Posts in Category: close up
Woody the Woodpecker
Acorn Woodpecker, Ash Canyon B&B, Sierra Vista, AZ
Yet another shot from the Ash Canyon Bed and Breakfast south of Sierra Vista, Arizona. The Acorn Woodpecker is the archetypal house breaker, hammering on any solid surface, destroyer of aluminum siding and cedar shingles indiscriminately…made famous by the Disney cartoons of Woody the Woodpecker. They are the most common woodpecker in the foothills of Arizona’s Sky Islands.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Tufted Titmouse. Happy Sunday!
Tufted Titmouse, our back deck, Kennebunk Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
Yesterday, when I was in the kitchen beginning to think about supper, I slid back the screen on the back deck sliding-door to chase a squirrel away, and then, when the birds at the feeding station came back almost immediately (including our female Ruby-throated Hummingbird) I left the door open and went for my camera. The light was lovely, with filtered sun after a brief rainstorm on the feeding station and the apple branches we have bolted to the deck for perches around it, and the background of dark trees 25 feet behind the station already in shadow. There was a fairly constant flow of Chickadees and Titmice, and the hummingbird came in for a drink from the feeder several times and perched out on the apple branches. I had a very enjoyable 30 minutes standing and watching and taking pictures. Small active birds are always a challenge, photographically, and there was the added test of getting exposure on the sunlit birds right against the dark background. And of course, there were the birds themselves, going about their business only a dozen feet from me. Thoroughly enjoyable, and perhaps more so, since I was propped up in back door of my own home. When I bolted the apple branches to the deck, it was times like this that I was thinking of…hoping for.
This Tufted Titmouse came several times. The image has almost a “studio” feel to it, a portrait, as though I posed and lit the bird for best effect. The lighting and the background gives the bird unusual dimension…and that, along with the level of detail in the feathers and in the bark of the branch, makes it look uncommonly “real”…alive and present. And of course, it was images like this that I was thinking of when I bolted the apple branches to the deck. 🙂
Still, for all my forethought (or hope) and what little skill I can claim with the camera, it is the bird that makes the image. The bird, bold enough to perch on my apple branch, close, while I stood completely visible in the open door. The bird with its little spark of life, trusting that little spark of life to me in exchange for a sunflower seed or two.
I think it is bred into us, even stronger than our hunting instinct, this desire for the peaceable kingdom…for an Eden-like experience where we are surrounded by all that lives…by every living creature, neither threatened by, or a threat to it…at peace with life itself. I think it is part of our heritage as children of God…the overflow and outflow of the creative love, the caring heart, that made the whole of the natural world we are part of. Our kinship with all that lives is an expression of our kinship with God, who created all in love.
And yes, it was to celebrate that kinship that I built the feeding station on our deck…and the foresight expressed was one instance (still too rare) of my eye being generous, and the light within me reaching forward in time to encounters and images like this. Happy Sunday!
Pitcher Plant
Pitcher Plant, Saco Heath, Saco Maine
I took the new Ford C-Max Hybrid on its maiden photoprowl yesterday…a swing north to Saco Heath, then cross-lots on back roads to Route 1 and eventually to Cascade Falls and back home. I am not sure I have been to the Heath this season at all. I know I missed the early bloom of Rhodora and Sheep Laurel and High-bush Blueberry, and the Grass Pink Orchids. I was surprised to find the Pitcher Plants in full bloom. I had remembered them as early bloomers, but I was happy to be proved wrong. Not only were they in bloom, but there were more than I have ever seen on the Heath.
Saco Heath, if you are just tuning in, is a raised peat bog, where the peat and sphagnum moss have risen above the level of the ground water. It is one of a very few in Maine and the only one in Southern Maine. The environment in a peat bog is highly acidic and very poor in nutrients, so it is populated by a group of rare plants that are specialized to nutrient-poor soils, and by stunted Pitch Pines. There a slightly higher section of the bog that supports one of the only stands of Atlantic White Cedar in Maine. The area is protected by the Nature Conservancy, and by the State of Maine. A boardwalk, renewed over the past several summers by the Civilian Conservation Corps, runs right across the heath to a loop of trail in the Cedar stand.
Pitcher Plants survive in the nutrient poor sphagnum surface by capturing and digesting insects. They are carnivores. The “pitcher”, a tube of adapted leaves, contains a digestive fluid at the bottom. Bugs crawl or fall in and contribute most of the nutrients the plant needs. The flower is very large (3-4 inches across), on a tall stalk, and more “interesting” than “beautiful”. As I say, there were many of them along the more raised sections of the boardwalk in the Pitch Pine hummock, and along the edges of the White Cedar hummock.
Sony RX10iii. The first shot is a telephoto macro and the bottom side-view is a wide angle macro. Exposure varied. I was shooting in Program and shutter speeds were from 1/60th for the pitcher shot to 1/320th for the telephoto. ISO ranged from 100 to 250. All shots at f4. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Northern Blazing Star
Northern Blazing Star, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine.
It is an amazing show when the Northern Blazing Star are in full bloom on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area…as they will be in a few weeks…but this early, when there are only a few plants in bloom, I generally take better, closer, looks at this beautiful flower. And, of course, not so much a flower as a cluster of tiny flowers making up a thistle like head. In this shot you can appreciate the beauty of the individual flowers.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Bee Fly on Blazing Star. Happy Sunday!
Bee Fly on Northern Blazing Star, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
I am rapidly approaching 69 years old (next month) so I am always surprised and delighted to discover something in the world right at my doorstep that I have never seen before. Seen is a tricky word. I suspect that I have seen Bee Flies before now…but I certainly never looked at them. I did not know they existed. If fact, when I bent down to take a photo of this very early Northern Blazing Star, in flower on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area yesterday, I though I was looking at a bee. It is furry like a bee. It has superficially bee-like wings. It was behaving like a bee…but I knew it was no bee I had ever seen before. I had certainly never seen a bee that color or with that long a proboscis. A little googling (small hairy bee with long proboscis) brought up the Bee Fly family. Ah…not a bee at all. A bee mimic. And a bee parasite. (The female lays her eggs at the mouth of the hive of ground nesting bees, and the fly larva attack the larva of the bees.) There are many species of Bee Flys in North America (over 4500 world-wide)…all I can say for certain is that this is NOT the most common of them: the Greater or Large Bee Fly, which is sometimes called the Dark Edged Bee Fly because the wings are dark edged and patterned like those of a hummingbird moth.
I was also surprised, by the way, at the number of Northern Blazing Star plants in bloom already on the Plains. While it is far from the show I expect in two weeks (the normal timing of the bloom), our unusually hot July must have forced many plants into bloom early. The Blazing Star on the Kennebunk Plains is, as far as I am concerned, one of the highlights of the natural seasons here in southern Maine. It is endangered in most of North America, and the Kennebunk Plains is one of the few places it still grows in abundance. The Plains can be purple with it in mid-August.
So that was two surprises for yesterday…and one “the surprise of a lifetime” in that it was my first real look at Bee Fly.
And of course that is the thing about the generous eye…always open and ready to be surprised. Another translation of what Jesus said about eyes, from The Message Bible, is “‘If you live wide–eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light.” 69 years on the planet, and I can still be surprised by the living nature around me…by God’s loving invention…I am still discovering new wonders. And each new wonder only confirms and strengthens my belief. This is good. And it is my hope for you, whatever your age, this Sunday!
Hairstreak photobombed by Yellowjacket! Happy Sunday.
Coral Hairstreak Butterfly and Yellowjacket Wasp, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk ME
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
This might be one of those Instagram or Facebook celebrity photo bomb shots 🙂 The Choral Hairstreak was busy with the Meadowsweet blossoms and I was busy taking it’s pic, when this Yellowjacket buzzed in from the left. The Yellowjacket was after smaller prey lower in the flower cluster, but it looked for an instant like it might go for the Hairstreak. Talk about being in the right place at the right time!
And I had already had a great morning at the pond. This shot was right next to the car in the parking area. I had already put my camera bag in the car and was looking forward to cranking up the AC…but the Hairstreak right there beside me was irresistible, so I dug the camera out again. And you just never know what God is going to provide when you open your eyes and turn them on nature. I am, based frequent experiences of this kind, always ready to be blessed when I turn my attention outward, with or without my camera lens.
In a week of news from the Republican Convention and the presidential campaign, I need this kind of experience to remind me that the world is not nearly as dark as the politicians portray it. In fact, for the generous eye, the world is as bright as it has ever been…and that is bright indeed. Yes there are pockets of darkness…always have been and always will be while human beings exploit each other…where greed and self-interest rule the human heart…but that is not, no matter what you hear from the podium or the pulpit, the norm. The norm is generosity and light. The norm is grace. The norm is love. That is because light, grace, and love…generosity…is the nature of the God who creates all we know and all we are…who lives in all we know and is the true being of all we are. For people my age, i can say that the world is a brighter place today than it was when we were children. Safer, saner, with more people who walk in love…less want, more openness, more fairness, more inclusiveness. And yes the actions and effects of those who are motivated by greed…the stingy eyed…is often on display in today’s “bad news is good news” media world…but that does not mean we have to give the darkness, or those who peddle it in whatever from, power over our lives. God is good…in God there is no shadow or turning…and we get to live in the world we choose. Open your eyes wide in generosity…and be the light in this world we are intended to be. Happy Sunday!
Three’for!
Black-eyed Susan with three insects. Emmon’s Preserve, Kennebunkport ME
I actually did not see the third bug in this Black-eyed Susan shot until I got it home and was processing it on the computer. The bee is obvious, as is the beetle. I am not certain what beetle it is, though it appears to be in the same family as Milkweed and Asparagus beetles. The spider is a Yellow Orb Weaver. Emmon’s Preserve, in Kennebunkport. The mosquitoes were so bad that my natural repellent was useless against them, and it was all I could do to stand still long enough to get a few shots here. I am very surprised there are not any mosquitoes in the image!
Sony RX10iii at 554mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Goldbug?
Teneral dragonfly? Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine
This is a newly emerged dragonfly from Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area in West Kennebunk Maine. Though I have looked through my dragonfly book, it does not cover tenerals, so I am have little idea what it is. Hopefully someone will help me with the ID. I love the look of it, as though it were fashioned from gold. (If I had to guess, it would be a female Saffron Winged Meadowhawk…but that would be a wild guess. 🙂
Sony RX10iii at 600mm. 1/250th @ ISO 250 @ f4. Processed and cropped slightly in Lightroom.
Cedar Waxwing
Cedar Waxwing, Quest Ponds, Kennebunk Maine
There is some kind of small Dancer Damselfly emerging right now at our local ponds. They come up from the water’s edge in a visible tide, two or three in sight at any moment, and going on for hours. And where they are emerging, there are Cedar Waxwings. The birds gather around the pond, generally a dozen or more, and swoop in after the dancers as they fly. I wrote a poem about it. For the poem’s sake I named the dancer, but I am not at all sure I am right.
There was a gang of Cedar Waxwings,
silent but deadly, at the little drainage
pond by the medical center parking
lot, picking off newly emerged Dusky
Dancer Damselflies on their maiden
flights…swooping, like the guided
missiles that they are, across the pond,
taking the Damsels on the wing…
It was awesome, totally awe inspiring,
to watch them. Such precision. Such
grace. (Of course I will admit maybe
not so much fun if you happen to be
an unsuspecting Dusky Dancer.)
Wood Lilies after rain.
Wood Lily, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine
We finally got some much-needed rain in Southern Maine over the weekend, and I hoped that it would pop the Wood Lilies out on the Kennebunk Plains. I had been disappointed with the show last week, when, if it followed past patterns, it should have been at its height. A visit to the Plains yesterday did not disappoint. Where there were single blossoms before the rain, there are now good stands similar to last year’s bloom. In one small area we found all three color varieties, from deep red to this bright “safety-vest” orange. The deep orange variety continues to dominate, but at least this year, all three are showing. This close up of a bloom still wet from overnight rains, also shows off the purple in the stamen, anthers, and in the dots on the base of leaves, but the light orange makes the contrast between the yellow base of the petals and the upper petals less obvious.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm. 1/80 @ ISO 100 @ f8 (program shift for greater depth of field). Processed in Lightroom.