripe orange tree and helped myself to one of these, a huge mistake because despite its lovely appearance, this orange was simultaneously bitter and sour, and I mean horrendously so. Crime doesn’t pay (all the time, anyway.)

Okay, for not trying very hard

Al Denelsbeck

I was on my way to bed yesterday morning (hush) and decided to peek outside for a moment. The moon was bright and clear and looked pretty close to my target phase: catching sunrise or sunset on the central peak within Tycho crater, which I admit I still don’t understand because I’ve already done it a few times now, but it’s an obsession I guess. I really wasn’t inclined to tackle a proper session, with the tripod and remote release and mirror lockup, but I thought, Just attach the long lens and wing it handheld – it’ll only take a minute. Of course, I was using the wheedling, singsong little internal voice I can never resist, so…

The moon was at the wrong altitude for stability, making me hold the camera at an angle that I wasn’t used to and couldn’t stay very steady in, and even manual focusing was a chore, but I fired off several frames, both to give the stabilizer in the lens a chance to work its magic, and to adjust focus every few frames to try and nail one – the moon is too small in the frame for really exact focusing, especially when the camera isn’t steady, and the focus screen has a resolution limit anyway, so refocusing frequently improves your chances (or mine at least) of a decent frame. And it worked – just once.

full frame shot of waning crescent moon at 600mm
This is the entire frame, so you know what I was working with, and in a more-or-less level view to boot. Now we go in to full resolution, rotated to use the layout better.

full resolution crop of waning crescent moon showing sunset and shadow on Tycho's central peak
Juuusst a little degraded from using ISO 800. but not that bad – cameras really have improved in the higher ISOs from what they used to do. The large crater on the shadow terminator down towards the bottom, the one with another little crater on its wall, isn’t Tycho, it’s Maginus; Tycho is just above it and slightly left, smaller but obviously deeper and clearly round. And you can just make out a tiny bright speck in the center of the shadow thrown by its own wall, but if that isn’t enough, that central peak throws its own shadow within the crater. I’d say I got the timing right. Meanwhile, more towards the top of the frame we have the line of Montes Appeninus, the lunar Appenines, emerging from the shadow pointing towards the crater Eratosthenes.

I’ve remarked how often the sunsets around get boring, with the atmosphere simply not providing anything for colors or textures, but it’s much worse on the moon, naturally; there might be a very faint hint of dimming and color shift from the sun before it disappears over the horizon, from a vestige of gases attracted by the weak gravity of the moon, but that would be it. No one’s had the chance to see it – all lunar expeditions took place in ‘midmorning’ of the lunar day (remember – a lunar day is 29 Earth days long) because the widely-varying temperature of the surface is best then. Moreover, the Earth remains in the same place in the lunar sky perpetually, given a little play from the lunar libration or wobble, but it can be seen to rotate. Those photos and video of ‘Earthrise’ over the moon were taken by the orbiting Apollo Command Modules.

In just a few minutes, a bank of clouds began rolling in, faster than they appeared, and my session was over.

clouds beginning to obscure waning crescent moon
But for giggles as I was typing this, I decided to see if the moon was again visible, even though Tycho would be in shadow and thus even photographing the moon at all was totally pointless. What I’ll do for the story, though. It was indeed up, clear enough though still showing a little color cast from being lower in the sky – but easier to handhold the camera for now. So, this is not quite 23 hours later:

waning crescent moon the following morning
Tycho, Maginus, Montes Appeninus, and Eratosthenes have all vanished into the night, with greater definition from some new craters – Copernicus is that prominent one just above the middle. I’d combine the two images into an animated gif to compare them directly, but again, it’s late in my personal day and I don’t feel like messing about. Take note of this, however: While we get these sharp definitions and distinct shadows from the lunar features at times like this, we can immediately refer to the edges of the moon to realize that none of these features are as high as we imagine them, only producing a faint wobbly variation from a perfect sphere when seen edge-on. It’s not like the craters peter out towards the ‘edges’ – if anything, they get much denser, as the far side saw, and sees, a lot more bombardment than this side. Had the moon rotated in relation to Earth, we could watch these features roll into view over a period of several nights, comparing the ‘profile’ view with the contours that appear at different light angles, but nope – this is the face we see, period.

Sorting finds n+6a

Al Denelsbeck

The first batch of the latest sorting finds, with a second to come a little later on – I found several this time, but I had gone through just shy of two thousand frames, so not unexpected really. Right now we’ll do arthropods.

ailanthis webworm moth Atteva aurea on orange milkweed Asclepias flowers, showing iridescence
I don’t see these a lot, but they’re distinctive and easily recognizable. This is an Ailanthus webworm moth (Atteva aurea) on the flowers of some variety of milkweed (Asclepias.) Even BugGuide.net says that the markings on the wings are black and white, but this isn’t quite true; the dark portions are actually iridescent blue when seen in the right light, which I managed to capture here. All portions of the wings are iridescent, actually, though this is normally very hard to see, especially since the overall length of the moth is about 15mm.

Ailanthus webworm moth Atteva aurea on orange milkweed Asclepias flowers
The species has been featured here before, kinda – the species name has been changed in the 13 years since that post, because onward marching science and all that. I included this comparison photo to show how the colors usually look, and those markings always put me in mind of the flower decals that people were gradually no longer putting on their Vanagons as I was growing up, or the nonslip appliqués that those same people put in their bathtubs after they had kids. Seriously, they were, like, all over the place (man,) but manufacturers started moving away from slick porcelain for tubs and killed the industry overnight. The time passages in the second half of that sentence don’t align, do they?

Those were taken during a trip to the NC Botanical Gardens, which also produced these two.

possible Hentz orbweaver Neoscona crucifera gathering detached webbing in late morning
Suspended over a thicket of tall flowering plants and thus out of reach of visitors, an orbweaver was engaged in a curious activity. First off, I believe this is a Hentz orbweaver (Neoscona crucifera,) but this is the only angle that I achieved so I can’t confirm. But like many orbweavers, these make their webs at dusk and dismantle them at dawn, more or less – this was way past dawn and the spider was far too visible to marauding birds, though nothing happened while I was there. She (very likely female) was trundling along one of the main support lines of her web, gathering up loose strands in a ball ahead of herself.

possible Hentz orbweaver Neoscona crucifera with much larger ball of detached webbing
What I think happened, before I wandered along, was that she went along the outer edges of the web on the main supports, cutting loose all of the attaching points of the ‘wheel’ portion (why do they call it ‘orb’ weaving? It’s flat!) except for one side, and the retracting webbing just snapped against the remaining strand, seen here. Then she gathered up all the loose strands to eat them and recycle them for the next evening, though the main supports remained in place. In fact, we have those same kinds of supports alongside our front porch right now, even though the orbweaver that made them hasn’t been seen for over a week now.

And a non-arthropod one.

molted covert feather of either osprey Pandion haliaetus or bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus floating on water
Spotted not too far offshore during one of the lake trips in late September, I initially took this to be an osprey feather (Pandion haliaetus,) but now I wonder if instead it wasn’t from a juvenile bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus.) The cupped shape and downy portion at the base make this a covert, one of the body feathers, and because of the white I thought osprey, but juvenile eagles sport mottled markings until age four, and this was a decently-sized feather for a covert. I should have waded out (or in I guess) and picked it up – I have yet to find any eagle feathers, though I keep looking.

I also could have used this for the month-end abstract for September, but I’d forgotten about it and was too deep in computer wrangling to make a lot of effort then, but here it is now, so you can pretend it’s the 30th if you like…

Randomness

Al Denelsbeck

I mean, not totally random – you’re not going to see author portraits or product photography or what I’m eating right now or some outfit that I bought only to do cheesecake selfies in and never actually wear. But random for my typical photo subjects, so you can let your hopes die down now. I’ve got a shitload of sorting to do and several other projects on the burners, so here’s a handful of photos with no theme or anything, just to maintain content and not let people think I died or switch to FaceBlerch or something.

quartet of yellow-bellied sliders Trachemys scripta scripta perched identically on log, Goose Creek State Park, NC
The Girlfriend and I did a few days out at Washington, NC last week, and so I returned to Goose Creek State Park – she went too, but this was her first time so she wasn’t returning. Out the car window, I fired off a couple of quick frames of a quartet of yellow-bellied sliders (Trachemys scripta scripta) all posed identically on a log. I was shooting wide open and depth-of-field naturally suffered, and while I was adjusting the aperture they all became too suspicious and slid into the water. But we’ll go in closer for a moment.

pair of yellow-bellied sliders Trachemys scripta scripta, one showing waterline stain
See? I did nail focus, just on a very specific area. But I’m betting you didn’t register the curious stain on the head of this one, likely indicating sitting for a while with just its eyes and nose out of the tannin-laden waters of the drainage channel.

Just a little further on The Girlfriend spotted a pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus,) which turned out to be at least a trio of them, but they proved difficult to photograph.

pair of likely juvenile pileated woodpeckers Dryocopus pileatus on same trunk
Light was dim under the tree canopy, and I was shooting at some distance handheld, not to mention how hyperactive they were, so this is the best I got. I’m reasonably certain these are this year’s brood, a pair of juveniles hanging out together, with a parent skipping along nearby. The park strikes me as a good place for woodpeckers, and we were told to keep an eye out for otters too; we didn’t see any, but I’ll be trying again as soon as possible.

pair of unidentified ducks, possibly hybrid mallard Anas platyrhynchos X and juvenile North American ruddy duck Oxyura jamaicensis
Both of these remain unidentified, though I consider the one in front to be a mallard hybrid (Anas platyrhynchos, or perhaps Anas platyrhynchos X,) while the one in the back might be a juvenile North American ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis,) but that is largely based on the size and the fact that I’ve seen them there before, since those markings don’t really match. It looks like a female mallard, but it’s far smaller than it should be with full feathering – perhaps an example of dwarfism? Check out the mottled feet on the maybemallard (another potential indicator of hybridization) while the other one appears banded.

Shot the moon for giggles while out there.

waxing gibbous moon with surrounding haze
This is decently sharp given handholding and the heavy haze, just barely showing at this exposure – the day had been spent close to overcast, which went full overcast at sunset, so I was surprised to see this later on. But that’s all from this trip – not a lot of time was spent photographing, but I might dredge up a couple others later on.

So, let’s see, local shots. We have this guy.

tiny juvenile Copes grey treefrog Dryophytes chrysoscelis perched on leaf of oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia
The oak-leaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea quercifolia) still host various critters, but I was a little surprised to see this minuscule Copes grey treefrog (Dryophytes chrysoscelis) – it is literally the size of my thumbnail, but spooked as I was trying to slide my paper measuring scale into the frame, so you’ll have to take my word for it. This size indicates that it’s likely this year’s brood, but I never saw any sign of them in the backyard pond, so it either snuck past me or migrated from a little ways off. Maybe it’s just last year’s, and has been growing slowly.

But that’s huge compared to the next guy.

unidentified gnat-sized spider on author's hand
I saw this under the desk lamp one night, mistaking it for dust but it wasn’t moving from its spot several centimeters below the light, so I fetched the reversed 28-105 and held my hand out underneath it. I’m not even going to try to identify this spider, but a gnat could have given it a run for its money, and that’s the edge of my hand that you’re seeing here, those cables being the fine hair thereon. I’m glad we have species like this around – otherwise the ridiculously-small insects might get out of control.

Okay, back to work…

Tripod holes 40

Al Denelsbeck

Pilot Mountain near the town of Pilot Mountain, NC, near peak of autumn colors
N 36°20’21.02″ W 80°27’23.86″ Google Earth location

The location plotted is pretty precise for exactly this vantage, but the timing – ah, that’s up to you! The autumn colors weren’t quite at peak, which is a damn hard thing to schedule when you live two hours away from the location, but I got close enough this day back in 2005 – November 6th, to be precise. I’m posting this early to remind those that need it to make their plans, though I may already be a little late for some – this map will help a bit, but be aware, there are regional variations. Being alongside water sources or major highways seems to cause trees to turn a little earlier, and different sides of mountains often vary. I admit that I have yet to snag a really nice, wide-angle scenic shot at peak colors, but also that I haven’t planned specifically for this anyway. My own area (which is not what is shown here) has too few varieties of deciduous trees, far too interspersed with ugly longneedle pines, but ‘peak’ color is wildly misleading anyway – most trees turn on their on schedule and don’t try to coordinate with each other.

Anyway, this is Pilot Mountain in North Carolina, a curious tall knob sprouting from a landscape of minor hills and visible for kilometers, but this view was obtained from the offramp of Rt 52 Northbound – the Southbound ramp doesn’t even let you see the mountain at all, I believe. You can, of course, get to the mountain itself quite easily and even walk around the base of the knob, but the view is better obtained from a short distance off, thus my plot.

The appeal of fall color images is manifest, at least because we know we like bright colors, and I waited some time to let the passing clouds get past enough to mostly frame the peak in blue here. But I’ve long maintained that another reason fall color images work is that depth becomes far more apparent, the varied colors differentiating different layers of hills and trees, as well as clarifying how much smaller the individual trees start to seem with the distance, plainly visible here – had all the trees been roughly the same color, you’d have a hard time knowing where the foreground trees stopped and the mountain slopes began. At least until we develop true 3-dimensional images…

So, make your plans if you need to, and you know how to get here if this is your chosen subject.

Oh, yeah, September

Al Denelsbeck

American sweetgum Liquidambar styraciflua showing early autumn colors
Rather abruptly I realized, just a short while ago, that it was the last day of September and thus time for the end-of-month abstract. Only thing was, I didn’t have anything in mind, much less prepared, and couldn’t do a lot to remedy this situation, because the computer has once again gone spacey and I’m in the process of unspaceying it. So we’re going with this grab shot from, I dunno, two weeks ago? Probably less, but whatever. It’s not autumn here at all, but the heatwave and drought caused this American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) to get colorful early. I probably should have cropped in very tight on some aspect that looked more abstract, but I’m not going to.

It is also International Podcast Day (no, really,) and I had intended to put one together, but again, not happening. Maybe in a couple of days. I know I’ve done absolutely none for this year, but I also haven’t had a decent topic and haven’t formulated a formula, or regular topics or anything of that nature.

Right now, I’m grumbling because a) I just reformatted the computer system not all that long ago, b) I had system backups that simply could not be restored because the system was completely down, and as I discovered, they have a specific format that cannot be accessed from an outside source, c) what I thought was the issue before, was not, and d) I have countless programs with specific formats and profiles that have now all got to be reproduced from scratch. This includes the thumbnail program, so even going through photos (which are heavily backed up, and not through someone’s idea of a backup program either, but under complete manual control,) is frustrating because the damn program doesn’t follow the specific commands that I’d created and gotten used to.

I have not been able to track down the culprit at this point and might not ever, but there are indications that it’s related to either Linux Mint 21.2, or recent upgrades to the Mesa packages, so I’d recommend avoiding both at least until later versions. I’m not the least impressed with Timeshift either, which was supposed to be maintaining system backups to prevent what I’ve been doing for the past three days and turned out to be worthless, even though I could access the backup files from an external disk reader. I could go on, but suffice to say it may be quiet for a few days. Tomorrow’s Tripod Holes, however, is in the bag, written a week before and thus already scheduled in WordPress. And I have a handful of recent photos, some of which may peek in here and there when I get tired of reformatting shit. We’ll see.

Never before seen

Al Denelsbeck

I think, anyway, unless you’re one of a handful of close friends that I sent this too. But I can find no evidence that I ever posted this before.

unearthed ant colony showing workers, soldiers, and larval queens - I think
This comes from eleven years ago, when I would turn over rocks to see what could be found beneath. It’s not like I’ve outgrown such behavior now, it’s just that there are few rocks in the immediate area. But this ant colony sprung into protective action upon exposure, and I managed to get a pretty detailed image with decent focus throughout most of it. I’m not even going to hazard a guess at the species, but what we’re seeing here are the small ‘workers’ and the medium-sized ‘soldiers,’ both sterile females, gathering up the larval forms of two ‘queens’ to carry them to safety. I believe, anyway – we know I’m not an entomologist and the finer details of colonies have a lot of variations. What I can tell you confidently, however, is that typically all hell breaks loose when a colony is exposed, and getting a decent image that illustrates much of anything, in focus and with clear actions, is more a matter of luck than anything else, especially with the short focus of macro work, so I was very pleased to get this, and I can’t imagine why it wasn’t featured back then. The size and anatomical disparities are plainly evident, the larvae looking surreal with a completely pigment-free complexion (though look closely at the eyes.) It does make me wonder how aware they are at that stage, but that leads quickly down a rabbit-hole of how aware anything is, or how we would even define it. Which isn’t the purpose here – I was just resurrecting an older photo that I stumbled across again. You will no doubt want a poster-print for your walls.

Dittyday 9: Love Is a Battlefield

Al Denelsbeck

I have to admit, I often have to look up the exact capitalization of titles because I don’t understand the rules, and I don’t pretend to know why “Is” is capitalized here, but so be it. I think damn near everybody knows this song, one of the biggest hits for Pat Benatar and never deep into any eighties station’s lineup, but I’m going to urge you to listen very closely to it this time. Released in 1983 on a live album but obviously a studio mix, it showcases Benatar’s voice and energy extremely well, and if you need to hear what she really brings to it, look up Holly Knight’s version; Knight was one of the writers of the song, and while the tune is undeniably dynamic, Knight lacks nearly all of the energy in delivering it that Benatar provides. Benatar runs the gamut from crooning through pleading, desperation to defiance, sounding appropriate in all of them. It’s no secret that great vocalizing is a key to gaining my attention, and this song travels up and down the registers as if choreographed, never abrupt, never strained.

But the music cannot be ignored, and the mix is fabulous. Sit back and listen to the instruments, see if you can determine how many there are, and realize that nothing takes dominance or becomes overpowering. So many little flourishes and insertions have their guest spots, from grinding motorcycle guitar chords to soft backing vocals, bass tom drums (likely synth) that dance between your ears – headphones are recommended – to accentuating keyboards at the top of the beat… even a bar or two of whistling. None of it seems out of place at all, every bit adding to the atmosphere of the song, the things that make it completely unique. The ‘main melody,’ if it can be called that, is provided by a fairly quiet electric bass, relinquishing center stage at times to a guitar, but curiously, numerous drums actually do more than you usually hear in pop songs, not just marking the beat or filling the transitions, but actually serving as a melody by themselves. I tried to find who deserves credit for the studio mixing job but such things are never listed, which is a shame, because this is at least as much talent as the vocalists that receive top billing.

Love Is a Battlefield – Pat Benatar

It’s funny – we all know this song, can recognize it instantly, but how often do we recognize all of the elements that have been there all along? I admit to being surprised listening to it one day a few weeks back, when I realized just how much was within and needed to draw attention to it; it’s easy to imagine that so many instruments and riffs and stings would make a godawful mess, and I’ve heard much worse from far fewer instruments, but this is like a perfect recipe, not half as good without the basil and a squeeze of lime. While I’ve tried to feature lesser-known works or artists in the past (and will continue to do so) – there’s even a little part of me that feels guilty highlighting someone who’s won as many awards as Pat Benatar – this is a composition that I suspect goes past many without impinging on them consciously. Maybe it’s just me, I dunno, but either way, kudos to everyone involved.

Three of three

Al Denelsbeck

Getting back now to posting about the second trip down to Jordan Lake and the, what, twelve pics that will accompany it? And it was a slow day, but I’m also cheating a little.

Right as I was bundled up to leave, through the back window I heard a red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) calling, obviously quite close. Since I had the camera more-or-less in hand, I tried slipping quietly out the back and looked around carefully, but saw nothing. I was just turning to go back inside when I heard it again, and couldn’t pass up the opportunity – it was clearly within 30 meters. With the help of the second call, I spotted it within a minute, then slowly eased around to obtain clearer views. I needn’t have bothered; the hawk was completely unconcerned with my presence, though granted, I was being slow and quiet, but I was within ten meters and it still wasn’t paying me much attention.

red-shouldered hawk Buteo lineatus perched mellowly in tree off back yard
This is cropped, but not by a hell of a lot, and it occurred to me afterward that I had not seen the huge bullfrog by the backyard pond since before this guy’s appearance; frogs and toads are the principle diet of red-shoulders, and while the bullfrog was typically out at night, had the hawk caught it out during the day, the massive meal that it would have provided may well have provoked the hawk to return. I’ll be checking to see if I ever spot the frog again.

And then I went to the lake. The activity was notably absent, with only one or two osprey making any attempts at fishing, and some very distant eagles passing by. But I do want to show this minor little trait that I caught.

tip of osprey Pandion haliaetus wings just after entering water, showing splash pattern
This is an osprey (Pandion haliaetus) just after hitting the water – all you’re seeing are the ‘wrists’ or wing joints peeking above the water. Clicking on the image will take you to the full-frame of the image, which shows the wide splash pattern and even the arcs of the returning droplet (to the right) – osprey tend to hit the water hard, often arresting their dive with their wings, while eagles prefer to snatch a fish during a low pass without getting more than their feet wet. When they’re not just harassing osprey into dropping their own catches, that is.

osprey Pandion haliaetus perched on snag finishing off a fish
This is not the same osprey, who actually came up empty-taloned after that splash, but another who already had a fish when we arrived (the Inestimable Mr Bugg was along this time.) While deep in the trees quite some distance off, the splash of white that appeared and disappeared at times was visible, if you watched carefully, and so we crept up on it to get a fairly close vantage, while the osprey studiously finished off its fish.

One more, before we move on.

osprey Pandion haliaetus in flight
Just one that cruised over without spotting any fish to provide some action shots, but check the focus – both wingtips are softer, but the head and eyes are sharp. That’s what I’d always aim for, but the camera often isn’t that specific. I’m a little surprised that the depth-of-field wasn’t higher than this, though – might have been fairly close, I don’t recall.

Some time later, as things had been too quiet, a great egret (Ardea alba) took off from a distant spot and cruised over the lake, exhibiting a behavior I’ve never seen from a wader before.

great egret Ardea alba backing over deep water
I knew this was over deep water, and the egret suddenly began backing, like the osprey do, and slowed into a near hover over the surface – you can tell from the reflection roughly how high up it was here.

great egret Ardea alba reaching into water from near-hover
And then, barely moving forward, the egret reached into the water almost negligently and snagged a fish – I was almost unnprepared for this shot, but it came out nice.

great egret Ardea alba dipping toes in water after snagging a fish from a near-hover airborne position
with a flex of its body to help arrest its downward motion, the feet slapped water but the egret was already in motion again with its capture, while I blinked and reflected that I hadn’t even thought they were capable of such a maneuver, something you typically see from birds much smaller and more agile that egrets.

great egret Ardea alba flying off with fish snagged while in flight
And off it went with this smug look on its face, probably thinking I’d been too slow and startled to snag it all; I admit I was pleased to have even seen the stunt, much less captured a decent sequence of it. Bizarre, and I’m left wondering if the egret could have gotten airborne again from water it could not wade within if it had floundered (heh!) the catch and entered the water.

There wasn’t a lot else to see, and we changed to a different location to wait out sunset while seeing what could be found there. Not long after arrival as we explored the lake edge, a great blue heron (Ardea herodias herodias) croaked loudly as it left its position high in the canopy above us, only to fly no more than 20 meters and alight in a treetop again – I failed to see the point, but I was happy to get the shot, given that the light angle was much better for this than anything that might appear over the lake itself.

great blue heron Ardea herodias herodias perched in treetop near sunset
I could have done with a little more light on the face, but hey…

After that things were too quiet and we waited for a sunset that, as usual, performed poorly. That was when I got the spider pics in part two, and otherwise just a few silhouetted birds because we could only see into the west from this new vantage. But I offer a quick illustration.

bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus in silhouette showing distinctive profile
This is a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) passing, able to be identified by the silhouette if you look for a couple of telling details. Big of course, but with a more prominent head and neck than the similar-sized vultures. Wings held flat, though that’s not too evident here, with a slow beat pattern. But most especially the beak, that huge Durante-schnozz that nothing but the eagles have. Now a comparison.

osprey Pandion haliaetus in silhouette showing identifying characteristics
This is an osprey, smaller of course but this can be hard to tell from any distance at all. The wings will also be held flat in a glide, though they tend to glide less often and so the faster wingbeat will be displayed. But the telltale again is the beak, nothing at all like the eagle’s. The wingbeat is comparable to a crow, as is the size, but crows almost never glide or soar and their wingbeat is usually constant – and of course they have a straight, thick beak. But knowing these traits will help identify what you’re seeing even a great distance.

And finally,

pair of adult bald eagles Haliaeetus leucocephalus soaring off together into the sunset, kinda
Once again, we saw a pair of adult bald eagles soar off together right around sunset, heading in the same direction as before; I don’t pretend to know why this is, especially when there is often no sign of either earlier in the afternoon, and they don’t always remain together as they cross the lake in a southwesterly direction. But we’ve seen it three or four times now, so I’m going to call it a habit. And it makes for a nice closing image, even when the sky could easily have been better, had it made the effort.

Planning produces failure

Al Denelsbeck

Oh yes, oh yes, another holiday has come around, and hopefully you are totally unprepared for this one, because it’s Fuck Foresight Day, the day when we discover (hopefully, except, well, you know what I mean) that we didn’t think about consequences when we should’ve. If you’re on top of things running behind like you should be, you have no plans to celebrate this and are caught totally off guard: no gas in the car right before you have to run out in a hurry, discovering that that really was the last roll of toilet paper, guests coming over with no clean dishes in the house (and if you’re the type to have special dishes for guests, you’re completely out of line with the day, you commie.) It needs to be noted that this holiday has no fixed schedule and is not determined in advance – no one is even sure who’s responsible for it.

In proper manner, I went out this morning and shot 87 frames before realizing that today is going to be a little busy, and the next few days may add a buttload of pics to the sorting folder – which already has 1800+ photos awaiting my attention. Plus another post, that is not this one. I shouldn’t even be typing this, so go me.

Anyway, while I’m here, I’ll compound the error and really get into the spirit of things. It’s been a little while since I’ve been checking out the neighborhood pond, and with clear skies following two days of dreck from Tropical Storm Ophelia, I figured I’d see what might show itself. There wasn’t much – except a hugely cooperative green heron (Butorides virescens.)

green heron Butorides virescens perched on snag
Helpfully, this little guy jumped up onto the branches here from its spot down on the weeds on the water, where it may have remained unnoticed by me because of the bank dropoff there. This was about ten meters off, which is nice, so I froze except for my shutter finger and began firing off frames, This was not the notably undersized green heron that I’d spotted there before, which I was hoping to find so naturally it wasn’t going to happen today. But this heron was helpful enough to turn its head for different profiles and lighting during this, and I regretted not having anything to reward it with – gotta start carrying a pocketful of minnows.

green heron Butorides virescens yawning
The heron advanced up the branch a little, obscuring its position slightly, but was kind enough to allow me to take a few steps for a better vantage – slowly, casually – without getting spooked. I wasn’t in ideal position to capture this yawn, but you gotta love the tongue.

green heron Butorides virescens showing lensing hotspot alongside eye
I’ve pointed this out before, but it’s been a while so it’s okay. Just note the bright spot to the lower right of the eye here, where the eye itself, or what we think of it anyway, is in shadow, but the convex curve of the cornea catches the light from the side and focuses it onto the face of the heron, a nice indication of how far the eyes stick out beyond the skull, While I imagine light like this affects vision to some extent – similar conditions decrease contrast in the camera at least – such ocular anatomy allows the heron a very wide field of view, even down underneath its chin; sneaking up on one is virtually impossible, and I imagine the fish find it hard to escape too. I have anouther image from the session that illustrates this even better.

green heron Butorides virescens seen from rear showing eye curvature
Not done with being cooperative, the heron popped down from its branch onto the shore, even closer to me than before – this didn’t seem to make sense, but perhaps it was trying to get back down to its hunting area in the lake weeds. Still, we get a nice look at the momentarily raised crest and the eye from behind now, where we can actually see the pupil twice – straight through, and distorted in the cornea. Like I said, cooperative.

Anyway, enjoy the holiday, and by that I mean, make disgusted noises while you kick yourself, but enjoy doing that.

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