Photographs by Frank

31 May 2022

Yard Odes at the End of May

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Summer,wildflowers — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 11:00 PM

Early this afternoon, I noticed numerous dragonflies sunning themselves on our deck. Thus stimulated, I headed out with the camera and made a quick circuit of the yard to see what I could find.

The weather was hot (mid 80s F) and the skies mostly sunny.

Whitefaces, probably Hudsonian Whitefaces, were far the most common ode present. There were a few female chalk-fronted corporals present as well. I also observed a single male Beaverpond Baskettail, an uncommon find.

At one point, while chasing whitefaces, I got briefly distracted by the dozen or so Lady Slippers that are blooming at the edge of our yard. I could not resist adding to the already large number of photos of these show flowers that I have made over the years!

MId-afternoon, Joan called my attention to a damselfly acting strangely on our front steps. It was moving about weakly but clearly could not fly. The photo I made clearly shows why. It was injured. Its head was at a very odd angle to its torso. I made a couple of exposures and then watched for another minute or two until it fell off the steps and into the flower bed.

Late afternoon, while puttering around the yard, I noticed a few damselflies in the patch of ferns on the slope below the garden. Always willing to be distracted by odes, I went a got my camera. There were small numbers of Eastern Forktails (of both sexes) and Sedge Sprites (between my eye and the dim light, it was had to discern sexes) present. Females of both species posed nicely for me.

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29 May 2022

Ashuelot River Odes

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Spring,Wildlife — Tags: , — Frank @ 11:55 PM

This afternoon I spent several hours looking for odes (dragonflies and damselflies) along the Ashuelot River in Surry, NH. I parked at the Dort Road access point and when I crossed the foot bridge I headed upstream. Although there were some folks enjoying the sun and the water near the bridge, once I walked a few yards upstream I had the river to myself .

The temperature was in the mid 70s F and the skies were mostly cloudy. I covered about three quarters of a mile of river covering both the back channels of the braided section as well as the main channel.

Joan had spent time in this area about a week ago doing a botanical survey. I was interested in this area because she said that the river was swift flowing with a rocky bottom and that she had seen many odes while looking at the flora.

Swift flowing, rocky bottom rivers are not places (ecological niches) I routinely visit. Thus, I was hoping to find species that I rarely see. I was not disappointed.

The most common ode I saw was the Aurora Damsel. They were distributed all along the section of the river I explored (both along the main channel and the back channels) wherever there were patches of grass in full sunlight. Interestingly, I saw only males.

The next most common species I saw were Superb Jewelwings, a new species for me. These were localized to two widely separated sites along the main channel. I observed between six and twelve individuals at each site. The large majority of individuals were female.

I also saw several male Eastern Forktails and three dragonflies, none of which I was able to photograph or identify. Two of the dragonflies were those frustrating types that are in more-or-less continuous flight patrolling territories along the bank of the river.

The third dragonfly I observed was a newly emerged individual on a rock in the middle of one of the secondary channels. I first noticed this individual by picking up an odd glint of light on a rock. A quick look with my binoculars confirmed that the glint was due to the shiny wings of a teneral dragonfly* and several inches away was an exuvia (the empty larval exoskeleton).

Moving cautiously, I attempted to get in position to photograph this insect. However, this was to no avail. Before I could get close enough for even an “insurance shot” for identification this individual fluttered away in typical teneral flight. Alas, I was left with only the exuvia to photograph.

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* Odes (i.e. dragonflies and damselflies) begin life as eggs deposited in a body of water. The eggs develop into larva which grow and develop as aquatic insects. As the water warms in spring and early summer, the larva crawl from the water and the adult insect emerges from the larva. The newly emerged adult is referred to as teneral. In the teneral state (with wet wings and soft bodies) these insects are very susceptible predation. As soon as their wings are dry enough, a teneral individual flies to a more protected place to continue maturing. This teneral flight, being weak and slow, is very un-dragonfly like.

25 May 2022

Loon Watching — Little Action & Optical Experiments

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Wildlife — Tags: — Frank @ 10:30 PM

This afternoon, I headed down to see what was up with the loons. I arrived at my loon watching post right about 4 PM. The weather was pleasant with the temperature around 70 deg. F. It was mostly cloudy but with broken clouds moving at a moderate pace. Thus the light kept changing.

My goal, beside seeing what was up with the loons, was to test out a 2x teleconverter. This device doubles the magnification of a lens but the increase magnification comes at a price. As they say… “There is not such thing as a free lunch.” In this case the price is a decrease in optical quality and, with this particular device, the loss of auto-focus and auto-exposure. One ends up with a camera that operates like cameras did prior to about 1980.

The first photo shown below (made about 4 PM) is a full frame* using the 600 mm lens. The second photo (also a full frame and made a few minutes later) shows the effect of the 2x teleconverter.

Shortly after I added the teleconverter the only loon action I observed this afternoon occurred. The loon stood up briefly and examined the eggs. (They may have turned the eggs, but I am not sure of that.) I made two exposures while the bird was standing. One of these photos (the third photo below) clearly shows the two eggs in the nest. After the loon settled back down, I made a few more exposures with the teleconverter installed before removing it for the rest of the afternoon. I was not willing to compromise photos of any further action until I got the files on my computer and examined them closely**.

As for “further action” this afternoon. There was none! The loon sat on the nest for the next two hours. It looked around regularly and panted*** when the sun came out from behind the clouds but that was it! Such is the life of a nature watcher.

I tried to stay focused on the loons, but at one point I got distracted by light on the wind turbines that are on the ridge above the loon nest. Thus, I briefly pointed my camera just a bit higher than usual.

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* This image is very modestly cropped from a 2:3 ratio native to the camera to my preferred ratio of 4:5. I crop almost every photo I make to the 4:5 ratio; it just fits my view of the world better. However, most of my photos of the loons on the nest are cropped more severely in order to make a better photograph with the subject more prominent in the frame. The last two loon photos in this series are cropped this way.

** The verdict of my experiment is that I will not be using the teleconverter routinely. The complication of completely manual operation and the moderate loss of image quality are not worth it.

*** Birds, including loons, do not sweat. Rather, in order to cool off in hot weather, they open their mouths and ‘pant’. This allows them to evaporate water from the mucous membranes and thus cools them much as sweat evaporating from a mammal’s skin does.

23 May 2022

Sparse Odes

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Wildlife — Tags: — Frank @ 11:00 PM

Late this afternoon, I headed out for a little ode-ing. The temperature was in the upper 60s F, there was a soft breeze and it was mostly cloudy (a high, thin, overcast). Not ideal weather for odes but I went anyway.

I visited three sites. The field adjacent to the Stone Church in Antrim is of interest because there is a small fish-less pond that might support some odes not seen in more common ecological niches. I also stopped at the Contoocook River near the paper mill in Bennington. The river here (below the dam) is fast moving and also represents an interesting (and fairly rare) ecological niche. Lastly, I visited the field near Powder Mill Pond at the Cilley Family Forest in Greenfield (a fairly common environment around here).

I saw very small number of odes at all three sites. At the Antrim site, I saw three or four Eastern forktails (two or three male and a single female), a single female bluet and a single whiteface. The whiteface flew directly at my head which is how I know it had a whiteface but it did not allow an opportunity for further identification before veering off! At the Bennington site, I saw only a single male Eastern forktail in the grass near the canoe launch. I saw no odes on the rocks in the river just below the dam. In Greenfield, I saw (but did not photograph) only a single male dot-tailed whiteface.

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20 May 2022

Two Eggs! (Gregg Lake Loons – 2022)

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Wildlife — Tags: , — Frank @ 1:29 PM

Mid-morning, Joan and I decided to head down to the lake to see if we could confirm that the loon nest contained eggs. While we were getting ready, a single loon flew overhead going towards the lake. The temperature was in the mid-60s F and the skies were changing quickly… mostly cloudy as we headed out and mostly sunny by the time we returned home roughly forty minutes later.

In order to increase Joan’s chances of spotting eggs in the nest, I parked the truck at the side of the narrow road so that she could set up the spotting scope in the bed of the truck… it’s all about angles. I figured (correctly) that there would be little traffic.

Just as we finished setting up (within five minutes of our arrival) we heard the loon on the nest call. We were afraid that maybe the presence of a vehicle parked in an odd spot might have alarmed the bird even though the nest is four or five hundred feet from the road.

Rarely does the wildlife makes the watcher’s life easy, but today was one of those days. Within a few minutes of the first call from the loon on the nest, its mate arrived and loon 1 slipped into the water to greet loon 2. The pair swam around near the nest for a few minutes giving Joan ample time to see that there are indeed two eggs in the nest.

Eventually, one of the birds (presumably the incoming loon) mounted the nest. I was able to make a sequence of exposures that illustrate how ungainly this process is (see the second gallery below). Unusually, the loon stayed on the nest for only a short time before entering the water again.

At this point we decided that we had the ‘data’ we needed the truck for and I moved the truck to the more usual parking area down by the junction of Craig Rd. By the time I walked back to the truck, a loon was back on the nest. The second loon hung around the general area of the nest fishing for several minutes before it headed out under the bridge to the main part of the lake.

Joan took a stroll at this point to see if she could see where the two herons that few by earlier had landed. She did not see the herons but she did observe two loons hanging out together on the main part of the lake… presumably one of the mated pair we were watching and the single bird we heard flying over the house about a half hour earlier?

About forty minutes after we first arrived, we headed back to the house, the garden and the things we are ‘supposed to do”!

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Loon Mounting Nest Sequence (about 30 seconds from start to finish)

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19 May 2022

Gregg Lake Loons – 2022

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Spring,Wildlife — Tags: — Frank @ 4:04 PM

“Our” loons arrived on Gregg Lake at the end of March (the 28th according to Joan), before ice out.

I suspect, but have no proof, that they arrive in the area earlier and spend time on some other ice-free body of water while make periodic reconnaissance flights to their “home water” looking for a large enough opening in the ice.

For the past several weeks we have seen the pair of birds ‘out and about’ mostly on the main part of the lake but occasionally on the north side of the road where they have nested in the past. We had not observed any nest building behavior. However, we were not looking frequently and systematically.

Yesterday morning, as I headed out to the grocery store, I was excited to see a loon sitting on a nest in the same area they have nested for the past two (successful) years. I am positive that they were not sitting on the nest the day before yesterday.

The skies were cloudless, bluebird blue for most of the morning and early afternoon. I was not even tempted to head down to make the first loon photos of the season. It is difficult to make a good photo of a black and white bird in bright, strong sun light. One can either expose properly for the black or the white but not for both at the same time in bright light.

However, by mid afternoon a few clouds began to appear. By five or so, there was a high, overcast which makes for perfect conditions to photograph black and white birds. As a bonus, it was breezy so the black flies were small in number. I headed out to photograph the loon(s).

As one expects when watching a loon nest, not much happened in the hour and a half I watched. I saw only one bird in that time. It shifted position twice while I was there but I could not confirm that there is an egg or eggs present yet.*

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* Joan made a brief stop to observe the nest early this afternoon on her way back from town. She thought that the bird on the nest may have turned an egg while she watched but was only looking with her binoculars. We’ll have to spend some more time loon watching with the spotting scope soon!

Ode Opener – 2022

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Spring,Wildlife — Tags: , — Frank @ 3:00 PM

I noticed the first dragonflies around the yard four or five days ago. However, yesterday afternoon after lunch was the first opportunity I had to “go hunting” (with my camera). The numbers of odes had increased dramatically during that interval.

The weather was breezy and the temperature in the high 60s F. The skies were fair when I went out but it got progressively cloudier as the afternoon progressed.

The most common dragonflies were the whitefaces (there were dozens), mostly Hudsonian but possible a few Frosted in the mix. I even observed three whiteface mating wheels. Chalk-fronted corporals were also common.

Damselflies are a bit harder to see casually, so I don’t know when they first appeared on the yard. However, yesterday I observed at least two species of damselflies and possible a third (for which I don’t have a photo. There were small numbers of both bluets (exact species unknown) and Aurora damsels. I saw only females and maybe a dozen of each species.

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21 March 2022

Game Camera Fun

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Wildlife — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 8:00 PM

At the very end of 2020, I bought a game camera just for fun. For those who might not know, a game camera is a waterproof, automatic camera designed to make photos of wildlife. When the camera detects movement, it makes four or five photographs. It does this day or night, using an infrared flash at night.

I experimented with the camera around the yard and then in March of 2021 (i.e. about a year ago) I strapped the camera at chest height to a tree “down back”. The lot that our house is situated on slopes back away from the house and ends in a beaver-made wet meadow about a quarter mile from the house. The tree I strapped the camera is located on the edge of the meadow and the camera was pointed out on the meadow.

Our property, which ends about half way across the wet meadow, abuts the roughly 2000 acre NH Audubon sanctuary at Willard Pond. This sanctuary is contiguous with another roughly 5000 acres of forested land, most of which is conserved. There are no public roads (only logging roads) in this area. In other words, there is a lot prime wildlife habitat behind our house. I was interested to see what we could capture with the game camera.

After setting up the camera, I promptly forgot about it, until today! I retrieved the camera this afternoon and was interested in seeing how long the batteries had lasted. The batteries are still just fine, but the memory card ran out of space after seven months (i.e. in November 2021). There were six thousand photos on the camera! Most of the photos were “false positives”… that is pictures of just the vegetation.

However, over the seven months the camera was active, there were forty frames that contained an animal. These documented twenty different “encounters”. Of these encounters, eight were deer, five were moose, four were bear and there was one encounter each of coyote, racoon and turkey.

None of the photos could be considered “art”, but here are seven of the most visually interesting. The monochrome images were made “in the dark” under infrared illumination.

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21 October 2021

Our Magnificent Planet 2021

Filed under: Odontates,Other Insects,Wildlife — Frank @ 6:52 PM

Stalwart readers may remember that I had a photograph published in Our Magnificent Planet 2020, a book published by the folks who issue LensWork magazine (see this post).

A few months ago, I submitted three photographs to this year’s version, Our Magnificent Planet 2021.

A few weeks ago, I was notified that, again, one of my photographs has been selected for inclusion in this book. I am batting 1.000!*

Below, are the three photos I submitted.

I like a surprise so I have continued my ‘tradition’ from last year and I have not emailed the publisher to find out which photograph was selected.

We’ll just have to wait until December when the book is delivered!

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* My friend Joe Sack is also batting 1.000 in this game.

11 October 2021

Elk Rut and Prairie Dogs (2021 Road Trip)

Filed under: Mammals,Road Trips,Wildlife — Frank @ 8:02 PM

Our usual route east, towards home, from Western Montana is US Route 2 which runs across the country just south of the Canadian border. This time, we decided to try a different route… a series of state routes numbered 200. We picked up Montana 200 in Missoula (the route starts a bit farther west, at the Idaho border) and eventually continued on the contiguous North Dakota 200 and Minnesota 200 until we were in the Duluth area. This week-long, roughly 1,100 mile trek took us across the central parts of those states. We saw lots of prairie and not a lot of people.

The drive was interesting and quite different from the drive on US 2. The towns along route 200 are generally much smaller and farther apart than the towns along US 2. I think that this is because of the railroad… US 2 generally follows the railroad while the 200 route does not.

The drive was interesting, but I did not make many successful landscape photos along the way. I guess that I did not find a muse in the high prairie. However, I did photograph wildlife in two locations.

Back in 2017, we spent a few hours at the Slippery Ann elk viewing area of the C.M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in central Montana. This trip we stopped and spent the night. The elk rut was in high gear (as it was at more-or-less the same period in 2017) and we spent a late afternoon and early evening watching and photographing the action… it was fascinating. The bugling continued after it got dark and, in fact, went on all night. We were hoping to photograph again in the morning before moving on but the elk were in the woods and thickets nearer the river rather than out in the open by the road. We could hear them but not see them.

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The second wildlife opportunity along this section of the trip was unplanned. We pulled into a campground in the north unit of Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota one evening. As I wandered the environs looking for landscape photographs (an endeavor complicated by power lines), I heard odd noises coming from a fenced in pasture abutting the campground… the sound was almost, but not quite, avian. I wandered over the found that the noises were emanating from prairie dogs!

I made one photograph through the fence (the first one shown below) but by the time I found a better vantage from which to photograph (a matter of maybe five minutes) the light had faded and there were zero prairie dogs to be seen! Of course, they were all back out-and-about the next morning and I made many photographs of these amusing creatures.

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