Yesterday (Saturday, 5 June) I awoke to a thunderstorm. After breakfast, it looked like the rain had stopped so I made a circuit of the yard intending to take photos of Joan’s flowers… she certainly has enough of them… decorated with raindrops.
Here are the results:
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File under: “Make photographs wherever you find yourself.”
For us, like many, Memorial Day weekend means the beginning of summer. As is our habit, we headed north to “open up” camp for the season.
Opening up camp is not a big deal since there are no utilities involved… we evicted the mice who had taken up residence over the winter, picked up a few things, swept the place up and were ready to go! In addition to these chores on Saturday, we spent Sunday afternoon finishing up last years siding project. However, I was also able to find several good chunks of time for photography.
Although I never strayed more than 100 yards from camp, I was never lacking in subjects. Dragonflies were present in abundance, both numerically and in the variety of species. I only saw two damselflies the entire weekend… too early in the season I guess.
One of the damselflies I saw was an ebony jewelwing which cruised by quickly along the lake shore. This was very odd as the jewelwings are most usually associated with the flowing water of small streams and rivers. I have never observed them on the lake before. It was probably a fluke but we’ll see as the summer progresses.
As is often the case, I noticed many other insects as I stalked dragonflies and a couple of photos of these are included in the set below.
There were a couple of permanent residents who were not happy with our arrival. We had noticed that the beaver house in the corner of the cove looked to be in pretty good shape and about dusk on Saturday we noticed two beavers out and about. One of them was clearly not pleased with our presence! He (or maybe she) cruised by the cabin a dozen time or more slapping its tail loudly on each pass. Of course, I wanted a photo of the action and ended up having Joan wave a bright yellow life jacket when the beaver was in a good spot photographically just to get a tail slap. The light was very low but here is an OK image of a beaver tail and big splash.
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The permanent residents of the amphibious kind were also present… we saw both a green frog and a couple of northern leopard frogs around the rocks on the beach.
At mid-afternoon on Monday we had two visitor of the avian persuasion… a loon and a great blue heron. The loon fished quite contentedly and quite nearby for sometime; probably kept in the cove by the boat activity out on the main part of the lake. The heron fished briefly on both sides of the cove before taking off again. The harsh mid-day light did not make for good photographs of either one.
Here are the weekend’s photographs…
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I’m still working on identifying most of the dragonflies… this is not one of my strong points!
Carver’s Pond is an old mill pond in Bridgewater, MA. It is about two miles from our house and just up the street from the College. I walk there from work at lunch time many days. It is a place we go when we have time only for a very short jaunt… sometimes with the kayaks or canoe or sometimes just for a walk.
The pond is home to much wildlife… turtles, fish, birds, small mammals and, of course, odontates. I spent a few hours hunting dragonflies and damselflies there again last Thursday.
It is good to go back to the same place often… just to see what has changed.
In the case of odontates, the “signal” for emergence from the larval form to the adult is mainly water temperature. Each species has a specific temperature at which it emerges. This time of year, when the water is warming rapidly, new species seem to “pop up” almost daily. Thus, multiple trips, even in quick succession are often rewarded with new species to see and photograph.
Here are some of the day’s photographs:
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In the middle of the afternoon the other day, I wandered on to the back porch intending to sit at the table there and do some work. As I was getting set, I noticed that a regular visitor, in the form of a female snapping turtle… the first of the season, had arrived in our back yard. Needless to say, I decided that the work could wait and went and got the camera!
As many of you know, we live on a piece of land that was once pasture and that has as one of its boundries, the Town River. Every year right around Memorial Day, a number of female snapping turtles visit our yard to lay eggs. I imagine that their anscestors have been making similar visits for thousands of year.
These turtles lay their eggs by digging out a depression in the soil, depositing the eggs in the hole and then covering over the eggs with dirt… they use their feet as digging tools the front feet for excavating and thier rear feet for filling in. They prefer to lay their eggs where the digging is easiest, most often in Joan’s flower beds… it drives Joan crazy. The mama turtle of this story went easy on Joan, she picked a bed that Joan had just dug over for use as a nursery bed for some hostas. I guess that the two ladies were thinking alike!
Here are a few portraits of the old girl… the turtle to be specific!
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On Sat (22 May 2010) afternoon, we put the kayaks in the water for the first time this season… our destination was East Head Pond in Myles Standish State Forest (Carver and Plymouth, MA). We chose this spot based on its description in the AMC Quiet Water Guide for Massachusetts. This series of guide books (that cover much of the northeast) is highly recommended. Of course, I took the camera and the long lens and we were off to see what could be found!
We were amply rewarded. Seeing, over the course of a few hours, painted turtles, frogs and many small birds… no surprise there! We also caught an osprey fishing… watching it dive five times (at various distances) before it came up with a fish.
We spent some quality time with a mother mallard and her brood as they made their way along the shoreline eating like mad. At one point mom and all of the ducklings stopped and stood at attention. The reason… an owl passing by along the shore at low altitude. One has to imagine that the owl had a ducking dinner in mind!
The only reason I know about the owl, is that Joan told me about it. She watched the scene unfold from twenty or so feet away. Of course, I saw the ducks reaction through the lens. But, I was sitting (with camera to eye) within a dozen feet of both the ducks and the owl and I never heard a thing… the owl went by and never made a sound.
At the very end of the day, as the light was fading, we passed though a boggy area that had a number of pitcher plants growing in it… some of which were in bloom… not something you see every day!
Here are the day’s photos:
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One of my photographic passions (manias, according to Joan) are odontates (that is, dragonflies and damselflies)… you’ll see a lot of them if you follow this blog.
Mid-May is the beginning of odontate season in New England. So, I spent a bit of time over the past two days “hunting” dragonflies. In addition to just getting outside and enjoying the spring, I wanted to test my new “odontate rig” which allows me to use my flash as I photograph these elusive creatures. Most of these photos were taken at Carver’s Pond (in Bridgewater, MA) but the first one was taken in the backyard.
This is an immature male common whitetail:
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A male bluet (probably an Atlantic Bluet)…
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and a female bluet (I’m unsure of the exact species)…
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As adult odontates are short lived, mating season begins quickly after the adults emerge from the larva as these fragile forktails show…
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As one wanders the woods hunting one group of animals, you often observe many other organisms doing their thing as this last photo shows…
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I think that these butterflies are mating, but I know even less about Lepidoptera than I do about Odonata! So remember, take all of my identifications with a grain of salt… after all, I’m a chemist not a biologist!
On the high tides of the new and full moons in spring, horseshoe crabs turn to mating. Thus when mid-May rolls around in New England, my thoughts turn to horseshoe crabs… hey I can’t help it it is just the way my mind works
All of this probably has something to do with my youth, profitably spent on the beaches of Long Island Sound during Jacques Cousteau’s heyday. But I digress!
About a week ago (Sunday, 16 May 2010 to be exact), Joan and I made our second annual trip to the Wellfleet Bay Mass Audubon Sanctuary in Wellfleet, MA (on Cape Cod) in search of horseshoe crabs and whatever else the day might bring. (Wildlife photographers learn quickly not to expect anything and to be prepared for everything.)
The horseshoe crabs were there and actively mating… we probably saw about a dozen mating pairs and twice that many lone males.
This four shot sequence (taken over about 4 min) shows the process. The larger female tows the male around. At the water line (of the highest tides of the month), the female digs into the sand (first image), deposits her eggs (second image) and drags the male through the nest (third image) to fertilize them. The pair then heads back to open water (last image).
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Sometimes, large numbers of shore birds attracted to feast on the eggs, but not this time. However, we did see a few small birds on the beach including an endangered piping plover and a pair of least sandpipers.
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We also had great fun watching (and photographing ) the fiddler crabs.
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