August collection

No, not the month of August, but the adjective ‘august,’ meaning reputable, refined, and noteworthy.

Okay, yeah, it’s the month. And I looked it up just for giggles, and the none of those are synonyms for august anyway, which list, ‘dignified,’ ‘distinguished,’ and, ‘imposing.’ So much for my high-school English classes…

Regardless, there’s read more

Here and… well, here

Continuing the posting of recent-ish photos (meaning those mostly taken while I was hashing out my ignorance of PHP to make things look ‘acceptable,’) we have these various offerings from the environs immediately surrounding Walkabout Studios, what the proletariat tend to refer to as the “front and back yards” we will attempt to elevate this missive by using, read more

Well it’s about time

“Double-crested cormorant.” They have that name, oh, probably because they have a double-crest, right? Makes sense. Except they don’t. I have dozens of photos of them, from various states, over the years, and not one of them shows a double-crest. It’s supposed to be a breeding display in males, so perhaps it doesn’t last too long, but still, not once? It’s enough read more

Encouragement

At the old place I had gotten a butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii) to grow, and it enticed numerous species to come by and pose for the camera. But for some reason, the soil in the yard of the new house is kinda weird and it’s hard to make anything thrive numerous plants have started read more

Podcast: The mindset of a nature photographer


I decided to make this one the topic of my next podcast during an outing with a student, and so the images that accompany it have come from the same outing, in many cases illustrating something that I talk about in the audio. It’s not possible to spoil anything on this one, so feel free to browse ahead while my mellifluous voice (or something) purrs on in the background.

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Rediscovered


While skimming through images in my folders, I came across this pair taken back in 2012, and decided to feature them to appease all of the people who started coming here because of the bugs, who now have nothing to see during the cold months. You haven’t been forgotten.

On the spearmint flowers this butterfly, likely a pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos,) was holding a little too still read more

The Great Unused of 2013

I have to admit, I’m really not one for rating things, especially comparatively – top ten lists and all that are not for me. I did it last year, mostly because a prominent blogger would feature any such posts on his own blog as a bit of promotion, so it was blatant opportunism. If you’re here because you found my blog from that link and are still following it, cool, it worked! read more

2012’s Not-Quites, the Insects

So as I mentioned, I went ahead and put together my best images of this year – or, as it really should be, my favorites, since no one is voting on these but me. However, this year was notable in that most of my images, by a wide margin, were arthropods (which I still call ‘insects’ solely for convenience.) read more

Luck is a matter of perspective


Most likely a white-banded crab spider (Misumenoides formosipes) with an unidentified hymenoptera. Good luck for the spider, bad luck for the bee. Taken on a shamrock plant that The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog had obtained this past March. And since she doesn’t like spiders, probably better that she’s at college now…