I had a few of these images waiting for an opportunity to write them up (while giving a little space from the last post about them,) and just now, I added some more. The raptors from the previous lake trip are still waiting in the wings – a ha ha ha.
We’ll start with the oldest, dating back to September 20.
This minuscule juvenile green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus)
I’m still playing with the Chinese mantids (Tenodera sinensis,) and you’re tired of hearing about my attempts to obtain certain photos of them (aren’t you?,) specifically laying eggs, or producing the ootheca/egg sac – I’m honestly not sure these can be differentiated, because I only have one set of photos of it and they’re not that clear, plus I was
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.
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,
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
July has been a slow posting month, for several reasons – the heat, mostly, and getting deeply involved in video editing. But I’ve also just – not felt like posting. Perhaps it’s good that I didn’t, because the mood might have come through and you wouldn’t have the scintillating content that you normally do.
But I’m getting over all that, so let’s see
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
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?
Our opening image today, a Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis,) comes from… I’m going to say 1990, a few months after having moved to NC from NY. I know it was taken with the Wittnauer Challenger (which produces rounded edges on the negative frames,) and was early, so no later than 1991. Long enough ago, anyway. This was most likely as close as I could get with
Curiously, the activity around Walkabout Estates has been greatly reduced, and I haven’t been shooting much – we’ll see what happens for tomorrow’s outing. Right now I just have a handful of images from today’s patrol.
The gardenias out back have been budding madly, threatening a prominent display when they eventually come into bloom, but it’s
I was initially going to say these were from last night, but it’s getting late and some idiot decided the date should change at midnight rather than, say, seven AM. Whatever – they were shot at night, and obviously not right now. Good enough.
While I’m still leery of the temperature dropping to something inexcusable again, it’s been warm even overnight, and so scoping out