The clock is humming

Al Denelsbeck

They don’t even do that anymore, do they? Actually, we have a grandfather clock out in the living room that runs the old-fashioned way, weights and pendulum and ticking and all that, and it remains pretty close to atomic time after I spent two weeks adjusting the length of the pendulum rod. Okay, that’s not hard, but it has to be done in small increments and then observed for a day or two to see if it’s keeping in sync with modern technology. And of course the weights have to be raised every six days or so, but hey, when the EMP pulse slams our entire electrical grid, we will continue to know what time it is! Why, I don’t know…

But all that’s just blather – the point is, the 3D printer alongside me has 93 minutes to go on a print job, and I consider that a good deadline for this post. Which is to celebrate the holiday today, it being Not Everything Blooms In The Spring Day, and to demonstrate, we have a selection of the various flowers from right here in Walkabout Estates, right here this very day.

mauve morning glory closeup
mauve morning glory in just blue channelThe morning glories have been an interesting saga this year. I planted a bunch, including right underneath the window with the climbing rack from last year, and several places around the yard, as well as starting some in a pot. The pot was the only one that took, but boy howdy did it, and while I waited in vain for the others to gain a toehold, the potted ones grew out of control. Eventually I had to disentangle those vines from numerous other plants to move the pot under the climbing rack, which they overwhelmed quickly. Despite being decimated twice by the deer, they’ve been pushing out blooms routinely. Both of these images are actually the same, only the one on the right is strictly the Blue channel, just because. The bloom is almost entirely white in the Red channel, and Black in the Green one. Make sense? Too bad – moving on!

There were some nice delicate white-with-a-hint-of-blue glories, but they were in deeper shade and hard to get to, so I really didn’t do them justice, but we’ll have a frame anyway.

pale morning glory with a hint of blue
Yes, those are my fingers back there, holding the blossom around where I could photograph it – you’re not supposed to be looking at that. I have to note that I was mostly shooting wide-open (f4) with the Mamiya 80mm, partially to see what I could get, partially to use the light conditions, and partially (mostly) because I was too lazy to set up the macro flash rig. Thus, all of these have pretty short depth.

The Girlfriend found some small blue-flowering plant on sale locally, only it wasn’t tagged with a species and we have no idea what it is, if it’s annual or perennial, or anything, really, but I’ll probably try and figure it out before fall to determine if I should put it in the greenhouse or not.

unidentified blue flower
Initially, it was light overcast out there, but eventually the sun came out, so I did a couple different shots of some of the flowers, plying the misting gun for the latter to get some sparklies.

unidentified blue flower with water drops
The other thing that I did as an experiment was to leave the white balance set for Auto, which I generally consider a bad idea, and these two frames show why to some extent. But I have better examples coming up.

diamond spire gardenia Gardenia hybrid 'Leefive' PPIP blossom
The Girlfriend got one diamond spire gardenia (scientifically known as Gardenia hybrid ‘Leefive’ PPIP – yeah, don’t ask, flower breeders are in their own little world,) late last year, and we’d transplanted it into the front yard. It started well this year then faltered badly, and she got another to replace it while I repotted the first and tried to determine the problem. It was probably a fungus and seems to be recovered now, but this is the replacement anyway. Just means two more for the greenhouse this fall…

unidentified orange-flowered weed with crab spider Mecaphesa
Doing the rounds to see how many things really were flowering, I took a close look at this weed, unidentified and clearly past its prime, and I would have passed it up if it wasn’t for the tiny crab spider (Mecaphesa) still staking it out. Nothing handy for scale, but believe me, the spider wasn’t after honeybees, which outmassed it by several hundred percent.

some variety of Abelia
Some years back, The Girlfriend and I came across a massive, dense stand of abelia bushes in a botanical garden, absolutely inundated with butterflies, and we decided we wanted that. What we purchased later that year, however, does not seem in any way related to what we’d seen, and it has been sparse, leggy, and relatively unproductive the entire time. What you see here is an example of maybe a dozen little blossoms on it this year. Pfeh.

spearmint Mentha spicata flowers
Back at the old place, we’d effortlessly established a huge patch of spearmint (Mentha spicata.) Attempts to emulate this here have largely failed, but this year we managed a decent crop at least, enough to brew up some extract for spearmint jelly, though I totally screwed up my first batch. These are what the flowers are doing right now, though, and they smell as wonderful as the leaves.

Okay, the butterfly bush.

butterfly bush Buddleia davidii with not dewdrops
Butterfly bushes (Buddleia davidii) are a staple of mine because they attract so many arthropods for photos, and we have three in the yard. But they’re not thriving, partially because of the heat/drought, and partially (I think) because we have a few centimeters of topsoil before you hit clay, and they’re just not getting the nutrients. One was faltering so bad that I transplanted it in midsummer into a pot, where it exploded in delight and grew huge – all of these photos are from that plant (we made it a point to create some primo potting soil this year, and it’s been kicking ass.) This isn’t dew of course, but the misting gun once the sun came out – who doesn’t like water drops?

butterfly bush Buddleia davidii with hidden surprise
While this view came later, after they’d dried up, and it contains a hidden detail. I made it a point to frame it against the lighter portion of the background to make it stand out, because believe me, you wouldn’t see it at all unless you were disturbingly close to the blossoms. Given the subject, however, I did several angles as it wandered around trying to avoid me.

butterfly bush Buddleia davidii with jagged ambush bug Phymata between blossoms
This is a jagged ambush bug (Phymata,) quite small and tending to remain as subtle as possible; it usually requires a close examination of such flowers to spot one. I like them – in appearance, they’re this blend of goofy and menacing.

butterfly bush Buddleia davidii with jagged ambush bug Phymata peeking out
I don’t think it liked the misting, and I know it didn’t like me looming over it, but you know, we all must deal with adversity. This was the best portrait that I was going to get, unless I slipped it out of its cover for a dedicated ‘studio’ session, and I decided against that today. Maybe later on.

But you know what I said about Auto White Balance? Go back and compare the photos of these identical flowers on the same plant. Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that happens, especially with closeups that fill the frame. Even in grey overcast light, I’d rather shoot in the Sunlight setting and tweak the color register afterward if needed.

So, while we’re on arthropods…

butterfly bush Buddleia davidii with feeding butterfly possibly skipper
As I was sitting on the ground alongside the bush, this little guy came by to feed and I could do this direct portrait. I’m calling this a skipper, but I don’t know for sure and can’t be assed to look it up right now – the printer is plugging away.

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis peeking from depths of rosemary plant
The rosemary plants, on the other hand, are doing great, and for the past couple of weeks have hosted an adult Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis) that was originally found routinely on the clethra bush alongside it – these definitely have more cover. Back when the sky was overcast, I did the dramatic angle, but when the sun came out I gave the mantis a spray. It’s been cool enough at nights (hitting the dewpoint easily) that I don’t think they’re in desperate need of the moisture anymore, but it doesn’t hurt either.

Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis with water drops across face
That’s the same look The Girlfriend gives me when I spray her with the hose. I don’t get it – it’s hot, the water feels good, I’m just trying to be helpful. Geezz…

And finally, an update on another regular.

juvenile carolina anole Anolis carolinensis peeking from foliage
While I check routinely, it’s only occasionally that I spot one of the juvenile Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) that reside in the yard, despite one (this one) living just outside the front door. It remains very cautious and spooky, which is fine and commendable from a survival standpoint, but a little less so from a photographer’s. So I get peeks from time to time, often when I have no camera in hand, but hey – they’re here, and that’s the important bit. I’ll get more chances.

Ha! The printer has twelve minutes to go. One more quick proof, and I’m done. No sweat.

Visibly different, part 33

Al Denelsbeck

Another different take on the title this time, partially because I have nothing else ready, partially because I feel like showing off my toys.

pair of subminiature cameras
I picked up both of these, separately, last year just because I wanted them, though I admittedly didn’t pay a lot for either (less than $20 apiece with the shipping.) Both are subminiature cameras taking 16mm film, often considered ‘spy’ cameras though their actual use in espionage or covert operations was probably minimal – there were smaller cameras available on the open market, such as the Minox line (which still command some pretty serious prices,) not to mention that fact that a real spy camera should be concealable and/or unrecognizable as a camera. Instead, these were lightweight ‘tourist’ cameras able to go into any pocket, dashing in their unobtrusiveness, targeted (indirectly of course) at Bond wannabes.

Minolta 16 MG camera
First we’ll look at the sleeker of the two, the Minolta 16 MG. This was one of several variations, often sold as a full kit that included filters and a flash unit that took small single-use flashbulbs. It possesses a working selenium light meter, which required so little power to move the needle (in the window on top right of the camera) that they didn’t require batteries – the minuscule solar cell in the front of the camera (the wide rectangle) provided all of the power. This did nothing but indicate what you should be setting the controls at – operation was still manual, while the film winding and simultaneously shutter cocking took place with that large dial on top; the shutter release is the black button in front of it, shielded on either side to help prevent accidental photos. Full credit to the designers: even though the user aimed through a separate viewfinder, the shutter would not trip unless the film was wound to the next frame and the sliding lenshood open. This camera was produced from 1966 to 1974. I had possessed an earlier and smaller version of this many years ago, and even had a single roll of film for it that I never tested out – these little gizmos are more fun to fiddle with than to pursue photography.

Now let’s look at its rival, from the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Kiev 30 subminiature camera in closed position
This is a Kiev 30, shown in the closed position, a mere 85mm long.

Kiev 30 subminiature camera in open position
And now open, expanding all the way out to a whopping 109mm. The Minolta, with strap attached, exceeds this by a millimeter, but of course doesn’t close down. This was a product of the Soviet Union, back when Ukraine and Kiev (the city) were part of that entity, and despite its much older appearance and design, was introduced in 1974, the same year the Minolta ceased production. But, it’s got that little kachunk extendy action, which winds the film and cocks the shutter, as well as exposing the little silver shutter button to begin with – far more spy-like, and even semi-matte black to avoid throwing reflections out of the office windows which can attract the guards.

No light meter at all on this one, but what kind of spy needs such a thing? They’re expertly trained to know what shutter speed is necessary. But for the other customers, there’s one of the typical dial gauges on the back that gives exposure guidelines for generic situations.

Kiev 30 subminiature camera back with exposure guide
Kiev 30 subminiature camera controlsThis dial doesn’t do anything mechanical, like the exposure meter on the Minolta; it just tells the user (roughly) what exposure should work, and the user sets the control dials on the end of the camera accordingly. But the Kiev is the first I’ve seen with a “sunny beach” setting, and what the hell is that for? Any spy worth the kruggerands stashed in their shoe knows the beach is the spot for seducing their sexy rival (who always walks in slow motion there – something about the tides.) But I suppose the ‘norms’ may want to take a few surreptitious pics on the beach, yet using a dinky spy camera looks exponentially more creepy than using a full-size rig, where you might get away with claiming you were photographing the pelicans.

The Kiev also has something that the Minolta lacks, which is a very limited focusing wheel, albeit one that makes no visible difference in the viewfinder. But the Minolta has a tripod mount that the Kiev doesn’t – alas, it’s part of the attachable flash unit, but at least you can do studio work easier with the Minolta. Both actually have PC connections too, which has nothing to do with computers, instead standing for “Prontor-Compur,” so that clarifies that. It was, and remains really, a standard small interface for flash and strobe units, so again, all set for that model shoot that serves as the cover occupation.

The worst thing about both is their use of 16mm film, suffering from the same thing that killed 110 and disc films: being ridiculously small. Prints from such films were very limited in size, because there’s only so far you can enlarge an image before it shows grain and softness, and forget about setting the friends down in front of the slide projector; it’d be like, I dunno, showing them on your phone or something. Totally ludicrous.

I’m not a camera collector, though, and the actual usefulness of these two is about nil. I just like them for the gadget aspect. Both have nice a solid, machined feel to them, and appear to be fully operational, so from time to time I get one down to fidget with it. Better than smoking.

The saga repeats. Kinda

Al Denelsbeck

After determining that the woodpecker nest was reoccupied, I never got back down there to check on progress. Part of this was due to already doing extensive (and successful) video of the fledglings leaving the first nest (well, one of them, anyway,) and part of this was due to free time and the heat, which I’ve already had quite enough of. But the Insubordinate Mr Bugg wanted to do a session down there, and I get paid for those, so off we went yesterday morning. Granted, we had to wait for the morning showers to subside, yet the sky was clearing as we arrived.

I had guesstimated, on examining the photos from a week previous, that the fledglings had roughly a week before they’d want to bail the nest; I’d judged this on the fact that they weren’t poking out of the nest much when the parents came to feed, but the heads were at least a little visible when zooming in on those frames. As it was, my guesstimate was bang-on (though bastard honesty impels me to admit this was probably just luck.) It was only a short wait while staking out the nest cavity before continued occupancy was confirmed.

juvenile red-headed woodpecker Melanerpes erythrocephalus peeking from nest cavity
Once again, this is a red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus,) though a juvenile so bearing almost none of the distinctive coloration of the adults (which we will see in a second.) Leaning out of the nest like this with no adult around, and the regular cheeping and chittering/chuckling that they do when anxious, is a strong indication that bailing the nest was imminent, though ‘imminent’ last time meant a solid five hours of close observation, so I wasn’t going to place any bets on time frames for this one.

An adult soon came by to provide food, and I snagged a lovely portrait, though not too evocative of familial bliss:

juvenile red-headed woodpecker Melanerpes erythrocephalus demanding food from adult
In editing the photos for this post, I was able to examine the adults in reasonable detail, and I’m fairly certain these are not the ones from the previous session. In this climate, some bird species will have two broods a year, though I can’t vouch for how close together they can be, but I also observed a separate male working on nest cavities last time. I’m guessing this is prime real estate to woodpeckers, though I suspect, from the condition of the tree, that it won’t be lasting too much longer. There are still plenty of other candidates nearby.

Hearing another set of chuckling sounds coming from the woods, I was almost certain one of the fledglings had bailed before we got there, and after a short observation of the one peeking from the nest, I went looking for the other while Mr Bugg remaining monitoring the nest. I was no longer hearing the calls, but a flash of white on the wings of a bird passing nearby caught my attention and I tracked it to a distant tree.

newly-fledged juvenile red-headed woodpecker Melanerpes erythrocephalus on pine branch
This is the full-frame at 600mm, so you know it wasn’t terribly close, but we can have a tighter crop through the magic of digitality:

closer crop of newly-fledged red-headed woodpecker Melanerpes erythrocephalus
That’s not good, but enough to tell me that it was definitely one of the fledged red-heads. Unfortunately, I didn’t track this one but returned to observe the one still waiting to leave the nest, figuring fate would have that occur as I was unsuccessfully trying to photograph this one. I never did see this one again, despite doing a longer search later on.

Somewhere in there, one of the many black vultures (Coragyps atratus) that were frequenting the area decided to land on the very top of the same dead tree that held the nest.

black vulture Coragyps atratus landing atop nest tree
That’s not just a lovely perspective (yes I’m being sarcastic,) it also put us directly downrange of any evacuations that might take place, but we really couldn’t move much and still have a decent view of the nest. The fledgling knew a little something about safety, though, and remained hidden within as long as the vulture was up there, which thankfully wasn’t too long (and remained defecation-free.) While the vulture likely wouldn’t have made any moves towards the diminutive woodpecker, it was certainly setting up enough vibrations and scrabbling noises to carry through the trunk, which the fledgling interpreted as potential danger. Neither of the woodpecker parents ventured near either.

Eventually, the vulture moved on, and a returning adult chose the same spot to alight with a meal for its offspring.

adult red-headed woodpecker Melanerpes erythrocephalus with minuscule meal for fledgling
Yes, the sky was changing that much within minutes, courtesy of scattered clouds blowing through – not enough blue patches for my liking, but whatcha gonna do?

The feeding visits were now few and far between, much less frequent than a week ago, and of course one of them was this ridiculous little meal – enough to get the fledgling excited, but not anywhere near enough to sate its prodigious appetite at this age, even for a few moments. This was almost certainly intentional on the adult’s part; You want more, then get your ass out and find some.

adult red-headed woodpecker Melanerpes erythrocephalus with perhaps a grape
Not all of the meals were quite so lean; I initially took this for an acorn, but on close examination (and finding an empty skin floating in the water nearby,) I pegged this as a grape instead, which the adult prepped for a minute or so before dropping down to pass at least some of it off to the young.

adult feeding juvenile red-headed woodpecker Melanerpes erythrocephalus
This was still later on, and a little blurred but not a bad perspective – often enough the adult would sit to the right of the opening and partially block our view of the feeding, and I’m not sure this wasn’t intentional. We were a good ten meters below and off to the side a bit, but distinctly obvious standing out knee-deep in the lake. Had the nest been lower this might have given the adults some pause, but the distance was enough and we were mostly motionless and quiet.

As it was, we spent an hour and twenty minutes out there shooting a ridiculous number of frames on the possibility that the fledgling was gonna leave the nest right now. Neither one of us brought along the tripods – I typically don’t plan an elaborate shooting session with students because that’s their time, and I may guide in certain directions but I don’t dictate what we’re supposed to be doing. So we were simply handholding the long lenses aimed up at 45° or better, which gets fatiguing in a hurry. Meanwhile, this one was showing all signs of being as neurotic as the second one had back in June.

juvenile red-headed woodpecker Melanerpes erythrocephalus leaning well out of nest cavity
This is one of the better views of it trying to get up enough nerve to vacate the nest – note the toes hanging out. It chattered, it leaned out, it craned its head all around, and then, just when we figured it was within seconds of committing, it dropped back down out of sight again – repeat indefinitely. Mr Bugg was beginning to get exasperated, and I merely scoffed pompously from past experience and reminded him, “Five hours.”

[Seriously, I’m not even sure what made me stay that long last time, but it worked at least, so positive reinforcement and all that.]

This time, however, we reached a limit, plus we had other subjects to try and pursue, so we abandoned the neurotic little spud to its vacillations, but not before getting another nice portrait with a parent.

juvenile and adult red-headed woodpeckers Melanerpes erythrocephalus
If you noticed how much the protruding fledgling looks like the broken branch nearby, you understand why the red head doesn’t develop until later. And of course there’s the sibling up there that had already left, near-indistinguishable from the grey wood and quite difficult to spot. I would like to get some pics as they transition to adult coloration, which would of course mean a lot more trips, but, well…

Meanwhile, a few other species could be found, though it was far from a busy day down at the lake.

osprey Pandion haliaetus eyeing author from overhead
A lone osprey (Pandion haliaetus) came within decent range, including staring us down as it wheeled close by, but it was disinclined to dive for any prey and soon moved off.

great egret Ardea alba passing overhead

I’d seen a single great egret (Ardea alba) across the lake on an earlier visit, and this may have been the same one – as you imagine, they’re not hard to spot even from a distance.

Now this next one had me going.

possible juvenile little blue heron Egretta caerulea cruising past
It looked a bit smaller than the egret in passing, but that can be deceptive when against open sky – depth perception is not what we often believe it is. The uniform dark color had me suspecting a juvenile great blue heron at first, but they’re not really all that dark. Later on in examining the photos, I started to think it was a tricolored heron, but still juvenile because it lacked the, well, the three colors that they have. Though we don’t see tricolored herons this far inland/north.

blurry belly view of possible little blue heron Egretta caerulea overhead
My Sibley Guide disavowed me of that notion, because the juveniles of that species are brighter, not darker, plus they always have some white on their belly. This crappy image, snagged when autofocus was being stubborn again, was enough to clarify some small details at least, and now I believe this was a little blue heron (Egretta caerulea) – I thought I’d featured one here at some point in the past, but it appears not. Little blue herons are quite small, probably about the same weight as the green herons but lankier, and my impression was something larger and more distant, but the coloration is closest to that than anything else. Normally there’s a noticeable bit of reddish brown along the neck, but it’s possible this one was just getting into its adult coloration. It’s not too young, though, because the juveniles are piebald, mostly white with blue patches as if they spilled the fingerpaint. Little blue herons aren’t found around here either, so this remains a curiosity.

probably juvenile tufted titmouse Baeolophus bicolor
It was a day for juveniles, though. Within a thicker wooded patch some distance from the woodpeckers, I snagged a few frames of this guy, which I’m almost certain is a juvenile tufted titmouse – the behavior and calls were right, though typically the face is paler. This one might also have not been long out of the nest. I mean, seriously, you call that a tuft? My hair stands up more than that, and I don’t even have hair up there…

And finally, another portrait, though technically this was the first that I captured on this outing – let me have my trivial drama.

newly-fledged black vulture Coragyps atratus showing head down feathers
This is a juvenile black vulture, still sporting the baby down on its head (and a little on the shoulders) despite being out with the flock like a real grownup. This was the first I’d seen, and the towhead was dashing – the species should endeavor to retain that. Almost looks like a fur-lined hood.

But hey, that’s not too bad for two-and-a-half hours. Now all I have to do is discard a lot of near-identical frames of a woodpecker fledgling leaning in and out of the nest…

Some of us are trying to sleep

Al Denelsbeck

The shed out on the back forty of Walkabout Estates has been decorated with various beachy-themed items, which the green treefrogs approve of – they’re all on the shaded side of the shed, forming a flat vertical surface close to the wall that provides the ideal hidey-hole for treefrogs. I can often find the frogs tucked well in behind them, snoozing during the day.

But in putting the lawnmower away today, apparently I was shaking the door a little too much.

green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus peeking out from behind crab decoration
This is also a good opportunity to say that I’ve been using the wrong scientific name for them for a while; it’s now Dryophytes cinereus, and apparently has been that way since 2016, though it usually takes a little while, at least, for the changes to make their way through the literature. And that’s if I’m even reading the literature – since I’m not subscribed to any biological journals, what it usually takes is doing a specific search to see if those silly biologists have decided to change the name yet again. I hate having to do a search every time, but it’s starting to look prudent, at least. Though I doubt anyone is coming here expecting perfect scientific accuracy…

green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus peeking from behind crab decoration
It also appears that the common name has been revised as well, being American green treefrog. But at least it doesn’t have ‘eastern’ in its name…

The brighter side of this is that I won’t be overloading the blog with photos of Hyla cinerea, ever again. It’s one way to get out of a rut…

Visibly different, part 32

Al Denelsbeck

This week we have another variation of the topic, as we see visibly different examples of a photo subject from just this past weekend, quite possibly the largest extremes that I have encountered locally – certainly the largest in a single day. We’ll start small.

very young brown snake Storeria dekayi in author's palm
I initially took this to be a juvenile ringnecked snake, but on examining the photos after returning, I was suspicious of those markings and looked it up; it is instead the juvenile coloration of a brown snake, sometimes called Dekay’s brown snake (Storeria dekayi.) The pale neck markings will fade as it gets older, but the darker markings adjacent will remain. In North America, you can be sure ‘brown snake’ means this little spud (though the average adult is much bigger while not at all ‘big,’) but most references to ‘brown snakes’ will be for the Australian species of the same common name – much bigger and infinitely more venomous, since this guy has none at all while the Australian one proves fatal a bit too often. And yes, this is my own palm. This is the second one we (Mr Bugg and I) found while on this outing, of the same general size but significantly separated in location, so probably not siblings. Overall length: no more than 12cm. Weight: I have no way of determining usefully, but in the realm of two leaves. Seriously. The empty film cans that I carry weigh more.

Which brings us to the other end.

very large northern water snake Nerodia sipedon sipedon basking on washout debris
Unfortunately, its location didn’t allow for ideal photographic views, so you have to look close, but the snake spans across the frame here – spot the scale pattern right in the center and then trace it both ways. This is a northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon sipedon,) and an absolute unit, as the phrase goes – possibly the largest that I’ve seen. Water snakes tend to be shorter but thick and stocky, so the length I’m estimating as close to a meter, while the girth was on a par with my wrist in the midsection. I can only guesstimate the weight from experience, since I didn’t pick this one up, but over a kilogram – more than any individual camera body or lens that I carry, save for the big 150-600mm. While the black rat snakes in the area tend to be longer, these guys mass much more. Let’s have a peek at the head.

head of basking northern water snake Nerodia sipedon sipedon
For comparison, see my fingers in the top photo? This guy’s head was wider than two of them. It did, in fact, seem unnaturally ‘jowly’ and I don’t know what that was about – maybe a case of the mumps. This was as close as I got before the snake decided discretion was in order and slipped quickly (and amazingly quietly for its size) into the water.

The main goal of this session was snakes, but they were a bit slow in appearing, possibly because the recent rains had caused a lot of flooding in the immediate area – the evidence of the high water levels was plainly visible. Nonetheless, we did find a few other examples of the species, none of them basking.

northern water snake Nerodia sipedon sipedon peering head-on from water's edge
Moving slowly allowed me this perspective, since the snake was obviously alert, but I had to go head-on if I could. I have to say that while it’s possible this is another species of water snake found in the area, since the primary way to tell them apart is by seeing the pattern further along the body (that would be the banded water snake,) I’m going to stick with the northern because that’s the most common and the only one that I’ve seen in this location, being New Hope Creek through Duke Forest. This is what my initial view was, though:

northern water snake Nerodia sipedon sipedon peeking from water
This is perhaps the most common way to find the species, since they like to hide and hunt under the submerged portions of rocks, but it is perhaps not the most common way that they’re seen – this is pretty subtle, so I suspect the ‘average’ person (i.e., someone not specifically hunting for snakes) tends to see the species only when they’re basking in a more visible location.

I have to note the difference in behavior among various species. Black rat snakes are longer, and easier to spot because they’re a uniform semi-gloss black on the back, often stretched across a path or occasionally in trees. Yet they’re remarkably docile, often able to be handled without a bite, and they’re not especially shy – they may seek cover quickly, slowly, or not at all. Meanwhile, the heavier water snakes blend in a hundred times better but are notably shy, seeking cover quickly as soon as they determine that camouflage isn’t working, yet they’re also the most aggressive snake in the area and will bite fiercely with any attempt at handling. I have no idea why this difference exists.

One more, because what else am I going to do with this photo?

northern water snake Nerodia sipedon sipedon peeking from under rocks
Less than 1/4 the mass of the first monster, this one was poking from the water only by about 8cm, and roughly 2 in width of the head – pretty subtle from an average viewing distance. But if you’re after snakes, it’s what you have to look for.

Odd memories, part 26

Al Denelsbeck

This is one of those that, I suspect, most of those hearing don’t really believe, but at one time I had proof. Not that that means a lot, since I think it’s vanished now, but a select handful of people got to hear it.

While I was in my late teens I became an uncle for the first time, and before my niece was talking, she was talking. By that I mean, she uttered absolute gibberish, only not this, “ga ga nub nub” shit, but developed and distinct syllables that more than anything sounded like a foreign language. Moreover, she delivered this with inflections and expressions and even hand motions that gave every indication that she knew what she was talking about and that it was enormously important. She could blather on for hours about her chosen “topics,” more dynamic that half of today’s actors – I used to compare her to William F. Buckley. We never knew where she got this from, because it looked for all the world like speakers on news debates or economics discussions, but neither of her parents watched anything of the sort, and it didn’t seem as emotional or dramatic as the soap operas her mother did watch. It was fascinating to witness nonetheless.

To demonstrate, at one point I interviewed her on cassette tape, to send to relatives. I would pose a question (a legitimate question in actual English,) and she would expound at length with complete nonsense, but earnest nonsense – at times dropping in little asides, and at others her voice would swoop and pounce on the key issues. I’d counter with, “But don’t you feel this is at odds with the Aristotelian ideals?” and she would correct my amateur and boorish misapprehensions deftly.

This went on for several minutes, and then, after one longish paragraph, she paused, sighed, and said, very clearly, “Fuck.”

There was no mistaking this, and bear in mind, despite all her efforts, she had never bothered with real words at all. This was just a random syllable – but she made sure it was nice and distinct, not at all nestled in among the rest of it where it might slip past too quickly. And of course, I had this on tape. Those that heard it agreed that I had not imagined it. None of our family were particularly prudish, so the responses ranged from somewhat disbelieving embarrassment to uproarious laughter – you can imagine the side that I fell upon. Unfortunately, this tape is probably long gone, being close to forty years old, but there remains a chance it’s buried someplace, and if found, it will be digitized just to embarrass her with again.

This was unlike a few years later, when she was talking pretty clearly. She had a rocking horse that she was fond of, and one day while she was enjoying it, she paused and told me, “It’s broken.”

“What’s broken?” I asked, since I had just seen her rocking on it and everything seemed fine.

“It’s not working,” she informed me, as if I was an idiot (this was a frequent attitude towards me, I’m not sure why.)

“I just saw you rocking; it’s fine,” I maintained.

“It’s broken,” she repeated, obviously tired of explaining things to nincompoops.

I sighed heavily and went over to the horse, stretching out on my back and sliding underneath (this was one of those suspended by springs, so there was plenty of space,) and began tinkering with imaginary tools under the smooth belly of the horse. This produced an absolutely delighted, audacious grin from my niece – clearly she had not realized that horses could be repaired like cars. I grunted, I forced a few imaginary bolts, I frowned, I was suddenly inspired, and deftly fixed it all up and had it back together within a minute or two; this did not, unfortunately, rub off on my future abilities to fix actual vehicles in the slightest. I slid out and said, “All set – should be good now.”

She was still grinning hugely as she remounted the horse, and I knew what was coming. She rocked exactly once and said, “It’s broken again.”

Even then, I was not one to be played for a fool by a three-year-old (not beyond those three, no, four other times anyway.) I just shrugged and said, “Well, you’re gonna have to fix it yourself.”

The grin faded instantly into a frown. “I don’t know how!” she protested.

“You just watched me do it; the only way you’re gonna learn is by doing it yourself.”

She tried arguing, but I was adamant. Resigned, she got down and crawled under the belly of the horse, staring up at the smooth white surface. She placed her hands on her hips, exhaled, and said, “Shit.”

Now, this one was intentional, because she had a fine grasp of English (and/or pardonable French) at this point. Her father was the type whose language dropped completely into the gutter the moment any hood was raised, though, so she probably just thought this was a typical car issue, like, “bad plugs,” or, “blown seal.” She knew what naughty words were and didn’t use them, but this simply slipped out in context, like how it’s okay to say, “hell,” when you’re referring to the actual location during sermons.

Her sister, a few years younger, was quite the opposite. She was remarkably unresponsive as an infant, often just sitting there in her high-chair or swing and staring around vacantly, uttering not a sound. I recall my many attempts to get her to even recognize my presence, being apparently the last holdout in our family that she wouldn’t smile for. I might as well have been a painting of an ancient stodgy relative over the mantlepiece.

And then, that magical day, as she sat in her chair and I cajoled her yet again, being as upbeat and enthusiastic to see her as I could, and slowly, her bland and expression-free face began to crack into a broad smile that stretched across her cheeks…

“Ruurrrrrrppppp!” she belched exuberantly, a real rumbler that I still envy, and immediately her expression dropped back into the blandest of department store mannequins. Wonderful.

It comes as no surprise to you, I’m sure, that these opening trends completely inverted before either hit ten years old. The oldest became shy and reserved, while the youngest would. Not. Shut. Up. This remains the case, decades later – the oldest won’t even talk on the phone if she can avoid it. As far as she’s concerned, texting is our greatest recent development.

Not a promise, mind you

Al Denelsbeck

Stopped down at Jordan Lake yesterday to do a few tests, and just see what was happening.

Results: Tests weren’t promising, and not much. Distant osprey, and an eagle before I had my camera out.

But as I stood in a familiar location, I heard some cheeping and caught a flash of movement, then had to stake out the area for a little bit.

Discovery: The nest is reoccupied.

red-headed woodpecker Melanerpes erythrocephalus adult feeding juvenile inside nest cavity
Does this mean there will be more photos and video? Not sure yet. Once I unloaded the card, I could see enough of the young’uns (I know there’s at least two) to know they’re not far from fledging, so we’ll see I guess.

So many sinners

Al Denelsbeck

That must be the explanation for all the electrical storms we’ve been having recently. And you thought the reversal of Roe v Wade would have been greeted with approval…

The trick remains, however, in getting a good image from it (we’re back to talking about lightning now.) It started on the 29th, when I collected Mr Bugg and went down to Jordan Lake for a storm cell that looked to be lining up on the southern end of the lake. This was not the case, and what little lightning arrived in the immediate vicinity was shrouded by the rain.

A bit over a day later, another storm slipped in very early in the morning on the 31st. For that, I traipsed over to the neighborhood pond, but all that showed for that were lights in the sky – all bolts were obscured by the low cloud cover. I even drove over to a local landmark, a modern glass office tower that it’s been my goal to get a lightning strike near (or directly on,) because it looked like the storm might line up nicely, but achieved the same results there.

Then another in the early evening of the 31st, and again, the lack of warning left the pond as the best choice. This time, it looked more promising.

clouds lit from within by lightning
The nice bit about the pond is, it has a great view to the west, which is where 90% of the storms roll in from, and of course that I can get to it within five minutes or so. With the amount of trees and the lack of tall hills/mountains in the area, there aren’t too many long perspectives where you can see a storm coming in the distance – the maximum here is perhaps 10 kilometers of so. I really should seek out a nice spot out west a bit more, since there are a lot of storms that pass through a band out there that never reach here. But for now this is what we got, and occasionally it works out.

lightning over trees
This is a tighter crop of a bolt that was still fairly distant. But as the storm drew closer, a layer of low clouds separate from the thundercells developed overhead, illuminated by the nearby city, leaving only a thin gap to see anything through.

lightning under very low cloud cover
Remember that time exposures don’t give an accurate impression of the sky; I could vaguely make out the low clouds, only a fraction brighter than the open gap on the horizon, while the definition from the illuminating lightning is too brief to tell much. But seeing this on the LCD, I zoomed in a little. It didn’t help with the advancing clouds.

lightning almost totally obscured by finger of clouds
Do you see it? It’s right smack behind that cloud finger poking down. Here’s a closer look:

close crop of hidden lightning
At that point, I gave it up for the evening, knowing that the cloud cover wasn’t going to move on. Plus it had started to pour, which doesn’t bother me (I have a camera rain cover and a disposable poncho for me in the camera bag at all times, because this is a frequent pursuit – you can’t call yourself a nature photographer if you aren’t ready for conditions.) It does, however, make photography difficult when the raindrops are spotting the front of the lens.

Another storm on the 2nd was much the same, just throwing some sky glow without anything distinct, and all that my photos show from that evening is the advancing rain column, which I thought I might be seeing in the LCD of the camera but wasn’t sure at that resolution. It soon became apparent though, the horrendous downpour giving the barest warning before it hit, not even giving me time to stow the camera – I would have had to expose the interior of the bag to the deluge, so I simply carried the camera back in my hand, safely protected by the rain cover (with the bag over my shoulder covered by my poncho.) Still wary of residual humidity, they all got aired out in front of fans on my return.

But then there was this evening. I could see the lightning as I was driving home from errands, and had time only to visit the pond again, so same perspective as before. The clouds weren’t an obscuring ceiling this time, but mountains and passes revealed only in the time exposures.

[I have to remark that the camera lens, kept in the bag in the air-conditioned house, immediately fogged up in the hot and humid outdoor conditions, but it wiped away easily enough. The AC here isn’t set that low, but the conditions outside right now are, ‘rainforest.’]

peek of lightning high up on thunderhead
This thunderhead, or ‘these’ perhaps, were enormously active, though most of what I saw was related to what you see here: cloud-to-cloud activity blocked by other clouds. I waited it out, knowing it was drawing closer and hoping it would be lined up with my location.

clouds illuminated by hidden lightning
Hopefully this gives an impression of how it was stretching way up into the sky, especially because I knew it was still pretty distant. But in time, the bolts began making an appearance, down low again.

lightning peeking in at edge of frame
I try not to re-aim the camera to chase visible strikes, because they can be all over the place and make you regret such efforts by immediately striking right where you had been aiming previously. This time, however, I felt better about the close strikes coming from a different cell, or section thereof (in such a mess, there’s really no way to tell how many thunderheads are up there.) It worked out.

lightning emerging from bottom of cloud
Cropped a bit closer from a horizontal frame for this one, not only is the reflection captured (one of the reasons I like the pond,) you can also see where the lightning emerges from the cloud base, illuminating it hazily. This began a brief session of visible bolts in the one region, and I tried making an animated gif (pronounced, “GIG-it-ee”) from five successive frames, but gif color standards made them look terrible, so I just joined them up instead.

five sequential frames all showing distinct lightning bolts
This was one of the few times that I thought I could capture multiple bolts in one exposure, based on how active the storm was, and succeeded with the first and fifth frames. There’s still a limit, based on the ambient light from the sky/clouds – too long an exposure will wash out the strikes that occur, and most times in this area, the strikes are too far apart in time. I could reduce the ISO and/or close the aperture down, but that also reduces the brightness (and thus the impact) of the bolts themselves.

I like that last frame and think it deserves a closer look:

crop of frame with multiple lightning bolts
There was enough wind that the pond wasn’t remaining perfectly smooth, unfortunately, but I do like the different color of the bolts. The streetlamp is the old-style mercury lights, blue to our eyes yet the spectrum plays havoc with photography. Right underneath it is the culvert that the beavers were using.

The electrical activity of this storm became intense, flickering constantly and even multiple times a second, but soon after this point it seemed to be solely within clouds with few visible bolts at all. I’d been hoping for a brilliant tall strike aligned with the pond, but it was not to be this night. Only occasionally would I get a glimpse of a bolt now.

lightning fork almost obscured within clouds
This was high in the sky where the activity seemed to have shifted, and again, I liked the differing coloration, which I suspect is due to how deep within the cloud/humidity the branches are. I boosted saturation for this one just to make it stand out better at blog resolution.

But after several minutes without a visible bolt, and the rain finally starting up and getting stronger, I wrapped it up. Facing west also means facing into the prevailing winds and getting raindrops on the lens, which doesn’t help those nice clear bolt shots. I packed up and came back home to unload the memory card.

And then, even as I was curating the night’s haul, I realized the thunder was getting more distinct and closer; all through the shooting session, it had been muted and slow in coming, evidence of both the upper-cloud activity and the distance of the storm. But now it seemed a lot closer, so I went out on the front porch to have a look – then went back and got the camera and tripod again. It was pouring now, but the roof overhang kept the lens dry and, aiming up almost 45°, there was a lot of activity right in front of the house. In time, I got a few bolts, though I think I missed the strongest activity by only minutes.

lightning branches seen thinly through clouds
This full frame at 22mm, so it stretches across a significant portion of the sky – not bright, but nicely framed at least, and a little bonus from a very active storm. In the past four days I probably doubled my lightning photos for the year, and while I’m still chasing the really dynamic frames, I’m good with this.

Visibly different, part 31

Al Denelsbeck

unidentified injured starfish in shallow pan
I have to confess that I started writing this a few weeks back, and then sat on it to hit the 20th anniversary (more or less) of this image, since it was taken sometime in August, 2002. I’d only been living in Florida for a few weeks then, and on wandering along the ocean in Indialantic, I found a starfish washed up on the sand, missing two arms. It was the first I’d ever seen outside of an aquarium, and I picked it up, though dog knows what I intended to do with it. Only a few minutes down the beach I could feel my hand tickling and realized that it was not dead like I’d thought, but attempting to move along in that glacial way of theirs. I immediately obtained a plastic bag to put it in with a healthy dose of seawater, and brought it back to the apartment, because I wanted detail photos of those little feet – and that is all they’re called, though you can go with ‘tube feet’ if you want to be technical.

That began the process of finding a way to photograph aquatic specimens. In this particular case, it’s only in a shallow storage container filled with water and photographed through the water’s surface, though I knew that light reflections and distortion were not going to be ideal. I made it work, but the availability of so many aquatic subjects required me to seek other methods, and so began the various practices of aquarium photography.

While in Florida, and on some occasions since, it’s been with an actual aquarium, just a 10-gallon one with no frills, but this was enough for both closeups and wider compositions.

Porcelain crab Petrolisthes armatus or Porcellana sayana riding atop thinstripe hermit crab Clibanarius vittatus within aquarium
Because it was maintained, it served as a nice setting/background for any species that I obtained, though since moving away from Florida, I never bothered to establish an active tank. Instead, I had temporary tanks, often with no more substrate than a layer of sand, though occasionally with a print of some kind serving as a backdrop – since it was invariably well out of focus, all that was necessary was a realistic sea-green hue.

At times, however, I’ve also resorted to a very simplified rig, such as a thin layer of water in a lens filter lit from underneath.

unidentified aquatic egg, hydra, and cluster of vorticella
While the aquarium housed (and fed) the various species, some would be selected for tight macro work. I never identified the egg here (this dating from 2012,) and the hydra was of course intentional, but I didn’t realize for years that I had another curious species in there, a cluster of vorticella – those are the little white doodads at the base of the hydra, that I would end up getting video of through a microscope.

Occasionally, even the larger aquariums allowed for some tight macro work.

unidentified aquatic snails hatching from eggs
When a snail laid eggs against the aquarium glass, not only was I able to photograph this taking place, I was around for the hatching too, and since the eggs were attached to the glass itself, right on a side that had easy access, I could adjust the lights to bring out the best detail. These are smaller than a pinhead.

But this is perhaps my favorite:

giant water bug Belostoma flumineum with backswimmer genus Notonecta prey
Collected from a nearby flood pool in 2020, this giant water bug (Belostoma flumineum) quickly snagged a backswimmer (genus Notonecta,) not at all bothered by the captivity. Only by having the glass millimeters away from the action could I get something this sharp and clear.

Just so you know, the macro aquarium used for this shot is the same one pictured here, still in routine use despite now being a little yellowed. It even travels with me to the beach, so I don’t have to bring promising subjects back home, and occasionally it serves to just support some of my subjects.

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