{"id":28682,"date":"2021-04-18T01:52:02","date_gmt":"2021-04-18T05:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=28682"},"modified":"2021-04-18T01:52:02","modified_gmt":"2021-04-18T05:52:02","slug":"came-through-in-the-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2021\/04\/came-through-in-the-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Came through in the end"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We (meaning the <a href=\"http:\/\/albuggphotos.blogspot.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Insuperable Mr Bugg<\/a> and I) had another outing on Friday &#8211; intended to be a morning session, but the overnight and AM temperatures were less than inviting and we knew it would prevent many species from even poking a head out, so we postponed it until early afternoon. Even then, it was pretty slow going. The temperatures had gotten into a quite comfortable range, it was sunny and clear, yet the critters were few and far between. However&#8230; but I&#8217;ll let the mellifluous narrator explain it<strong>:<\/strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/538237639\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><br clear=\"all\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A small note<strong>:<\/strong> I was trying to avoid the ubiquitous 16:9 aspect ratio for this video and use a more versatile 4:3, which hews a lot closer to the 3:2 that the camera renders, but for unknown reasons OpenShot makes such options far too complicated and byzantine, so this is what we have until I figure out how to do it properly (or that the program cannot actually accomplish this.) 16:9 is fine for movie theaters I suppose &#8211; never saw the value in having such a wide display, myself &#8211; but why it has to be used everywhere now is beyond me.<\/p>\n<p>The deep canopy of trees over the heron is responsible for the greenish cast to most of the photos &#8211; that&#8217;s the way it appeared, and I&#8217;ve never liked the vagaries of Auto White Balance.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the other photos from the session. The heron of course<strong>:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/LookingSvelte.jpg\" alt=\"great blue heron Ardea herodias not looking gorged at all\" width=\"750\" height=\"1125\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-28683\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>Unless it pulled a switcheroo in the brief period it was out of our sight, this is the same heron that just horked down a kilo of catfish. You&#8217;d never suspect it, would you?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/BeeFlyBluet.jpg\" alt=\"possible Greater Bee Fly Bombylius major on bluet Houstonia caerulea\" width=\"750\" height=\"963\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-28684\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>Another look at the greater bee fly (<em>Bombylius major<\/em>,) or what I take to be one anyway. The few photos I have aren&#8217;t close enough to pin this down for sure. Bluet blossoms (<em>Houstonia caerulea<\/em>) are only about 10mm across.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/WildIrisComposition.jpg\" alt=\"crested dwarf iris Iris cristata in bright sunlight\" width=\"750\" height=\"590\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-28686\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>This is a crested dwarf iris (<em>Iris cristata<\/em>,) a fairly common NC wildflower but I think the only place I&#8217;ve ever seen them is Duke forest. Finding them is bright sunlight was slightly trickier, but hey, you know I&#8217;m up to the challenge.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/DukeDebrisSnake.jpg\" alt=\"likely northern water snake Nerodia sipedon sipedon nestled in crevice in rocks\" width=\"750\" height=\"1166\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-28687\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>And, after the heron sequence, we managed to find another snake &#8211; normally Duke Forest is loaded with them. This is a smallish water snake, likely a northern water snake (<em>Nerodia sipedon sipedon<\/em>) but the key features to distinguish this for sure are hidden under debris, and this was as close as we were getting without risking a dunking in a deeper section of river (not, by any means, <em>deep<\/em>, but deep enough not to risk camera equipment, you know?)<\/p>\n<p>It would have been a pretty weak shooting session without the heron, so credit where it&#8217;s due. Now I simply have to decide if I&#8217;m going to start packing along at least the monopod on most of these outings&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We (meaning the Insuperable Mr Bugg and I) had another outing on Friday &#8211; intended to be a morning session, but the overnight and AM temperatures were less than inviting and we knew it would prevent many species from even poking a head out, so we postponed it until early afternoon. Even then, it was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,3809],"tags":[451,2850,6093,6094,6096,69,6092,2851,6095,6097,1206,961,4811,3801],"class_list":["post-28682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","category-video","tag-ardea-herodias","tag-bluet","tag-bombylius-major","tag-channel-catfish","tag-crested-dwarf-iris","tag-great-blue-heron","tag-greater-bee-fly","tag-houstonia-caerulea","tag-ictalurus-puntatus","tag-iris-cristata","tag-nerodia-sipedon-sipedon","tag-northern-water-snake","tag-queen-snake","tag-regina-septemvittata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}