Tripod holes 31

Al Denelsbeck

Honeoye Falls in Honeoye Falls, NY nearly frozen over
N 42°57’7.65″ W 77°35’29.76″ Google Earth location

I think everyone in the northern hemisphere is feeling the heat these days, so we needed a cold one, thus this jumps ahead in the lineup. And I’m a day early for the scheduled abstract, but we’ll cope.

This is Honeoye Falls on Honeoye Creek in the town of (wait for it) Honeoye Falls, NY, back when I had relatives living there – this was in 1993. I had moved down to NC three years earlier, but returned for the holiday season, the only time that I ventured back to NY during the winter – I had left the state, in part, because of the winters. My arrival coincided with a decent cold snap, and the small falls that provided the name had frozen, not exactly over, but thick enough that it made an interesting sight, and the only time (so far) that I’ve seen a frozen waterfall or cascade. Most of the ones I know, first of all, are in mid-latitudes and so don’t see long or serious cold snaps very often, but they’re also not within easy access, usually requiring a hike on mountain trails or a long drive through the mountains, and these are not things to tackle when the weather is icy; in most cases, access would be denied by the Parks Department anyway. These little falls, however, were within easy reach, and this was taken from a railing overlooking the creek.

I was staying not too far from Cayuga Lake where I grew up, and I recall that I visited that lake on the first day there, finding it clear except for some light ice around the edges. Returning a few days later (after my side trip to Honeoye Falls and thus this photo,) I found the lake frozen over solid, something that I’d rarely witnessed, and so thick that a large rock hurled onto the surface only produced a star pattern, like a cracked windshield, in the ice. Impressive, and it spoke to the drastic temperature drop. According to my brother, who still lives in the general area, now the winters have become so warm that people are selling off their snowmobiles, having too little snow accumulation to use them.

And now, a little confession. Sometime afterward, the negatives for this photo went missing, and all I had were the original 4×6 prints. Wanting to keep them (this was long before I was building my photo stock,) I ended up placing the prints on a flat surface in the sunlight and reshooting them, so this is a scan of that negative, and actually looked like this:

original copy image of frozen Honeoye Falls
As you can see, I wasn’t quite dead-on perpendicular and the color register was off, though possibly from the scan of that negative or perhaps even from the original print, but both had to be corrected for this post. It was more an exercise than anything, because I’m not that motivated to retain this in stock anymore, but hey, we needed an icy photo, didn’t we? Okay then.

I am at a loss

Al Denelsbeck

Checking out the back forty of Walkabout Estates by the headlamp tonight, I bent down to pick up a couple of things, stood up, and found myself face-to-face with an eastern deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) perched atop the fence. I’ve seen this several times before – they seem to like traversing the fence – but this one stayed put, even as I leaned close, and flinched as I gently poked its rump yet didn’t leave its post. I found it curious, but I didn’t have the camera or even my (urk!) smutphone to get a photo, so I left it alone and started checking out the rest of the yard. Returning a couple of minutes later, I found it still in the same place, still remaining as I leaned in close, and so I decided, if it was this cooperative, I’d go in and get the camera. I had to hook up the macro flash and switch lenses, and I was sure that it would have gone by the time I returned a few minutes later. I was wrong.

eastern deer mouse Peromyscus maniculatus atop fence post at night
This was totally unprecedented, but far be it from me to pass up the opportunity, so I started firing off the frames, working my way closer and changing angles where I could – still being careful not to disturb the fence or make too much noise, mind you, but I’d already spoken to it on that initial encounter, expecting it to hurtle off at the sound of my voice, and this hadn’t occurred.

eastern deer mouse Peromyscus maniculatus considering its path down from the top of the fence
I was watching it carefully at this point, wondering what was making it reluctant to flee, and never could determine why this might be. I thought perhaps its foot was caught, but no, it showed full mobility in all legs, even switching to another fence post at one point before switching back. It started head-down once, pausing before it relinquished its hind foot’s grip on the top, as if scared of falling. These guys are great climbers and of course it had gotten up there on its own, so this wasn’t making sense; it was also well beyond juvenile size so unlikely the first time that it had climbed this high. Out of curiosity I examined the ground beneath the fence, on both sides, for any evidence of a predator like a snake – nothing.

eastern deer mouse Peromyscus maniculatus providing portrait pose
I left it be after several frames and watered the plants, which takes some time (there are 26 pots I think,) and it was still there when I returned. Bizarre.

I came in and unloaded the memory card, and decided my model needed a treat, going back out with a small handful of cat food and a fragment of dog biscuit. This time there was no sign of the mouse, so whatever issue that it had was now overcome. I still left out the food, because I’m a guy.

Meanwhile, rather than make an entirely separate post, I’ll just throw down the moon from earlier in the evening, because it looks sharp. We are closing in on the (scheduled) peaks of two meteor showers, the delta Aquariids and the alpha Capricornids, and perhaps after the moon drops low enough I’ll make an attempt at them, tonight or tomorrow night – we’ll see what happens. We all know my luck with meteors, so don’t be looking anxiously for posts.

waxing gibbous moon at twilight

Brains are weird

Al Denelsbeck

Well, some are at least…

I’m sorting images right now, and a lot of them were shot vertically but not rotated until now, more than a handful of which I was fairly sure were going to be discarded anyway so I didn’t bother – why I decided to save this admittedly minuscule effort is a question for another post. And no, I don’t have my thumbnail/gallery program (XnView Multiplatform) set to read the EXIF orientation automatically because this doesn’t work for HTML and the blog, so I’d end up uploading images that are still sideways – it’s happened before.

What I’ve found, however, is that when the image is sideways, I have difficulty telling whether it’s sharp or not. This makes absolutely no sense, I’m well aware of that, and it’s likely psychological in origin, but it still means I have to orient the image properly to know if I should even be discarding it.

Except, it seems to work mostly with ‘faces.’

gray wolf at Animal Park at Conservator's Center
This particular aspect tells me it’s probably psychological, because I didn’t have any problems with insects, especially ones that didn’t show their ‘faces’ at all.

junebugs congregating on tree
I can tell myself that I’m only looking for sharpness and that obviously isn’t changed at all by orientation, but my subconscious mind still whines, I can’t see it clearly this way. It’s not like I’m trying to read, which I can actually do halfway decently sideways though the same inner anxiety is probably still fretting. And since I’m not just looking at sharpness, but composition and contrast and all that, it helps to be upright even though none of those are affected either.

I found out some time back, too, that while I can identify helicopter models quite readily, turn the image upside-down and that almost goes away entirely – admittedly, this was applying to military gunships that have many of the same traits, but oriented properly I could name them in a snap while I was almost completely lost when they were inverted. There’s probably a good evolutionary reason as to why this should be the case, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it would be. I mean, upside-down helicopters have an obvious problem, no argument, but there’s nothing threatening or distinctly ‘wrong’ about a sideways face.

All right, I’ve wasted enough time – back to sorting.

Tripod holes 30

Al Denelsbeck

Malachite butterfly Siproeta stelenes ready for action
N 36° 1’48.03″ W 78°53’50.60″ Google Earth location

While the location shown provides a high likelihood of seeing this species, it really only applies to precisely the location shown. Because this is the Butterfly House of the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, yet malachites (the butterfly, Siproeta stelenes) are not native to North Carolina. Nonetheless, the Butterfly House provides plenty of opportunities not just for closeups of a wide variety of Lepidoptora, but fartistic compositions and behavior and even emerging from chrysalises (or chrysalides of you like, an acceptable alternative plural.) It is a semi-routine spot that I visit, though it’s been a few years since I was last there, despite vowing to get there this past winter. See, it’s a great place to visit in the winter because the butterflies are visible year-round, providing something to photograph in the cold lean months. But it’s best to go on a sunny day because the lighting is almost entirely from the greenhouse roof, so things look best in the sunlight plus you have enough light for faster shutter speeds, often necessary for the occupants. And preferably on a not-too-cold day simply from the idea that you have to hike a little ways outdoors to reach the Butterfly House from the entrance, and you’d probably want a light jacket because the greenhouse area itself is essentially a tropical rainforest in climate and you’re not going to want a heavy coat. Free time and sunny conditions simply did not coincide this past winter, and so I never got there.

You can visit in summer of course, but a word of warning for doing photography no matter when: the conditions will fog up your lenses if the lenses aren’t warm enough. So coming out of the cold, or unpacking the camera from the insulating padded camera bag when it’s been sitting in air conditioning for a while, means leaving the camera out with the lens cap on for several minutes while it warms up enough to prevent condensation. And for dog’s sake, do not try to switch lenses, because condensation on the front surface is bad enough, but getting it inside the lens (and/or the mirror box of the camera itself) is notoriously difficult to clear – I made this mistake one muggy evening in Florida with a camera that had sat indoors all day. Just be patient.

Avoid weekends too, because of the plethora of young children hurtling around in total disregard, but you’ll never be completely free of them, you can just avoid the bulk. Meanwhile, the Museum of Life and Science has a ton of other things to photograph as well, some easy, some that take effort and luck. Definitely worth a visit.

That’s a little better

Al Denelsbeck

juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus in closeup showing softbox reflection
Switched out the ‘clear’ diffuser for the white one on the new softbox, and the difference is noticeable – what we’re looking at here is the round light reflecting from the frog’s eye. Still not perfectly even, but probably the best I can hope for with this design (yes, I’ve actually considered a backwards-facing flash head into a parabola, but the ability to reach out over the subject is also important, so such a thing would be awkward.) Anyway, I’m going with this for the time being.

This green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus,) by the way, is half the size of the one previously, perhaps as big as the top joint of your thumb – I had to crop to nearly full-resolution to show the softbox reflection in detail, so most of the time it will go entirely unnoticed. The size of the frog is a little more evident when compared to the thorns of the rose bush it was perched so action-readily upon.

juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on rose bush

Just gonna duck right between ya here

Al Denelsbeck

It has been a week without posts, which I don’t even do when I’m traveling, always having a couple of even token posts appear to keep from announcing that the house is empty. Yet I’ve been here in Walkabout Studios and the environs the entire time, just wrapped up in projects, to say nothing of it being ridiculously hot out there and not only is it uncomfortable to be out, any photo subjects largely feel the same way. So before another Tripod Holes appears, we’ll have this one.

There have been the occasional subjects, and here’s one of them from a few days back:

newborn American five-lined skink Plestiodon fasciatus basking on beaver log
That’s a newborn American five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) perched on a section of beaver-gnawed trunk out front of Walkabout Estates, and it’s no larger than the newborn anoles (so, maybe a hair over 50mm in total length.) I was a little surprised to see it, because while the adult skinks were in evidence out front in the early spring, I have seen no sign of them for well over a month now. And this is literally half-a-meter from the first appearance of the newborn anoles too, both right underneath the big Japanese maple near the front door, so it doesn’t appear either species is so territorial that the other is disallowed, which is fine by me. There’s a little overlap in their habits too, in that skinks tend to be ground dwellers but climb walls readily enough, while anoles prefer the branches of lower plants but scamper across the ground without issues, which means both can be found venturing across the front steps at times, though so far not at the same time. Regardless, welcome anyway. We’ll see how many more photos I get.

Meanwhile, one of the bigger projects was working on a new macro softbox. The flash unit that I was using was discontinued some time ago, perhaps as late as the early nineties, which means its days are numbered, and my main unit conked out a couple weeks back without luck in replacing or repairing it yet (I have not given up my efforts.) So I have considered what is going to replace it in this eventuality, and well as needing something to shoot with right now. Not going into specific details as to the whys and wherefores at the moment, but I need a smaller, lighter flash unit with specific light characteristics, and have been using a custom softbox/diffuser unit of my own construction. Switching flashes meant this wouldn’t work, having been specifically fitted to the older Sunpak model, so a new one was needed. And while contemplating this, I thought, Hey, I have this 3D printer here…

custom-made 3D printed softbox/diffuser for macro work
The initial design and test prints came out far better than expected, and that’s what you see here mounted on one of the two little flashes in consideration, some cheapass K-Mart unit known (or not) as a Starblitz 2500 BTZ that I don’t even know how I obtained. It has a broken shoe foot and a missing battery door, both of which I replaced with the help of the printer and Blender design software, the idea being that this was quite small and quite light, and the limited light output wouldn’t matter much for macro work. I also have a Canon 300EZ unit in consideration as well, and mounts for both were designed and printed, fitting far better than expected, almost as if I know what I’m doing.

The real question, of course, is how well it all works. The acid tests were last night.

snoozing Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis in closeup with new softbox
That looks fine, perhaps a little dim, though I was to determine that this was due to the aim of the softbox. It’s an adult Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis,) by the way, not one of the newborns. It’s not a demanding subject, so I continued to prowl around.

cicada possibly Neotibicen molting into final instar adult phase
Ah, that’s better! I was too late to capture the initial stages of this cicada molting, but it was within easy view and allowed me to get on several sides, so a nice test subject. As such, we note that the light is carrying acceptably well to the background beneath/behind the cicada, better than a half-meter beyond, and pretty evenly illuminating the upper surfaces without harsh shadows. The shadows on the underside of the body are a little deeper than ideal, but this is how it’s going to be with a single light source – still contemplating that. But yes, this is as good as the old one at least.

For the record, this is possibly a Neotibicen, one of the annual cicadas – I’m not sure I could tell from the coloration at this stage and aren’t even bothering to try, because we’re doing lighting tests here and you shouldn’t be getting distracted. Still, while here we will note the white threads visible from the gap in the molted exoskeleton, which are actually the lining of its lungs, or what passes for such among most of the arthropods. Seriously, go to that link, it’s weird but fascinating.

cicada possibly Neotibicen recently emerged as final instar
Just a little later – I’d gone back into Walkabout Studios to get further lenses for more tests in the interim, and now the cicada has fully molted and the wings are extending. It has lived almost its entire life underground up until this point, having now dug itself out of the ground to molt into its final instar, reproducing adult phase, to then go high into trees and produce the unmistakable whine of summer days. But again, lighting. Let’s have a closer look:

close crop of previous frame showing tight portrait of cicada possibly Neotibicen
The colors and the faint translucence of the exoskeleton at this point are great and all, but the point here is why I even use the flash on an arm in the first place, and that’s modeling. The shape of the head is defined by the faint shadows, which doesn’t work very well with on-camera flash (when it can even be aimed this close to the lens) and not at all with ring flashes which surround the lens and produce virtually no shadows at all. Having the flash on an adjustable arm means I can aim it at will, tailored to the subject.

I’ll point out here the reflection of the flash itself in the eye of the cicada, which isn’t a nice clear circle, but has ‘hotspots’ of uneven light – this shows better with my final subject of the evening.

green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus posing for posterity
Highly reflective subjects, which I tackle more than occasionally, show the reason why I opted for a circular diffuser in the first place, because a circular reflection is the most natural-looking and easiest to ignore. Am I the only one that sees the uneven nature of it? Probably not, to be honest, though the numbers of us may be so small as to be beneath notice. Still, I printed two diffusing panels, one in white and one in clear (which doesn’t come off perfectly clear from a 3D printer anyway,) and this was using the clear one. I will probably switch to the white one, which will cut down the light a little more, and run another full set of tests. Right now, however, this is working more than well enough.

The design will probably be uploaded to share among the 3D printing community, though it may well be for a fee (despite the deplorable wealth my photography already produces.) The stumbling block is, virtually no one will be using the flash units that I am, so the custom-fitted adapters will be useless to them, and I’ll either have to include instructions on how to fit the softbox to their own flash heads (not too hard at all, really,) or actually design adapters to anyone’s request, which definitely will be a paid service. Still hashing out the details.

Tripod holes 29

Al Denelsbeck

tri-colored heron Egretta tricolor looking curious
N 33°30’40.28″ W 79° 3’54.10″ Google Earth location

This wonderful close approach of a tricolored heron (Egretta tricolor) comes courtesy of Huntington Beach State Park, between Murrell’s Inlet and Pawley’s Island, South Carolina – specifically, out on the boardwalk extending into the swamp, as the plots show. When we visited a few years ago, we passed a plaque along the boardwalk that spoke of the species that may be seen there, and The Girlfriend asked what a tricolored heron looked like. That’s always a challenging thing to provide, and I did my best, but only a few minutes later I was able to just point and say, “Like that.”

Definitely a cool and perhaps underrated area to visit, the state park is home to countless species that are acclimated to visitors and thus allow much closer approaches that in most circumstances, as well as the best tree that I’ve ever been in contact with. Nearby is also Brookgreen Gardens, a huge park largely dedicated to sculpture but also featuring picnic areas, a small zoo and aviary, and boat tours. The beach is kinda boring, but the birds make up for it. We threw the kayaks in for a little excursion around the inland islands just a little northeast of here too. Check it out.

Out of proportion

Al Denelsbeck

Boy howdy, peanut-brittle and sausages, do some of these posts take way more time than they really should! But I’ll go into that later. Right now, we have a simple (!) follow-up on the anole front.

After finding the adult Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) snoozing in the oak-leaf hydrangea in the previous post, I’ve been keeping an eye on that particular lizard, because it’s been making it easy – it returns to the same spot every night, and can on occasion be found foraging on the bush during the day.

adult Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis sleeping upright in oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia
While I have yet to witness this in action, I’ve found that the anole takes its perch near sundown, while there is still plenty of light in the sky, but at that point is deep brown, blending in with the dried flowers remarkably well – it is only after night falls that they turn quite pale. I’m only guessing, but I suspect this is because, after the birds bed down themselves, there’s no reason to be camouflaged and they can adapt a color that optimizes their temperature for the night, and/or collects dew faster. But as I’ve said before, lizardology ain’t my degree, I just takes da piccies…

adult Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis sleeping upright in oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia
We needed another angle on that same one, showing the one foot just splayed against the dried flowers; the anole appears to be supported solely by its two left feet hooked onto the branches. But what’s that down there?

likely white-banded crab spider Misumenoides formosipes investigating tail of sleeping Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis
We have what appears to be an opportunistic white-banded crab spider (Misumenoides formosipes) literally sizing up the anole, or perhaps just posing for a novelty photo like the typical idiots with wildlife in national parks; there’s no doubt that the anole would scarf the spider up immediately if it were awake. Have your fun, little spider, your days are numbered.

More interesting, however, was Saturday’s find on the butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii.) It was basking on a leaf when I spotted it with my hands full, and when I returned with the camera it was spooking into the Japanese maple.

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis seeking refuge in Japanese maple
That’s pretty much a newborn anole, the first appearance of any this year, and this is perhaps the best sense of scale that I obtained (so far, anyway) – the pale curve in the background is a standard-sized planter, maybe 30cm across, but a video clip from last year shows a better comparison. I have no idea how long after birth they might remain deep in concealment before venturing out like this, but I’ve been keeping my eyes open for just such appearances so this is certainly among the first few days of being in public, as it were. Given this one disappearing into the maple, I figured I’d lost my chance for a decent shot for a while, and I wandered off seeking other photo opportunities. Yet just a few minutes later, as I came back around the butterfly bush, it was basking in almost the exact same location that I’d first spotted it.

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis basking on leaf of butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
If you know butterfly bushes, you know that leaf is perhaps 100mm in length and no more than 20 wide; this spud is tiny. But unlike its discretion only a few minutes previously (which might have been provoked by carpenter bees visiting the flower clusters,) this time it largely stayed put, and I could get a variety of angles as long as I moved cautiously.

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis perched near new buds of butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
I would have liked it to have taken up a perch on the flower clusters themselves, but the anole probably knew instinctively that this wasn’t good camouflage or shelter, so for now we just have this pose near a smaller budding cluster. But we need to see the detail from this frame, at full resolution:

very close detail of newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis
The length of this head is roughly the width of a standard pencil, and yet, seen this close, there’s virtually nothing that distinguishes it from an adult many times its size, except maybe the spindly legs; it still possesses the mosaic scale detail and even the proportions of the adult, and the mottling makes it seem way older than a few days or so. A typical housefly would be a hell of a mouthful for this fella – maybe someday I’ll get some pics along those lines. I tried, even with video:

It’s funny: I recognize the issues with doing handheld macro video, but I have yet to find decent ways to surmount them. No, there are no stabilizing rigs that can handle a heavy DSLR and still allow things like tilting forward on demand. I would say I’d design one and market it to other macro videographers, but that’s not a lucrative market – few of them have any more money than I do.

But I know you’re skeptical over the behavior that I mentioned and illustrated in that video, not exactly sure that I’d actually seen what I claimed, so I present another example, an animated gif (pronounced, “grrrr-ATE”) of four frames from just a bit earlier.

animated gif of newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis doing territorial display
I realized what I was seeing just as I was snapping the first frame and so kept going, unable to switch to video fast enough, but this is adequate. That dewlap, while not exactly displaying like an adult, is undoubtedly extending a little. And no, this is not a ‘swallow’ or anything, because I saw it more than once – in fact, I’d first seen it, almost disbelievingly, last year and vowed to capture video of it but never got another opportunity. It’s so cute when they act tough.

I had brought The Girlfriend out to see my subject here, and she suddenly told me to turn around and check the center stem of the hosta plants about a meter away. She’s getting to be pretty good at this herself.

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis on stem of Hosta flowers
Yep, another newborn, and perhaps slightly bigger in size than the first, but not by more than 10%, and I would have to see them side-by-side to confirm it anyway. You know I’m pleased; I love the idea that Walkabout Estates is home to a colony of this species. Now if I can just get some meerkats established…

Even while it knew I was right there, this one scampered up in plain sight atop one of the big hosta leaves and posed, and I went a bit wider for a slightly more scenic shot:

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis in middle of large Hosta leaf
Will I be able to tell these two apart in any way? Not likely, though I perceived this one to be a little more active than the other, and will endeavor to observe them closely enough that I can distinguish them by behavior – not holding my breath, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

We’ll close with one last shot of the second one, deciding for whatever reason to scamper up the flower stems again and shelter in among the seeds, though whether this was due to my presence or not I can’t say; it certainly danced around quite a bit before it chose to climb up there.

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis nestled in among seed pods of Hosta plant
Even if you have no idea what the seeds are, they seem to communicate their size better and give more of a sense of scale, but maybe it’s just me. I missed my video opportunity here, though I hadn’t known it was going to happen, since as the anole gained the seeds its coloration deepened into brown; I do have a goal of illustrating how quickly they can change color, but it often takes some provocation that I’m not likely to induce myself. Many years ago in Florida I witnessed a territorial dispute between a Carolina and Cuban anole, and the Carolina changed into deep brown within about two seconds, which immediately caused the Cuban to rush it. Still not sure what this said, but I definitely vowed to capture something similar one day. Maybe this’ll be the year.

Sleep is the meridian

Al Denelsbeck

Mr Bugg and I had a sunset outing to Jordan Lake yesterday, which was unsuccessful in capturing a sunset – it occurred, but not in the slightest bit photogenically. Before that, we were checking out what kind of other activity was available, which also wasn’t much, and mostly too distant for the efforts. But I’ll include a couple of frames for the sake of it.

symmetrical splash of osprey Pandion haliaetus entering the water, with no sign of the osprey
This is the splash of an osprey (Pandion haliaetus) entering the water, perhaps the sharpest that I’ve captured (so far,) and with only the barest hint of the osprey showing at all. It was a nicely symmetrical splash though. The bird gave little warning of beginning the dive and autofocus didn’t lock on until it hit the water.

The same bird, successful in its fishing efforts here, climbed out and circled around to pass nearly overhead, and so I was firing off frames of its approach.

osprey Pandion haliaetus passing overhead with fish capture
I thought that I had exposure compensation dialed in for shooting against the sky, but apparently not for this sequence, and thus it’s a bit dark and moody, not at all helped by the sun angle. Clicking on this image, however, will bring up a larger one at full resolution, just to see the detail – the autofocus wasn’t behaving perfectly yesterday, but well enough for some nice frames.

And now we switch subject matter and go to ‘today,’ even though, according to my personal timeline, these were still yesterday, taken in the wee hours of the morning – I am available to answer further questions as needed. Mostly, what I needed to post was the first appearance this year, or the first that I’ve caught anyway (but we all know that I miss nothing) of a behavior I was seeing a lot of last year:

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis snoozing on dried flowers of oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia
I played around a bit getting an adequate flash angle without disturbing things too much, to which this Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) lazily opened an eye, repeatedly, before closing it again, rendering me inconsequential – I’m quite used to that. It’s draped on the dried flowers of the oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia,) which seems to be a preferred perch for night basking at least. To the best of my knowledge, this habit of sleeping suspended up in branches or flowers occurs during hotter days and is a method of gathering dew overnight, though it has to be said that this is about a meter from a full birdbath below, so it’s not like water is hard for them to find, meaning I could be wrong about this. Maybe it’s just akin to how cool we suddenly find hammocks in the summertime.

While out with the headlamp, I took a look around back to see what was happening back there, which wasn’t much, but I did find one of the frogs hanging out by the pond.

American bullfrog Lithobates catesbeianus just chillin'
Finding a frog just chillin’ near the water isn’t even slightly uncommon, but the species is a new one for here: this is an American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus,) the first I’ve seen in the backyard, and not a small specimen at that – perhaps a little smaller than my fist. I would have thought the pond was a bit too small for their tastes, and have not confirmed yet that it is a resident and not just on vacation here. I mean, it does kind of resemble me on the beach.

Since it never even twitched as I leaned in, even closer than this, I carefully detoured around (there was a small tree in the way) to the front for the dramatic portrait, being careful not to let the camera or my arms into the beam of the headlamp, which is what normally alerts them to a ‘dangerous’ presence and sends them vaulting back into the pond. I was more successful than expected at this.

American bullfrog Lithobates catesbeianus in direct portrait
This is full frame using the Mamiya 80mm macro, so you know I was close – roughly half a meter away from its nose, and even got the chance to adjust the flash for better lighting than the original frame. You’d think it was a lawn ornament – until I was a little incautious while getting back up and it sailed into the pond in one great leap over its own shoulder. But now I’m curious to see if its actively sharing the little water source with the resident green frogs, and how many of those remain. Plus I’ll have to sit out in the evening with the audio recorder and see if I can snag the calls of either species, but especially both, for the comparison.

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