Almost missed it

I glanced out front just a short while ago and saw one of the Hemaris moths visiting one of the butterfly bushes, and quickly got my camera. The Hemaris species (there are two locally) are better known as the ones that mimic either a hummingbird or a bumblebee, and as such often garner my attention. It was still visiting the bush when I returned, but this may have been due to a read more

Out of proportion

Boy howdy, peanut-brittle and sausages, do some of these posts take way more time than they really should! But I’ll go into that later. Right now, we have a simple (!) follow-up on the anole front.

After finding the adult Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) snoozing in the oak-leaf hydrangea in the previous post, I’ve been keeping an eye on that particular lizard, because it’s read more

Tried to slip one past, eh?

As usual, I had several egg cases of praying mantids to keep an eye on around the yard this spring: one Chinese mantis, two that I suspected were European mantis brought down from NY, and three Carolina mantis. One of the Carolina’s vanished over the winter, perhaps found by mice or something (this was before I’d mounted them on new stalks to keep them out of reach of read more

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

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