Posts in Category: Maine
Leps in the Blazing Star
I mentioned how impressed I was with the numbers of insects using the endangered Northern Blazing Star boom on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area here in southern Maine this week. Here are 4 leps (to add to the White-lined Sphinx Moth posted earlier). Painted Lady, Common Wood-nymph, Monarch, and what I think is a Wandering Gem moth. Something very Gem like anyway. The moth was tiny…it just covered the tip of my finger. Sony RX10iv at 600 and 1200mm equivalent (1200 at 2X Clear Image Zoom). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and assembled in Framemagic.
White-lined Sphinx Moth
My friend Stef and I took a loop out through the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area yesterday to take in, among other things, the last of the Northern Blazing Star bloom. Blazing Star is endangered in Maine and the Plains are one of its last strongholds. I was reminded just how important a resource it is. Besides flocks of busy Goldfinches and Pine Warblers, the Blazing Star along Day Brook Pond was full of insects…butterflies and moths and bees and flies. When I first saw this White-lined Sphinx Moth I took it for one of the Clearwings. I have seen both Snowberry and Hummingbird Clearwings working the Blazing Star in the past. A closer look showed that despite similar size and behavior, this was a different moth. No transparent wings. I had to look it up when I got home. The White-lined Sphinx, like many Hawk moths, is mostly nocturnal, and mostly seen early and late, during dawn and dusk, so I can be forgiven for assuming it was a Clearwing. If I remember correctly, my only other sighting was years ago by artificial light on our back deck, feeding on the potted plants we keep there, when I, like many others, called it a Hummingbird Moth because of its size and behavior. (That name actually belongs to the Clearwing.) The White-lined Sphinx Moth occupies a huge range, all of North America and parts of Central America, and there are apparently known populations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. This one was very cooperative, working the same patch of Blazing Star for 15 minutes or more, and coming in close enough for lots of photos, before zooming off in search of a new patch of flowers. Sony RX10iv at 1200mm equivalent (2x Clear Image Zoom). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr.
Cedar Waxwing
We interrupt this parade of Peruvian birds to bring you an update from closer to home. I rode my ebike out to the Kennebunk Plains yesterday to check on this year’s bloom of Northern Blazing Star and found a small flock of Cedar Waxwings hunting dragonflies over Day Brook Pond. Cedar Waxwings tend to pose nicely and these were no exception. Sony RX10iv at 1200mm equivalent (600mm optical plus 2X Clear Image Zoom). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr. The Blazing Star was indeed in full bloom. More on that in another post.
Coral Hairstreak and Wood Lily revisited
I posted another in this sequence of images the other day. I was delighted to watch this Coral Hairstreak working a Wood Lily on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area here in Southern Maine. As this panel shows, and I tried to describe in the previous post, the butterfly worked its way across the flower and then back again as I watched. Sony RX10iv at 600mm optical equivalent, plus enough Clear Image Zoom to fill the frame. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and assembled in Framemagic.
Calico Pennant
Calico Pennant (Celithemis elisa), Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Kennebunk Maine, USA.
Yesterday’s post featured my first Halloween Pennant for the season. The Calico Pennant, featured here, is the other Pennant on the wing in Southern Maine right now. I have been seeing Calicos for about a week and half. These individuals were around the pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, and are particularly dark red, for whatever reason. I was also, just after my encounter with the Halloween, struck anew by how small they are. There were lots of Slaty and Spangled Skimmers around, and the Calicos were almost tiny by comparison. Sony RX10iv at 600mm optical plus enough Clear Image Zoom to fill the frame. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and assembled in Framemagic.
Halloween Pennant
I found my first of the season Halloween Pennant the day before yesterday. I stopped at the parking lot for the new Wild Forever Sanctuary on Rt 99 going out of Kennebunk toward the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area and spent some time chasing Monarchs in the overgrown field. There was just this one female Holloween Pennant perching on the tallest grasses. I managed to get several angles on it. 🙂 Sony RX10iv at 600mm optical equivalent with enough Clear Image Zoom to fill the frame. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and assembled in Framemagic.
Coral and Lily
This shot will justify the largest view you can provide 🙂 It was a cool, dry, sunny day in Southern Maine yesterday so my ebike photoprowl was delightful. And in the midst of the delight, while photographing more Wood Lilies out on the Rt. 99 side of the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, something caught at the corner of my eye and I turned in time to see this Coral Hairstreak land in another Wood Lily. It proceeded to harvest something from the petals, dragging its proboscis across the surface, working its way down one petal and back up, before moving on to the next petal. Here it is poised for the turn, with its proboscis tightly curled. Coral Hairstreaks are common on the Plains in July, and around the Wood Lilies (this is not the first I have photographed on a Lily), but here the light is perfect and the composition eye-catching. Beautiful flower. Attractive butterfly. What more could you ask for? Sony RX10iv at 600mm optical equivalent, plus enough Clear Image Zoom to fill the frame. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr.
Damsels
Things are really hitting up Odonata wise in Southern Maine here in mid-July. About time! Every little drainage pond and ditch is alive with dragon and damselflies. These damsels are from a fairly large drainage pond on a condo development between Kennebunk and Wells. Male and female Familiar Bluet, and Eastern and Fragile Forktails. Sony RX10iv at 600mm equivalent with enough Clear Image Zoom to fill the frame. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and assembled in Framemagic.
A Bunch of Wood Lilies
Though a single blossom is the norm for Wood Lily plants, a few produce multiple flowers…two is fairly common, three less so, and a plant with four blossoms, like this one, is, in my experience, quite rare. Photographed with the Sony RX10iv on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area off Maguire Road, in Kennebunk, Maine. Top at 600mm equivalent. Bottom at about 85mm. Macro Mode (Scene mode, not focus mode.) Processed in Polarr.
Cheating on a Wood Lily
Full disclosure. This is a composite image, an attempt at rudimentary focus stacking. Because of the shallow depth of field working with the RX10iv at 600mm and f4 for this telephoto macro, I could get the anthers and stigma in focus or the spotted surface of the petals in focus, but not both at the same time. Even stopping down for grater depth of field would not have gotten both critically sharp in the same image. So I came back with one of each…one image with the anthers and stigma in focus and one with the petals in focus. After my standard processing in Polarr, being careful to match the two images, I used Pixomatic to combine the two, laying the in focus anthers and stigma from one shot over the in focus petals from the other and then carefully erasing to expose the background image as needed. I am pretty happy with the result. I doubt, if I had not told you, that you would have noticed anything out of the ordinary about the image. 🙂 Sony RX10iv at 600mm equivalent. Macro mode (in Scene Modes). And here, just for those who might be interested, are the two shots that I combined. Is that cheating? I will leave that for you to decide.
