Photographs by Frank

5 June 2011

Three Days in June

Filed under: Odontates,Other Insects — Tags: , — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Late afternoon, say 4:30 or 5:00, is a good time to stalk dragonflies… the critters are active and the light is good (coming at fairly low angle). Thus, each of the the past two afternoons, I’ve headed out to photograph — Friday afternoon found me at the beaver swamp at the back of our property and Saturday afternoon found me at an old log yard about a quarter mile up the road from the house. On both days, I stayed out until the mosquitoes got too bad. This was also about the same time that the light began to deteriorate as the sun started to dip below the trees… roughly 6: 30.

The beaver swamp was teeming with common baskettails actively feeding; there were dozens out over the grassy areas of the swamp. They spend most of their time in flight but as the sun began to go down and things cooled off, they began to settle down some. There were also a few chalk-fronted corporals present.

At the log yard, I prowled the edge of the opening which is usually the most productive area of a clearing in the woods. The most common, by far, species present was the chalk-fronted corporal with numerous individuals of both sexes present. There were also a few clubtails as well as a small number of female common whitetails present.

This series of photos begins with a couple of shots of  a Rosy Maple Moth that was hanging around on a bush in the yard on Thursday… a very odd looking critter! The next image is moth which I noticed in the woods on my way down to the beaver swamp.

The photo (which is about half the original frame) of the chipmunk was taken as I was headed to the log yard. I had stopped to photograph a dragonfly on the stone wall along the road when I noticed this “fellow” watching me from the top of the wall a few yards away. I was able to get the extension tube off the camera and the lens back on in time to get two shots before he decided that he had seen enough!

Warning… photography talk! For those that are interested an extension tube is placed between the camera and the lens to allow one to focus at the closer distance than the “bare” lens does. The downside is that you lose the ability to focus on distant objects. Thus when I am set up to shoot dragonflies (see this post for the details) the camera is pretty much useless for anything else.

Anyway, here are the images:

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1 Comment

  1. Once again, your images totally amaze me. You seem to be able to not only find these delicate creatures but also capture them in such exquisite detail! I hope you will reconsider competitions next year as there are some winners here! What am I saying, we are in the same class?

    Comment by Just Joe — 7 June 2011 @ 8:20 PM

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