Photographs by Frank

26 August 2013

Pitcher Mountain

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Other Insects — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 10:00 PM

Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon found us (myself, Joan, Katrina, Suzy and Lyle) atop Pitcher Mountain in Stoddard, NH.

Pitcher Mountain is the site of some world-class wild blueberry picking; there are acres and acres of terrain specially maintained to promote blueberry bush growth. The blueberry season is winding to a close, but the hike to the top of the mountain is usually rewarded with spectacular views in all directions. I did not bother with landscape photos this trip… harsh mid-day light, a cloudless sky and a bit of haze don’t do justice to the scene.

Rather, as one might expect, I concentrated on the insects! There were dozens of darners patrolling territories and hunting on the summit but rarely landing… the one frame of a darner I show here is the only one I made. Darn those darners!

I saw one other dragonfly on the summit… a female Eastern Amberwing. A new species for me. She was quite cooperative and hung around for maybe five minutes or so.

In between hunting darners, I was able to keep myself entertained with the grasshoppers. The butterfly was spotted at the trail head as we arrived back a the road.

We stopped for ice cream at the new place on Route 10 (in Marlow) before heading home. It was delicious and well worth the short drive in the “wrong” direction. Dinner was not needed last night!

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Saturday’s Crop (of Photos)

Filed under: "Camp",Odontates,Other Insects,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , , — Frank @ 8:00 PM

After I finished “Big Red” on Saturday morning, I spent some time poking around the yard with the camera. There were many darners about and they would infrequently perch in one of our apple trees, usually too high up for a good photograph. These darn darners are always an exercise in photographic frustration. They are, however, fun to watch! I did get one decent darner photo.

There have been small numbers of autumn meadowhawks (of both sexes) in the yard over the past few days. One  female allowed me to make exactly three frames of her  obelisking before she went on her way.

Another unusual sight in the yard was a mating pair of Eastern Forktails. This seems a little late in the season for mating behavior in this species. More unusual was to find them mating in our yard which is a quarter mile from water (the beaver swamp in one direction and the lake in the opposite direction).

In the afternoon on Saturday, I headed over to camp with Joan, Katrina and Joan’s cousins Suzy and Lyle. While they swam and chatted, I cruised, with camera in hand, the lake shore near camp.  The slatey skimmer was very cooperative and posed for me until I decided that I was done. I can not say the same for the clubtail (which allowed me only the one frame) and the orange bluet (two frames) before they flew off. I had never seen an orange bluet on Gregg Lake before.

I ended the day with the vesper bluets under close to ideal conditions (calm and in good light). This species prefers to alight on lily pads and other vegetation in water that is too deep to wade, thus one needs the kayak. They also, as the “vesper” in their name suggests, only come out at the end of the day; as the light starts to wane.

For most of the time I was out, there were no vesper bluets around. However, as the shadows grew longer more and more appeared, seemingly out of “thin air”.  There were mostly males about; I would estimate 10-20 males for every female.  The few females I observed were already paired up and either flying in tandem or in a mating wheel. I saw no ovipositing behavior while I was out… it was probably too early in the evening.

Single male vesper bluets very aggressively attack paired females trying to get them to un-pair from their chosen mate.  This behavior is difficult to photograph but great fun to watch live.

Here are the photographs (the first four from the morning and the second four from the afternoon):

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Making Cameras, Not Photographs

Filed under: Off Topic — Tags: — Frank @ 6:00 PM

The language we use to describe photography is sometimes quite curious… most folks talk about “taking” photographs. “Taking”, in my view, is not the correct word. One implication of  “taking” is that something (maybe the subject of the photo?) is diminished in the act… if I take candy from the baby, the baby lacks candy, if I take a photo of the same baby, she or he looses nothing!

The proper phrase for the act of tripping the shutter is “making a photograph” as this is inherently an act of creation. I am not sure that I have been successful in convincing any of my circle of  photography acquaintances in changing their use of the language, but I’ll keep using “make”, not “take” in this regard. I’ll keep tilting at windmills too!*

Oh well… back to the main act.

I note that, again, have not written a blog entry in over a week. This is because I have been spending time making photographic apparati rather than making photos.

First, I decided that it might be worthwhile to stabilize the relationship between camera and lens in the apparatus I described a week, or so ago in “Experiments in Optics“. The result is show in the first photo below and the four photos following are test shots from around the yard. Now all I have to do is find some time and energy (it is heavy!) to take it further afield. (Kevin… I’ll definitely try some flowing water.)

In addition to this decidedly nonstandard photographic contraption, I also spent a couple of days constructing a classic sliding box camera for 4″x5″ film. I used another old lens I had lying around; an 6.5” f/4 doublet with an aperture but no shutter. I have no clue as to its former life. Instead of ground glass for the back, I used a piece of an el cheapo (2 for 99 cents at Ocean State Job Lot) plastic chopping mat. These are textured on one side and smooth and shiny on the other and one can form an image on it just like ground glass.

In action, the ground glass and its frame get replaced with a film holder that I forgot to take make a photograph of of this blog article.

The last two photos below show “Big Red”.

Now comes the big step…  setting up a darkroom. Fortunately I won’t  need anything too fancy if I stick to lith film. I figure that I’ll use the negatives to make cyanotypes and maybe, eventually, silver contact prints. We’ll see if I follow through. Setting up a dark room from scratch in the 21st century… I must be nuts! Stay tuned!

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*When I was teaching, I used to tilt at another, similar windmill.

Both students and faculty invariably use the word  “give” when it comes to grades. I gave Sally a B on the last test. Professor Jones gave me a B in biochemistry. Wrong!

On the first day of each semester, I would announce to my students that I had never, ever, ever, never given a grade in my teaching career. Invariably, this led to many puzzled looks. Only some of the puzzled looks disappeared when I continued by saying that the grades in my courses are  earned by the students.

For years, I would bring up this issue of proper language around grades with my windmills faculty colleagues. I never got very far there either!

19 August 2013

Another Trip “Down Back”

Filed under: Amphibians,Odontates,Other Insects,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 11:00 PM

About 4 this afternoon, I donned my waders and spent about an hour and three quarters near the beaver pond “down back”.

I was surprised by the lack of meadowhawks… I saw only two or three along the margin of the beaver swamp. There were small numbers of darners out of the meadow… I saw maybe a dozen total while I was out. I also saw a single sedge sprite.  The most numerous ode present were the spreadwings (I don’t know what species). I saw roughly three dozen.

When I arrived at the edge of the beaver pond I found a convenient spot of open water and knelt down keeping the sun off my shoulder. I was happily watching and photographing spreadwings when I noticed a small (first joint of the thumb-sized) frog not more than I foot from my knee. I don’t know if he was there when I knelt down or if he appeared after I settled in. He was too close to photograph with the ode rig, so I backed up slowly. He was completely unconcerned and I was able to photograph him (see Green Frog #1).

A short while later I noticed two more similar sized frogs near by. One was too close to photograph and partly covered by some grass. The other made for a nice photograph (see Green Frog #2). I decided to try a different angle on the second frog and, as I went to move my position, I almost put my knee on a much larger (fist-sized) green frog. I was able to back off without disturbing him and made Green Frog #3. The big guy was more wary than the smaller fellows and fairly quickly jumped out of sight. I went back to photographing the second frog head on (see Green Frog #4; note the blood-sucking flies, one on each eye!).

The sedge sprite made a brief  appearance while I was photographing the frogs and I was able to get two frames before it disappeared again.

Eventually, I stood up and moved off a short distance. While I was moving I found the orange butterfly and was able to get a clear view for just a single frame.

I was entertaining myself with the spreadwings at the second spot when I heard the clatter of dragonfly wings. The sound of dragonfly wings hitting vegetation or each other is quite unmistakable.

I quickly located the source, a female darner down low in the grasses ovipositing. I was able to get two frames before she moved off to another spot without a clear line of sight. After short interval she moved again, this time to a spot about a foot in front of me but she only stayed for a second or two before flying off out of sight. I went back to photographing spreadwings.

After a few more minutes, I decided that it was time to make supper so I headed back up the hill to the house.

That’s my story for today and I am sticking to it!

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18 August 2013

Garden Amphibians

Filed under: Amphibians,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: — Frank @ 6:07 PM

My CWS* was down in the garden this afternoon picking green beans… 10 pounds of them from the look of the pile… and other vegetables when she told me that she had seen two small frogs amongst the leaves in the garden.

Luckily, I was finished picking up the piles of shrub trimmings she had left in the driveway because, upon hearing this news, I headed straight for the camera!

These “fellows” are very small… roughly thumbnail-sized.

Here are the photos (two individuals, two poses)…

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*CWS… Chief Wildlife Spotter.

Experiments in Video

Filed under: Odontates,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 6:00 PM

Yesterday evening a feeding swarm of dragonflies (large darners) formed in our yard. This is a regular late summer happening. Usually I simply watch in awe when this happens as there is no way to capture this spectacle with still photography.

There were literally hundreds of five or six inch dragonflies flying about, seemingly at random, preying on insects too small for me to see. (Hopefully some were the mosquitoes that eventually found me while I was making these videos!)

Remembering that my little Nikon 1 V1 could do video (including slow motion), I set the camera up on a tripod and experimented with video.

This unedited clip is in real time:

Here is an unedited clip in slow motion (5 seconds of real time):

One more edited clip in slow motion (about 2.5 seconds of real time):

None of the dragonflies are in focus… I am not sure how one could get them in focus as they are moving very fast and randomly. I hope that one gets a sense of this interesting behavior anyway. However, it is no substitute for seeing it live.

I think that I will stick to photography in the main!

17 August 2013

Experiments in Optics

Filed under: Garden Flowers,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 6:00 PM

I recently acquired a bunch of lenses from old enlargers… both enlarging lenses and condenser lenses. One of the largest lens in the collection is a 5″ in diameter condensing lens that is mounted in a metal frame. It is probably from a 4″x5″ enlarger. Today, I decided to “play” with this lens in conjunction with a digital camera.

Here are the first results…

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The last photo in this set shows the set up. I mounted the condensing lens on a tripod, added a cardboard lens hood (which you can’t see in this photo) and a dark cloth. Both the hood and the cloth are attached to the lens with masking tape. The first couple of images I tried were low in contrast and had lens flares. Thus, I added the lens hood.

To use this set up, I placed myself and the digital camera under the dark cloth and made photos of the lens.

Clearly the middle of the circular frame is the sharpest, but it will never be “tack sharp”, and that the images goes soft and distorted towards the edges. All of which is really the point in something like this. Isn’t it?

It was interesting to watch how the image made by the lens changed in large ways with small movements of me and the camera. I learned quickly to make an exposure when the composition was good and not try to worry about stuff at the edges of the frame that were going to get cropped out any way.

Post-processing consists basically of cropping to the square format (to eliminate the extraneous part of the frame ) and  adjusting the exposure to make sure that the frame is pure black). A few images got small amounts of other processing (curves adjustments, etc.) but nothing major.

I forgot how hot it gets under a dark cloth in the bright sun… even on a day when the air temperature is in the low 70’s. However,  I think that results were worth the “suffering”! What say you?

15 August 2013

A Week Off (from Photographing)

Filed under: Odontates,Other Insects,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , , — Frank @ 5:00 PM

Looking at the calendar, I realize that it has been a week since my last post; this after a string of daily posts the week before.

All I can say is that I have been busy. This photo explains much of that busyness:

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We had six cords of fire wood delivered in the late afternoon last Saturday. I had it all stacked before lunchtime yesterday (i.e. Wednesday). The stack is roughly eighteen feet by eighteen feet by four and a half feet… about eight cords total.

Every time I went out to work on the stack, I had to ignore the many odes, mainly meadowhawks of both sexes, that were around the yard. After finishing yesterday, we ate lunch on the deck and as soon as we finished eating, I picked up the camera. I made all of these photos within about twenty five feet of the deck. The band-winded meadowhawk is another new species for me.

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8 August 2013

More Time “Down Back”

Filed under: Odontates,Summer,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 11:55 PM

Yesterday afternoon, I spent another couple of hours “down back” at “our” beaver-made wetland. Joan came along to do some botanizing, but we quickly went our own ways.

I started out in my usual spot along the edges of the open water at the beaver pond where there was much activity among the emergent vegetation. The spreadwings seemed to be just “hanging out” and feeding. However,  the sphagnum sprites were busy reproducing. I saw (and photographed) two mating wheels and multiple pairs ovipositing.

After a bit, I decided to see what was happening in other ecological niches and wandered “up stream” through the waist-high sedges and grasses.

There were numerous bright red male meadowhawks down in the grasses. I flushed a number of them as I moved. A close look revealed that many were immature. This could be discerned because many of them were still in the process of turning red (see the seventh photo if this series). Male meadowhawks are yellow (and thus look like females) when they are newly emerged.

I eventually found my way to a small, grassy pool that sits between the end of the woodland stream flowing in from the upper beaver swamp and the narrow channel of open water that meanders thought the wet meadow to the beaver pond. This pool is roughly six feet across by 18 feet long and is surrounded by shrubs and tall grasses; it is therefore quite shaded.

A large darner made numerous patrols of the perimeter of the pool in the forty five minutes or so I spent sitting in the edge of this pool. (Waders are wonderful!) This darner never stopped moving while it was in my sight.

Additionally there were three or four spreadwings of two species that I do not commonly see: the slender spreadwing and what I think is a amber-winged spreadwing (another new species for me, if my ID is correct).

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7 August 2013

A Visit to Rye Pond

Filed under: Monadnock Region,Odontates,Summer,wildflowers — Tags: , , — Frank @ 12:13 PM

Yesterday afternoon, Joan and I put our kayaks in the water at Rye Pond (situated at the juncture of Stoddard, Antrim and Nelson).

This wetland is part of the Virginia Baker Natural Area of the Harris Center. With long frontage on Route 123, it is not the quietest of spots but it definitely worth repeated visits. We try to get there at least one or two times a year during ode season. The pond is quite shallow and contains a significant amount of floating bog that supports numerous pitcher plants and sundew. However, we were too late this year for the peak of the pitcher plant flowering.

There are also generally numerous odes and we were not disappointed this trip.

The most numerous species of ode present were the swamp spreadwings and the slaty skimmers. We saw numerous ovipositing pairs of both species. The spreadwings oviposit in tandem, with the male still grasping the female. The slaty skimmers oviposit with the male hovering near by while the female repeatedly dips her abdomen in the water. Both strategies are intended to  keep other males from usurping the already-mated female.

The real highlight of the afternoon were the numerous scarlet bluets out on the lily pads, well away from the shore. The large majority were male but I did see two (and manage to photograph one) female. This is the only place that I have seen this species.

I also saw one or two male orange bluets. The photo of this species I present is not perfect (the individual is facing away from the camera and I would have liked a bit more  depth of field). However, some times one just has to make do with less than perfect.

I show this photo because of the mass of mites on the abdomen. Mites (small, red ones) are fairly common on adult odes and are particularly abundant on odes (of many species) in Rye Pond. The large purplish mites on this individual are a first for me.

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