But they’re cute

Al Denelsbeck

Yeah, back in a rut – or I never left, whatever you like. But these finds from last night couldn’t be passed up.

I semi-routinely check out the property, day and night, to see what can be found, mark progress, and so on. I’d like to think that I’m getting even better at spotting extremely subtle things, but there’s no real way to determine this, no ‘master list’ of what there is to be spotted. I just know what I do find, which might only be 2% of what could be seen if I didn’t suck. Man, empiricism isn’t good for the ego…

tail of Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis hanging down from dried flowers of oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia
The oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) in The Jungle has been a good place to spot things this year, though not every time I’ve checked (see above.) The flowers from this past spring are still there, dried and brown now, and may hang on through the winter, providing a nice accent to the overall appearance as well as hiding places for various small critters – that tail hanging down is the clue, though it’s only 3cm long. And there’s more to see, if you look very closely, but I’ll make it easier in a moment. Don’t keep scrolling if you want to challenge yourself first.

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sleeping juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis within dried flowers of oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia
Yep, our old friend the Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) is once again sleeping within those flowers. So you know, the individual petals might be fractionally larger than your thumbnail – this is one of the juveniles, almost certainly this year’s brood. They appear to grow much slower than the frogs do, and a few days back I believe I spotted one of last year’s brood, only half of adult size. There’s no way to tell for sure, and all I can go on to differentiate them is their locale, which may change at any time when they decide to move on. I suppose I could sneak up some night and attempt to give them a tiny tattoo…

By the way, you can tell this is a juvenile by the awkward sleeping position – adults of every species know if they try to sleep like this they’ll be worthless the next day.

About two meters away on the rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus,) was another find.

juvenile Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis hanging awkwardly from rose of Sharon Hibiscus syriacus
This one probably heard my attempt to get closer up the overgrown slope of The Jungle, through the ivy and blackberry iris and various unwanted vines, thus the open eye. It didn’t budge from position, though – and it is this position, shot perfectly upright and level, so the anole really is hanging head down like that. I’m not at all sure how it’s remaining that way, since neither the hind legs nor the tail seem to be latched onto anything, so perhaps it just licked its own belly and stuck itself to the leaf? Maybe this is a very localized example of those gravity anomalies? Maybe… nah, let’s not be indelicate.

The other day when I didn’t have the camera in hand (the horror!) I viewed some behavior that I’m dying to get on video, and it was almost certainly displayed by one of these two, given that it was on the top of the same hydrangea roughly midway between these two photos. I’ve already done a few short video clips, nothing fascinating, but I intend to catch more behavior before the season ends and these spuds go into hibernation. The problem is, there’s no way to get a decent view without them being acutely aware of my presence, which likely affects their behavior – it could be a while. Still, it’s been a good year for video efforts, so we’ll see.

Visibly different, part 37

Al Denelsbeck

Just playing around this week, because I didn’t dig out anything of interest and comparison from the archives – been that kind of week. Still, these will be visibly different, so you can’t take away points for not meeting the bare criteria.

unidentified berries in snow, monochrome blue channel
We open with a dramatic and contrasty image, though I admit I should have dropped the exposure down slightly to keep the snow from bleaching out in so many places, but there’s nothing I can do about it now, so we’re living with it. The berries, however, have become more enigmatic, because this is channel-clipping once again, taking advantage of a digital trait by eliminating two of the three colors that all images are composed of (those being Red, Green, and Blue, whence comes the term, ‘RGB’) – all of the subtleties and variations come solely from varying the intensity of these three. In this case, we’re looking at only the Blue channel, and the berries are so dark because there is very little blue in their natural color. Which doesn’t narrow it down too much, even though in this image they kinda look like blueberries, but they’re far from it.

unidentified red berries in snow
One of these days I’ll stop being lazy and figure out what these are, since we have several trees of them nearby and they’ve formed the subject of countless images. But that is not this day. Or even any day previous to this, which is narrowing it down steadily.

Regardless, since monochrome images are best with distinctive contrast, the Blue channel was the best one to use here. Not so much with the next one, so this is not the Blue channel below.

eastern tiger swallowtail Papilio glaucus on unidentified flower, monochrome Red channel
This one, unfortunately, looks not-quite-authentic, the wings of this eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) becoming a bit too bright in this channel, but perhaps giving the impression of being backlit. A little too contrasted? Your call, but this is the Red channel, though that isn’t readily apparent when you see the original.

male eastern tiger swallowtail Papilio glaucus on unidentified flower
Were you expecting yellow wings? In the RGB color space, yellow is a combination of red and green – strange but true – but since there’s a lot of green in the background, using the Green channel brightened that up too much and didn’t have the contrast that this does, while naturally the red flower lost its vibrancy.

Now for one from this week, at least.

morning glory blossoms in monochrome Green channel
Definitely muted this time, with little differentiation from the background – this is the Green channel. Why did I use that when the surrounding foliage is green and thus would be brighter? Ah, there was a specific reason, which we get at least a clue of when we see the original.

morning glory blossoms
Yeah, I agree, it’s better in color, but let’s look at this. The various lavender hues of the blossoms meant that both the Red and the Blue channels were well represented and fairly bright in the monochrome versions, but the magenta ‘spokes’ were what made Green the choice; magenta is the opposite of green in RGB, and so they became the darkest and thus distinctive in the Green channel, instead of the blossoms being only subtle variations in brightness with the other two channels.

Still, not as much contrast as we like to see from monochrome images, so I performed a final tweak.

morning glory blossoms in monochrome green channel with contrast tweak
This was a minor Curves adjustment, boosting the brightest portions of the image all the way up to full white, and slightly reducing the shadow levels. Very simple, and the Curves function is something that every photographer should have at least some grasp of.

Curves adjustment of previous imageHere’s how it looks – this is from GIMP, but most other programs are very similar. The mountain range at the bottom of the graph is a representation of how many pixels in the image fall into each brightness value – black at the left, white at the right, so you see a very sharp spike at the left edge, a good portion of black pixels, and none of white – this is what made the original muted and a little dark. [You can do this for each color channel as you like, but the default is ‘Value’ as it shows at top left, which means overall brightness, and since we’ve eliminated the other colors for this image anyway that’s all that we have to work with: 256 shades of grey, super kinky.] The bold diagonal line across the image is the adjustment curve, only slightly curved here. I moved the upper right endpoint to the left slightly, lining it up with the brightest pixels on the ‘mountain’ below, which means that they got moved up all the way to white. This skewed the whole diagonal (the ‘average’) away from the original values, the faint blue line, and so over to the left more – which are the shadowy portions of the image – I brought those back down to where they had been, just clicking on the line and dragging it. This increased contrast a little because the first move had increased all brightness. Make sense? Seriously, just play with it sometimes if you don’t already – it can greatly improve your images.

Which reminds me: one of these Visibly Different posts will be about darkroom versus digital editing, which will take a few specific images to illustrate – that’ll likely be more towards winter. You’re coming here regularly, of course, so you won’t miss it…

101 amphibians

Al Denelsbeck

Well, maybe not that many, but a few dozen at least. Or maybe it’s even more – I have no way of counting.

Some weeks back I mentioned the Copes grey treefrogs (Dryophytes chrysoscelis*) that deposited eggs in a water barrel in the backyard, which subsequently hatched into tadpoles. At the same time, the pond in the backyard (a proper place for amphibians to deposit eggs) also featured its own share of tadpoles. I monitored the ones in the barrel, since there was no easy way to get them out – it was well over a meter deep and held close to 200 liters of water, so I figured I’d leave them be and let nature take its course. They didn’t seem to be developing very fast, though, and the prolonged drought was causing the pond level to drop significantly, so eventually I set up a hose and siphoned out the vast majority of them (and the accompanying water) into the pond. Then a few days later, I collected a few for comparison photos.

Copes grey treefrog Dryophytes chrysoscelis tadpole with larger tadpole of unidentified species
Given the sizes that I’d observed a few days previously, that’s one of the tadpoles from the barrel on the left, with an unidentified species that grew within the pond on the right – it’s not much of a comparison, because I have no idea when those eggs were deposited, even though I feel the pond was a better environment. It is almost certainly one of four species, because they’re the ones I’ve found in the yard routinely: Copes grey treefrog, green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus,) American toad (Anaxyrus americanus,) or green frog (Lithobates clamitans.) The latter is an aquatic species rather than a treefrog, and I really wish they had a different name just to avoid confusion, but so it goes. There are at least a pair living within the pond and I never saw the eggs that begat the other tadpoles, so I’m in the dark regarding species – and will likely remain that way, since even as they leave the water as tiny frogs/toads, they don’t have distinguishing traits and all largely look the same.

But let’s have a look at their development.

unidentified tadpole showing developing hind legs
This is the largest specimen that I collected, and those feeble little hindlegs are visible but really just dangling there – they’ll develop pretty quickly, and a bit later on the forelegs will pop out (literally – they appear to develop internally and then extrude from the skin.) Had I been monitoring the pond closely, I might have a decent handle on how long this all takes, but my observations have been sporadic and haphazard, so I can’t provide much info here. I’ve considered keeping a few in an aquarium where I can track them better, but I’m not sure what they really need for food and might simply be dooming them for the sake of curiosity, so we have this instead.

Another showed slightly less development.

closeup of developing hindleg in unidentified tadpole
In watching this one swimming within the macro aquarium, I got the impression that those legs aren’t really external, but still just under the transparent surface of the skin. This was intriguing, and I tried for better detail.

extreme closeup of developing hindleg on unidentified tadpole
That really doesn’t help; there’s a faint shadow, but no distinguishable demarcation at the base. Bear in mind the entire limb is a few millimeters in length, and I’m shooting through a layer of glass (that has seen better days – it’s time to rebuild the aquarium.) It would take an extremely fine touch with a tiny probe to see if the limb really is external, and it was difficult enough getting them to pause near the glass for these photos – they tend to swim off when disturbed.

The real challenge was this one, though.

unidentified tadpole showing all four developing limbs now
A few days previous to collecting all these, I’d found one with four developed limbs and knew it was getting ready to leave the pond, but didn’t do anything about it at the time. So when I started collecting (this was just last night, the project that I mentioned in the previous post,) I scoured the pond, multiple times spaced an hour or so apart, trying to find one with four limbs; obviously I succeeded, but I suspect it was the only one so equipped within the pond. An early developer, or the last of the litter to leave? I have no idea, and though I examined the region surrounding the pond for evidence of others that might have left, in vain, they would be easy to miss between their size and the countless places to hide.

Another view.

unidentified tadpole with four limbs clinging to twig
Seeing it using its limbs along the edges of the aquarium, I found a small twig to put in there and eventually coaxed it into range; as suspected, it started clinging to the twig, showing it was now using those limbs as intended and was probably almost ready to exit the pond. It might already have done so as I type this, 24 hours later.

Notably, this was a little smaller than the spindly-legged specimens above, but I don’t think that means much; if I’m interpreting past observations correctly, they bulk up initially and then use a lot of that to develop the limbs, slimming down in the process. From all other appearances, this is a sibling of the other larger specimens, but really, I have a whole selection of sizes living within the pond now, so don’t confidently share what you read here at parties to sound knowledgeable – dog knows I don’t (but then, I don’t get invited to parties, can’t imagine why.)

This also means that, within a few more weeks, the ground here at Walkabout Estates may be crawling with amphibians, but that’s happened before and, aside from making me examine the ground carefully for a while when I’m walking around, they disperse (and/or get eaten) pretty quickly. Some of the specimens that I’ve photographed this year have undoubtedly hatched from that pond, but really, the grounds aren’t as inundated as you might imagine. Nature of the beast: some species produce a lot of offspring to cope with the high attrition rate when young, and as long as a few make it to reproducing age, things are working effectively enough.

* Yes, in July I identified them as Hyla chrysoscelis, but now as Dryophytes chrysoscelis. Many years back I learned their taxonomic names and had them memorized, so I wasn’t checking to see if they’d changed, and just stumbled across it a few weeks ago. The new genus was established in 2016, though how quickly it migrated through the literature I cannot say, except that there are still plenty of websites using Hyla. Kinda makes a guy regret including the proper scientific names if they can’t leave ’em the hell alone…

Sorting finds n+2

Al Denelsbeck

Okay, not really a find, because I remembered they were there and had this idle intention of doing something with them, but since I was sorting the recent images tonight, I decided I might as well tackle it.

Back on August 23rd, we had sporadic and scattered thundercells cruising across the state in the early morning, and I got very little warning of one that may pass right over us, so I scampered over to the neighborhood pond to set up. Initial flashes and rumbling looked promising, but the activity pretty much died out as the cell drew close. I had a ton of frames, all time exposures waiting for a decent strike, and only got two frames that showed anything at all. Well, except for the cloud movement. And in flipping through them, I realized I could do something with those at least.

animated gif of cloud movement and lightningIt may be obvious that this is running backwards, but I couldn’t start with the one lightning flash now, could I? And that was the way it went: after changing position, I got one noticeable burst and then nothing for plenty of frames, but the glow from the streetlights off of the low clouds made them visible, and the sequence of frames (there are ten here) made their development clear. You will also notice another shift in there, because I changed angle slightly and apparently the focal length too, though this was unintentional, and I only did a half-ass job of correcting it for the gif (pronounced, “JOB-smakt.”) Actually, I’m only keeping the one frame and discarding the others, so this is the only use they’ll ever be put to. If you want to consider this an NFT, I’ll be happy to launder wisely invest your money for you.

You may want a better look at that one frame – or you may not, in which case, close your eyes because it’s coming anyway.

weak nighttime lightning pic
Actually, I’m not really sure why I’m even keeping this one, except that it shows the different layers of clouds. Woo hoo.

Meanwhile, as I was typing this, my internet connection got balky, so I paused for a bit and chased another project, the result being that I added almost a hundred frames to the Sort folder before I was even done with this sort. You’ll see some of them soon – I was a bit more successful for this project, and no, it’s not lightning.

Time to mature

Al Denelsbeck

I mentioned, like, a week ago having a bunch of photos from the NC Botanical Garden, but it was too soon then to post them – they needed time to come to their full potential, mellow and full-bodied.

[Do you like how I can sell being a slack-ass by making it sound like wines or something? And what does “full-bodied” taste like anyway? I doubt they mean fatty. Even “mellow” is pretty questionable – that’s a mood, you pompous gobwits, not a flavor (or even flavour.) All wines are supposed to be associated with mellow. Just once, I want to find one that’s anxious, with overtones of insecurity…]

eastern cicada-killer wasp Sphecius speciosus checking out pitcher plant
Compared to some visits, this one was a little slow – I didn’t spot one Carolina anole, and even the insect species were a bit sparse. The pitcher plants showed the first real activity, among the finds there being this massive eastern cicada-killer wasp (Sphecius speciosus.) Not quite the size of my little finger, it easily outmassed any other Hymenoptera that I’ve seen, and while I have no idea what the venom is actually like, it’s easy to believe getting stung by this would hurt.

There were no cicadas to be seen in the pitcher plants, though I doubt that was what it was after – the cicadas are to feed to their larvae anyway. The nectar that the plant uses to attract and drown insects remained out of reach, and the wasp wasn’t committing, so it flitted from one blossom to another, not to my knowledge accomplishing anything, but who knows what I was missing? There was another species that was taking advantage of this attraction, though.

green lynx spider Peucetia viridans on pitcher plant with unknown wasp prey
I’d just passed through a region of the garden that had typically been home to green lynx spiders (Peucetia viridans) in the past, and spotted not one, nor any sign of webbing or egg sacs, but I found several hanging out on the pitcher plants, including this one already in possession of a meal. Green lynxes are ambush predators, relying on their coloration to escape attention and then snagging their prey when it comes close, and they’re quite capable of taking something far larger than they are. One, probably 1/3 the mass of the cicada-killer at top, nevertheless took a shot at it as it came close; I wasn’t even aware of its presence until I heard the wasp flit away from it with a noticeable buzz. Meanwhile, this lynx is getting a bit large in the abdomen and may not be long before creating an egg sac.

But we need a better illustration.

green lynx spider Peucetia viridans hiding among old flowers
This patch of unidentified older flowers was in the same planter as the aforeseen pitcher plants, very open, and you can see how well the lynx spider blends in – it’s right there, but I’m comfortable saying that most of the visitors to the garden missed it.

green lynx xpider Peucetia viridans potentially guarding hidden egg sac
It didn’t really occur to me at the time, and I didn’t notice the collection of webbing until editing, but the abdomen is suspiciously thin here and the webs a hint, since they don’t use them for hunting: there’s probably an egg sac out of sight beneath the leaves. Mother will hang out near the sac until the young hatch, and run interference for a while to protect them.

A short distance away, another find was resting in the shade of a large leaf.

snowberry clearwing Hemaris diffinis resting in shade
This is a snowberry clearwing (Hemaris diffinis,) one of two hummingbird mimic moths in the area, though they also can appear like bumblebees. It’s easy to believe that this protects them from predators and it almost certainly works (otherwise it would never have evolved,) but the spiders aren’t fooled – I’m guessing birds are. Just a little later on, I debated about passing up a particular section of the garden, but then decided to check it out for just a few minutes, which turned out well.

snowberry clearwing Hemaris diffinis approaching phlox with proboscis unfurled
Another clearwing was making the rounds of a patch of phlox, and I blew quite a few frames in pursuit. This proved challenging, because the hyperactive nature of the moth was defying the autofocus quite often, but attempting to manually focus was much worse, so I have a lot of frames to discard, with enough keepers to make it worthwhile.

snowberry clearwing Hemaris diffinis at phlox
Time spent ‘on station,’ paused at a particular blossom, might have ranged as high as two seconds, but typically it was a second or less – I guess phlox doesn’t produce a lot of nectar. And like many insect species, clearwings don’t seem to follow any pattern, so anticipating their movements is hit-or-miss, and prefocusing on a specific spot largely a waste of time. You just track them as best as you can.

snowberry clearwing Hemaris diffinis deep into phlox
Given the deep, narrow trumpet of the phlox, though, only insects with a long proboscis (butterflies and moths) can get the nectar anyway, apparently pollinating the flowers with their face, as it were. I imagine some really tiny insects could crawl down in there, but due to body size couldn’t make much of a dent on the nectar before they were full.

snowberry clearwing Hemaris diffinis in midair with proboscis unfurled
Had to have one more in midair with the proboscis out. So you know, body length is roughly 5-6cm for the species, so captures like this are more luck than skill, but you didn’t hear that from me.

I had another find in the garden, a first I believe, and couldn’t do it justice despite waiting around to see if it reappeared in better conditions.

juvenile eastern milk snake Lampropeltis triangula triangulum on fence
A very small snake was perched on top of a fenceline, making me stare at it through the camera (this was at 135mm and cropped at that) to first try and confirm that it was a snake, and then, what species. Identification had to wait until I could get back and view the images under more magnification, but I’m calling this a juvenile eastern milk snake (Lampropeltis triangula triangulum,) because right now it’s the only pattern that seems to fit – I’m not sure of any other species that has that speckling along the margins of the belly scales, though most illustrations of the juveniles show brighter patterns and higher contrast than this. I welcome anyone’s input.

juvenile eastern milk snake Lampropeltis triangula triangulum peeking out
The snake was aware of my presence and efforts to get an unobstructed view, and peeped at me cautiously before slipping from sight into some dense foliage. I waited to see if it would reappear anywhere, but no dice, and between its size and the thickness of the plants, it could easily have been watching me while I couldn’t make it out – its body diameter was maybe 5-7mm, overall length not more than 30cm so, you know, lay a few french fries end-to-end. Still, if it was a milk snake, that makes the second that I’ve seen recently (well separated in distance) after going years without seeing one. Trend or coincidence? Only more careful observations will tell.

Visibly different, part 36

Al Denelsbeck

arctic fox Vulpes lagopus in summer coloration, from the NC Zoological Park in Asheboro NC
I’m guessing that more than a few people would fail to recognize my photo subject here, because virtually no source ever shows them at this time of year. This image is actually the first in the ‘Mammals’ category of my slide archives – not the first mammal that I’ve shot (that title probably predates this one,) but the first I took when I switched over to slides. It dates from August 1998, and was taken at the NC Zoological Park in Asheboro. This is what an arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) looks like in its summer coloration.

For a long time, this was the only way that I’d seen them, given that I live hundreds of kilometers from the Arctic Circle and didn’t tend to visit the zoo in the winter. This coat blends in quite well with the summer conditions up there though, where some days it might even get warmish – actually I don’t really know what temperatures it reaches in the summer, though I’m comfortable saying that I wouldn’t wear sandals as frequently as I do here.

But when I say, “arctic fox,” most people (me included) picture this:

arctic fox Vulpes lagopus in winter coloration, from the NC Zoological Park in Asheboro NC
Same place, and potentially even the same fox, only eight years (and a few months) later in 2006, christmas eve in fact. The weather that day was remarkably warm – even sandals were feasible – but the fox had developed its winter coat by then and now looked properly arcticky. And of course, garnered a lot more attention now by being pure white and fluffy. Which isn’t the goal in its native conditions, but then again, there are very few human females in such locations, and a lot more golden eagles and polar bears that couldn’t give a fig about ‘fluffy’ but have a harder time spotting a white potential meal against a white snowpack background. As do the foxes’ prey, consisting largely of voles, seal pups, and lemmings.

Some things I don’t have as specific goals but am happy to obtain anyway, and variations in coloration or plumage are good things to have in stock. For any given species this might be challenging – breeding plumage especially, since it often lasts only a few weeks and may be sported by just one sex, so capturing good examples of this might take a lot of time. Granted, that wasn’t the case here, and I wasn’t trying to accomplish this anyway, but it was a productive trip overall.

Can’t leave it at that

Al Denelsbeck

Doing a quick check last night (after finalizing the previous post,) I found that I’d uploaded 99 images for August, and that simply won’t do. I got a nice handful today at the NC Botanical Garden, but no time right now to write them up, so we’ll stick with just rounding up to a nice even C.

male eastern box turtle Terrapene carolina carolina from NC Botanical Garden
This is a male eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina,) the first I’ve seen in quite a while, despite doing a specific search for them – well, for a day, anyway. The red eye tells us it’s a male (most likely,) and the ridges on each of the ‘scales’ (scutes) of the shell tell us it’s about 12 years old. The crushed gravel substrate used in the paths there tell us it’s really uncomfortable kneeling to get a shot.

I have more images, but they’re likely not to get up here until tomorrow at least. Besides, why would I ruin 100?

Closing out

Al Denelsbeck

A few last photos for August, having obtained these just recently. My post and photo counts remain a little behind last year and/or average, but this is the way it’s been. Ya can’t change fate.

zebra swallowtail Eurytides marcellus on butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
Glancing out the window, I spotted a butterfly species that I’d never seen before on one of the butterfly bushes (Buddleia davidii.) It flitted away as I watched, then circled around and came back, so I went and grabbed the camera. It did at least another indecisive loop, but paused long enough on the flowers for me to get a few frames.

zebra swallowtail Eurytides marcellus on butterfly bush Buddleia davidii
This demonstrates that BugGuide.net needs to start using tags on their photos instead of simply searching within the accompanying text, because my search of “black white butterfly” turned up only one species even close, and that was a pale tiger swallowtail. Which this is not – it’s a zebra swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus) and not at all uncommon in the region, despite the fact that I’d never seen one before. BugGuide definitely has them listed, with plenty of photos, but apparently nothing that connects to a search for “black white butterfly.”

[This butterfly bush, by the way, had been planted in the yard but was struggling and appeared near death’s door, so a couple months back I transplanted it into a pot, where it simply exploded – the butterfly bushes do not like our native soil, but my custom potting mix is all kinds of okay to them. I hate to convert large areas into planter beds, but given the results I might have to, in order to have flower beds to attract these kind of subjects.]

While doing this, I checked on the anole lairs, then took a look at the rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) flowers, doing well for the first time this year (it likes the soil.)

rose of Sharon Hibiscus syriacus blossom showing something within
This blossom was definitely past peak, but as I was doing a few frames, I noticed something within. I paused and leaned closer, and instead of cowering down into better cover, it marched up the petal to a prominent location.

rose of Sharon Hibiscus syriacus blossom with unidentified crab spider
I don’t know the species of crab spider – it might be a young male goldenrod crab spider – and I certainly can’t explain why it made itself as obvious as possible as I loomed over; I wouldn’t think crab spiders would be aware of my enormous reputation as a photographer and skilled blogger, but what can I say? You tell me that’s not a conspicuous flex.

Right alongside this plant, I’ve been seeing another mantis on the blackberry lilies (Iris domestica,) and in the evening checked it out again, catching it on the seed pods that give the flower its names – or one of many, anyway.

adult Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis on seed pods of blackberry lily Iris domestica
Doing this shot at light, aside from keeping the mantis from getting spooked at my presence, provided an interesting synchronicity with the dark eyes and the exposed seeds – it wasn’t intentional, especially since I didn’t know the mantis would be all the way up at the top of the stalk where the seeds are, but I’ll take credit for it anyway.

I am slightly leery of the mantis being here, because these flowers are right alongside the oak-leaf hydrangea where three of the anoles like to hang out, and the mantis is big enough to make a meal of them, but that’s how nature works. The anoles don’t seem to like the thin stalks of the lilies and the mantis hasn’t taken to the broad leaves of the hydrangea, so at the moment they remain separated.

Across the yard on the largest rosemary bush remains the large adult that I’ve been keeping tabs on, now looking rather promising.

possibly pregnant adult Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis perched among rosemary branches
This is almost exactly where the first of the oothecas hatched out this spring, lending a little more weight to the suspicion that mantids return to the location where they were born to produce their own oothecas. And she looks almost ready, doesn’t she? Provided it is a she and this is evidence of impending eggs, which I can’t say for sure. But I’m watching carefully, because I still have to get that on film, uh, whatever.

[In fact, I just checked again as I type this, but no indications yet. Sitting there waiting for the event to happen isn’t really viable; it might take days, and in the interim, mantids don’t really do much – she’s been in the same portion of the bush for the past day, and the same bush for well over a week. Plus my presence might actually cause her to delay laying her eggs, so I’m just hoping to catch her as she’s committed.]

One last one, because it’s here.

Monster sleeping with head through upstairs railing
I don’t think I’ve ever seen her sleep like this, but Monster took a little nap with her head poking through the upstairs railing, allowing me a shot from directly underneath. It was just over three years ago that we brought her home as a stray, and I don’t think she misses that life.

Jäähyväiset, August!

Al Denelsbeck

closeup of eye of albino American alligator Alligator mississippiensis
Perhaps not as abstract as many, but I knew it had to show up this month solely from how surreal it looks. This is the albino American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) that lives at the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher, who was sleeping close to the glass when I was near – I have a video clip of the eye lazily opening, if you want to see it. The crowning touch is the algae in the crevices of its skin of course, but the pinks and lavender add to the whole effect as well. Yes, the eye is wide open, and yes, the pupil is so small right now that it barely registers – it wasn’t bright in there at all, but maybe albinism makes them more sensitive to light? Perhaps it’s really hungover? Don’t come to me for biological accuracy.

As always, kids nearby kept asking if it was real and/or alive, since it was moving just as much as gators do, which is not at all – they think continental drift is exhilarating (the gators, not the kids.) Naturally, the alligator made some small confirming movement as soon as the kids looked away in boredom, and stopped the moment they looked back, trolling expertly despite having a lizard brain. It knew, all right…

Visibly different, part 35

Al Denelsbeck

adult bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus disappearing into distance
Our opening image is crappy – I’ll admit that, but it’s kinda the point of these posts so don’t get too excited. It comes from 2018 but isn’t really the first image of a bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in the wild that I’ve taken – it’s the first that I can lay hands on. But first, a little backstory.

This area of central NC had never been a decent place to spot bald eagles, and I was largely resigned to not getting any kind of good images unless I traveled elsewhere. They were around, but scarce and always maintaining a great distance. Yet in 2006, a friend and I did a trip out to the coast, and on Lake Mattamuskeet we spotted a raptor wheeling in the distance – the great distance. I was primarily shooting slides, but got out the Canon Pro90 IS digital to fire off a couple of frames because I could zoom way in on the preview image, which contained just barely enough detail to show what appeared to be a white head. Encouraged by this, we backtracked and headed in the direction we’d seen the bird. Long story short: we got quite close to a perched bald eagle, only it was on the opposite side of the car than I was, and my attempt to slip out surreptitiously spooked the eagle off before I could snag any photos. My friend, however, got several great frames right out his car window. That initial digital image of mine that had prompted the efforts wasn’t even worth keeping and got discarded.

Perhaps even before then, there was the release of a rehabilitated injured eagle, and the same friend and I were on hand for photos. We took up stations in opposing directions, and of course upon release the eagle stayed low and swooped in my friend’s direction, allowing him to once again get some slick shots while I mostly saw the backs of people’s heads.

Finally in 2018, Mr Bugg and I spotted a bald eagle low over Jordan Lake as I was driving along the causeway, and quickly pulled in to the closest parking area to go out and scan the skies. We saw not the faintest sign, but on carefully creeping to a new vantage point, we heard the launch of a large bird directly overhead in the trees, and by the time we could maneuver to a clear view, the eagle was already quite distant – that’s the image above, and it’s even cropped closer. Proof that they seemed to be more present than before, but little else.

In 2020, the luck was getting a little better.

likely second year juvenile bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus in flight
This is a juvenile of course, but significantly closer now (still cropped – almost all of these will be) and showing some distinct details. The sky could naturally have been much better, but you take what you can get. This is still Jordan Lake – these are all at Jordan.

We ended up seeing a lot more juveniles than adults, perhaps partially because they’re not as spooky as the adults and thus fly a bit closer to people. Nonetheless, in 2021 I managed a sequence of frames of a fishing adult, farther off than I’d have liked and not the best of light angles, but these remain perhaps the best frames of a wild adult that I have so far.

adult bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus lowering its feet
I had a whole sequence of the descent and capture in the post at that time, but I think I like this one best for the light and position, though it vies with the last one in this post – I’ll let you decide.

Last year I added quite a few frames of the species to my stock, including some from central New York (two trips,) and suddenly it seemed like bald eagles were no longer a “someday” goal but a viable subject for extended images. This year, my luck has been even better in regards to getting close.

juvenile bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus providing noble profile
This one landed in the tree closest to me while I was pursuing images of fledgling red-headed woodpeckers, and sat there for twenty minutes – this is not cropped at all, and while it is shot at 600mm, I could have tagged the eagle with a water balloon. Well, probably not, because my aim sucks, but it was close enough if I had more skill than I do. And the eagle might have appreciated this, because it was definitely feeling the heat that day.

A few weeks later, another close opportunity, possibly even the same bird.

juvenile bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus glaring down from above
This one’s cropped, true, but for dramatic effect, since it was maybe marginally farther than the previous, just not noticeably so. Can’t complain about the light or conditions at all for this one. For demonstrations of progress, these all work pretty well.

To what can I credit this? Mostly, the greater prevalence of the species in the first place – that’s the bulk of it in a nutshell. To a small extent, the knowledge of their profiles and flight habits, and their calls, alerted me to opportunities that I might have missed without them. The one immediately above was seen from hundreds of meters away, confirmed with the long lens, and then approached carefully. One of the juveniles from New York was obtained by hearing a call and seeing an adult fly off, and suspecting that a juvenile might remain nearby, which turned out to be correct – that’s where a little understanding of bird behavior helps out. But mostly, it’s the greater numbers – and being out there in the first place.

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