Visibly different, part 28

Al Denelsbeck

great egret Ardea alba on Captiva Island beach framed among driftwood
This is from 1995, though I’m not sure which month – I have nothing, no events or even photographic references, that I can connect to dependably, yet I’m going to say spring just for the hell of it. I was on my first unaccompanied tour of Florida, at this point on a beach on Captiva Island, and recognized the framing opportunity that I had with the great egret (Ardea alba) and the driftwood (Egisse lignum) – it was among the first images that I recall taking with the intention of making something fartsy and worth framing or display. It would have helped if I’d had better light conditions, or been using much better film, or even if I’d done the negative scan better – this is a very old scan (2002 I believe,) and while I undoubtedly have the negative in a binder behind me, I really don’t feel like redoing the scan for this post, since I know there’s only so far I could bring it up anyway. Nonetheless, it did display on my ‘beach’ wall for several years, even though I look at it now and go, “Yurgh…”

Now, here’s the thing: composition-wise, I’m not sure I would do something significantly different today, given the same tableau – I like the driftwood as a framing element and the depth-of-field is fine, so I probably would only shift position slightly to de-center the egret, and perhaps wait for different head positions or another bird to fly past in the background. Color-wise, I’d certainly be getting better results, even with the slide films that I’ve largely abandoned now, and I would most likely be out near sunset for visiting this gulf-coast beach, hopefully with far less overcast conditions. I was concentrating on photography for this trip, but not meticulously planning my timing as I tend to do now. Still, this was just casual poking around, so perhaps I’d still only grab frames as they presented themselves.

Let’s jump ahead 21 years now.

sunrise on North Beach Jekyll Island among standing driftwood
This is instead Jekyll Island, Georgia, and the image still displays on our walls, a large canvas up over the fireplace. I knew the scenic opportunities of this location, and set my alarm to get up way before sunrise to have time to hike down to this location and be there at first light, which is roughly 45 minutes before the sun actually breaks the horizon. No grab shot here – I ambled back and forth a bit to find the layout that I liked best with the three trees, and even though the sunrise didn’t do anything too elaborate, shooting wide at least captured the gentle gradients of the sky, while I recognized the emphasis of the tree limbs towards the right and used that accordingly. For a lot of other frames I chose that furthest tree to use in different ways, much closer to the camera. I do have to note that the tropical storm that blew through the following year toppled all of these trees and so this particular composition isn’t going to be duplicated.

The question remains: will I one day look at this frame and go, “Yurgh,” as well? My instinct is to think, No, it’s pretty strong as an image, I won’t ever be able to dismiss this readily, but at the same time, if I did progress that far artistically, I’d be pleased with myself. Only time will tell.

*

[I have to note that I went to three different online English-to-Latin translators to produce a Latin name from “drift wood” up there, and two said summa silvam while one said egisse lignum, which I liked better. A botanist might tell me that the real name is Juniperus communis mortid or something, but whatevs.]

You guys are late

Al Denelsbeck

I think, anyway.

Over at the neighborhood pond the other evening, right as the beavers would be making their appearance (and were,) my attention was distracted by a pair of subjects quite close by, and so I switched focus over to them.

pair of juvenile green herons Butorides virescens newly fledged
This is a pair of juvenile green herons (Butorides virescens,) and judging from their appearance and behavior, they’d recently left the nest – like, that day, I’m guessing. This was surprising to me, because I thought the species would have nested and fledged out weeks ago, but perhaps this is a second nest after an unsuccessful first? I’d already seen evidence this year of young ones sticking around the tree that hosted a nest in years past, but this was in an entirely different location, and I haven’t (yet) spotted this nest even though, given their predilection to remain locked to this one longneedle pine tree, it’s in there somewhere. Regardless, the video does a better job of illustration, despite my horrible videography skills.

[If it seems like I’m terrible at finding/tracking, bear in mind that I’m still required to use the LCD on the back of the camera for video work, and this destroys my aiming instincts, made much worse by working at high magnification; I’m a little slicker with my eye to the viewfinder at least, and I might get better with more practice. While I have an external monitor that I could be using, this would likely make it even worse because it would be significantly misaligned from the camera and lens axis. Meanwhile the microphone, while on a separate arm and a vibration isolating mount, nonetheless picks up a little too much camera noise, especially from zooming and loosening the ballhead lock, and I’m not sure how much I can do about that, but I’m looking into it.]

We’ll close with one of the images that you hear being snapped during the video recording, a portrait that seems way out of proportion to all the framing adjustments I was making because of numerous intervening branches and the constant repositioning of the birds, not to mention the fading light. I’m good with it.

pair of juvenile green herons Butorides virescens posing quite well

Sorting finds n+1

Al Denelsbeck

It’s happened before: when sorting through recent photos to see what is discarded and what is kept (and subsequently sorted into appropriate categories,) I will find a photo or three that I didn’t feature back around the time that I took them, but feel they deserve some recognition. This happens often enough, in fact, that I decided to make it a category, but since I don’t know how many times I’ve already done it, we’re just assigning that unknown value to n and going from there.

[Does anyone know why the first variable presented is almost always ‘n‘? Is there a clever reason behind this, or is it just short for “number”? Please make up something else if this really is the answer.]

Anyway, I had to go through 1,055 images tonight, but it went quicker than normal because of the large percentage that fit into just two categories: Birds and Mammals. My Mammals folder, always a rather thin one, has expanded nicely courtesy of the beavers, but more on them will be along shortly. For now, we have birds.

great blue heron Ardea herodias silhouetted against sunset ripple patterns
I could have saved this one for the end-of-the-month abstract, but I think I’ve already done one like this – I know I used a similar image for a bullshit post. I just liked how a bare amount of facial detail from this great blue heron (Ardea herodias) remained visible in these lighting conditions.

Next up, we have a cooperative juvenile bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus):

juvenile bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus glaring down from above
I’ve featured images of this same eagle before – maybe even in two separate posts – but I liked how this very tight crop still held up in sharpness and detail, and gives a very different impression from the reality of a remarkably mellow raptor.

And finally, an osprey (Pandion haliaetus):

osprey Pandion haliaetus almost directly overhead preparing to dive
Offered in contrast to the previous image, this isn’t too majestic or noble, and that’s the point – I liked the awkwardness of it. It comes from being underneath the bird as it prepared to dive after a fish, cropped tighter for the drama… or, whatever. It has the look of someone who has definitely bounced too high and not quite accurately on the trampoline. But that goes without saying.

By the way, I always have something to listen to when I’m sorting, and this last batch took one episode of The Geologic Podcast and half an episode of the original Hitchhiker’s Guide. However, there are still 204 video clips awaiting my attention, and those take a lot longer…

A bit more useful

Al Denelsbeck

Feeling bad about not illustrating scale very well a few posts back, I revisited the same subjects (well, two of the three) to do a better job. And got a bonus as well.

This still remains kind of a pain in the ass, however – closeup video at night has a lot of issues, and the 7D really isn’t optimized for this. But it’ll be a long time (e.g., significant income) before I decide to upgrade to serious video equipment, so this is what we have for now.

A small side note: At one point the other day, I’d seen a bird dart over to snag something near the Japanese maple that has been hosting the anoles, actually crashing against one of the low branches that I’d seen an anole on, and I was a little worried that the bird has just snagged my photo subject, though I’d checked carefully only minutes before and saw no sign of it nearby; more likely the bird was after a dragonfly. Still, this is what happens in nature, so we’ll see how long and how often I can find any of these again.

I have other video coming up soon-ish – still hoping to get some more clips to add to it. You know where to find it when it appears.

Visibly different, part 27

Al Denelsbeck

yearling white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus peeking from roadside
My oldest image of a white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) dates from… actually, I have only a vague idea of when this was taken, which is somewhere around 1990-93, and no recollection of where. I scanned the negative a few weeks back and now can’t recall if the frame edges were rounded (which would indicate that it was taken with the Wittnauer) or square (Pentax) – probably the former, given the distance and quality. It was a grab shot taken from the car, but really, that’s all that can be said.

Given how common this species is across the continent, I have surprisingly few images of them – far, far fewer than of mantids and treefrogs. And among those are few behavioral images, which I really should correct, but deer don’t motivate me as much, perhaps because so many people have photos of them that I aim for slightly more obscure species. Nonetheless, the quality has improved over the years.

white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus fawn approaching up driveway
Dating from 2007 now, this was taken with the Canon Pro-90 IS, cropped a bit. Another grab shot from the car, but this time in the driveway on my way into work while a curious fawn slowly approached the vehicle; this makes it, like, three times closer than the above frame. From what I’ve observed, fawns seem to need to learn the ‘headlong flight’ behavior that the adults often exhibit, and when young enough will show little discretion, but this may be an aspect of the trait they possess when very young, where they will lay down in a spot of their mother’s choosing and remain there regardless while the mother forages, presenting a frequent issue with people ‘rescuing’ ‘abandoned’ fawns. When they’re old enough to get around dependably, then they learn to flee questionable circumstances.

white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus doe at edge of property
Now we’re up to 2010, using the Canon Digital Rebel at the very edge of my rental property. Deer were semi-frequent visitors, but again, I didn’t spend a lot of time chasing images. This doe was quite close and I was using a longer lens (the 75-300mm,) but this is also cropped a little – it appeared in the early days of the blog in a slightly different framing.

white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus buck, about six points, looking at photographer from developing fog
Perhaps the most fartistic of the collection, which isn’t saying much at all, this dates from last year – I just liked the twilight fog and the white clover flowers. This was now taken with the Canon 7D and the Tamron 150-600mm, and by all rights it should have been worse than this given the poor light and long focal length, handheld well after sunset. Still didn’t achieve a really scenic background, however.

white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus fawn peering from trees
And this… is just eight days old, quite likely the same fawn as seen vaguely here, though no adults were in sight. I spotted the fawn (well, no, it was already spotted) just outside the fence as it fled, and knowing that it wouldn’t go too far before pausing to assess the situation, I fetched the camera – same rig as the previous image – and quietly followed its path, getting rewarded with a couple of frames of suspicious looks before the fawn fled again. The light quality, the focus isolation from the background, and that teen-hipster beard all make it work much better than the others.

The major differences? By the largest margin, just the accumulation of opportunities. Again, these may have demonstrated much more improvement, within a shorter time span, had I dedicated more effort towards pursuing the species; great images can just happen, but making the effort to improve the odds will usually mean they happen much more frequently. I know that’s not a really deep insight, but occasionally we need the motivation to make the effort. Believe me, once you snag some wonderful shots after spending a lot of time in the pursuit, it gets easier to do – you have proof that it works.

Meanwhile, they’re all dead-on portraits, aren’t they?

Got enough?

Al Denelsbeck

I was busy taking care of things in the backyard when I realized that the calls of a red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus) seemed a bit too clear. It’s quite common to hear them as they wheel overhead marking territory, but this was fixed and quite close. It took no effort at all to spot it sitting on a dead branch just off the back of the property.

red-shouldered hawk Buteo lineatus being obvious and complacent
This is fairly uncommon; unlike the red-tailed hawks, red-shouldered tend to be a bit more secretive, alighting in thicker foliage where they’re not easily spotted, and I’ve spent plenty of time trying to find one that I knew, from the calls, was right there and yet couldn’t quite lay eyes on it. This one probably couldn’t have been more obvious if it tried, and I was in plain sight myself no more than 15 meters away. It stayed put as I got the camera, and even as I returned to my chores.

red-shouldered hawk Buteo lineatus from a different angle
The one thing it didn’t do was offer up any calls while I was shooting, the only evidence that it even recognized my presence. Well, there was another bit, and we’re about to get to that. Eight minutes have passed between the first image and this one, and you can see how the sun has moved on and thrown more shadow on my friend here, but at least I got a nice frame with some lighting into that eye. It hadn’t moved – the change in perspective is due to shooting from different parts of the yard, which really isn’t that big, so you get a faint impression of how close the hawk was, even though these frames are significantly cropped.

red-shouldered hawk Buteo lineatus making eye contact with photographer
Eventually it made eye contact, though even this wasn’t an indication of anxiety because it remained where it was – it spent far more time looking over its shoulder at something behind it than down at me, though I saw nothing back there myself. Most likely, it was hearing something stirring in the undergrowth and was watching for prey.

Given that this was only 20 meters, if that, from the nest that I featured six years ago, it remains possible that this was one of the young raised therein, or even a parent – but not likely. Six years is a long life for most birds in the wild, not to mention that we’ve always had plenty of the species around, so who knows? So although I haven’t spent a lot of time the past few days in chasing pics, I can present a handful that represents a little activity. And I’m working on some stuff that will appear here eventually – just want to get it right.

Only kind of useful

Al Denelsbeck

Two discoveries last night led me to shoot some comparison images, which allows you to see the size variations between these species, but not the actual size of them. It’s not easy to get something to show size in the frame with most of my subjects, even when I carry little paper measuring scales with me (how many people can say they have one of those in their wallets regularly? How many people don’t find this a bragging point? Weird.) Most of my subjects would either be disturbed by my attempts to slip something like that alongside them, or would move on immediately after I got it propped into place. Plus it destroys the aesthetic.

Regardless, here are the images, notable in that they were all shot at the same magnification and are shown here full frame, so each of these is exactly this size in comparison to the others.

very young Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis snoozing on Japanese maple
This is likely the same baby Carolina anole (Anolis carolinesis) found a few days back, given that it’s less than two meters away from that spot. Though I’d be thrilled to know there’s more than one this age (how many people – oh, never mind…)

juvenile Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis on blackberry lily Iris domestica
This is a juvenile Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis,) roughly half adult size, flushed out as I misted the area. I missed a great video opportunity, because for all the times that I’ve seen mantids excited about getting misted, this one was the most exuberant, climbing the leaves excitedly and waving its forelegs in the air like it was conjuring – it would be easy to mistake this for an aggressive display, except that I know how they feel about water when it’s this damn hot out.

juvenile Carolina mantis Stagmomantis carolina on clethra buds
And this is a juvenile Carolina mantis (Stagmomantis carolina) on the buds of the clethra bush. Carolina mantises are roughly half the size of Chinese mantises and hatch much later in the season, so this one is quite young, probably a few weeks old. I’d seen it on the clethra bush earlier but the misting didn’t flush it out like the Chinese mantis; nonetheless, I found it with a short search while shooting the comparison images.

To keep these together, they were all shot at the maximum magnification of the Mamiya 80mm macro, though without the extension tube, so at a working distance of 16cm or so from the end of the lens hood. The last mantis is probably about 10mm in length, and the head of the anole is smaller than your little fingernail. Thankfully, they’re well separated because, at these sizes, there could be a food chain thing going on (though not in this order.) I was also pleased to find three Chinese mantids in the area with a short search, after how scarce they’ve been this season. Time to start stalking them for video.

They can’t all be March ’15

Al Denelsbeck

lone willet Tringa semipalmata on shoreline
Yeah, seven freakin’ years ago in March, I began the practice of the month-end abstract, though I didn’t know it at the time – it just kinda fell into place and became a (semi) regular feature. And truth be told, that first one still remains one of my favorite abstract images. This one here? Not so much, and not even too abstract at that, but it’s what we have for the month. Shot while out at Fort Fisher, NC, I went wide for the scenic/abstract nature of it, just capturing the isolation, but it’s not deep or poignant or eye-bending. We’re just using it to see June on its way, or welcome July, or note the middle of the year. Whatever you like. It’s a tradition now, and you don’t mess with tradition…

Yeah bud

Al Denelsbeck

Coming up the front walk today without doing any of my typical surveying for subjects, I only spotted this because of how freaking obvious it was.

very young Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis on pelican statue
After having seen the pregnant female Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) several times in the front area, I stopped seeing any sign of her. This was vaguely troubling, because in an effort to stop the marauding leopard slugs, we’d put out a shallow pan of beer; this did not work as advertised, but I never saw the female again after that and I was afraid she’s poisoned herself on the beer. But now, we have this guy right in the same region, and I suspect that the size/scale is evident. Those big green sweet potato leaves are growing from (and completely concealing) the same blue planter that the expecting mother was pictured on in that linked post. This is the smutphone shot – I quickly scampered in and got a camera to do this proper.

very young Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis on daylily Hemerocallis bud
I did two quick sessions, correcting some oversights from the first, and in the interim the anole had moved – had I not known it was in the immediate vicinity, I likely never would have spotted it atop the daylily bud. It was being pretty cooperative, I have to admit – it definitely knew I was around and made some motions in consideration of concealing itself, but was likely relying on motionlessness instead. I can always work with that.

very young Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis in close profile
This is cropped of course, especially since I wasn’t even using the extension tube on the Mamiya 80mm macro, but still, I was less than a half-meter away. I have no precise measurement, but that eye is almost certainly 2mm in width or less; the entire anole, long tail included, was the length of my finger. You will, almost certainly, be seeing more of it later on.

Just because, part 48

Al Denelsbeck

I have a few things to get done, and a few more clips to capture to flesh out a planned video, so we’re just gonna have a couple of placeholders in here, okay?

[Plowing ahead without waiting for an answer]

yellow-crowned night heron Nyctanassa violacea peering down from tree
Cruising around the neighborhood pond the other evening, I spotted this yellow-crowned night heron (Nyctanassa violacea) as it left a treetop nearby and flew a bit further on, allowing a closer approach as long as it was done slowly and quietly. The behavior was a little cooperative, the light considerably less so, semi-overcast and backlit, so not only is this a pretty muted image, it’s been tweaked away from an even worse state. Nonetheless, night herons are cool, a hair (feather) larger than the green herons with a really harsh barking squawk, distinctive with that white stripe and the larger eyes. And of course that no-nonsense bill.

The next evening as I approached the house, I found Kaylee crouched in the front door, a favorite nature-watching spot of hers and Monster’s.

Kaylee in front door
This was also shot with the long lens, and if you’re getting the impression that she’s slightly cross-eyed, you’re not mistaken – this is evidence of her Siamese heritage. Also perhaps faintly visible, she doesn’t like making eye-contact with me, despite the distance and the intervening camera, and so she’s looking ever-so-slightly to my left. I play a game with her sometimes, in that I notice which way she’s shifted her gaze and keep leaning into it, forcing her to keep turning her head aside subtly (she won’t look away – she has to keep her peripheral vision on me) until she finally realizes what I’m up to and abruptly shifts her gaze slightly to the other side. I’ve never determined why this is, but she bonded early on with The Girlfriend and this is how she enforces my status.

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