Posts in Category: wildlife
Another Great Spangled Fritillery
This Fritillery had such a dark mantle that, while photographing it, I was convinced that it was another species…on mature reflection though, and after some Web research, I am pretty sure it is just another Great Spangled. As though “just” could ever describe a Great Spangled! Again this is in the meadows at Emmons Preserve, but in the upper meadow this time. There were more typical GSFs, with much lighter mantles, in the lower meadow on this day. The Knapweed is just about finished for this year…only a few blossoms left…so these might also be the last of the Great Spangled Fritilleries.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 1200mm equivalent (2x digital extender). Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Assembled in Pixlr Express.
Chipper
It was so dark in the woods at Rachel Carson NWR on this overcast morning that I had to dial back the shutter speed to get this image. Even then it is at ISO 6400. And not bad at that. Who could resist the pose?
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1/400th @ ISO 6400 @ f6.7. Processed in Snapseed and Photo Editor by dev.macgyver on my tablet. Cropped slightly for scale.
Bee for Thursday
I mentioned in an earlier post that there were more insects at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens on our visit Monday than I had seen before…especially bees…and especially Bumble Bees. They were everywhere. After a few shots with one in the frame, I began to collect them on different flowers.
Sony Alpha NEX 3N with the ZEISS Touit 50mm macro. ISO 200 @ 1/160th @ f10. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Chipmunk
On my way back from my photoprowl to the beach at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve at Laudholm Farm I chose the boardwalk trail through the forest, and was rewarded by this Chipmunk sitting and eating berries on a tree quite near the trail. Nothing cuter!
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 1200mm equivalent (600mm optical plus 2x digital extender). Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 2000 @ f7.1. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Any perch
My wife and I spent the better part of the day at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Maine yesterday. It is something we have done several times now on or around our anniversary. The CMBG is a treasure, the unlikely result of the ongoing efforts of a group of dedicated people in Boothbay. They have assembled a world class collection of plants in beautifully landscaped settings that always provides a day of pleasure when we visit. We were a few weeks later this year than in past visits and it was interesting to see the difference that few weeks made in what was blooming, and what was not.
A highlight of this trip was the number of insects. There were bees, mostly Bumble, everywhere, and squadrons of Twelve-spotted Skimmer Dragonflies. crickets. Wasps. Several other Odonata. Etc. It sometimes seemed difficult to photograph flowers without catching a bug in the frame. 🙂
This image is, of course, an unusual juxtaposition. Dragonflies, like the Blue Dasher here, are predators and do not generally visit flowers. That is not to say they will not settle on one if it presents itself as a likely perch for hunting. This stand of salmon colored Day Lilies was along the bank above an ornamental pond where many dragonflies were patrolling. And the Blue Dasher is not the only dragon I caught perched among the blooms.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 380mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1/500th @ ISO 320 @ f8. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Calico in Obelisk Posture
Well, almost in full Obelisk posture…but then this is Maine, and even in mid-summer, the sun is never straight up. The theory, with some lababoritory testing to back it, is that pointing the abdomen at the sun like an Obelisk and raising the wings helps to avoid overheating on hot days by limiting exposure to the direct rays of the sun. The behavior has been observed in most dragonflies that hunt from a perch. This a a little Calico Pennant which I found out on the shores of Kennebunk Plains Pond on our hottest day so far. Note that in this position the dark patches on the Calico’s wings also provide shade for the thorax.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1/500th @ ISO 250 @ f7.1. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Great Spangled Fritillery!
Yesterday was my July pilgrimage to Emmons Preserve to check the meadows for dragonflies and butterflies and the river for Emerald Jewelwings. Great day. Found and photographed new damselfly: Sedge Sprite. An Ebony Jewelwing landed on my shoulder at the river before I even started looking, and I managed a few good shots. The Meadow was being patrolled by half a dozen Great Spangled Fritilleries…one of whom finally sat for its portrait. Not to mention that I found a Striped Hairstreak in the forest and a Lancet Clubtail in the Meadow. Did I say, great day?
The panel shows the cooperative Great Spangled Fritillery in a variety of poses, so you can appreciate it from all sides. 🙂 And what a great name for what a great butterfly! Great Spangled Fritillery! Fits, does it not?
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 1200mm equivalent (600mm optical plus 2x digital extender). Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Assembled in Pixlr Express.
Deadly Embrace: Spider and the fly.
Flower Crab Spider with Deer Fly
This is a Flower Crab Spider with what appears to be some kind of Deer Fly. The Flower Crab Spider sits on white or yellow flowers (it is white on a white flower, but slowly turns more yellow on yellow flowers) and waits for other insects to visit. Then it pounces. Here it is on Yarrow. I very nearly walked right by this little drama along side the Kennebunk Bridle Path. In fact I am not sure what caught my eye. I took a few shots with the 75-300mm zoom and then switched to the Sony NEX 5T and ZEISS Touit 50mm f2.8 macro. The spider is less than 1/4 inch long.
ISO 100 @ 1/640th @ f9. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Feeding Time for the Fledgling
Fledgling Barn Swallow being fed.
Yesterday I walked the section of the Kennebunk Bridle Trail on either side of Rout 9 looking for Dragonflies. The bugs were few and far between. However it is fledgling time at the bridge over the unnamed creek that flows into the Mousam through the marsh on the ocean side of the the road. Barn Swallow fledglings rest on the warm stores of the bridge each year, and the adults hunt over the creek and Marsh and come back, not often enough for the fledglings, but often.
I managed to catch this sequence at 1200mm equivalent (full 600mm optical plus 2x digital extender) on the Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. In this case the adult landed for a split second next to the fledgling, but often it seems the parent makes the pass while still in flight. The touch on the stone was so brief, that without photographic evidence, I might have taken this for hovering feed as well.
Processed in Snapseed on my tablet and assembled into the panel in Pixlr Express.
Tigers Together! Happy Sunday.
This is an all tiger shot. Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, and Tiger Lily. I started to write, “sometimes images just happen” …but of course, images always just happen. Be there. Be aware. Be ready. That is the only secret to satisfying photography, especially nature photography. This one is in a stand of Tiger Lily by the bridge over the Mousam at Old Falls Pond. It is a not a safe spot for photography, as the cars come whipping around the curve and over the bridge far too fast, and there is precious little room at the very edge of the pavement to stand, but I am always tempted across the bridge to try to get both the Lilies and the falls in the same frame. Yesterday there were Swallowtails. Such fun!
(Yes I do know that this is not a genuine Tiger Lily. It is only an orange Day Lily. But it is what everyone in Southern Maine calls a Tiger Lily. Actual Tiger Lily is very rare here, even in plantings.)
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 320 @ f7.1. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
And for the Sunday Thought: Be there.
Since I am recovering from a heart attack, I tire much more quickly than in the past, and every adventure is an exercise in marshaling my stamina to get where I need to go and home safely. Yesterday I was on an errand to Walmart, looking for a storage solution that would tidy my “office” corner of the bedroom enough so my wife does not kick me out. 🙂 (Which she would be completely justified in doing. I seem to create a little pocket of chaos where ever I sit for more than a few moments at at time…and, I have learned the hard way, most people, including my wife, have a much lower tolerance for chaos than I do.) To get to Walmart the short way goes by the Kennebunk Plains, and, of course, I had to stop to see if the Wood Lilies are in bloom yet. They are, just, a few plants here and there, so I did some tramping around and photography there. Then the store itself, and an hour of shopping (there were other things on my list besides the storage). I had planned, on the way back, to take the long way around by Old Falls Pond to see if there were any interesting dragonflies, but I had a five minute debate sitting in the car after loading the 40 pound bag of dog food into the trunk as to whether I had enough energy left to make the detour. Still: The sun was shinning. A nice fresh breeze was blowing. There were white clouds of several descriptions decorating the blue sky. All in all a wonderful July day…so I talked myself into the visit to Old Falls. And there were Swallowtails in the Tiger Lilies! I made it home with enough left in the tank to get me to my chair. (Though I still have not taken the 40 pound bag of dog food out of the trunk 🙂
I have hopes that over time, I will build my stamina back to the point were “being there” is not the major obstacle to what I need and want to do…especially to doing the things that I love to do. I have a plan. I bought a bicycle, and a heart rate monitor, and I am eating even more sensibly than before. Still, the days when I can take “being there” for granted are clearly gone. (And in more ways than one.) And that should, and does, make me even more thankful for Swallowtails in the Tiger Lilies…for Wood Lilies on the Kennebunk Plains, for Snowy Owls on the chimney pots in Kennebunkport, for raindrops on Foxglove in the yard, for dragonflies at the little ponds in town…for all the wonders that are still in easy reach. God is. God is good. God loves us more than we can ever deserve. God is everywhere. We are surrounded by the wonders of creation, where ever the there is that we find ourselves. If we be…we be there. And for that I am profoundly grateful. Happy Sunday!