Posted in Bugs, Insects, Macro Photography, Photography, wildlife, tagged beautiful, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, complex, Huntley Meadows Park, spider webs, webs on September 15, 2012| 8 Comments »
Yesterday morning I was out early with my camera and managed to capture photos of some amazing spider webs at Huntley Meadows Park. There was moisture in the air, so some of them have beautiful droplets of water. All of them, though, are incredible in their geometric complexity, in the skill of the craftsmanship, and in their individuality.
Spiders webs are incredible.
Circular spider web
Spider web between two railings
Spider web with dew
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, cardinal, Northern cardinal on September 14, 2012| 5 Comments »
I have even greater respect for photographers who can capture clear images of birds after my experiences today. Previously I had shot a few photos of birds, but primarily in a garden setting. Today I tried to photograph some bright red birds that I think are Northern Cardinals in a meadow with lots of vegetation. Even though these birds are much bigger than the insects that I often photograph, they seemed to spook a lot easier and rarely placed themselves within the limits of my lenses. I think that I understand now why dedicated bird photographer need those huge lenses that I see them carrying. It also proved impossible for me to isolate the background (and foreground), which was often cluttered and blocked a clear view of the bird.
This is the best image I managed of the cardinal. The focus is not perfect and I had to do a mega-crop, but I like the overall look of the image and there is a clear view of the face.
Cardinal
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, spider, Yellow Garden Orbweaver, yellow garden spider on September 14, 2012| 8 Comments »
As I was going through some photos this morning I realized that I have a lot of photos of the Yellow Garden Orbweaver spider (Argiope aurantia). I have posted quite a few photos, but most have shown the spider with a prey. I came across an image of the spider by herself and started playing with it in Photoshop Elements. This first image is the result of my experimentation—it is cropped and rotated and focuses on only part of the subject. I think it is a little more dramatic thank the original image. (You can get a higher resolution view of all of the images if you click on them.)
Creeping spider
You can see below the original image after a minor crop. I remember when I took the shot that I had to twist my body around to get the desired angle of view of the spider in the center of her web, waiting patiently for prey. This morning I initially liked the image a lot and was going to post it, but then decided to rotate it 90 degrees to see what it looked like.
Side view of spider
After the rotation, it looked like the image below. It seems to me that by simply shifting the plane of view, the spider appears like more of a predator, like she is more aggressively stalking her prey rather than waiting for it to arrive. I keep going back and forth in trying to decided if I like this image more than the cropped image that I started with. What do you think? Which of the three images do you like most?
Creeping spider (full body)
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, damselfly, Lestes australis, lestidae, spreadwing damselfly on September 14, 2012| 2 Comments »
Why does this damselfly have its wings in an open position? That was the question that popped into my mind when I first spotted this pretty little damselfly. As far as I knew, damselflies folded their wings together when they were at rest. A little research on the internet showed that there is a family of damselflies called Lestidae (more commonly known as Spreadwings) that hold their wings at an angle from their body when they are at rest.
I decided to show the same photo in two different ways. The first image is a cropped close-up and it lets you seem the facial expression and some additional details of the body, including the drops of water on the chest and legs. As you can see, one of the disadvantages of wings that are spread is that depth of field is a problem. The second view is the image more or less as I composed it in the view finder. It shows how really long and skinny the tails are for this type of damselfly. I think that this may be a Southern Spreadwing (Lestes australis), but I am not certain of the identification because there are other varieties that look similar.
Close-up shot of spreadwing damselfly
Full-body shot of spreadwing damselfly
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, climbing, grasshopper, Huntley Meadows Park on September 12, 2012| 2 Comments »
I have become hyper-attentive now when I walk through gardens, woods, and marshes. I have started to slow down and am more aware of my surroundings. A few months ago, for example, I would not have noticed this grasshopper climbing up the stalk of a plant. Now I can look with wonder at yet another fascinating creature, and my life is enriched by the experience.
Climbing Grasshopper
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Language, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, blue skies, boardwalk, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, canon rebel, clouds, Huntley Meadows Park, landscape, marsh on September 12, 2012| 3 Comments »
Huntley Meadows Park is made up of 1,425 acres of forests, meadows, and fresh-waters wetlands and has become one of my favorite places to take photos of a wide variety of wildlife. What is most remarkable for me, though, is the fact that it is located in the midst of a heavily populated suburban area of Washington, D.C., only a few miles from where I live. I am clearly not the only one who enjoys being there. On any given day I am likely to be greeted by groups of giggling boys and girls or smaller, more sedate groups of adults, many with binoculars or cameras with very long telephoto lenses. The park’s website notes that it is a favorite location for bird spotting, with over 200 species having been identified there.
Monday was an especially beautiful day. The coolness of the fall mornings has definitely arrived and we were treated to brilliant blue skies, a relative rarity here. While at Huntley Meadows, I decided to try to capture a view of some of the elements of the park, including part of the half-mile long boardwalk that zigzags through the marshland.
Huntley Meadows Park in early September
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Blue Dasher, Blue Dasher dragonfly, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, dragonfly, growing old, Huntley Meadows Park, John Kelly, Pachydiplax longipennis, tattered, Washington Post on September 11, 2012| 6 Comments »
I don’t know if this Blue Dasher dragonfly is long in the tooth (do dragonflies have teeth?) or has simply had a tough life. How do you tell the age of a dragonfly? In any case, his wings are tattered and torn to such a degree that it is surprising that he can still fly. Yet I seem to detect a smile on his face, a reflection of contentment. (Yes, I know, I am guilty of anthropomorphism.)
Tattered wings,but still able to fly
I have been thinking about aging ever since Sunday when I read a wonderful column in the Washington Post by John Kelly entitled “You can learn a lot about growing old from a dog.” Kelly describes how the accelerated aging process of his dog has made him more conscious of the fact that he too is growing old. I recommend the article to all, but want to highlight the final paragraph of the column. Kelly concludes:
“Aging is unknown territory for each of us, despite the fact that humans have been doing it forever. I think there are worse ways to spend your final years than napping next to someone you love, dreaming of what was and what still might be.”
I doubt that this dragonfly will end his final days in peace and contentment like Kelly’s dog, but it is my fervent hope that we can accept the infirmities of growing old with grace and patience, and can focus—as this dragonfly appears to be doing—on the things that we are still able to do, on contributions that can make this world a better place.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Humor, Nature, Photography, Reptiles, wildlife, tagged bubble, bullfrog, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, frog, Huntley Meadows Park, reflection on September 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »
This morning I captured this photo of a bullfrog. I was able—with gyrations that would have been hilarious to a spectator—to get almost low enough to look him eye-to-eye. I was happy also to get a reflection of the frog with a considerable amount of detail. As I was reviewing the images on my computer, I noticed the bubbles under his chin (do frogs have chins?), a delightful detail that adds a sense of whimsy to the frog. Blowing bubbles is something that I always associate with being a child, and I remember how much fun it was to blow bubbles in my drink with a straw or to blow soap bubbles with one of those little wands.
Perhaps this bullfrog was blowing bubbles in the water, remembering too when he was little, presumably in a post-tadpole phase.
Bullfrog with bubble (click for higher resolution)
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged aphid, Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon Rebel XT, milkweed, monarch butterfly, Monarch caterpillar on September 8, 2012| 1 Comment »
The day before I left for my recent trip I managed to get some photos of Monarch caterpillars with my macro lens. It was the first time that I had seen them live. Not surprisingly they were on milkweed plants and seemed to be chomping away with great appetite. I noted too that some of the milkweed plants were full of aphids (and some of them had lots of ladybugs too). I checked a number of sources on-line and they all suggest that the aphids are not directly harmful to the Monarch caterpillars during the two-week stage when they are caterpillars. I looked around today to see if I could see any chrysalis, the next stage of development, or more caterpillars, but found neither. I’ll keep looking!
Monarch caterpillar (click to see more details)
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged bee, bees, Canon PowerShot A620, macro on September 2, 2012| 2 Comments »
I am out of town at the moment and took along my Canon PowerShot A620, a somewhat glorified point-and-shoot camera. I had used this before for travel photos, but had never tried out the macro features of the camera. The manual claims that in macro mode you can get as close as 1 cm (.4 inches).
I decided to play around with macro on this camera by taking some shots of bees, one of my favorite subjects. The first photo is one of a bee taken straight on and I am surprised that I got the detail that I did. The other shots are pretty good as well. I would note that I had to get really close to the bees to get these shots. I also am feeling a little hamstrung, because I am producing these images on a netbook computer with somewhat limited capabilities and I am using Paint.Net to manipulate the images rather than PhotoShop or PhotoShop Elements.
Eye-to-eye with a bee
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, wildlife, tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, Dolomedes triton, fishing spider, Huntley Meadows Park, spider, water spider on September 1, 2012| 3 Comments »
This morning as I was walking along the boardwalk that runs through the marsh in Huntley Meadows Park, I happened to glance down into the muddy water and was surprised to see something that looked like a cross between a starfish and a spider. I always though that spiders lived in trees and on other types of vegetation, but today I learned that there are also spiders that hunt for their prey in the water.
This spider is from the Dolomedes family, probably a six-spotted fishing spider (Dolomedes triton). According to the Wikipedia article, they are often seen with their legs sprawled out by the water while they are waiting for prey (which is what this one seems to be doing). They eat other invertebrates, tadpoles and occasionally small fish (and the female may also eat male fishing spiders if she has already mated). According to fcps.edu, these spiders can walk on the surface water and can stay underwater for 30 minutes. Not surprisingly, they don’t make webs.
This has been quite the day for unusual insects, beginning with a neon-colored grasshopper and ending with a fishing spider. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
Fishing Spider Waiting for Prey (click for higher resolution)
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Reptiles, wildlife, tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, competition, confrontation, Great Blue Heron, Huntley Meadows Park, marsh, pond, snapping turtle, turtle on August 31, 2012| 6 Comments »
The water level in the marsh at Huntley Meadow Gardens here in Alexandria, VA has been getting lower and lower as the summer has progressed. I suspect that the situation had made it more difficult for some of the inhabitants to find food and may have increased competition for the available food.
Previously I posted photos of a Great Blue Heron catching a fish in the remaining water of the pond of the marsh. Last week I had the chance to watch a series of confrontations between a Great Blue Heron and a snapping turtle. It seemed to start when the heron grabbed a fish out of the water just as the turtle was approaching him. I had the impression that the turtle might have been pursuing that same fish. The snapping turtle made a series of aggressive runs at the heron, getting really close to the heron’s legs. I have seen pictures on-line of a snapping turtle pulling down a Great Blue Heron, so I waited with fear and anticipation to see what would happen. The heron left the water this time without any bodily injury. (I have some photos of this initial confrontation that I might post later, but their quality is not as good as those of the second round of confrontations.)
The heron eventually went back into the water and it wasn’t long before the snapping turtle came at him again. (I could almost hear the music of the movie “Jaws” in my head as the turtle made a run at the heron.) Like a matador side-stepping a charging bull, the heron awkwardly avoided the turtle who was approaching him faster than I’ve ever seen a turtle move. The heron then turned his back on the turtle and started walking away, perhaps feeling the hot breath of the turtle who continued to pursue him. Finally, the heron took to the air, deciding that he had had enough of the persistent turtle.
I managed to capture the highlights of the confrontation with my camera. I continue to marvel at the wonders of nature as I observe new creatures and see familiar ones act and interact in new ways.
Snapping turtle approaches Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Heron steps to the side as snapping turtle gets aggressive
Great Blue Heron walks away with snapping turtle in pursuit
Great Blue Heron decides to leave his problems behind
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged bliue eyes, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, grasshopper, Handsome Meadow Katydid, Huntley Meadows Park, neon-colored, Orchelimum pulchellum on August 31, 2012| 33 Comments »
I just got back from shooting and couldn’t wait to post a photo of one of the coolest looking insects that I have ever seen. It appears to be be part of the grasshopper family, but its bright colors and blue eyes really made it stand out as I was walking through the marsh at Huntley Meadows Park this morning. I’m sure I’ll be able to identify him eventually, but want to share him now. Sometimes folks need a little extra pick-me-up on Fridays.
UPDATE: I am pretty sure he is a Handsome Meadow Katydid (Orchelimum pulchellum). I found a photo in BugGuide that looks quite a bit like this one.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Humor, Insects, Nature, Photography, Sports, wildlife, tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, dragonfly, Dragonfly Olympics, nature photography, pole vault on August 31, 2012| 5 Comments »
I was going through my recent dragonfly photos and this one really caught my eye. Somehow the combination of the dragonfly’s position and the long branch with the slight curve together made me think of a pole vaulter just before he clears the bar. It’s a little unusual that I photograph a dragonfly from below with the sky as a backdrop, but that’s what happened that day.
Maybe he’s preparing for the Dragonfly Olympics! What other events do you think they would have? I’m pretty sure they’d have gymnastics, given the frequency with which I see dragonflies do handstands.
Pole-vaulting dragonfly
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, Great Blue Heron, green heron, Huntley Meadows Park on August 30, 2012| 3 Comments »
I love to shoot in the rain. This past weekend the weather was threatening, but I went to Huntley Meadows Park anyway and was happy to see both a Great Blue heron and a green heron. It was already sprinkling a little when I started to take some photos of this little green heron and I had my umbrella out. I like the effect of the raindrops on the surface of the water. The light was interesting too and the heron cast a reddish, blurry reflection in the water.
Green heron in the rain
The weather started to worsen as I headed toward the location where I previously had seen a Great Blue heron. That area has a two-tiered observation area and I knew the lower level is partially sheltered from the rain. I arrived just in time as the rain started to come down really hard. The first photo of the Great Blue heron shows him standing in the water as the rain pours down. It didn’t seem to bother him at all. The quality of the photo is not that great (the light was bad and I upped the ISO), but I like the effect. The second photo shows the same area as the downpour is ending and the water appears as a very vivid green and looks almost tropical.
Great Blue heron in the driving rain
Great Blue heron as the rain tapers off
The rain may not be the time to take perfect photos, but I personally like the look that it gives to some of the photos that I shoot.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, grasshopper, orbweaver, spider, Yellow Garden Orbweaver, Yellow Garden Orbweaver spider on August 29, 2012| 10 Comments »
A few days ago I posted a photo of a Yellow Garden Orbweaver (Argiope aurantia) that I photographed at Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, VA. I was strangely attracted to those spiders and returned the next day to see if I could get a few more shots.
Here is one of my favorite shots from that day. The spider looks to be gnawing on the leg of a grasshopper that has been wrapped up and seems to be a little dried out. The grasshopper actually looks like he has been battered and deep-fried, but that seems to be a bit over the top, even for a Southern spider. You can also see a little of the zigzag pattern of the web at the bottom of the photo that is typical of the webs of this kind of orbweaver.
Yellow Garden Orbweaver Spider and Grasshopper (click on the photo to see more details)
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon Rebel XT, Coccinellidae, lady beetle, ladybug, mating on August 29, 2012| 4 Comments »
Last week when I was at a local garden I came across several pairs of ladybugs mating and several things really stood out to me.
First, the male ladybug is a lot smaller than the female. An article at ladybuglady.com (a great name for a website) points out that females are “usually” larger than males, but essentially it’s almost impossible for the average person to tell them apart until they are mating. If you really want to know how to tell male ladybugs from females the referenced article has photos from an electron microscope with detailed explanations.
The other thing that was obvious was the difference in color and spots between the two. The male is a medium orange with a few small light black spots and the female is a deeper shade of red with larger, darker spots. Wikipedia notes that there are more than 5,000 species of ladybugs (which technically are beetles and not bugs), with more than 450 native to North America. According to that article, the number, shape, and size of the spots is dependent on the species of ladybug. Does that mean these two ladybugs are different species?
Bugguide has some interesting factoids about names used elsewhere in the world for the ladybug. For example, “Ladybird” was first used in medieval England, perhaps because these beneficial predators of agricultural pests were believed to be a gift from the Virgin Mary—the “Lady.” Other European names have similar associations, such as the German Marienkäfer, “Marybeetle.” (Thanks to Gary for pointing out the correct spelling in German—I inserted the Umlaut to make it correct.)
So I am left wondering, will the little ladybugs that result from this coupling look more like mom or like dad?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged amber, dragonfly, Eastern Amberwing, Eastern Amberwing dragonfly, green spring gardens, Nikon D300, Tamron 180mm macro on August 28, 2012| 3 Comments »
I took this photo on an Eastern Amberwing dragonfly (Perithemis tenera)) about a week ago when I was shooting at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, VA with my good friend and photographic mentor, Cindy Dyer.
Cindy is always encouraging me to upgrade my photograph equipment. For comparison purposes, she put the Nikon D300 that she was using into my hands and had me shoot with it for a few minutes. It was equipped with a Tamron 180mm macro lens that gave it a pretty impressive reach for the dragonflies that we were shooting. It’s interesting that I was able to use my Compact Flash memory card, which was formatted in my Canon, in her Nikon and the Canon photos and the Nikon photos peacefully coexisted in separate folders on the memory card.
I was especially happy that I got a decent shot of the Eastern Amberwing dragonfly. This type of dragonfly is very beautiful, but it’s very small and elusive. BugGuide notes that this dragonfly is normally about 21-24mm long (in case you’ve forgotten, 25.4mm is equal to an inch).
I’m probably going to remain a Canon guy, but I can definitely hear the Siren call of that 180mm macro lens, which comes in a Canon version too.
Eastern Amberwing dragonfly
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Insects, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Argiope aurantia, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, cicada, Huntley Meadows Park, Writing Spider, Yellow Garden Orbweaver spider, Yellow Gargen spider on August 27, 2012| 6 Comments »
This weekend a fellow photographer (Christy T.) pointed out some really interesting looking spiders while we were at Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, VA. They were very colorful and big (at least they seemed really big, especially when looking through a telephoto lens). I had walked by the area where they were located (and there were probably at least ten of them), but had not noticed them until she prompted me to look more closely.
The spider (Argiope aurantia) goes by many different names including Black and Yellow Argiope, Yellow Garden Orbweaver, Writing Spider, and Yellow Garden Spider, according to BugGuide. These spiders had large webs with a very distinctive zigzag pattern in the center, which I learned from Wikipedia is called a stabilimentum. (I’m still going through my shots from yesterday when I returned to visit the spiders and may post a shot showing the zigzag pattern in a later post). Nobody seems to know for sure why they make that zigzag pattern, perhaps for camouflage or to attract prey.
One of the other really cool things about this spider is that it oscillates the web really vigorously when it feels threatened. My fellow photographer demonstrated this when she touched a web with a tripod’s leg (she did not want to get any closer). It was amazing to see the elasticity of the web as the spider moved—it reminded me of a slingshot being pulled back.
These spiders seem to catch some pretty big prey. There were grasshoppers in some of the webs and in the photo below the spider has captured a cicada. The Wikipedia article notes that the spider kills the prey by injecting its venom and then wraps it in a cocoon of silk for later consumption (typically 1–4 hours later). I think the spider in the photo may be in the process of wrapping up the cicada.
I continue to be amazed by the fascinating things that are in front of me that I have never seen before. It’s clear to me that my photographic journey is causing me to see the world differently, more attentively. That’s a good thing.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 100mm macro lens, Canon Rebel XT, ladybug, macro, rain, spotless on August 27, 2012| 6 Comments »
Who knew that the spots on a ladybug’s shell were water-soluble? That seems to be the case with this ladybug, who has only one remaining spot and a few drops of water, perhaps where other spots used to be.
Spotless ladybug–well almost spotless
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, caterpillar, orange, pattern on August 26, 2012| 8 Comments »
I love the graphic black-and-white pattern on this caterpillar that I photographed yesterday at Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, VA. The monochromatic pattern is wonderfully accented by the orange tufts with long white bristles. In this case, I am not too concerned about identifying this caterpillar—I am simply enjoying its colors, textures, and patterns.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, fish, Great Blue Heron, heron, heron fishing, Huntley Meadows Park on August 26, 2012| 7 Comments »
Rain was gently falling as I observed a Great Blue Heron at Huntley Meadows Park, a marshland in Alexandria, VA. I was surprised to see how the open water area had shrunk to just a small pool over the past couple of months, presumably because of the lack of rain.
Nonetheless, there was a heron in the middle of that pool, seemingly intent on catching a fish. I was not at all convinced that there were any fish in such a small body of water, but the heron soon proved me wrong. He extended his neck and made a strike into the water and came up with a fish. As he brought the fish out of the water, he opened his wings widely (as the second photo shows), perhaps to counterbalance the weight of the fish. The heron’s wingspan was definitely impressive. He kept his wings partially extended as he moved the fish around in his mouth (as you can see in the first photo) and then swallowed the fish whole.
My photos are not technically great, but they did capture the moment pretty well. I am thankful that I once again had the privilege to watch such a beautiful creature in action.
Great Blue Heron positions fish prior to swallowing it
Great Blue Heron opens his wings as he pulls a fish out of the water
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged butterfly, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, Clouded Sulphur butterfly, Colias philodice, green spring gardens on August 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Here’s a shot from this past Monday of a Clouded Sulphur butterfly (Colias philodice) at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, VA.
Clouded Sulphur butterfly
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, green heron, heron, nature photography, stream, wading on August 23, 2012| 1 Comment »
This past weekend I managed to get this shot of a green heron wading in a shallow stream. At that moment I don’t think he was yet aware of my presence. I had an unobstructed view and the light was cooperative enough to make a nice reflection in the water. If you click on the image you can see some additional details of the green heron.
Wading green heron
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged brown butterfly, butterfly, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, comma, Eastern Comma butterfly, orange butterfly, Polygonia comma, Polygonia interrogationis, question mark, Question Mark butterfly, stained glass on August 22, 2012| 8 Comments »
Back and forth I went as I tried to answer a simple question, “Comma or question mark?” You’re probably imagining that I was caught in some kind of punctuation dilemma, but that was not the case. No, I was not stuck in some special hell reserved for grammarians and editors, nor was I sweating out a standardized English test. Instead, I was trying to make a decision on the identity of this unusual looking butterfly that I encountered this past weekend.
Comma or Question Mark?
The colors of this butterfly almost perfectly matched the tree on which he was perched, facing downward in a way that almost perfectly camouflaged him. I rotated the image for the ease of viewers, hoping they will avoid the sore neck that I got as I turned my head trying to make out the details of the butterfly. In addition to the unusual color, the shape of this butterfly was pretty distinctive. What kind was he? As I was pondering that question, the butterfly—who had flown away and returned—opened his wings a little and I got a glimpse of the brilliant orange concealed inside his drab exterior.
A glimpse of orange
As he slowly opened his wings, more of more of the inside of his wings was revealed. The light shining through his wings made the colors glow like those of a back-lit stained glass window.
Back-lit wings
The butterfly flew away again, but amazingly returned once more and treated me to a full view of his open wings—his breathtaking beauty was revealed in full.
Beauty revealed
He sure was beautiful, but I wanted to know his name. Previously I had read about a butterfly called the Eastern Comma butterfly (Polygonia comma) and I had a vague recollection that he looked like this one. Wikipedia’s article on the Eastern Comma also helped explain why he was on a tree rather than some beautiful flower, like most of the butterflies that I have encountered. “This butterfly seldom visits flowers, but rather feeds on sap, rotting fruit, salts and minerals from puddling, and dung.”
I was still not sure of his identity, so I continued to search for clues. It turns out that there are two butterflies with similar shapes and colors. One is the Eastern Comma and the other is the Question Mark (Polygonia interrogationis), really. I feel like I am in some kind of Abbott and Costello style routine akin to their famous “Who’s on first?” routine. (Here’s a You Tube link to the classic routine if you are not familiar with it. It is definitely worth watching.)
The key to distinguishing the two is the shape of the little white markings on the wings and whether the markings are in two parts or one. If you think back to punctuation, you can probably guess that the one in two parts is the question mark and the unitary one is the comma. The website Gardens With Wings has an article with side by side photos of the two butterflies in case I have confused you.
So, which one did I photograph? I think I saw at least two different butterflies, but the one in the initial two photos and the one below all seem to have the white marking in two parts, which make them Question Mark butterflies (Polygonia interrogationis).
Question Mark butterfly
To be honest, though, the marking looks more like a semicolon than a question mark. Why isn’t there a Semicolon Butterfly?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged acrobatic, amber, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, dragonfly, Eastern Amberwing, Eastern Amberwing dragonfly, green spring gardens, gymnastics, mating on August 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I am never sure if it’s appropriate to post photos of mating insects, but decided to overlook my inhibitions and post this unusual photo of a pair of mating Eastern Amberwing dragonflies (Perithemis tenera).
Normally I have trouble getting good shots of these dragonflies because of their small size. According to BugGuide, their total length typically is 21-24 mm long (about 3/4-1 inch). In addition, they always seem to land on plants that away from the shoreline (unlike the Blue Dasher dragonflies that seem to like the plants at the very edge of the water).
This past Friday I was photographing dragonflies with Cindy Dyer at a local garden (Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, VA) when this pair dropped from the sky and landed on a lily pad right in front of me. I happened to be shooting with a telephoto zoom so I had to back up a little to try to get a picture in focus. For those who are technically-minded, the exposure was shot at f11, 1/50 second, ISO 400, at 179mm of a 55-250mm zoom lens.
The photo is not perfectly sharp, but it gives an interesting view into the mating habits of Eastern Amberwing dragonflies. I don’t know my dragonfly anatomy very well, so it took some research to figure out who is who in this photo. The female is the one with the brown spots on her wings and she is holding on to the male’s tail. I think I’ll stop my description there and leave the rest to your imagination.
One thing that this photo taught me is that dragonflies are a whole lot more flexible and gymnastic than I realized!
Mating Eastern Amberwing dragonflies (click for a higher resolution view)
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria, butterfly, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, dried up leaf, green spring gardens, Red Admiral butterfly, Vanessa atalanta on August 19, 2012| 4 Comments »
I took this shot of a Red Admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta) at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, VA on 17 August 2012. It was a little surprising to me that the butterfly chose such a shriveled up, dead leaf as the place to stop, rather than a flower or bush. In a lot of ways, though, I like the simpler setting. It allows me to focus on the beauty of the butterfly without any competing attention from a colorful flower.
The colors and patterns of the Red Admiral butterfly would look good on a necktie. The colors are bright, but not gaudy, and the abstract patterns convey a sense of sophistication.
Red Admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta)
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Flowers, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Cameron Run, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, green heron, heron, nature, stream, tree on August 19, 2012| 2 Comments »
This is a shot of a green heron in the third different location where I have seen a green heron within the past month or so, all within a five mile radius of where I live in suburban Northern Virginia, outside of Washington DC. I came upon this little guy while I was walking down a stream bed and he flew into a tree when he became aware of my presence. Luckily he was still very visible in the foliage and, in fact, the green leaves serve as a nice backdrop to highlight the beauty of this green heron.
Green Heron in a tree
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Blue Dasher dragonfly, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, damselfly, green spring gardens, lotus, odonata, Pachydiplax longipennis on August 18, 2012| 6 Comments »
Sometimes when I open my images on my computer I am pleasantly surprised. I was going through my images from yesterday afternoon and came upon this one.
Click on the image for greater resolution and details
I had been focusing on shooting dragonflies that had stopped to pose on various objects. In this case I am certain that I was looking at the Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis) perched on the rolled-up leaf of a lotus plant and never noticed the damselfly in the photo. The damselfly appears to be scaling the leaf, ready to do battle with the dragonfly. The dragonfly seems to be looking down with a little concern, wondering who is trying to challenge his position. When I compare the relative sizes of the two insects, I can’t help but think of the Biblical story of the boy David taking on the giant Goliath. In this case it would essentially be a family feud, since both dragonflies and damselflies are part of the Odonata family.
It’s a lesson to me to check my images carefully when I process them—there may be all kinds of hidden treasures waiting to be discovered.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Bugs, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, wildlife, tagged Blue Dasher dragonfly, green spring gardens, Pachydiplax longipennis on August 18, 2012| 1 Comment »
My friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer and I went out yesterday to photograph dragonflies at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, VA, a local garden that is my favorite place to go when the urge to shoot some photos overwhelms me. We were often taking photos side by side. I was really beneficial for me to watch how Cindy, an experienced professional, approached the photographic task, what things drew her attention, and the way in which she composed her shots. At one point I even got to put my memory card into her camera, a Nikon D300 with a Tamron 180mm macro lens, and shoot for a while. It was definitely a big change from my Canon Rebel XT with a 55-250mm telephoto with which I was shooting at the time. Her set-up was a lot heavier but had a much brighter, bigger viewfinder, and faster focusing.
We were both excited when one Blue Dasher dragonfly (Pachydiplax longipennis), the most common dragonfly that we saw all day, decided to use a lotus seed pod as his home base. He would periodically fly away, but always seemed to come back to the seed pod. She and I were both able to get shots of this dragonfly against the backdrop of a lotus leaf. The light colored circular object you can see is the center of that leaf. I love the crimped edges of this particular pod—it reminds me of a home-made pie crust.
This photo came out so good that I though it probably had been shot with her camera. However, when I checked out the RAW file information I realized it was from my camera. For those who might wonder about the exposure, it was shot at f11, 1/125 sec, ISO 800, at 163mm of the 55-250mm zoom lens. If you are interested in checking out Cindy’s comparable shot (her’s is even sharper) as well as some other wonderful shots she’s taken of dragonflies the last couple of days, check out her blog postings.
Blue Dasher dragonfly on a lotus seed pod
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Reptiles, wildlife, tagged camouflage, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, duckweek, frog, green spring gardens, nature, pond on August 18, 2012| 9 Comments »
Yesterday I was at a nearby pond photographing mostly dragonflies. After shooting them I decided to make a quick walk around the pond (it’s only a small man-made pond) to see what other subjects I could find. I managed to find a colorful butterfly, a small green heron, and some lotus flowers that I will post later, assuming the photos came out ok.
The subject that really caught my attention, though, was a frog. Really? Yes, really.
I was leaning over the green-colored pond water, gazing at a distant dragonfly when I happened to glance down to my right. There, almost camouflaged in what my friends say is duckweed, was a semi-submerged frog. I was able to get my camera’s lens down pretty low and got in close and captured an image I really like. The frog’s gold-ringed eyes shine out clearly amidst all of the individual particles of duckweed that cover much of his expressionless face.
There are a couple of blades of grass that were partially blocking my view to the frog but they blurred out and are not really much of a problem. After I took some shots, though, I decided to try to carefully remove one of those offending blades. As I made the effort, the frog, who had remained motionless up to then, literally leaped into action. He sprung powerfully into the air and skipped across the surface of the water, like a rock throw by a dad showing his son how to skip rocks.
I was so startled by his sudden motion that I almost fell over into the water. Later in the day I did end up getting wet when I belatedly noticed that one foot was planted in the water while I was intently focusing on composing a shot. I guess that’s the price of being a photographer.
Hiding frog
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 