Photographs by Frank

20 June 2012

More Odes from the Beaver Swamp “Down Back”

Filed under: Odontates — Tags: , — Frank @ 10:00 PM

Woody Allen is alleged to have quipped “Ninety percent of life is just showing up.”

If one is a nature photographer, I’d put the percentage at 99 percent. It is really quite simple… if one is not out “in the field” one can not make nature photographs.

Besides, I can’t think of a better way to spend time than sitting out in the woods… or swamp… watching the non-human world go by.

Thus these days, when ever I have a spare moment, I don my green wellies (and other clothes for the literalists in the audience), apply a liberal coating of “bug stuff” and head off to the beaver swamp at the back of our property.

I went off thus garbed, and with camera in hand, after lunch yesterday. As I walked down the hill, I watched a coyote skirt the swamp staying carefully in the cover, cool and easy walking of woods. As I got to the swamp proper I flushed a great blue heron from the patch of open water.

As I immersed myself … quite literally at a couple of points… in the marsh, I noted many dragonflies (mainly frosted whitefaces and four spotted skimmers) out over the open water. Down in among the grasses and reeds were small numbers of damselflies and a number of Hudsonian whitefaces (one of the smallest dragonflies).

It is always quite amazing to see what happens when one just sits quietly observing. I often have dragonflies land on my shirt or hat. Yesterday, a small song bird alit in a small tree not more that five or six feet from where I had staked out an old brown stalk of vegetation remaining from last year.

I watched a four-spotted skimmer make dozens of forays from this perch. It was clear to me that some of the forays were for hunting and others were for defense of territory.

I was hoping to get a photograph of predator eating a nice large prey. The best I got were photographs of predator with the feet of small prey just visible as most was gulped down before getting back to the perch. Oh well! It was still nice to spend time in the field.

After about three hours, I headed back up the hill to the house. My rear end and knees were sopping wet. It is hard to stay dry while kneeling and squatting in a swamp. My boots were sloshing with a couple of inches of water. I stepped into a hole that was deeper than my boots are tall while my attention was focused on a damselfly pair laying eggs. I arrived at the house hot, thirsty, and happy.

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P.S. In today’s ninety degree heat, I decided to say inside and process yesterdays photographs. I know… I’m a wimp when it comes to the heat!

18 June 2012

A Stretch of Perfect Days

Filed under: Odontates,Other Insects — Tags: , , — Frank @ 8:00 AM

Today dawned overcast, but the past few days have been sunny and right around seventy degrees… perfect weather for odonates!

I was able to get out and hunt odes for four days straight. Thursday, I headed for the Contoocook River and the Lovern’s Mill cedar swamp. I was almost shut out… I finally saw a few odes (the third and fourth photos) in the small meadow next to the road where I had parked the truck at Lovern’s Mill.

All of the rest of the photos were taken within a short walk of the house or at camp. The butterfly visited the flower box hanging from the deck railing while I was eating lunch on Thursday. I am learning to keep the camera ready at all times!

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3 September 2011

Ode Season Slows / Fungal Diversity / Another Close Encounter

Filed under: Odontates,Other Insects,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Labor Day weekend… the end of summer… the winding down of ode season… alas!

Yesterday, I headed down to “our” beaver swamp hoping to get photos of darners; I was partially successful. The weather was nice and sunny and the temperature was in the mid-70’s.

Darners are large showy dragonflies that are a source of great frustration to this photographer. In late summer/early fall these are often the most abundant odes about. One sees them hunting over open areas (lawns, swamps, hill tops, etc.) in large numbers.

However, one rarely sees them perched and when they do perch it is often ten or twelve feet (or higher) in a tree. Also, when perched they seem to be very skittish. Thus my photographic frustration!

One my way down to the swamp, I was able to photograph a nondescript light brown moth. These moths are fairly common in the woods, but rarely sit still long enough to locate in the viewfinder before fluttering off again. My impression is that this is just their normal behavior, not that they are scared off by my presence. This one sat still long enough to be photographed.

The “situation” at the swamp was as I expected. The water level was very high because of hurricane Irene and there were many darners hunting at grass/sedge height and over the open water. There were still meadowhawks about, although in smaller numbers that earlier in the season. The numbers of spreadwings was very small and I did not see any other damselflies.

I stuck mainly to the edges where I could watch the trees for perching darners. Darners tend to be very well camouflaged when perched but with a careful search one can sometimes espy them on tree trunks or hanging vertically from branches.  I spotted three within photographing height in the couple of hours I was out. I got a decent photograph of one of them… such is the life of a wildlife photographer!

The first one I spotted as a set of wings sticking out on either side of a small dead branch. It flew off before I could maneuver body and equipment through the tall grass and fallen tree trunks hidden therein. I can hear Joan now… “A good photographer…”!

The second individual also flew off before I got close enough.

I did, however,  manage to get a couple of shots of the third individual. It was perched seven or eight feet off the ground. But I managed to stand on a tussock to lessen the angle and got a few shots before it too flew off.

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The light on the swamp starts to deteriorate shortly after five these days as there is a tall ridge just to its north and west. As I meandered back up the hill towards the house, I noticed the amazing diversity of fungi in the woods and began photographing these.

Fungi are somewhat easier than odes to photograph as they (fungi)  never fly away! Fungi are somewhat harder to photograph than odes since they (fungi) are small and grow out of the ground. Thus, one needs to pretty much lay flat on the ground to frame them.  At my age, getting down on the ground is not a problem… getting up again, however, is another story!

At one point, while I was laying on the ground near where I encountered the bear a few weeks ago, I heard a rustling noise in the woods coming from the same direction as the bear had come.

This time it was a porcupine! He/she just meandered along maybe  fifty to seventy five feet away and I don’t think here it ever noticed me. I got the extension tube off of the camera and the 70-300 mm lens back on but I never did get a clear shot of him… way too many trees in the way! If he had come close enough though I would have got a perfect eye-level shot, as I was still lying on my belly!

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28 August 2011

Carpenter’s Marsh WMA

Filed under: Birds,Odontates,wildflowers,Wildlife — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Thursday was Eva’s Marsh WMA. On Friday we plopped the kayaks in at  Carpenter’s Marsh WMA.

Both parcels are quite near each other (about a mile apart “as the crow flies”)  in Hancock and are similar in many ways; although Carpenter’s is quite a bit larger. Both parcels are “enhanced” wetlands… that is they both have a man-made dam to raise the water level. Both are also managed as water fowl habitat.

The weather on Friday afternoon was warm and sunny. Thus the odes were out in force.

There were large darners everywhere patrolling at grass/sedge top level and occasionally dipping down into the vegetation after prey. I did not see one perched all afternoon!

There were also many meadowhawks and spreadwings about with a few other species in the mix in smaller numbers.

The vegetation at the two sites is quite different. Eva’s Marsh has large areas of pickerel weed and there were many water lilies and much eastern purple bladderwort; spatterdock is absent.  At Carpenter’s pickerel weed along with grasses and sedges dominate. Rushes are also present and the main flowering plant we saw was spatterdock. The arrowhead was also in bloom at Carpenter’s.

As for birds, we spent a bit of time with a group of eastern kingbirds both coming and going. They were perched in a patch of snags and we enjoyed watching their swooping forays for insects.

Our second pass by the kingbirds was just as the sun was going behind the ridge which encloses the wetland. Thus the really warm color in the last photo is not enhanced at all and less that thirty seconds after snapping that photo the light was the dull, flat and blue light of evening.

On the way back to the put in, we also had fun watching a riled up beaver. He/she kept swimming away from us and slapping its tail. I think that it was leading us away from a juvenile. A one point while my eye was on the beaver ahead,  I heard a loud plop of something dropping into the water just behind my right shoulder.

Halfheartedly, I took a few photos knowing that a small brown lump in the water was not going to make for great images but hoping that I might catch an interesting pose during a tail slap; none are worth showing.

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24 August 2011

A Hike Up Skatutakee and Thumb Mountains

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

Yesterday was another prototypical New Hampshire summer day… low humidity and the temperature was just about 70 degrees.  We  spent the afternoon hiking up Skatutakee and Thumb Mountains on trails maintained by the Harris Center in Hancock. The summits of both peaks afford nice views of the north face of Mount Monadnock.

We encountered two different species of damselflies in the woods on the way up and the usual darners which frequent the peaks were found on both summits. We also watched two hawks soaring over the summit of Skatutakee while we ate our lunch.

Near the bottom of the Thumbs Down trail we encountered a porcupine on the ground in a lumbered area and a short time later we flushed a grouse-like bird from the underbrush along the edge of the same clearing. No photos of either animal though; both were quicker than yours truly!

We also encountered a rather large toad at the edge of an old skid road just before the Thumbs Down Trail becomes a real trail again. This “fellow” was well hidden under some ferns but I managed to find “windows” that afforded shots of both his left and right profiles. That done, I’m not sure that one could say that he has a “good side”!

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23 August 2011

Meadowhawks and Spreadwings in the Beaver Swamp

Filed under: Odontates,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 12:15 PM

Late yesterday afternoon, I headed down to the beaver swamp behind the house just to see what was up… I’d been inside working  for much of the day and could not resist the beautiful weather anymore.

The usual suspects were all to be found… darners which never seem to land (and thus I have no photos of), meadowhawks and spreadwings.

I spent some time (about a half an hour according to the EXIF data) watching and photographing a single meadowhawk. I first noticed it perched in good light and with a good background. I maneuvered to get so that it was facing me and sat down. It was not too wet!

This fellow was clearly hunting. He kept making brief forays from his perch and kept  returning to the perch in the same orientation. I made a number of portraits as I waited hoping to get the photograph that never came… “meadowhawk with prey” was to be the title!

Actually this fellow was quite a good hunter. It was just that the prey were very small, very light tan insects. They (the prey) were mostly gone and not very visible by the time my “friend” got pack to his perch. Heavy sigh!

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Sunday Afternoon

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

Sunday afternoon we decided to put the canoe in the water and head down to camp. Just as we arrived at the public beach we heard the first thunder!

We pressed on anyway and made it about half way down the lake before we decided that we had better sit things out on the shore. We spent a half hour or so under a hemlock on the shore watching and listening to the storm which was mostly to the west of us. There was only a couple of brief sprinkles where we were sitting and we barely got wet sitting snug under our hemlock.

When the storm had passed we continued on down the lake which we now had to ourselves… literally!

Joan headed out for a paddle in the kayak and I headed out to stalk odes along the lake shore in nice light. The only odes about were variable (or violet) dancers which are very common along the lake  for most of the summer.

At one point my “spotter-in-chief” (i.e. Joan), who was a bit farther down the lake than I had made it, called out that there was a damselfly in a spider web. I headed on over to said location post haste.

Upon my arrival I found two variable dancers (a male and female) entangled in the web. The spider  (a comb-clawed spider, I think) was making quick work of the male but photography was impossible as the gyrations of the female were causing the entire web to move violently.

I watched as the spider moved to the female and, I assume, bit her. It took maybe a minute for the spider venom to work and the web became still. The spider went back to trussing up the male and then returned to the female to do likewise.

At this point the spider retreated to a hiding spot in a nearby, curled up leaf. I waited ten minutes or so hoping that the spider would make a reappearance but the wait was in vain.

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21 August 2011

Hummers, Odes and Flowers

Filed under: Birds,Odontates,The "New" Yard & Environs,wildflowers,Wildlife — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 12:15 PM

Hummingbirds are hard… to photograph, that is!

About a month ago, we set out some hummingbird feeders. (Thanks, Kevin!)

Yesterday afternoon, I succumbed to the urge to try and photograph the critters. I set up the tripod, mounted the 50-500 mm lens on the camera, mated the two and waited… and waited… and waited!

Waiting is the first difficulty… humming birds show up in the vicinity of the feeder sporadically and then don’t hang around for very long.

Photographically, I was looking to avoid the usual cliches… you know, “the bird on a feeder”. See the first photo for an example… I can shoot cliches with the best of them! Thus, I initially set up the camera for a “loose” framing so that I could easily crop out any bit of feeder in the frame; see the second and third photos.

I also noted that the females especially would often perch in the nearby pine trees after visiting feeders. They were usually perched too high to get a good photo…  a photo of a bird belly is not particularly interesting; the eye-to-eye perspective makes for much stronger photos. However, every once in a while one would land on the lowest branch and tempt me into taking a frame.

Finally, I decided that the most interesting photos would be those of these critters maneuvering around the area and challenging one another; see the last two frames.  This is a low probability shot… one needs to frame the bird, acquire focus and hit the shutter all in what seems like milliseconds… these birds hover but are never really still!

What did I learn spending four hours in the back yard? Humming birds are hard!

These photos are OK… just OK. They are sharp enough for display as small images but they are fairly drastic crops (roughly half a frame) of frames taken at ISO 800 or 1600. I would not try to make even modest sized prints from them.

My conclusion… more practice is needed! This of course, is a key to good photography and life in general, now that I think about it!

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During the long interludes between the appearances of the hummingbirds, I entertained myself by putting the 70-300 mm lens and the 32 mm extension tube on one of my old D70 bodies and shooting the odes which appeared nearby.

I missed only one or two visits of  the hummingbirds while engaged with the odes. You can hear the hummingbirds as they approach and it was usually easy enough to get back behind the tripod.

Towards the end of the afternoon, my attention (to hummingbirds)  began wane and I began to wander further from the tripod. It was then I noticed the black-eyed susans.

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All in all, ’twas an enjoyable fours hours spent!

Fox State Forest / Spoonwood Pond

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

Last Thursday we took a hike in Fox State Forest over in Hillsborough. Our goal was a black gum swamp which is a rare habitat. There was amazing little ode activity there, just a few meadowhawks. I’m not sure if it was the time (of day or year) or what!

When we got back to the parking area we decided that we still had a few miles left in us and we headed off to find the parking area nearest Mud Pond, a very scenic kettle pond despite its name. We had an adventure getting there (the parking area) in a embarrassingly roundabout way… the map was broken… well, out of date. anyway.. really!!!

The trail to Mud Pond passes through a meadow that had large numbers of odes and there were a number of very small toads along the trail in the woods.

Here are the photos:

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On Friday, we decided to exercise the upper body. We tossed the kayaks on the truck and headed for Nubanusit Lake in Hancock. Our goal was not actually Nubanusit (a large windy, motorboat-ridden) body of water, but Spoonwood Pond, a smaller (but still good-sized) body of water which is very short portage upstream.

The boat traffic on Nubanusit was actually not bad and there is a ten mph speed limit. We also saw out first bald eagle as we headed for the dam and portage. Spoonwood Pond is delightful, it is surrounded by conservation land and only one house way up on a hillside in Nelson is visible from the water. We saw a few other kayaks and one canoe (loaded with a father, young boy and camping gear) headed back from one of four Harris Center‘s campsites around the lake.

It was a windy day so odes were mainly found in sheltered areas along the shore, but they were fairly abundant. The photography was not so good… sitting in a wave-bounced, wind-blown kayak does not make photographing small critters a high yield proposition!

We also saw a second adult bald eagle, a juvenile bald eagle and an osprey. Alas, all were too far off to photograph.

The clouds were nice though as thunderstorms moved in during the latter part of the afternoon. The storms were mostly to the east so we were able to end our trip with only a few sprinkles.

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14 August 2011

One More Turn in the Swamp / Close Encounters of the Ursine Kind

Filed under: Mammals,Odontates,Other Insects,The "New" Yard & Environs,Wildlife — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 3:00 PM

Yesterday afternoon, I headed back down to the beaver swamp at the back of our property just to see what was around.

Meadowhawks, including one mating pair, were present but in lower numbers than previously seen. The darners were ever present patrolling their territories and there were many spreadwings (all the same species) present.

At one point, while I was stalking a spreadwing, I heard the loud flapping of  wings (the sign of a nearby darner) and was quite surprised when a female landed nearby intent on laying eggs (see the third photo). She was only present a short time (about a minute) as another darner (male maybe?) appeared and harassed the first. Much to my surprise they both fell into the water but then both we gone in a matter of a few seconds.

The male whitetail was the only one (of either sex) that I saw, twice while I had it in my viewfinder it flew off only to land on my shirt!

The highlight of the afternoon was a “writing spider” (Argiope aurantia) eating a damselfly. I did not see the initial capture of the damselfly but I did spend twenty minutes (according to the exif data) watching and photographing the meal.

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On my way back up the hill to the house I heard the noise of a large animal off to my right, I stopped and turned to locate the source and was quite surprised to see a good sized (four or five feet long) black bear coming toward me less than a hundred feet away! She/he stopped maybe 75 feet away when they spotted me.

My first thought was to get the extension tube off the lens so I could get a photograph! Instead, I acted on my second thought… I headed off at an angle away from the bear and towards the house leaving the bear standing its ground.

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