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Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

Great Egret at the marsh

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 15, 2014| 15 Comments »

I’m always thrilled to see Great Egrets (Ardea alba), like this one that I photographed on Monday at Huntley Meadows Park. Unlike Great Blue Herons, which often are willing to tolerate my presence, egrets seem to fly away as soon as they detect my presence. When egrets are flying, I never fail to be impressed by their beauty and grace, looking like ballerinas in an aerial performance.

As has frequently been the case recently, I ended up photographing a bird with a macro lens, in this case it was my Tamron 180mm. The image with the standing egret was cropped a little, but it gives you an idea of my field of view. I had crept through some chest-high vegetation in order to get near the edge of the pond for these shots.

I suspected the egret would take off and I think I had the presence of mind to switch to Servo mode on my camera, which allowed me to get some in-flight shots that are pretty much in focus. I was shooting in burst mode and captured other images as well, but the egret’s head was hid in those shots.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Industrial dragonfly

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , on August 14, 2014| 7 Comments »

Generally I like to photograph wildlife subjects in a natural environment. When this female Common Whitetail dragonfly (Plathemis lydia) landed on a metal sprinkler cover, though, I couldn’t help but like the contrast between the natural subject and the industrial background.

Common Whitetail dragonfly

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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I started a joke

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on August 13, 2014| 11 Comments »

Do Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) laugh? I was intently watching this heron recently at my local marsh when he suddenly opened his mouth. It wasn’t really a yawn, and he certainly didn’t seem bored. It was more like something had struck him as funny—it might have been me.

For some reason, the words of a really old Bee Gee song came into my head, the one that begins with the words, “I started a joke.” I went searching on You Tube for the song and came across an old video of the very young Bee Gees singing the song on the Tom Jones show in 1969. If you are of my generation, you may enjoy a trip back to the 1960’s or it may be a new discovery for some younger readers—just click on this link.

As with many songs, I don’t quite understand the somewhat enigmatic lyrics—maybe you can discover their true meaning (lyrics from azlyrics.com):

“I started a joke, which started the whole world crying,
but I didn’t see that the joke was on me, oh no.

I started to cry, which started the whole world laughing,
oh, if I’d only seen that the joke was on me.

I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes,
and I fell out of bed, hurting my head from things that I’d said.

Til I finally died, which started the whole world living,
oh, if I’d only seen that the joke was on me.”

Great Blue Heron laughing

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Spicebush Swallowtail

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Insects, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 12, 2014| 17 Comments »

I used to think that there were only one or two varieties of black-colored swallowtails, but as I learned there were more such species (some deliberating mimicking each other), I’d sometimes get confused and frustrated when trying to distinguish among them.

For example, I encountered this beautiful black swallowtail butterfly feeding on a Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) this past weekend at my local marsh. It is definitely an unusual circumstance when I can identify a flower, but not the insect.

So, I asked myself, is this a female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail or a Pipevine Swallowtail or a Spicebush Swallowtail or a Black Swallowtail? How can you tell them apart, given they are all black and all have swallowtails?

While searching on the internet, I came across a wonderful blog posting on a site called Louisiana Naturalist that compared all four of these swallowtail species and pointed out clearly the distinguishing marks. Once I looked at the posting, it was pretty clear that “my” butterfly is a Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus). Why am I so confident? One of the identifying marks is the blue comet-like marking that interrupts the inner row of orange spots.

It’s interesting to see this butterfly feeding on the Cardinal Flower. The website of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas states that the Cardinal Flower depends on hummingbirds for pollination, because most insects find its long tubular flowers difficult to navigate. I suspect that butterflies play a role in pollinating these plants, even if they are not as efficient as bees would be (or maybe even hummingbirds).

Spicebush Swallowtail

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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White pollen

Posted in Flowers, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on August 11, 2014| 17 Comments »

I usually think of pollen as being bright yellow, but this past weekend I observed a small multi-colored bee covered in white pollen from what appears to be a chicory flower. Who knew that pollen could have different colors?

multi-colored bee

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Young Red-shouldered Hawk

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on August 10, 2014| 11 Comments »

This past Friday morning, as I was following one of the creeks at Huntley Meadows Park, I caught sight of a large bird perched on the trunk of a fallen tree almost right in front of me. I had a 180mm macro lens on my camera, which proved just enough for me to almost fill the frame with images of the bird.

After consultations with the naturalist staff, I believe this to be an adolescent Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus). Note that the young hawk has a band on one of its legs, which was put on it at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland.

The hawk looks pretty bedraggled and the naturalists hypothesized that perhaps it had been harassed by some other birds and was recovering on the ground. The hawk was aware of my presence and looked in my direction a couple of times, but I stayed at a distance, fearful of disturbing it in a potentially vulnerable moment. Although I would have liked to have moved in closer for some shots, I moved away quietly after capturing some images, leaving the young bird in this position on the log as I departed.

Red-shouldered Hawk

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Silver-spotted Skipper butterfly

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on August 9, 2014| 4 Comments »

Can you name the most recognized Skipper butterfly in North America?  According to Wikipedia, it’s the Silver-spotted Skipper butterfly (Epargyreus clarus), like this one that I photographed recently at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland.

I have been seeing a lot of skippers this month and many of them look so much alike that it is difficult for me to identify them  The Silver-spotted Skipper’s colors may be a little drab, but I am happy that it is easy to identify it, which makes me happy, given that there are over 3500 different species of skippers worldwide, according to a separate article in Wikipedia.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Uncomplicated

Posted in Flowers, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2014| 8 Comments »

Sometimes, simple compositions of familiar subjects result in the best images, like this recent shot of an Eastern Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa virginica) on a purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea).

It came out just as I imagined when I was looking through the viewfinder of my camera and required a minimum amount of tweaking and no cropping.

At times, it’s not complicated.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Red-footed Cannibalfly redux

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2014| 7 Comments »

There is something both creepy and compelling about the fearsomely-named Red-footed Cannibalfly (Promachus rufipes). I first spotted one last summer and noted in a posting that these insects, sometimes referred to as Bee Panthers, are reported to be capable of taking down a hummingbird.

I caught sight of this specimen earlier this week as I was making my way along a creek in the back area of my local marsh, searching for the equally fierce Dragonhunter dragonfly (Hagenius brevistylus). The Dragonhunter is a very large dragonfly that, as its name suggests, specializes in hunting other dragonflies (along with bees, wasps, and butterflies).

The Red-footed Cannibalfly is part of a larger group of giant robber flies of the genus Promachus, a name that in Greek means “who leads in battle,” according to Wikipedia. I am fairly confident of my identification, but would welcome any corrections from more experienced insect hunters.

Be sure to look carefully at the claws on the front legs in the image. I am sure that it’s almost impossible to escape when this predator sinks those claws into you and injects you with a toxin that paralyzes you and liquifies your insides.

As one blogger so eloquently put it, “Be thankful these insects aren’t the size of Sandhill Cranes.”

Red-footed Cannibalfly

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Blue Heron in wooded marsh

Posted in Birds, Landscape, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , on August 7, 2014| 4 Comments »

After a considerable amount of conservation construction at my local marsh, one wooded area is now flooded. It is cool and shaded and offered me respite from the hot sun on a recent summer afternoon.  Apparently a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) had the same idea and I inadvertently flushed him from his calm repose.

In many ways, this is more of a landscape shot than a wildlife one, which is unusual for me. Normally I try to zoom in really close to the action, but at that moment I was simply enjoying the beautiful light that was coming into this scene. Besides, I had my 100mm macro lens on my camera, so zooming was not an option.

I really like the way the trees turned out in the image—it’s hard to explain why. In the foreground, you can see what I believe is some of the local beavers’ efforts. Last fall, the beavers felled a number of trees in this area and I wonder if they are the ones that stripped the bark off of part of one of the trees.

Click on the image if you want to see a higher resolution view of this shot.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Still chasing butterflies

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on August 6, 2014| 18 Comments »

Last week I turned 60, but I am happy to confess that I still chase butterflies with much of the exuberance (if not quite the energy) of a child. There is something really special about the delicate beauty of butterflies that draws me in and the idea of their metamorphosis inspires me.

During a recent trip to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia, I was thrilled to spot this female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus). She was feeding on an identified plant that must have been tasty, because she kept moving from spot to spot on the plant, offering me multiple opportunities to get some shots.

I especially like the fact that I was able to get the sky into some of the images, reinforcing for me the idea of butterflies flying freely and lightly through the open air. Now that’s the way to live a life.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Damselfly Cirque du Soleil

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on August 5, 2014| 10 Comments »

Watching insects is sometimes like watching a Cirque du Soleil production, very colorful and incredibly acrobatic, like these mating damselflies that I photographed recently at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, VA.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Patience rewarded

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on August 4, 2014| 13 Comments »

I watched and waited as the Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) watched and waited. When the crucial moment came, we both reacted and were rewarded—the heron got a fish and I got a photo. For a brief moment, each of us was satisfied.

Great Blue Heron Huntley Meadows Park

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Blue heron, blue sky, blue water

Posted in Birds, Landscape, Nature, Photography, Portraits, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 3, 2014| 6 Comments »

The lighting was breathtakingly beautiful and the reflections were amazing when I caught sight of this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) late last month at my local marsh. The heron was close enough that the 100mm macro lens that i had on my camera was the perfect lens for a portrait of this beautiful bird.

Great Blue Heron

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Flower fly on a purple flower

Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on August 2, 2014| 12 Comments »

I used to think that all black-and-yellow insects circling around flowers were bees, but quickly learned that many of them are flower flies (also known as hoverflies). There are a lot of different varieties of flower flies, but I think that they all belong to the Syrphidae family.

Yesterday when I was visiting Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland, I managed to capture this image of a flower fly just as it had inserted its head into a small purple flower. It’s a pretty simple composition, but I really like the way that it turned out, with a good amount of detail on the fly’s body.

hover fly

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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A beauty and a beast

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2014| 6 Comments »

Within minutes of my arrival at a garden in Maryland, I was able to photograph my first Monarch butterfly of the summer, but was also “treated” to the sight of the fattest, hairiest fly that I have ever seen, a true case of a beauty and a beast.

Brookside Gardens is a beautiful spot for photographing flowers and insects in Wheaton, Maryland in the suburban Washington, D.C. area. In one section of the garden, there is a section specifically planted to attract butterflies and it was in that area that I saw the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) along with more numerous Eastern Swallowtail butterflies.

I didn’t see a single Monarch butterfly last summer and feared that I might not see one this summer either, because of habitat issues in Mexico and the severe winter we experienced. I was therefore thrilled when I first caught sight of a Monarch and chased after them throughout the day at the garden.

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My moment of joy was interrupted when I was buzzed by a very large fly. When it landed, I was startled to see that it was really plump and really hairy. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it would be tough to consider this beast to a a beauty. I poked around the internet in an attempt to identify this fly and it appears to belong to the genus Juriniopsis, though I can’t identify a specific species.

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I continue to be fascinated by insects and at this time of the year you can usually find me chasing after them with my trusty macro lens, giving equal time to the beauties and to the beasts.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Chasing a nymph through the woods

Posted in Butterflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on August 1, 2014| 15 Comments »

Chasing a nymph through the woods–it may sound like I was living out some fantasy as a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I was only running after a butterfly, a Common Wood Nymph (Cercyonis pegala).

As is usually the case, I had never seen this “Common” butterfly before, but the large, yellow-ringed eyespots on the forewings make it pretty distinctive and I had no trouble finding it in an on-line identification guide.

I chased after the butterfly for quite some time before it finally came to a stop and perched on a tree. I am not sure why, but the butterfly chose to perch upside down. When I processed my images, I couldn’t decided if I should flip the image 180 degrees or not. Ultimately I decided that the flipped image, which is the first one, looked more “normal.”

Which one do you think works better, the flipped image, i.e. the first one, or the one with the original perspective, i.e. the second one?

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Eagle with a macro lens

Posted in Birds, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , on July 31, 2014| 14 Comments »

How often do you find yourself taking a shot of a subject with the wrong lens? If you are an opportunistic wildlife shooter like I am, it happens pretty regularly.

At this time of the year, most of the time I have a macro lens on my camera and I focus a lot on insects. Earlier this week, I was attempting to photograph a dragonfly with a 100mm macro lens when I heard the squawking on an approaching bird. Thinking perhaps that it was a hawk, I raised my camera and clicked off a series of shots as the bird flew by on the other side of a small pond.

Imagine my surprise when I looked at my images and realized that the bird was actually a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). There is something really special about Bald Eagles and I am thrilled every single time I see one.

Even with a crop sensor camera, a 100mm lens is not the right lens for shooting birds in flight at a distance, especially against a background of trees. I am posting a couple of shots simply to show that it is sometimes possible to get recognizable images of cool subjects even when the conditions and equipment are not optimal.

The images are also a reminder to myself to keep shooting and not wait for the perfect conditions to come together. If I wear out the camera, I can always get another one.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Fly united

Posted in Dragonflies, Humor, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on July 30, 2014| 13 Comments »

Am I the only one who remembers a poster from the 1970’s featuring the slogan “Fly United” and depicting two ducks mating in mid-air?

That’s what immediately came to mind earlier this week when a pair of Great Blue Skimmer dragonflies (Libellula vibrans) flew by me at my local marsh. Anyone who has ever watched dragonflies mate knows that it is an acrobatic endeavor, requiring tremendous flexibility by both parties. Imagine trying to fly while still in the “wheel” position. Amazingly all of the wings seemed to able to move freely, though I didn’t notice if they were both using their wings for propulsion.

I was able to snap off these shots as the pair flew toward me over the water of a pond, which reflected wonderfully the blue sky and the clouds up above us.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Skipper and purple flower

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on July 29, 2014| 6 Comments »

A handsome little skipper feeds on a gorgeous purple flower and the result is simply beautiful.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Saddlebags in the air

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on July 29, 2014| 3 Comments »

Normally when I think of saddlebags, I think of cowboys and the Pony Express, but there is also a species of skimmer dragonflies known as Black Saddlebags (Tramea lacerata). Someone obviously thought the dark patches on the hind wings looked like saddlebags.

Unlike many of the dragonflies that I often observe, Black Saddlebag dragonflies like to fly high in the air (and not low over the water) and some of them even migrate. I was alerted to their presence at my local marsh by a recent posting by a local dragonfly expert and fellow photographer Walter Sanford, so yesterday I kept one eye to the sky yesterday as I searched for subjects to photograph.

Black Saddlebags flew over me several times and I was fortunate to get some shots of one of them in flight. It might have been nice to have used a longer lens than the 100mm macro lens that I had on my camera at the time, but the shots turned out pretty well nonetheless. The first image is the sharpest image, but I like the entire sequence of the three images and the way in which they convey a sense of the environment in which I was shooting.

saddlebags1_blog The fi

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Crab spider on Queen Anne

Posted in Arachnids, Flowers, Humor, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on July 28, 2014| 10 Comments »

One of my fellow photographers pointed out this cool little crab spider on some Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota) during a photo jaunt to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in nearby Vienna, Virginia this past Saturday.

In this first shot, my favorite, the spider seemed to be expressing frustration that his prey had escaped his grasp (or simply wanted to show me his awesome biceps pose). Who knew that spiders have biceps?

crab spider

Initially I tried to photograph the spider looking down at it, but I had trouble maintaining a steady pose and my shots were blurry. I decided to kneel down and get at eye level with the spider, looking across the plane of the flower, and that seemed to work a bit better. These shots look like they were done with flash, but the EXIF data shows a shutter speed of 1/320, which is higher than the synch speed of my flash, so these were actually done with natural light, with some exposure compensation dialed in.

The second shot, which preceded the first one in time, shows the spider trying to capture a small insect (I think).

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The little insect starts to run away.

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In vain, the spider crawled after the small insect, but it was too late. When I left the spider, it was at the edge of the flower, looking off into the distance, pondering perhaps what might have been, thinking about the one that got away.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Disco dragonfly

Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2014| 14 Comments »

The light reflecting off the water in the background was really bright, creating these disco ball highlights when I took these shots of a male Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) recently at Green Spring Gardens. Normally I try to avoid distinctive specular highlights, but in this case I decided to embrace them.

Why do I suddenly feel an irresistible urge to watch Saturday Night Fever?

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Thorny situation

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , on July 26, 2014| 6 Comments »

Have you ever found yourself in a thorny predicament? Last weekend, I came upon this female Spangled Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula cyanea) that had literally placed herself in such a situation.

Fortunately, dragonflies are so small, lightweight, and agile that she was able to place herself in between the thorns, out of harm’s way. If you look closely at her wings in the second image, however, you’ll see that they are tattered, suggesting that it’s been a tough season for her, probably as a result of predators, including overly aggressive male dragonflies.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Clouded Sulphur at Green Spring Gardens

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 25, 2014| 6 Comments »

As I search in vain for larger, colorful butterflies, I continue to be amazed by the beauty of the smaller ones, like this Clouded Sulphur butterfly (Colias philodice) that I observed last week at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia.

Generally I like my closest shots the best when I am shooting with my macro lens, but in this case, I think I prefer the first shot below, that I took from a bit farther back. I like the way in which you can see the shadowy representations in the background of the stalks of the same kind of floweras the one one which the butterfly is feeding.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Flowers in July

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on July 24, 2014| 10 Comments »

When I started shooting regularly two years ago, I followed the lead of my mentor, Cindy Dyer, who specializes in flower photography, and spent a lot of time in gardens. (She photographs a wide range of  subjects, though, and I encourage readers to click on her name and check out the photos on her blog from a recent trip to Iceland.)

Last weekend I went back to my roots and visited a local garden with Cindy, where I spent some time with flowers and was only occasionally distracted by insects. Cindy helped me identify a toad lily and some zinnias, but we think the yellow flower is some kind of rudbeckia.

As I was shooting, I was particularly fascinated by the structure and patterns of the petals and by the amazing colors. The colors proved to be a challenge to render correctly and I am not entirely certain that I got the pinkish color of the zinnias true to life.

If you are viewing the original posting (and not it the Reader), click on any one of the thumbnail images to see the images in succession in larger size in slide show format. (I am still experimenting with using the Gallery options for displaying multiple images.)

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

 

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Red Milkweed Beetle

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 23, 2014| 14 Comments »

Two years ago in a posting, I confessed to being obsessed with photographing Red milkweed beetles (Tetraopes tetraophthalmus). Inexorably I kept finding myself being drawn back to these bright red beetles.

I thought I had outgrown my obsession, until I encountered several of my little red friend this past weekend at Green Spring Gardens. I immediately reverted to my old behavior and began to stalk them like a paparazzo, trying to get a good shot or any shot at all.

My obsession continues.

Red Milkweed BeetleRed Milkweed BeetleRed Milkweed Beetle

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

 

 

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Three bees

Posted in Flowers, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on July 22, 2014| 11 Comments »

Whenever I have my macro lens on my camera I seem to be irresistibly drawn to bees, like bees to honey. No matter what else I am shooting during the summer, I always seem to have some images of bees interspersed among my other photos. Here are some of my recent favorite bee shots.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Amberwing dragonfly in flight

Posted in Dragonflies, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 21, 2014| 7 Comments »

Photographing any dragonfly in flight is a real challenge, but this past weekend I spent time chasing after some of the smallest ones, the Eastern Amberwing dragonflies (Perithemis tenera). According to Bugguide, these dragonflies are typically 21-24mm in length, which is less than one inch, with a wingspan of maybe two inches or so.

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There were lots of male Eastern Amberwings buzzing around the edges of a small pond at Green Spring Gardens, one of the local gardens that I like to visit. They were within range of the 180mm macro lens that I was using, but focusing and tracking were my biggest problems. The dragonflies did tend to hover a bit, which helped a little, but it was tough to get them in focus when focusing manually and almost impossible to do so with auto-focus.

I took a lot of shots and was happy that I managed to get some in decent focus, though I did have to crop the images. As I was preparing this posting, I noticed that I spent some time a year ago attempting to photograph the same dragonfly species. I think the results this year are marginally better, but you can make your own call by clicking on this link to the posting from July 2013.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Dragonfly on a heron

Posted in Birds, Dragonflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 20, 2014| 9 Comments »

A dragonfly perching on a heron? In real life it’s highly unlikely that you would see such a thing, but a male Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) decided that the metal silhouette of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in a pond at Green Spring Gardens made a good spot to rest.

Click on any of the tiled images to see all of them full-sized in slide show mode.

Blue Dasher

Blue Heron in obelisk posture
Perching on a heron
Metal Great Blue Heron in pond

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

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Skipper on a leaf

Posted in Butterflies, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 19, 2014| 11 Comments »

Small skipper butterflies don’t stand out as much as their larger, more colorful brethren, but they have an understated beauty that I find striking. It’s a daunting challenge, however, to identify them.

According to Wikipedia, there are more than 3500 recognized species of skippers worldwide, so I don’t feel too bad that my identification skills are weak in this area. As I looked through images on-line, I came across one identified as a Little Glassywing (Pompeius verna) that looks a bit like the one that I photographed, though my confidence level in this identification is pretty low.

I am confident, however, that I like the image I captured of the little skipper. There is a pretty good amount of detail, the background is blurred, and the leaves on which the butterfly is perched makes for an interesting pose.

UPDATE: A butterfly expert has definitively identified this as a female Sachem (Atalopedes campestris). Thanks to Joe Schelling and Jim Brock for their assistance in identifying this little skipper.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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