I called this bird an immature yesterday because of the lack of red tips on the wings, but several readers thought it might be more adult. Apparently juvenile is a specific plumage phase and this bird is beyond that…but it might be impossible, actually, to age it otherwise. At any rate this is the same bird as I posted yesterday in another pose. If one super-sharp Cedar Waxwing is good…two should certainly be better 🙂

Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent. Program mode. f4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr. 

Sometimes you just get a gift. I was hunting dragonflies along the shore of Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area here in southern Maine, when this immature Cedar Waxwing flew in and landed less than 8 feet from me. I suspect the bird was doing exactly the same thing I was…but with more lethal intent. 🙂 I got the camera up, figuring it was going to fly on at any second, but it sat there and let me take a dozen exposures. I tried to take one step closer, and, of course, it was gone. Still, what a treat. 

The setting is ideal. The bird contrasts nicely with the rough patterned white of the birch bark and the background is far enough out of focus to be a lovely buttery green.   

You almost never get close enough to resolve the feathers on this bird…in most photos it appears as though carved from wood and with the plumage painted on. It has about the finest feathers over much of its body of any bird out there. The combination of the close approach and the excellent ZEISS len on the Sony Rx10iii make for an exceptional portrait of this bird. The lack of red tips on the wings tells me it is this year’s hatchling, just hunting its first dragonflies on its own. 

Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent. Program mode. F4 at 1/250th, and for some reason the camera did not record the ISO setting. I suspect it was ISO 100. Processed in Polarr. 

It is the season of the tiger again in Southern Maine…the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail that is. I have seen 2 in our yard, and at least one on every outing further afield this past week. This one was along the shore of Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area in West Kennebunk…and it is the first photographically cooperative Swallowtail I have seen this season. As you see, the Sheep Laurel is just coming into bloom, and the Swallowtail was making a feast of it. What a lovely contrast between the yellow butterfly and the deep pink laurel. 

Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent. Program mode. f4 @ 1/250, and for some reason the camera did not record the ISO or it got lost in import?? Probably ISO 100. Processed in Polarr. 

There are always Yellow Warblers nesting in the Beach Rose on the dune behind our local beach…and this time of year they are singing lustily…or as lustily as a Yellow Warbler can sing. I caught this one in the evening, an hour before sunset. The evenings in Maine now are long…and sunset is not until after 8 PM. Though I have lived here more than 20 years, the late light always takes me by surprise, every summer. I try to be like the warblers and make the most of it. 🙂

Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent. Program mode. 1/1000th @ f5.6 @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr and TouchRetouch (an offending out of focus branch on the right removed). 

It is not only dragonflies that flying here in Southern Maine in mid-June. There are a few early butterflies. I have seen several Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, Northern Checkers, some Hairstreaks, lots of Skippers, and a single Mourning Cloak. These two, if I am not mistaken, are Long Dash Skippers, (though they also might be Black-dash Skippers??) from the area around Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area. 

Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with -.7EV. Processed in Polarr and assembled in FrameMagic. 

At Day Brook Pond the other day, I caught this Frosted Whiteface dragonfly, and a Chalk-fronted Corporal alternating between two perches on the same Birch twigs over the water. I wanted to get them in the same image, as the comparison is interesting…especially the size comparison. I think of the Corporal as being a small dragonfly, but it is huge when compared to the delicate Whiteface. 

While it would have made an excellent shot, the Whiteface’s twig was maybe 6 inches in front of the Corporal’s twig, and, though I attempted it, there was no way to get them in focus at the same time. So I took two shots, one focused on the Whiteface and the second on the Corporal, thinking that maybe I could merge them when I got home. I am working on the iPad and I used three apps for this composition. First I processed the shots identically for light and detail in Polarr, using my “birds” preset. Then I took both shots into Adobe PhotoShop Mix as layers, and cut out the blurred Whiteface to expose the sharp one on the layer behind. That left a visible margin between the two images where the background did not match perfectly, so I saved the combined image and reopened it in Polarr. There I was able to smooth the edges of the join using the Brush and the Blur control. I saved that. In looking at it however, I decided that I had cropped the Whitetail a little too close to the edge. I opened the image in HandyPhoto which has a Magic Uncrop tool, and used it to add some real estate to the left of the Whiteface. In HandyPhoto is just a matter of extending the frame and the program fills it in with cloned background. 

And there you have it. A digitally created, true to life, comparison of a Frosted Whiteface and a Chalk-fronted Corporal dragonfly. 

Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent. Program mode at -.7 EV. 1/125th @ ISO 125 @ f5.6. Processed as above. 🙂

Obelisking is a dragonfly behavior, in which the dragon points its abdomen directly up at the sun. It is also called sun-posting. In this position the dragonfly limits its exposure to the the sun’s rays on hot days, and maintains its body temperature below critical levels. This is a female Calico Pennant dragonfly on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area near Kennebunk Maine. Pennants are called pennants because of their habit of perching on the very tip of bare twigs and dead grass stalks, where they kind of flap in the wind…like a pennant. 🙂 Don’t you just love dragonfly names! 

I like dragonflies. They are amazing creatures, and beautiful in a steampunk kind of way. But I like this shot simply as an image. The combination of the strong simple forms of the twigs, and the beautiful buttery out-of-focus-background (bokeh in photo-speak), with the intricate and delicate design of the ballet-posing bug, produce a graphic with is powerful yet very simple. 
Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with Program Shift for greater depth of field. f6.3 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr. 

It seems to be the season for Toads and Frogs in Southern Maine. The panel represents, left to right and down: 1) American Toad from the back yard…a really big fellow, 4 inches 2) Northern Leopard Frog from Forever Wild Preserve in West Kennebunk. 2 inches. 3) Possibly a Mink Frog…if so a first for me…if not, someone please correct me 🙂 3 inches, 4) N. Leopard Frog in sunlight, again from the Forever Wild Preserve, 2 inches 5) American Toad, smaller by far and in deep forest at Emmon’s Preserve (Kennebunkport Land Conservancy), 2 inches, and 6) Wood Frog, one the largest I have ever seen, from the Alwive Woods Preserve (Kennebunk Land Trust) 3.5 inches. 

With toads and frogs, I always grab a shot from too high up…whatever…just to get a shot before the critter hops deeper into cover…but then, if the subject is cooperative I like to work my way down closer to eye-level. Most of the time they are not cooperative. 🙁 

Sony Rx10iii mostly at 600mm equivalent. Program mode. Various exposures in various light. Processed in Polarr and assembled in FrameMagic. 

Beautiful Bracket Mushrooms on dying tree at Alwive Woods Preserve (Kennebunk Land Trust), in West Kennebunk Maine. They look like fine polished wood sculptures. 

Sony RX10III at 34mm equivalent. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/125 @ f2.8 @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr. 

There is a little cluster of Pink Lady Slipper Orchids out by Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area that is unique in that the flowers are in full sun for much of the day. Most of the other clusters I know of are in deep shade…though, considering, it is clear the flowers like a bit of sun even in the forest. The cluster at Day Brook Pond is under a big pine on the shore, and the flowers are among the easiest Lady Slippers to photograph of any I know. 

Sony Rx10iii at 97mm equivalent. Program mode, with Program Shift for greater depth of field. f13 @ 1/200 @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr.