Posts in Category: action
Monarch in Asters
Monarch, East Point, Biddeford Pool, Maine
East Point in Biddeford Pool Maine forms one boundary where the Saco River (or perhaps more exactly, Saco Bay) meets the open Atlantic. It is directly across a narrow channel from Wood Island and Wood Island Light. Perhaps because it sticks out into the ocean a ways and has some interesting vegetation, it is always a good spot to find butterflies, and Monarchs in the fall in particular. This seems to be a particularly large specimen, caught foraging among the New England Asters growing along the edge and in the under-story of a large stand of wild rose and other plants. From the overall brightness of the bug I am tempted to say it is freshly emerged, but in this close view you can see some wear on the wings…which might make it a migrant from further north.
Sony HX90V at 1440mm equivalent field of view (using 2x Clear Image Zoom). 1/250th @ ISO 320 @ f6.4. Processed in Lightroom.
Common Ground Fair
In the Maine Fiddle Camp tent, Common Ground Fair, Unity Maine
A few weeks ago, in a The Generous Eye post, I made a commitment to myself (and to my followers) to take more pictures of people…to look for beauty and inspiration in human faces and forms. I spent the day at the Common Ground Fair in Unity Maine…the Maine Organic Farmers Association fair…and had an opportunity to put my commitment into practice. It is not easy for me. It does not come natural to point a camera at a stranger…right out in public…but it something that I want to work at. The Common Ground Fair draws an interesting crowd. Hippies, want-to-be-hippies, former hippies, and back-to-the-landers from infant to senior citizen…and quite a number of family farmers who have converted to organic at least in part as a way of keeping the family farm alive and in the family. They have Ox pulls, sheep-dog trials, herbal and holistic medicine lectures, a building full of rabbits and another of chickens, folk and primitive arts demonstrations, at least 3 stages of folk and ethnic music, a large area of alternative energy and green-building displays, a food court with a huge variety of healthy food, two farmer’s markets, a fleece market, etc, etc. I captured this moment in the tent sponsored by the Maine Fiddle Camp. Friday was the first day of the fair, but already this one was wearing out.
Sony HX90V in Superior Auto mode at 95mm equivalent field of view. 1/100th @ ISO 80 @ f5. Processed and cropped for composition in Lightroom.
Autumn Geese
Canada Geese, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine
We are only just now getting the first of the colors of fall. It is a good two weeks late. We should be at peak in northern Maine and only 3 weeks from peak here in Southern Maine. There is just enough color along the edge of Day Brook Pond to set these Canada Geese, part of a flock of about 50 birds that had settled out on the pond, floating in color. I worked my way down to the pond edge through the pines and birches to an opening that gave me clear shots, and worked this patch of color as the Geese shuffled back and forth at the end of the pond.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 180 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Monarch on the edge of fall
Monarch Butterfly. Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
Laudholm Farms was one of the first places in the area to devote significant amounts of their meadow land to milkweed, and, consequently, it is one of the easiest places to see Monarch butterflies. This year has not been a great year for Monarchs, if you go by the number I have see at Laudholm and elsewhere around my patch, but I did find this large specimen working the Goldenrod in the meadows below and left of the farm buildings. It seems late to me…this image was captured just a few days before the equinox…but perhaps it is a migrant from further north fueling up for the flight south.
Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 80 @ f6.4. Processed and cropped for scale and composition in Lightroom.
Steampunk Express
Giant Red-legged Grasshopper, Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
Who knew there were so many species of grasshoppers? I certainly did not until this morning when I attempted to identify this very steampunk bug. (According to the Kaufman Guide, there are 630 species of grasshoppers and crickets in North America.) I think it might be a very big Red-legged Grasshopper, but it also might be a Two-stripped Grasshopper…or not. It was among the bigger grasshoppers I have seen…at least 3 inches long. There were too…this one with the bright reg legs and another very similar but without the bright red legs. Male and female? I just don’t know my Grasshoppers well enough.
Whatever it is, as a study in living architecture, it is spectacular. (Or that is what I think.) Steampunk for sure!
Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent. 1/500th @ ISO 80 @ f6.4. Processed and cropped for scale in Lightroom.
Pileated Panel
Pileated Woodpecker, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
I can not resist posting the Pileated Woodpecker again…this time a panel of three shots showing off the bird in three poses. The panel is actually two shots from the Nikon P900 and one for the Sony HX90V. Not only was this the biggest Pileated Woodpecker I have ever seen…it was the most cooperative…giving me a chance to photograph the bird from several angles and with two cameras as it worked around two trees. Definitely a memorable experience.
Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Pileated Woodpecker. My alleluia bird. Happy Sunday!
Pileated Woodpecker, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
When I got to Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center) yesterday, the fog was just rolling in over the top of hill and the farm buildings and I almost turned around and left. I am certainly glad I did not do that. 🙂 I took some lovely foggy landscapes on my way across the bog boardwalk, and from the observation deck just north of the Drakes Island bridge, but the fog had mostly rolled on by the time I neared the crossing where the Pilger Trail meets the road to the beach. I went slow that last 100 yards, as on my last visit, that was where the Immature Red-tailed Hawk was sitting. I stopped on the spot where I had taken the photos and had a good look around. While looking I became aware of a heavy tapping somewhere overhead, and turned to see the largest Pileated Woodpecker I have ever seen working a dead snag something over 40 feet from me. The bird was in the open, flicking large chunks of dead bark and sawdust from the tree, and I only had to move slightly to the right to clear foreground foliage. Amazing! I worked the bird as it worked the tree. At first it had is back completely to me, silhouetted against the trunk…a difficult spot for photography…but eventually it moved around to the side in search of fresh forage. I took pictures and video with both cameras I had with me…everything from head shots to full body portraits. Eventually, while I was actually videoing it, it climbed up and glided over to a tree deeper in the forest, but still in easy sight, and, what is better, landed on the sunlit side of the tree. It stayed there as I moved down the trail for a better angle. I got off another set of images, this one among them. (Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view.)
This is all the more exciting to me as the Pileated Woodpecker, photographically, has been my nemesis bird (nemesis bird is what birders call a species that they are always close to seeing but never see). I have  seen the Pileated, but not often…so rarely that I can clearly remember each instance…several in Maine, a few in Florida, and a few in Arkansas (including a glimpse of an albino)…but, though I have tried as often as I have seen the bird, I had yet to get any really satisfying images. Until now. The bird at Laudholm Farm provided me with enough good shots to satisfy my Pileated hunger for some time to come. 🙂 Alleluia! There is a special satisfaction when a nemesis bird finally yields.
And the Pileated is such a great bird. They are all large as woodpeckers go…a size bigger then any other North American Woodpecker…almost the same size as Crow…and this one was big as Pileateds go. When it glided silently off through the forest, flashing the white on its wings, it looked absolutely huge. It has, as you can see from the photo, a long neck and a massive bill, and it does real damage to a tree trunk with each blow. And look at the intent in that eye! There is power in its foraging. Bark flies. Bugs can not hide! Such a beautiful bird. Such a privilege to see one…such a wonder to be able to photograph it.
Again, alleluia! For me it was a real “thank you Jesus” moment…a moment when I could not help but be conscious of the love of God the creator…and God’s love specifically for me. Now, I am not blind. I know that for many this world is a hard place to be. I know there is pain here, that people, some much more deserving than I, suffer…and I know, more than that, that I, myself, have caused some of that pain. There is no way that I deserve to be so blessed. In no way have I earned, or could I ever, the privilege of seeing and photographing a Pileated Woodpecker as I saw and photographed it yesterday. No way! And yet, alleluia, there it is…my alleluia bird! Alleluia, hallelujah: God be praised! And I am compelled to say it.
The light that fills me, that illuminates a world of wonder through an eye made generous by the gift of Jesus, is hallelujah. I don’t own it, it is not mine, but it lives in me by faith…a faith that is ever renewed in every encounter. Yesterday it was my alleluia bird…the Pileated Woodpecker.
Pelecinid Wasp is strange all over!
Pelecinid Wasp, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine
It has been at least a year, and it may have been two, since I encountered a Pelecinid Wasp. My first sighting was at Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport. This one came from Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area. I was surprised to see it fly across the path in front of me and land in a small birch at the edge of the forest…but there is no mistaking this very strange bug with its extended abdomen trailing out behind a body with such small wings that it seems totally impossible that the thing could fly. The long abdomen is used to inject eggs into scarab beetle larvae while they are still underground. Close up, the hind legs feature strange bulges, which have no apparent use. Stranger still, almost all Pelecinid Wasps seen or collected in North America are females. Males, with a shorter, swollen abdomen, only account for 4% of sightings. It is possible that female wasps develop from unfertilized eggs…and that would make them very strange indeed, as insects just do not do that. But then, if that is case…why are there any males at all? Strange. The Pelecinid is strange all over.
Sony HX90V at about 1400mm equivalent field of view (using Clear Image digital Zoom). 1/250th @ ISO 400 @ f6.4. Processed in Lightroom.
Snake Tongue
Common Garter Snake, Bay City Recreation Area, Bay City MI
We found this tiny (less than a foot long and not much bigger than a pencil) Common Garter Snake when returning from the trails at Tobico Marsh at the Bay City Recreation Area. It was just where the trail come back out on to the road, and it was crossing the pavement. My friend Rich had actually stepped over it without seeing it when I happened to look down. While I have seen snakes flick their tongue before, this specimen had its tongue in almost constant motion. I took lots of images, trying to catch it with its tongue fully extended.
Of course this morning I had to do some research to find out why snakes, and this snake in particular, flick their tongues. The reason I remembered is the most commonly held…the snake uses its tongue to collect microscopic scent oils from the air and delivers them to a sense organ in the roof of the mouth. The most recent research suggests that the tongue serves two related functions. When the tips are turned up, it is indeed sampling the air for odors, but when they are turned down, as in this image, it is more likely that snake is sampling the ground ahead of it for something more like taste than scent. This snake might then have been tracking something that crossed the pavement ahead of it, or it might just have been looking for the edge of the pavement for escape. Hard to say.
Sony HX90V at something over 1000mm equivalent field of view (using Clear Image Zoom). 1/250th @ ISO 200 @ f6.4. Processed in Lightroom and Topaz denoise.
Sailing Lake Huron
Catamarans on Lake Huron, Tawas Point State Park
Tawas Point State Park is apparently a popular put-in spot for sailing catamarans. There were 30 or more sailing a circle coarse off the head of the point on the Lake Huron side. And it was a glorious day to be on the water. This is a telephoto shot, reaching out to isolate the boats between the glitter of the water and the piled sky.
Sony HX90V in-camera HDR. 505mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure 1/1000th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.