Field Guide – Linda & Robert Scarth

In this morning’s email was a message with a photo taken from a hotel balcony along the southwest Florida coast. The white sand beach curved along cobalt water underneath a graduated blue sky. Here is Iowa, we looked out this morning on a marshmellow white world with snow still falling. We decided not to go to the workout at the gym. If we had we would have missed this lovely bird.

The Mourning Dove, who frequently visits, was perched on the wire from which we hang several feeders. She was huddled against the fluffy hat worn by the round squirrel baffle over the peanut feeder. Snow on her back made a lacey shawl. She heard the kitchen window open, something she has heard before, but did not fly. A Carolina Wren snatched a peanut from the feeder and flew to eat it in the crabapple tree.

She paid closer attention to the long lens (300mm with a 2x teleconverter) than to the 70-200 zoom. This one is full frame while the top image is a crop from the shorter lens’ file. She is still on the wire though she shook off the snow and is collecting a new covering.

When the snow lets up a bit we will put out ground feed for her and the Juncos who stop by. The heated bird water is a mini caldera with steep snow sides that needs to be pushed away. And of course, there will be shovelling that will take the place of the gym workout.

Last evening Bob found this pair of mating Differential Grasshoppers (Melanoplus differentialis). He caught them in a large plastic jar and brought them in for our tabletop photo setup. Linda had first go at photographing them. We decided to use a white background to emphasize the intricate pattern of their exoskeleton plates and leg chevrons. The row of black spikes seen here on the males yellow legs are also identifying features.

Well, they did not want to get out of, and then off of, the jar on to the white background. As well as the color, they did not seem to like the feel when they touched it. We sometimes use sheets of craft foam as backgrounds when we need a non-reflective even color. The texture was unfamiliar to the grasshoppers who live on and near foliage. There was no camouflage close by so they stayed still for several minutes. Craft foam is readily available in arts and crafts stores.

The female was very large - over the 2 inches stated in published descriptions. Her abdomen was engorged. In this image her palps below her mandibles (mouth) are visible. Palps help control food items. The male’s wings extended beyond his rear end while the female’s did not. Differential Grasshoppers are considered pests in agricultural and horticultural environments. The growing nymphs have voracious appetites.

Our current tabletop photo arrangement includes a pvc pipe frame with a white nylon covering along the top and down the two sides. The back side is open allowing for ease in changing backgrounds. Lighting is a group of flexible stand lamps with Eiko 5000K fluorescent photo bulbs. Like all tabletop photographers we keep a collection of boxes and stands to help protect, control and position our small subjects.

We keep a 180mm macro lens on a tripod next to the setup table. That way whichever camera body one of us brings up just needs to be attached and is ready to go. This lens has some collar issues that are a problem in the field but not in here, so it is enjoying a less rigorous but very useful life indoors. A cable shutter release hangs on the tripod and is ready to attach in case one is forgotten in the camera bag downstairs.

When the grasshoppers had had enough they took off bouncing around the room and needed to be returned to their jar.

Several weeks ago while in the northwoods of Minnesota, we were looking for interesting bark abstracts on the trees next to our camp site. The caterpillar subject of this post was not really noticable until one was within two feet of the tree. We think the tree was a balsam poplar. The caterpillar is still a mystery even after exploring our field guides, BugGuide and other insect sites online.

The top view shows its bristles and tufts more densely than does the partial side view below. The tufts are similar to some of the buck moths but the colors and density are different than photos we have found. The tufts along the side looked a bit like some of the feathering of tube worms in a coral reef. The pale gray bristly clusters are also like some ray flowers with a dark stamen protruding. Nature certainly likes to repeat its patterns and designs across species.

Sometimes things get a bit crowded when there are two photographers with macro lenses and sturdy tripods next to a tree with a 2 1/2 inch ( 6 cm) subject.

An observation that puzzled us is the color difference in the bark in the final jpg images. We used the same camera bodies in AV mode with auto white balance with different macro lenses – 100mm and 180mm. The other differences in capture were is ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and angle of view (light angle and amount). Similar Lightroom 4.1 ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) adjustments were made before final editing in Photoshop CS5.

The end results in the jpgs here are differences in warmth that traveled through the process. The original histograms differed with the warmer image more center weighted and the lower image left weighted. Then we realized that the warmer image with the center weighted histogram was made with a ring flash set to fill. The fill flash must have modified the file to make it warmer in spite of the similarity in processing of both images. Color is always influenced by the conditions.

The remaining puzzle is the species. Back to searching.

Beauty is found in the most unusual places. Today we found it in a leech – one of the annelids along with earth worms. Annelids are segmented invertebrates.

Two friends were with us enjoying a sand prairie when one of them spotted a painted turtle on a ridge headed away from the ponds. She must have been on her way to dig a nest to lay her eggs. On her shell were several leeches. We photographed the turtle and the leeches. Then detached a leech to bring home in a small plastic jar with a little water in hopes of some tabletop images.

To photograph it (leeches are hermaphrodites) we used a flat bottomed glass bowl sitting on a small light box. The light box is from the time when we used slide film. The light box and bowl were placed on a small stand next to the open front door so angled afternoon natural light could be used. The camera, with a 100mm macro lens, was on a tripod and pointed straight down at the leech in the bowl.

It was quite active – stretching and retracting as it moved about in the shallow water. Several tiny baby leeches came out of the folds along the edges.  After hatching, the larvae are carried about by the adult for several weeks. After a few minutes they reattached to the adult.

The leech could stretch to about 7 cm (2 3/4 inches) in length with a long slender neck and tiny head. This image is when it was retracted to 3 cm (1 1/4 inches). A tiny larva is on the lower right.

The patterns and colors (shades and tints of brown, tan, rust, dark green) altered as it changed shape and size. The kaleidascopic and fractal-like patterns are fascinating to watch. As well a still images, we did a short video in hopes of showing how it moves.

We had hoped to find information to determine the species but have not. Any advice will be most welcome. In the mean time we can enjoy the beauty we found.

We approached the overlook just as the sun was reaching its finger of light through a break in the early morning clouds. The St. Louis River gorge near the toe of Lake Superior was shadowed and wearing its autumn colors.  Then we caught our breaths and started framing the images that were appearing as nature highlighted the landscape.

The light traveled around the landscape reminding us of the way some painters use light. With both of us watching and working, we captured the light as it traveled over the landscape. We often speak of controlling light, especially in our small subjects work. When the landscape is grand, then nature controls the light and we must be diligent and take advantage of what transpires.

We both were using short zoom lenses and made a collection of complimentary images by varying the the zoom; sometimes including a bit of sky and changing the mood and composition by excluding it. The moving light did the rest.

The river gorge at Jay Cooke State Park runs generally east and west. The swinging bridge across it provided lovely evening (facing east) and morning (facing west) images close to the river as it plunged through its gorge.  However the views from this overlook as the early morning light explored the gorge were truly breathtaking. It was a lovely finish to a few days of landscape, rock and water photography this last week.

American Robins are fastidious birds. They are the classic early bird that gets the worm; and since hunting worms is sometimes dirty work, they love to bathe, even in winter. Now that it is spring, more frequent baths are required. Recently, while photographing bathing behaviors we stopped to consider what we were capturing even at a shutter speed of 1/250 second.

It is amusing and astounding to see a bird flutter its wings and tail into such a blur while standing completely still, without moving its head. His legs were braced in a ‘cow-hocked’ pose, not usually seen in Robins. A bit of down or a white feather from under its tail is seen blowing out to the left. A sturdy tripod enabled sharp images even when parts of the bird were moving so rapidly. The wing and tail shaking are considered sterotypical bathing/drying behavior in many songbirds. They all do it and each species does it in a particular way.

This male had just finishing wading about splashing, dipping his head, fluttering his wings and doing kneebends down into the bird bath, also considered routine and stereotypical bathing behavior. He then spent time perched to finish the sequence by shaking his feathers dry and preening.

Among his flutters and shakes, he took time to rub his head with his sturdy flight feathers on the underside of one wing, but not the other. This must be for grooming his head and neck where he cannot reach with his foot. This was the first time we captured that behavior.

And here he is, ready to give one more all-over shake before flying off, clean and refreshed, ready for more late afternoon worm hunting.

Birds are flighty subjects. They move, they fly, they blink. One of the bird photographer’s best friends is the high speed continuous shutter function on newer cameras. In fact, if the subject has eyes, the burst of images taken with a high speed continuous shutter can mean the difference between a keeper and a discard.

The image below is the file just before the one above in the image series of a Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) who had just had a drink at the heated waterer in our snow-covered back yard. A small group of these gentle birds gather most mornings to rest and nap in the crabapple tree. The have a drink and may look for some seeds before continuing on their rounds.

Our current cameras have both low speed and high speed continuous functions. The low speed has a maximum of three images per second and the high speed produces eight frames per second when the shutter button is depressed. Using this function requires keeping the battery well charged to get the maximum number of images per second.

Flying bird photography became much easier when this feature was added to cameras. When birds (or any creatures) are moving across the focus plane, it is possible to get series of images that can be composited as a panorama to show the changing positions as they move through.

We recently made an eagle panorama of five images selected from a group made as the camera at high speed continuous was panned on a tripod as the eagle flew by.

One of the maxims we try live by is “the best place is here and the best time is now.” The necessity of remembering this was again brought home this week. On Sunday evening we went to a local park and garden to look for some fall color images. Most of the flowers were fading though there still were some like those is this image. The tops of colorful trees were softly lit by the evening sun so we made a few images including the one above.

We noticed a few insects including a sphinx moth, sometimes referred to as a hummingbird moth. That was another reminder to bring other lenses and equipment than the ones we planned to use because other subjects can and will appear. So we decided to return late Monday afternoon to do some more photography.

Well, when we got there we found that the gardeners had pulled almost all of the flowers in the large garden, preparing the garden for the winter. To our disappointment this flower bed and most others were bare earth. We had hoped to use a different lens than the one used Sunday to improve the image. This was made with a 100mm macro lens rather than the 70-200mm lens that would have been preferable.

Images are an effort to make the ephemeral more permanent. We all must spend more time in the here and now.

Each October the late autumn asters are one of the last pleasure of Indian summer day. The lovely weather has presented many opportunities to enjoy these common delights. Two colors, both native – one much admired and the other sometimes considered a weed – are the topic of this entry.

There are several native, white asters with a spindly growth pattern that sometimes leads to people calling them weeds. It may be because they are found competing with real weeds in open areas. We think this one may be the Hairy Aster (Aster pilosus) because of its hairy stems and leaf pattern. It offers pretty plumes of half inch (1 cm.) blossoms often seen along roads, in pastures and woodlands, and other dry locations. The yellow center is the cluster of tubular disk flowers surrounded by white ray flowers. The above blossom and stem are about 1 inch (2 cm.) tall. One of the pleasures of using macro-lenses is being able really look at a small subject.

It is often easy to look into the face of one of the tall purple asters found in prairies and increasingly in native plant gardens. The fresh New England Aster (Aster novae-anglia) above shows the opening yellow tubular flowers. The dense purple rays provide a cheerful fringe. A late season honey bee is foraging in the mature yellow disks below.

The ray flowers are usually dense but these are less so, providing a peek-a-boo moment when viewed from the side.

The bract pattern at the bases of blooms are often described when keying out a species. The Hairy Aster is sometimes described as having needle-like in-rolled bracts at the base and the New England Aster is described as having a broad, clasping base of overlapping bracts. Close-up photography allows one to really look, enjoy and marvel at the great variety in nature.

P.S. The white aster was photographed with a 180 mm macro lens and the purple ones with a 100mm lens. The main difference is working distance for similar sizes on the sensor (or the film of the past).

We are still photographers because it is the art and craft of capturing the beauty of an instant. We are discovering that some of these moments can be expanded a bit with video.

In our September 13th post we told about the yearling and the spring cub we saw at the Pack Creek – Stan Price State Wildlife Preserve on Admiralty Island, Southeast Alaska. This pair (in the above photo) were delightful to watch, and a reason to record a movie file on one of our cameras. We are novices at video but felt impelled to upload about 30 seconds of baby bear play on YouTube.

There must be a trick to creating a video file that retains its quality through the conversion when uploaded to YouTube. There is so much to learn. Click on YouTube to see this first attempt. For birders among the viewers, the sound track is mostly gulls.