Only kind of useful

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? read more

Visibly different, part 23


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 read more

Been quiet

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 read more

Some night, anyway

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 read more

Visibly different, part 13

So this one is cheating slightly, which you’ll understand in a moment.

Many years back, my first digital camera was the Canon Pro 90 IS, a more touristy model than serious, partially because that’s all that I was going to spend at the time, partially because I was still wedded to slide film. But after shooting quite a few images with it, I noticed something a little curious, and ran a read more

Looking back on those we post in 2021

Okay, was that a particularly terrible title? I dunno, it had that certain cliché-trashing aspect to it…

Anyway, a look back at posts and photos from last year that I’m fond of, which you should definitely consider fair warning, because you’re not getting any others. There will be a couple more posts of a similar nature coming, one of them the annual tag roundup, so this will have read more

Still works

I mentioned more photos, and I deliver! Before christmas, even.

First off, we continue the thread of finding things, with this little discovery:


That’s the egg case (ootheca) of a Chinese mantis, definitely this year’s, so I have the first one to watch next spring – so far it’s been the only one found on the property, but I’m still watching. This is on read more

Intermission, part 2

I’m in the middle of a long post right now, worrying about it too much given the number of visitors to this site, but that’s my own neurosis. Meanwhile, I followed a link to a video clip that was quite amusing, but it was hosted on [urgk] Twitter I attempted to embed it here (with full attributes and links, mind,) but all that occurred was a direct Twitter read more

One down, one to go

I’ve mentioned that I had a pair of photography goals – regarding the mantids, at least I have a few dozen photography goals overall. But with the mantids, there was a) mating, and b) laying the eggs, and as of this afternoon and evening, I can scratch one of those off the list.


Sorry, I should have given you more warning before popping that image up like that. But this read more

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