Posts in Category: wildlife
Great Spangled Fritillary!
Great Spangled Fritillary, Emmon’s Preserve. Kennenbunkport Land Conservancy.
You just have to love the name! Great Spangled Fritilllary! Great Spangled! (And then, of course, there is the issue of remembering how to spell fritillary…or is it frittilary? I always have to Google it to be sure.) There were dozens of Great Spangled Fritillarys in the fields at Emmon’s Preserve in Kennebunkport yesterday…doing their thing…which is fritting. They frit constantly, often never coming to full rest while in sight. You get the occasional bug, like this one, who is apparently nectaring, and therefore lighting on the Knapweed, at least for a few seconds. This bug turned and showed me all sides. This composite image shows both the Greatness of the wings, and the Spangles on the underside…or is great spangles on the back?
Nikon P900 at 500mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 220 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Virginia Ctenucha Moth
Virginia Ctenucha Moth, Timber Point / Timber Island Trail, Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, ME
I have not been to Timber Point for many weeks and yesterday seemed like a good day, so… I got as far as a wonderful hay meadow full of Knapweed and other wildflowers, where I stopped to add to my “If Monet had lived in Maine” series of painterly meadow shots. While shooting the meadow I found many male Bobolinks singing from perches in the tall grass and flowers, so I went back to the car for my Nikon P900 and its long lens…only to discover that I had grabbed the wrong camera bag on the way out the door. My Nikon was still at home. 🙁 So there I was on a photoprowl with just my Sony HX90V and its 30x zoom. I know…it was only 4 years ago that 30x was the absolute limit of the superzoom world. I have to admit I am totally spoiled by the 83x, 2000mm equivalent zoom on the Nikon P900. Still, it was too far to go back, so I spent the morning pushing the limits of the HX90V and enjoying every moment of it.
After many Monet-like shots in the meadow, and, yes, a few of the Bobolinks with the HX90V’s zoom pushed out to 1440mm equivalent with 2x Clear Image Zoom, I went on to Timber Point. Unexpectedly fog was rolling across the point. Yes well…best laid plans and all that. You take what your get in photoprowls and as in life. I caught sight of this creature in the grasses near the point and could not get a pic, but there it was again in the deep shade along the boardwalk, working the Meadowsweet on the way back. I did my best to photograph it, and took many exposures. I honestly had no idea what it was, but it was an easy search on Google when I got back. I mean, how many orange-headed, blue bodied, moths can there be in Maine? Turns out: just one 🙂
Virginia Ctenucha is a common diurnal moth across the northern states and Canada, currently expanding its range all the way to the west coast in Canada. No one knows whether the nominal specimen was actually collected in Virginia, but Virginia is the extreme southern range of the moth, if it exists there at all. It is much more common further north. And I will cheerfully admit I have no idea how to pronounce the name…I could find no guidance on the web. Ctenucha. Either the C or the T must be mostly silent, or you must fake a vowel…as in “si ten u cha”. Anyway. Really interesting creature.
Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 125 @ f6.4. Cropped and processed in Lightroom.
Feisty Red Squirrel
Red Squirrel, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
This might actually be the same Red Squirrel I encountered on the Laudholm Farms boardwalk a few weeks ago. It was certainly in about the same area. However, if you remember, on that encounter the squirrel was relatively shy, if determined. It would allow me to approach to within about 20 feet, and then it would lose its nerve and scamper on down the boardwalk to find another seed to eat further away. I moved it probably 150 feet down the boardwalk before it scampered off into the forest. This time, the squirrel seemed determined to defend its stretch of boardwalk. I felt like the Borlog and the squirrel was Gandalf. He would leap up to a tree and threaten me, than he would plant himself firmly on the little 3 inch tall rail of the boardwalk and glare a clear message “you shall not pass!” Then he would charge me. Me. He charged. The squirrel. Tail twitching. Ears erect. Eye to eye. He charged down the rail to within six feet of me before thinking better of it and flying off into the forest…only to land right back on his tree and then the rail where he had started: 20 feet from me and glaring.
Not only that, when I first saw him he was eating, relatively speaking, a log. You see it here. He was sitting up, holding this stick in his paws like a giant cob of corn, and was breaking it up and extracting something from the pulp. In his first few charges at me he carried the log with him, and even after he dropped it, it might have been what he was defending.
Eating his log like corn.
Finally, he had already been in the wars. When I got the images home, you can clearly see in many of them that there is a fresh wound in front of his right eye. I suspect he got it scrapping with other Red Squirrels, but it might have been from a unsuccessful predator attack (unsuccessful from the predator’s standpoint). I told you. A veritable borlog of a Red Squirrel! (Oh wait…he was supposed to be Gandalf 🙁
Wounded
The first two shots are with the Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. The last shot is with the Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent field of view. I switched cameras because on his close approach the squirrel was inside the closest focus on the Nikon. 🙂 Processed in Lightroom.
Ebony Jewelwing again
Ebony Jewelwing. Batson River, Emmons Preserve, Kennebunkport ME
There were a few Ebony Jewelwings, all males, a week ago along the Batson River at Emmons Preserve (Kennebunkport Land Conservancy), but yesterday there were both males and females and they were thicker than the mosquitoes. 🙂 Of course, due to the mosquitoes it was hard to stand still long enough to photography them…but I came back with a number of keepers. This bold male perched repeatedly only a few feet from me.
Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent field of view…with some Clear Image Zoom applied to bring it up to about 1000mm equivalent. 1/250th @ ISO 500 @ f6.4. Processed and cropped slightly in Lightroom.
Green-eyed Monster
Racket-tailed Emerald. Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk ME
Yes, well, green-eyed for sure. This is a Racket-tailed Emerald. There is at least one pair that inhabit a small pool beside the Kennebunk Bridle Path. They must successfully sow eggs in the pool every year, since I see them just like clockwork, emerged as adults, and busy about the business of dragonflies. They don’t perch a lot, and when they do, they favor out of the way nooks among leaves, so they are not easy to photograph. I was happy to get these.
Nikon P900 at 700mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 200 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
The Big Easy: 12 Spotted Skimmer
12 Spotted Skimmer, Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk ME
The Twelve Spotted Skimmer was the first Dragonfly I ever photographed. Not this one. My first shot was at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in July of 2012, and it kicked of an interest that has persisted and grown over these past 3 years. Appropriately, the Twelve Spotted Skimmer is one of the easiest dragonflies to photograph. It is big and showy…and it perches often…returning regularly to the same perch. A bit of patience, and a suitably long lens (or even a great deal of patience and shorter lens) is all that is needed. My lenses have grown in length over the past 3 years, even if my patience has not. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 700mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 125 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
For interest here is an even closer shot with the Sony HX90V using some enhanced digital zoom.
12 Spotted Skimmer. Sony HX90V.
Mighty Singer!
Common Yellowthroat. Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
The somewhat disheveled appearance of this Common Yellowthroat did not keep him from belting out a mighty song! I suspect he was fresh from his morning bath in Day Brook Pond close by, and still fluffing and drying on the branch. He allowed me to approach quite close, but this shot is still a crop from a 2000mm equivalent take. It is a small bird. On any decent sized monitor, even a 7 inch tablet in landscape, if you go to full screen mode you will be seeing the bird at life-size or above. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500 @ ISO 220 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Tree Swallow making a wing…
Tree Swallow, Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk ME
There was a newly fledged Tree Swallow (or two in a few cases) on the top of every old post along the Kennebunk Bridle Path near the new bridge on the ocean side of Route 9. There were a few adults around, tending to them. This adult was having a nice wing stretch. You can never plan for these shots…but if you have the camera to your eye at the right second, sometimes they happen 🙂 That is an impressively large wing when stretched like that in proportion to the bird!
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 320 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Backlit Chipper
Chipmunk, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms. ME
The Chipmunks are very active at Laudholm Farms this year…everywhere actually, in Southern Maine. This individual was very busy collecting and eating some kind of seed, in the mowed grass of one of the trails through the meadows. I began shooting it when it was just a dot in the center of the finder…thinking it would surely scamper off into the brush as soon as I approached, but it stayed out in the open, finding more seeds, until I could get this frame filling shot at 2000mm equivalent field of view. I was about 30 feet from it at that point. 🙂 I like the backlight…and the camera held detail in the shadows very well.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 200 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Eastern Towhee x2
Eastern Towhees, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, ME
I have mentioned before that we seem to have a lot of Towhees this year. They are singing wherever I go, and see them most places. At Laudholm Farms yesterday afternoon, on my photoprowl in search of bog orchids (among other things) I found several and was able to photograph 3 different individuals. The panel above shows two of them, singing within a 100 yards of each other.
You might notice that the bird on the right is freshly banded. June Ficker has operated the mist nets and banding station at Laudholm Farm for 25 years…an incredible achievement. She and her team of volunteers give banding demonstrations each Wednesday morning in the summer when the weather cooperates, under the spreading Copper Beech between the barns and house at the farm. In fact, I may well have see this bird banded last Wednesday on my way back to the car from a photoprowl. 🙂
For more information on June Ficker and bird banding at Laudholm Farms, visit here.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.