Monthly Archives: July 2013
Halloween Pennant
I have been looking for a Halloween Pennant for several years now. I mean, who could see them in the dragonfly guides and not want to see one, and photograph one, in real life. They are at the extreme north east of their range here on the coast in Southern Maine, but they are listed on the Odonata Central list for York County. I had hope. But I had no bug! Until last weekend when I found a single specimen at Roger’s Pond along the Mousam River in Kennebunk. Roger’s Pond is not nearly as productive as the Quest Ponds when it comes to Odonata, but I have found several dragons and a few damsels there that I have yet to see anywhere else.
I went back yesterday on my lunch-hour scooter prowl, and there was a second Halloween Pennant…this time in better light and closer, perching on the tallest stalks left in the mowed margin of the pond instead of on rushes out in the water. I know it is a second specimen because the first I saw was slightly worn…with an obvious notch out of one wing, and the colors somewhat faded. Yesterday’s bug was fresh and spectacular. What more could any odonatate ask for. (Yes, in my secret life, I an the Odonatator! 🙂
Canon SX50HS at 2400mm equivalent. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. Hand-held of course. Transferred to my Samsung Galaxy S4 via the RavPower WiFi disk and card reader, and then processed in PicSay Pro. (I am getting ramped up to spend two weeks in Europe without my laptop.)
Pool in the woods
The Batson River makes a long loop through Emmons Preserve, with many pools, overhanging rock ledges, tumbling falls, and gentle stretches of water reflecting trees. It is really an amazingly varied stretch of river considering it can’t be more than a quarter mile of it included in the Preserve. This is one of the far pools, beyond the main, and most visited, section of the trail. The river splits here, with the main channel rushing through a narrow gap between standing stones, and a smaller side channel feeding this still pool. I love the play of light here, and the ripples leading out to the still water with its reflections and lily pads. Perhaps because of the depth and the odd angle, it has a kind of abstract feeling to it.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone (HDR) mode. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4. Auto Enhance by Google+ Photos.
Wet Rose Visitor
I went out early on Saturday, just to the yard, to see what a day and night of steady, and sometimes hard, rain had done to the flowers, and to poke around generally looking for photo-ops in the lovely early light. The rain drops clinging to the rose petals, of course, just had to be done. It was not until processing the image that I saw the Visitor. It seems like, this year, you can hardly take a flower shot without catching an insect of some kind. Good year for the bugs! I believe this is a tiny Hoverfly of one kind or another.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. Telephoto Macro at 432mm equivalent field of view from about 5 feet. f5.8 @ 1/180th @ ISO 100. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4. Cropped slightly for scale.
Northern Blazing Star: Happy Sunday!
I scootered out to the Kennebunk Plains yesterday, since it was an amazing summer day in Southern Maine, to see if, by any chance, the Northern Blazing Star was coming on to full bloom. I saw a few plants blooming on the south side of the highway a week ago, but only just a few. The main mass of Blazing Star is on the north side of the road, in the bigger section of the plains, but the plants on the south side always bloom earlier. I am not sure why. Alas, even on the south side, the Blazing Star is far from full bloom. And it looks to be a good year for Blazing Star. The plants are full of flower heads and the stands are particularly lush compared to last year. As it happens, I will probably miss the best bloom this year. i have only one more Saturday before I am off for several weeks of travel. This time next week I will be doing my final packing for a trip to Virginia for meetings, and then, as soon as I get back, I will be packing for two weeks of Bird Fairs, product testing, and birding in England, Germany, and Holland. And the Blazing Star will be going on without me 🙁
There is nothing quite like the Blazing Star show on the Kennebunk Plains in a good year. The intense purple of the thistle like flower heads crowds out the greens and browns of the grasses and fills the foreground of any view. Bees and butterflies feed on the pollen and nectar, and dragonflies hunt the smaller insects attracted to the Blazing Star. It is a lovely and lively show. Not to mention intensely beautiful! You can get at least a hit of it in these early shots.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Macro and Rich Tone Mode. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
And for the Sunday Thought. The Blazing Star show is all the more precious for being brief, rare, and endangered. The stands on the Kennebunk Plains are one of the last strongholds of the plant in New England. It is one of fire dependent plants of open grasslands…grasslands kept open by regular wildfire…or in the case of the Kennebunk Plains…by carefully controlled burns that simulate the wildfire cycle. There is not much of that habitat left in New England. And the flowers bloom only a few weeks in August, when there isn’t, in fact, much else in bloom.
In a way the Blazing Star bloom is like a moment of true spiritual awareness. Such moments are precious partially because they too are brief, rare, and in this very material world, always endangered. Blazing Star needs wildfire to sweep the plains clear of the thatch of dead grasses, stubble, and aging blueberry plants, and the invasive saplings of pine and birch, poplar and maple. What do you suppose is the spiritual equivalent…the spiritual wildfire? Perhaps we all need something to clear the thatch and stubble and invasive saplings that would choke out the Blazing Stars of our spiritual awareness.
Might this be a spark?
Cedar Waxwing
There appear to be more Odonata this summer than last. The overall numbers of each species seems higher and I have seen several new (to me) species. Of course the other thing that seems higher is the number of birds hunting the same ponds I hunt 🙂 I guess it stands to reason.
Last week I found a small flock of Cedar Waxwings hunting the pond at Quest. They were flying out from the trees at the edge of the forest and taking mostly the little dark dancer females of which we seem to have an inexhaustible supply. Taking them out of the air of course.
Canon SX50HS. Program with my usual modifications. 2400mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.
Wet Rose
We are having another 24 hours of rain to end the week. This was taken near sunset on our last rainy day, when the storm finally moved out to sea and the sun broke through for a few moments. The sun was already gone by the time I got to the beach roses covered in rain water, but they still made a good study in the soft light of early evening. The colors are never richer than when wet, and the drops add interesting highlights. And, of course, Rosa rugosa petals always have that crushed silk texture that catches the eye.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Macro mode. 32mm equivalent (the Macro default). f3.4 @ 1/45th @ ISO 160. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone. Auto Enhance by Google+.
Evening at Back Creek
Back Creek is a tidal creek that flows into the Mousam River a few hundred yards from its mouth in Kennebunk Maine. The beach homes you see are on Great Head, across the Mousam. It had been a day of rain, heavy at times, and the front was still moving off the coast…but the sun broke through just for an hour or so before setting. Great light. Great sky. Landscapes are never better, I think, than when the sun breaks through under a stormy sky. You have drama on the land and drama in the sky. What is not to like?
This is a sweep panorama from the Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. I really like the fact that you can hold the camera vertically and sweep it around horizontally…producing a panorama that is fully as wide as a conventional panorama (this one is about 200 degrees), but much taller…not nearly so “pinched”. These tall panoramas also fit computer displays much better…if you click the image above on any computer with a reasonably sized display, it should fill your screen.
As I say, Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Panorama mode. f4.6 @ ISO 100. I discovered a Panorama trick for these cameras that have sweep pano modes. You pick the part of the view that has either 1) average brightness for your planned sweep, or 2) the brightness you want for the whole sweep (you might, for instance, want to expose for the sky rather than the land), point the camera at that section of the sweep and half press the shutter release to lock in exposure, then swing the camera, holding the shutter half pressed, to the where you want your pano to begin, and fully press the shutter. That way the whole sweep has the exposure you intend, and not the exposure that happened to be at the start of the sweep. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
Superhero Frog!
Maybe it was the full moon rising, but the woods at Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport were full of tiny frogs and toads on Sunday. Well, not full, but I did see two American Toads and three Wood Frogs…the smallest Toad was about 3/8 inch long, and the largest Wood Frog was still under an inch. Since both of these species grow to 2.5 inches, these certainly qualify as tiny Toads and Frogs! The fellow at the top here is the largest of the Wood Frogs. I especially like the “Masked Avenger” look…which, considering the size of the frog, is particularly funny. Kind of like a toddler dressed up as Spider Man for Halloween. Cute. With luck this specimen will grow to full size…to make the world safe from the tiny bugs that live in leaf litter 🙂
Canon SX50HS. Program with my usual modifications. 2400mm equivalent field of view (1200mm optical plus 2x digital tel-extender). f6.5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom.
Trees by threes
This trio of popular trees along the Kennebunk Bridle Path caught my eye one day as I passed. I like the lichen on the bark, and the pattern the three make against the greenery. The 24mm equivalent lens provides the depth of field to shot close in to the front tree, and yet have the others in relative focus as well. It is all about composition, really.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Program. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view. f3.2 @ 1/60th @ ISO 100. Processed on the Samsung Galaxy S4 in PicSay Pro.
Awesomeness on wings!
You might remember from yesterday’s Sunday Thought post, that I was about to set out on my scooter in search of whatever awesome I could find…most likely having to do with waterfalls, dragonflies, and deep forest. I was thinking of Emmons Preserve along the Batson River where it tumbles down over some ledges in the forest in Kennebunkport. This time of year, there are Ebony Jewelwings there, one of our most striking damselflies, and you just never know what you will find along the trails that wander down from the dirt road to the river and back through the woods. And I decided, on the ride there, that I would poke around the meadows that boarder the preserve, since the dragonflies are moving away from the water to hunt the fields these summer days.
When I got there, of course, the folks at the Kennebunkport Land Trust, who manage Emmons Preserve, had anticipated me. I had forgotten that they had made a trail around the meadows that surround the Land Trust Office. It was perfect: a nice wide mown strip along the edge of the meadows, all the way around, with little side trails surrounding isolated copses, or up along the edge of a little pond I had not known was there. There were lots of dragonflies: Meadowhawks mostly, but a good variety, including a Mosaic Darner (that’s a family of dragonflies) that I have yet to positively identify.
And there was this amazing butterfly. I was well over 2/3s of the way around the meadows and had seen it in flight many times. Big and orange and very fritilleryish. I had about despaired of its ever landing, when I came back out of a side trail to the forest on the far side of the far meadow and found it on the Knapweed.
I believe it is a Great Spangled Fritillery, though it could considerably be an Aphrodite Fritillery. Both are about the same size, and have very similar patterns, and both are possible in southern Maine. I settled on Great Spangled as simply being the more likely.
Canon SX50HS. Program with my usual modifications. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 320. Processed in Lightroom.
Oh, and clearly I did find the awesomeness I sought. Lots of dragons…Ebony Jewelwings as expected and a new an new Darner!…Great Spangled Fritillery!…several tiny toads and Wood Frogs, a smorgasbord of mushrooms in odd shapes and all sizes, and the water tumbling down in the dappled light of the deep forest among moss and ferns. Very awesome!