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:

[nggallery id=59]

 

2 June 2011

Memorial Day Weekend Odonates – Part Two

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

Sunday morning found us doing chores around the house. But after I finished mowing the lawn and erecting posts for the pea fence in the garden, I spent some time hunting dragonflies around the yard. There were at least four different species present.

[nggallery id=56]

In the afternoon, we put the canoe in the lake and headed down to camp. I lucked in to a swallowtail nectaring on some flowers right at our beach and it stayed put long enough for me to get the camera ready and take about half-dozen shots before it disappeared.

As for dragonflies, there were numerous individuals of the frustrating kind (a small clubtail of some sort, I think) cruising the lake… I call them frustrating since they never seem to land and thus are next to impossible to photograph.

A brief walk in the woods along the lake shore yielded another (as yet unidentified) dragonfly and a small green moth that was perfectly camouflaged sitting on the frond of a fern. I only noticed it because it flapped its wings exactly once.

[nggallery id=58]

Monday afternoon we headed back to camp for another jaunt. The frustrating species was present in good numbers over the lake and I discovered a dragonfly carcass entangled in a spider web in the bushes at the edge of the lake.

Most of my photographic time was spent in a small clearing just off the the lake which has been very productive in years past. The productivity was also good this day. The number of individuals was small but there were three or four species present. I’m still working on the identifications… this is not my strong point!

[nggallery id=57]

 

Memorial Day Weekend Odonates – Part One

Filed under: Odontates — Tags: — Frank @ 10:00 AM

After a cool and damp start to May here in southern NH, the first dragonflies of the season seem to have emerged all at once during the past week or so.

The two little girls who live next door wait for the bus down by the bridge across the inlet to the lake.  Last Thursday morning they noticed dragonflies emerging on fence while waiting for the bus. Alerted to their observation (by their dad), I headed down to the lake on Friday morning arriving about eight o’clock. This was almost too late! Most of the individuals were already fully emerged and in the process of drying.

There seemed to be numerous individuals of one species (I am unsure of its identity) and a very few individuals of a second species (chalk-fronted corporal, I think).

Here are the keepers from the morning:

[nggallery id=55]

 

May Wildflowers

Filed under: wildflowers — Tags: , — Frank @ 7:53 AM

May is the beginning of wild flower season in southern NH.  Some of the earliest to bloom are the trillium (see this post for photos ). By mid-May Lady Slippers appear as well as the abundant violets and wild strawberry blossoms.

Here are some of the latter from my wanderings during the couple of  weeks before Memorial Day:

[nggallery id=54]

 

16 May 2011

Apple Blossom Time

Filed under: Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: — Frank @ 8:04 PM

Even though it was a cool damp weekend, spring is clearly here and progressing… the black flies are out in full force and the apple trees are beginning their show.

I spent a bit of time on Sunday morning between the showers photographing one of our two apple trees.

Here are the results:

[nggallery id=53]

 

9 May 2011

Fiddleheads (again) and Trillium

Filed under: Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs,wildflowers — Tags: — Frank @ 9:08 PM

Warning… photo talk ahead!

I was not particularly satisfied with the photos of fiddleheads that I got last week; the light was too harsh. Ferns tend to grow in sunny spots and thus fiddleheads are thereby often in lots of bright direct sunlight.

I knew the light was harsh yet I photographed anyway — a failure of my “patience filter”. I should have come back when the light was softer or made a trip back to the house for a diffuser and stand!

Resolving to do better this week, I headed out in search of fiddleheads again.

There were broken clouds aloft so all I needed to do for “good light” was to carefully operate the “patience filter” and wait for the sun to go behind a cloud. A bit of flash (with a small plastic dome diffuser) off to one side allowed me to stop down the lens for the depth-of-field needed when shooting these small objects. I think that these photographs are better… what do you think?

While “out and about” in the woods, I noticed that the trillium were in bloom so they had to be captured as well! Trillium tend to grow in heavy shade so here I switched to “Strobist mode”: put the camera in full manual for exposure, use the shutter speed to “dial in” an appropriate level of  background illumination, set the needed the aperture (dictated by required depth-of-field) and control the exposure of the subject by adjusting the flash power.

Here are the weekend’s “keepers”:

[nggallery id=52]

 

2 May 2011

Spring Progression

Filed under: Birds,Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 7:49 PM

One of the nice things about spring is the constant change. New birds arrive in the area, new shoots and blossoms appear every few days and, the beech leaves finally fall to the ground!

I filled the feeder on Friday evening with sunflower seeds and we awoke the next morning to feeder covered in bright yellow. A posse of gold finches had found it! At one point a pair (one male and one female) of purple finches was mixed among the gold.

Photographing gold finches was impossible. They were either on the feeder (which does not make for nice photographs) or buried deep among the branches of  hemlock which neighbors the feeder; chickadees are the same. I may have to try adding a bare branch perch nearby or moving the feeder to another spot.

In addition to the finches, there seemed to be more chipping sparrows that the week before and the white-throated sparrows arrived. There were still numerous chickadees and juncos around as I expect there will be all summer.

During our walk on Saturday (in which we circumnavigated the beaver swamp that abuts our property) we noticed the appearance of fiddle-head ferns in a boggy area. The light was not great for photographs but I headed out the next morning with macro lens on the camera in search of more fiddle-heads and possibly other emergent ferns; the fiddle-heads were most common, by far.

Both days, I kept careful watch for the first odonates while I wandered, but none were yet to be found. Soon!

[nggallery id=50]

 

25 April 2011

Great Brook / Late April Snow

Filed under: Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs — Frank @ 10:37 PM

Last Friday was a nice Spring day with temperatures up near 60 degrees. I spent a bit of time in the late afternoon photographing Great Brook as it runs past Joan’s cousin Margie’s  house.

Back in the 19th century, Great Brook, the outlet of Gregg Lake, performed much work along its short run to the Contoocoock River. It was lined with many water-powered mills which are, alas, no more.

The brook still flows high in the spring and dependably all year even though its power goes untapped.

[nggallery id=48]

What a difference a day makes! We awoke on Saturday to a bit of snow in the air! A couple of inches accumulated before it turned to rain but the temperature was in the 30’s all day.

Joan had turned over the garden the previous weekend. But, as all northern New Englander’s know, we are still weeks away from safe planting time as the first photo below clearly shows! The apple trees in the yard are flirting with emergence and ended up with a cold, wet blanket for their trouble.

As the day wore on patchy fog developed. I headed up Meeting House Hill on my way back from doing some chores in town. I (correctly) figured that it would be foggy up there and that would set the mood for a few photographs of  the cemetery.

[nggallery id=49]

We went to bed on Saturday with snow still covering most of the ground but awoke early on Sunday to 50 degrees and no snow. The New England Spring is never dull!

 

20 April 2011

Mid-April Backyard Wildlife

Filed under: Birds,Mammals,Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs,Wildlife — Tags: , , — Frank @ 4:58 AM

Well, spring has finally really arrived in our neck of the NH woods. There is no snow left in the yard, although there are still small patches here-and-there in the woods.

On Saturday morning, I filled a bird-feeder with black sunflower seed and hung it by the deck in the back of the house just to see what we could attract. I was amazed at how quickly the “word” spread. Within a couple of hours there were chickadees and nuthatches present as well as the perennial feeder nemesis, the gray squirrel! Within a day, the juncos and sparrows had found the feeder as well as the red squirrels and the chipmunks.

I, as you might have expected, spent some quality time with the camera set up near the feeder!

Here are the resulting “keepers”:

[nggallery id=47]

On Sunday, we watched a female turkey amble though the yard as she picked over the remnants of last year’s acorn crop which were newly emerged from under the snow. In the afternoon on Sunday, Joan and I took a spontaneous break from the yard work  and walked down to the beaver swamp at the back of our property. Eagle-eyed Joan spotted a porcupine sitting way up in a tree right at the edge of the woods. No photos though, too high and too well hidden… maybe next time!

As I knew from the beginning, the environs of the new house were going to be great for wildlife (and photography). Our short time here has certainly proved that true and odonate season has not yet begun… although Joan did attract a few early blackflies as she worked turning over the vegetable garden on Monday!

 

10 April 2011

Nesting Geese and the Return of the Great Blue Heron – Signs of Spring

Filed under: Birds,Early Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 8:15 PM

Although the main part of Gregg Lake is still frozen, the area around the bridge has been thawing slowly for the past few weeks. The shallow, swampy part to the north of the road is now completely ice free.

For at least a couple of weeks now, there have been a number of pairs of hooded mergansers feeding at the ice’s edge.  The mergansers won’t nest here. They are just passing thorough on their way to breeding grounds in Canada.

This morning, I headed down to the bridge with camera, tripod and long lens to see if I could photograph the mergansers. Two pairs were around but the warm weather had pushed the ice back far enough that they were too far away for good photographs; they were pretty much back lit as well.

Instead, I turned my attention to a pair of Canada geese on the other side of the road. I had noticed them in pretty much the same spot for the past few days and assume that they are nesting there. The light was pretty good and I got a few nice shots.

I was about to leave when I noticed a great blue heron, the first of this year). She (he?) was some distance back… certainly too far away for good photographs. However, I decided to stay put and see what developed. (My  friend, Joe Kennedy, says that one’s “patience filter” is the most important piece of equipment a photographer has!)

My luck was good and after about forty minutes the heron flew right over to, and just behind, the geese. He (she?) waded around in front of the geese and started hunting along the shore. Another twenty or so minutes later,  the heron landed a large fish! After swallowing the prey, he made a U-turn and began prowling the same stretch of shore again.

The heron took off a few minutes later when another fellow intent on fishing off the bridge drove up and got out of his truck. I took a cue from the heron and headed back home for a second cup of coffee… it was almost 1o AM and the light was getting harsh anyway.

Here are the morning’s photos:

[nggallery id=46]

 

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress