Photographs by Frank

2 June 2015

Rainy Day Birds

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Spring,Wildlife — Tags: — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Over the past few days, we have been getting some much needed rain. I’m not complaining but I’d much prefer a 65 degree (F) rain than the 45 degree rain we’re getting!

Yesterday afternoon, we noticed a male hummingbird spending a lot of time perched near the feeder. Presumably he was defending his territory from an intruder.

His more-or-less constant presence was enough to get me to set up the blind and camera in the 45 degree rain and spend an hour photographing the birds. I was amazingly warm and dry in the blind and a number of other birds appeared in the hour I was sequestered therein.

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24 May 2015

Ruby-throats & Red-bellies

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Spring — Tags: — Frank @ 11:30 PM

Today dawned warm and sunny. After breakfast this morning, I set up the camera on the deck, “just in case” and went about my around the house chores.

A few minutes before ten, I heard the call of a red-bellied woodpecker announcing its arrival in the vicinity of the feeders. I, of course, headed for the camera. While I was watching the red-belly, I noticed the hummingbird out of the corner of my eye.

The first two photographs (below) were made within twenty seconds of each other.

Just before eight this evening I put the camera away and started the grill to cook supper. Not more than five minutes later, I heard the red-belly call again. I was able to get the camera back out and make few more photos before he flew off again.

The lighting in the two sets of photos is about as different as it can be. Bright, harsh sun in the morning and very low, soft light in the evening about a half hour before sunset*.

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* For the photo geeks, the exposure in the morning was ISO 200, f/5.6 and 1/750 sec. The evening exposure was ISO 800, f/4 and 1/60 sec. If I’ve done the math right this is about a seven stop difference.

I had to work a bit harder to clean up the noise in the ISO 800 exposures but the six or seven year old D300 still does a pretty good job… me thinks!

 

20 May 2015

Ode Opener – 2015 Version

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Spring — Tags: — Frank @ 5:00 PM

The ode season is off to its usual slow start in the Monadnock region.

Ten days ago (on Sunday, 10 May) I noticed a single yellow (i.e. an immature male or female) Hudsonian Whiteface. The next day, I saw another single individual.

By the end of the week, there were dozens of individuals sunning themselves on the driveway and the road and a few of the males were beginning to turn red. Small numbers of female Chalk-fronted Corporals had also appeared.

This past weekend (15 – 16 May) , I observed a couple of Hudsonian Whiteface mating wheels on the wing. Thus, the season progresses.

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This morning (Wed., 20 May) dawned chilly (temperature in the 50’s) and breezy. I had thoughts of heading down to the lake to look for emerging odes, but decided against it based on the weather.

Mid-morning, Joan had some business to attend to down at the public beach. When she arrived there she called me to say that there was an eclosing nymph on the beach shed.

I arrived at the beach shortly thereafter and we discovered a number (all of the same species, probably a skimmer or an emerald; but don’t quote me!) of shed exuvia on the tree trunks as well as a couple of nymphs still scaling their chosen tree.

Shows you how much I know!

When she got back to the house, Joan headed down to the garden. A short time later, I was summoned down to the garden because she had discovered a dragonfly,  probably an immature male American Emerald, perched on the ground.

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19 May 2015

Big Bertha Returns

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: — Frank @ 11:00 PM

Last evening I took a drive and picked up Big Bertha* from the repairman. Don’t ask how she ended up in the shop… I’m trying to forget!

This afternoon, just to make sure that all is working properly, I set up by the feeders and gave Bertha a thorough workout. All is looking good, as you can see in the photos below.

The male red-winged blackbird made an appearance again… just to observe. Very strange… the feeders are set up at the edge of the woods (i.e. it is not typical red-winged blackbird habitat) and we are at least a quarter mile from the nearest marsh where these birds usually hangout.

The other interesting visitor was a great crested flycatcher. I do not think that I have ever seen one before.

At least the feeders are in the right habitat for this species… mature deciduous forest, according to Sibley. This individual just perched for a minute or two near the feeders before it flew off.

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* My 600 mm f/4 lens.

 

An Afternoon’s Birds and a Seed Thief Chipmunk, Too.

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Spring,Wildlife — Frank @ 9:30 PM

Yesterday morning, I set about to re-engineer the support for the main bird feeder in hopes of keeping the chipmunks at bay.

After lunch, I sat down with my camera to watch the birds and to see the results of my efforts regarding the chipmunks.  I am happy to report great success… only one chipmunk on the feeder in a day and a half and none since I made a minor adjustment early this morning.

As for the birds, the most common birds at the seed these days are finches. Gold finches are the most common but we’ve had good numbers of purple finches as well. Downy woodpeckers are the most common suet eaters present but an occasional nuthatch and a red-bellied woodpecker also appear.

One oddity that has appeared at the feeders over the past few days is a male red-winged blackbird. It just seems to perch and watch for a while before flying off. I have never seen it take either seed or suet.

The turkey is also an oddity in that I was actually able to get a good photograph. Turkeys are very common in our neck of the woods. (I am usually awakened at about 5:30 these mornings by their calls.) However, they are usually very skittish and thus difficult to photograph.

This male appeared by the greenhouse about six last evening and stuck around long enough for me to get a few nice photographs.

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16 May 2015

Seed Thieves!

Filed under: Mammals,Monadnock Region,Spring — Tags: — Frank @ 1:00 PM

We keep a few bird feeders out by the greenhouse, just off the deck in back of the house. Watching (and occasionally photographing) the birds the feeders attract is a source of great pleasure in our lives.

However, the feeders are also the cause of great consternation… the neighborhood chipmunks seed thieves have decided that the sunflower seeds in the main feeder have been put there for them.

I keep telling them that the devices are called bird feeders for a reason but they do not seem to listen at all!

The best I have been able to manage is to train the critters who live under our shed to run for their lives when I open the doors leading out to the deck.

The individuals who live in the woods (judging from the direction they run when I chase them off) are still very brave… I have to walk up to the feeder and give it a whack to get them to jump off!

The “fellow” in the photo below sat atop the big rock by the deck and vocalized for some minutes last evening. I am not sure what it was saying (my ability to communicate in chipmunk-ese  is poor; see above), but I imagine that s/he was warning all of the other chipmunks to stay away from the feeder.

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28 April 2015

Suppertime Visitor

Filed under: Early Spring,Mammals,Monadnock Region — Frank @ 11:00 AM

I arose from the dinner table last evening, took a look out the front door and noticed that we had a suppertime visitor.

This “fellow” was rooting around for supper in the leaves on the inside of the stone wall down by the road; I am unsure as to what it is eating.

Of course, I took the camera and headed out the door. Porcupines are pretty easy to photograph. Their sight is not particularly keen so if one moves slowly on can get pretty close. I stopped and set up the camera/tripod about twenty or thirty feet away.

I made eleven exposures before I was noticed. At this point the critter ambled down across the road and into the woods.

I do not believe that concept of “hurry” exists in the porcupine universe!

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27 April 2015

Ode Exhibit at the Harris Center

Filed under: Odontates — Frank @ 12:00 PM

The good folks at the Harris Center for Conservation Education are hosting a showing of my exhibit “The Life Cycle of Dragonflies and Damselflies” in their Babbitt Room. I also have other wildlife photos (a combination of odes and birds) hanging in their lobby. One can view both sets of photos whenever the Center is open.

In conjunction with the exhibit, I will be giving a presentation on the natural history of dragonflies and damselflies from 2-4 PM on Saturday, 30 May 2015. We will start inside with a slide presentation and then head outside to hunt odes on the Harris Center grounds.

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15 April 2015

Searching for Spring

Filed under: Birds,Mammals,Spring,Wildlife — Tags: — Frank @ 6:00 PM

A week ago on Tuesday, Joan and I headed south in search of Spring.

When we arrived at Assateague Island National Seashore on Wednesday the temperature was 45 degrees, the wind was blowing at about 45 mph and the sky was spitting (a combination of salt spray and intermittent rain)… not exactly the weather we were hoping for!

None-the-less, we dropped the camper off at a campsite, donned a few layers of fleece with a topping of Gore-tex and headed out in search of horses and birds. We had a wonderful time despite the weather.

On Thursday, we awoke to horses in our campsite, egrets in the marsh beside the campsite and no change in the weather. After breakfast, we headed south to the Virginia side of Assateague Island and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. We had another wonderful day.

The weather broke on Friday and we headed north and west to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. We arrived just before lunch and spent roughly six hours exploring this wonderful place.

As the light began to fade, we turned the car towards suburban Washington, DC.

Here are my photos of the horses:

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Here are the birds, the egrets are from Assateague and the remainder from Blackwater:

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The weekend in suburban Washington, DC finally brought the lovely spring weather we had been hoping for.

We spent the weekend visiting with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law (who live nearby) and our daughter (who lives in Baltimore).

My parents live in a “soup-to-nuts” retirement “village” with lots of open space. There are many birds around and I was duly entertained on our daily walks around the grounds!

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We arrived home late Monday evening to find that spring had returned to New Hampshire in our absence. There is still ice on the lake and scattered pockets of snow in the woods, but we have great hope!

 

 

23 February 2015

Porcupine!

Filed under: "Camp",Mammals,Monadnock Region,Wildlife,Winter — Tags: — Frank @ 9:30 PM

Yesterday was the first day with above freezing temperatures since early January… the high was 33 degrees! The warm spell did not last long. It was 11 when I got up this morning and it is -1  (-15 with the wind chill) as I write this at about 8:30 PM. The low tonight will be around -10 without the wind chill.

We are down to about a cord and a third of wood… I suspect that we’ll be switching to oil in a couple of weeks!!!

Joan and I took advantage of yesterday’s warm spell by heading across the lake on snow shoes. Our main goal was to rake the three feet of accumulated snow from the roof of our camp. Eventually it will warm up and rain on the snow and that sort of weight is not kind to old structures. Thus the need for snow removal.

While I started the raking, Joan explored the various animal tracks in the snow on the lake. A coyote had walked along the shore of the cove and stopped to dig out and explore an animal carcass buried in the snow.

Another set of tracks ended at a small hemlock a few feet off the lake. Sitting about eight feet up in said tree was a porcupine doing what porcupines usually do while sitting in hemlocks… eating!

It is very common this time of year to find the snow under hemlocks littered with small bits of hemlock branches; a sure sign of a porcupine had a meal aloft. Hemlock seems to be their preferred winter food and they are messy eaters!

I was easily persuaded to exchange the roof rake for my camera and was able to move to within a dozen feet of the porcupine without any evidence of concern upon its part… it just kept on munching hemlock boughs.

Eventually, it descended the tree and headed towards me along the edge of the lake. It shuffled around for a short while and then climbed another, small hemlock a few feet from the first. It settled in to eat again about eight or ten feet off the ground. After some time it headed further up the tree and I decided that it was time to get back to the roof rake.

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