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Archive for May, 2018

Looks like an angel

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on May 3, 2018| 11 Comments »

“You look like an angel…” I am not sure what was so special about that particular spot on that specific tree, but this Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata) used all of its aerial and acrobatic skills to peck away at it on Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. From what I could tell, the warbler held on to the branch with its feet and used its outspread wings for balance. In the second image, it looks like the warbler was using a pendulum-like motion to generate momentum.

The bird’s body positions remind me of artistic portrays of angelic beings that I have a seen in multiple museums and books and I felt blessed to have had the chance to see this relatively common bird in an unusual way.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Blue Corporal dragonfly in April

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on May 2, 2018| 4 Comments »

It’s taken a while, but I have finally spotted my first locally-born dragonfly of the season. Previously I had seen some Common Green Darner dragonflies, which were probably migrants from the south, but on Monday, the last day of April, I spotted this newly-emerged Blue Corporal dragonfly (Ladona deplanata) at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

I did not get a really good angle for this shot, so I can’t be absolutely certain of the dragonfly’s gender, but I think that it may be a male. One of the tricky things about identifying the gender of dragonflies is that immature males often look similar in coloration to females. If this is a male its abdomen will eventually turn blue in color, which helps explain the first part of the species name. As for the “corporal,” I have been told that this is a reference to the two whitish lines on the dragonfly’s thorax that resemble the two stripes that corporals wear as their rank insignia in the US Army.

The weather is warming up and I expect to be seeing a whole lot more dragonflies in the upcoming weeks and months. Unlike this Blue Corporal, some of them will perch above the ground rather than on in, which should permit me to get some more photogenic shots. Our weather this spring has been a bit crazy and the emergence of dragonflies seems to have been delayed, but with this spotting I can confidently state that the dragonfly season has started for me.

Blue Corporal dragonfly

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Prothonotary Warbler

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on May 1, 2018| 8 Comments »

Most warblers seem to have some yellow on their bodies, but I had never before seen one with as much yellow as the Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea) that I spotted on Monday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The yellow coloration helped me in tracking the bird, although it stayed high in a tree and was in almost constant motion. Now that there are leaves on many of the trees, I’m finding it to be harder and harder to get unobstructed shots of birds.

I will definitely be trying to get some more shots of this spectacular bird, hopefully in the near future.

Prothonotary Warbler

Prothonotary Warbler

Prothonotary Warbler

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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