Corkscrew Swamp - 10.07.12 - Post 3

Okay, now that the dolphin detour is over, I can get back to Corkscrew Swamp.

Hickory Tussock Moth Caterpillar (050 - 2012)

Near as I can figure, this is a Hickory Tussock Moth Caterpillar.  It's a lot like the White-Marked Tussock that I showed the other day.  Obviously, this one is white and the 'hair' patterns are different, but the over-all effect is pretty similar.

Here's another one.  Like the White-Marked, these caterpillars tended to travel in herds and also they can do you some damage if you think "oh cute, little fuzzy guy!" and try to pet him.

I thought this is a plain old Eastern Pondhawk, of which we have a ton in Chicago.  But it was awfully small, so I dug a little deeper and it turns out that it's a Blue Dasher.  You can tell by the yellow on the thorax and the lower part of the abdomen.

Phaon Crescent Butterfly (051 - 2012)

There are a truly ridiculous number of small orange and brown/black butterflies in the world.  Best I can figure this is a Phaon Crescent.  It's about an inch and a half across, when the wings are spred, it has white antennae with black tips.  (If I've got this wrong, feel free to correct me. :)







I didn't realize how many bugs I had from this trip.  So... more insects tomorrow. :)

Corkscrew Swamp, Everglades, FL - 10.7.12 - Post 1

I know, I know, it's like I fell off the face of the internet.  Short version: new day job, long hours, successful craft and art shop.  No time to blog.  In fact, very little time to shoot.

But I made the time to get down to Florida while I could this week and I'm doing as much shooting as humanly possible in my four and a half days down here.

Yesterday we went to an amazing place called The Octogon.  No, it has nothing to do with Mixed Martial Arts... but I'll talk about them later.

Today was Corkscrew Swamp.  Corkscrew is part of the Everglades and is a pretty amazing place with wildlife unlike anything you get to see in the great 'wilderness' of Chicago.

So I'm going to start off with a few of the highlights from what I saw today.

White Marked Tussock Moth Caterpilar (044 - 2012)

 This is a White-Marked Tussock Moth Caterpillar.  He's kind of creepy-cute, but that's pretty deceptive... he's venomous.  Not poisonous (meaning you get sick only if you eat it), but venomous.  Don't pet him!






 

There were a great many of them down a particular sub-path on the boardwalk.  We had to be careful where we leaned over the railings that we didn't get got! 

Just a quick little video of them scampering along the wood.  It's only 11 seconds.

White-Tailed Deer (045 - 2012)

These deer were adorable!  They were so small we thought at first they were Key Deer, but Key Deer actually only live on the, you know, Florida Keys.  So they're White-Tailed Deer, according to the checklist you can download from the site's website.  Anyway there were a couple of them out in the grasses.  This one stayed pretty close to us.  Here she's looking at me like, "Really, I'm eating here.  Do you have to watch?"

Eastern Lubber Grasshopper (046 - 2012)

 One last critter for this post.  A great big, very bright yellow-orange grasshopper!  An Eastern Lubber Grasshopper to be exact.

 He was pretty mellow about us walking around him and taking pictures of him.    I love that if you look carefully (and, you know, blow the picture up to full size), you can see his mandibles folded up against his face!






So there's three quick new species for this trip.  I have oh so terribly many more pictures to sort, edit and post.  This is barely even a drop in a bucket.  But hey, I have to start somewhere!

Please excuse the load time...

These shots are for a critique session I'm attending tomorrow, so I'm uploading them full size.

A Break in the Clouds

Snowy Night

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Unfolding

Mr. Fokker Poppy

Ripples in the Lily Pond

Bottle Gentians in Beautiful Blues

If anyone checking out my blog tonight has any critiques, I'd love to hear what you think too!

Volo Bog - 9.04.10 - Post 3

Still working on Volo Bog.  The more I look at these shots the more I realize that while a lot of them aren't *bad*, a lot more of them would be *good* if I could be bothered to schlep my tripod more often.

Honeybee on Flower Bulb

Here's a pretty decent shot of a honeybee.  This was snapped in a windier moment and you can see how the bee has dug in to the flower with not only his legs, but his antennae in order to hold in such lovely weather

Pollen Collecting Makes for a Busy Bee

Okay, so you learn something new everyday that you blog.  That bright orange spot on this honeybee?  A pollen sack.  From Honeybee Anatomy and Physiology:

The back leg is the most interesting leg. This has rows of little brushes called pollen combs which are used to pass pollen up the leg. As it makes this journey, the pollen is moistened with a bit of nectar so the bee can knead it into a pellet and then place it on a spike that we call the "pollen sack". 

So we can be certain that this guy has, in fact, been a busy little bee. :)
 

Clouds Over Volo Bog

These next two shots are some of my all time favorites, which is unusual for me since I don't do a lot of landscapes.  Thes are shots from a bird and bog overlook at on the Tamarack Trail.  I took some shots, ate my lunch and then shot some more.  These strike me so much as watercolors more than photographs.  This one was done with the telephoto lens on, pulled back as far as I could.  I love the look of the clouds as well as the fact that in the break in the duckweed, the water is so still you can see the reflection of that tree that's sticking out over the water in the center of the picture.

A Break in the Clouds

Same place, different lens.  I put on the kit lens to get a wider view.  By the time I finished my lunch there was a very small break in the clouds, giving the photo a new focal point and brightening the clouds.

Common Darter, a Long Way from Home?

Back to the telephoto and the small world again.  A new dragonfly for me.  Everything I find online shows me that this should be a Common Darter.  Thing about Common Darters is that they live in Europe and there is no listing (that I can find) of them having a population in the U.S.  (The only thing I find is other people going, "I swear this is a Common Darter, but those don't live in the U.S. so...?) If this IS a Common Darter, it's a mature female - the females start off dark yellow and turn chocolate-brown as they age.  Sure looks right to me.

Common Darter, Face First

Same critter, different angle.  You can see, slightly better, the white face and her wings.  If anyone knows for sure what kind of dragonfly I have here, I'd love to get your input.

Buckeye: Side View

Buckeyes are ridiculously friendly to photographers.  They tend to land in the open and don't seem overly bothered when a human creeps up on them. 

Buckeye: Facing Front

I was even able to pass her and come around and shoot her face from a different angle. (BTW, unless there's an obvious coloration difference between the genders or other obvious sign of gender, I randomly assign genders to the critters I shoot.  I don't like referring to them as 'it' if I can avoid it.)

Yellow Bee on Goldenrod

Yes, another bee.  What I like about this one is not only that the bee is nice and clear, but the only part of the picture in focus is the bee and the branch he's hanging on and the leaf right next to him.

Questionable Caterpillar

Please help!  I'm reasonably sure this is some kind of caterpillar.  He's caterpillar-shaped and has little caterpillar-type feet visible near the left-hand side.  But searching is getting me absolutely nowhere.  The problem with Google is that when you search for "pink caterpillar" you don't just get 'baby butterflies and moths'.  You get about 75 million cutesy little companies for baby clothes or cloth lunch bags.  So I'd love it if someone could help me identify this guy.

That's ten... I'm maybe half-way done with the shots from this hike.  All in all, it was a pretty good day behind the camera.

South Pond - 8.30.10 - Post 3 (The Very Hungry Caterpillar Gets a Very Stripey Friend)

Okay, yesterday I posted a huge batch of pictures of a monarch caterpillar.  Well, while I was planted on the boardwalk snapping away, a wasp came over and joined Claude.  (We'll call him Claude.  'A monarch caterpillar' gets a little old after a while, and after all, I've gone on about him for two days, so he deserves a name. :)

Claude and a Wasp

Here's Claude and his friend the wasp.  The wasp is drinking from the flowers... Claude is eating the thing whole.  I'm really thrilled with how clear this little wasp came out.  You can see how he's using his antennae to hold himself still and his bright green eyes are mesmerizing.

The Wasp Sees Claude

In this one you can see in the space between the wasp's eyes.  And you can see Claude twisting to work on that slightly raggedy flower.  You can see the stem left from the flower he was eating in yesterday's post just to the left of Claude's antennae.  You can see the black splotch on his back in this one.

Parallel Stripes

This may be the best shot of the two of them.  The wasp came in ridiculously clear.  This is the shot that let me identify him as a sand wasp.  Which explains why he was so content to be so close to the ground.

Parenthetical Insects

This one gives the effect of a set of parenthesis turned 90 degrees. 

A Closer Inspection

Here the wasp comes down to check out Claude.  Claude seems way more interested in sucking down that milkweed flower.

Wasp Eyes on the Photographer (Claude Doesn't Care)

Now the wasp is looking at me.  I mentioned a few posts back that I need to become re-afraid of things that can puncture me.  Apparently this was not that day.

Friends Come in Every Stripe

 I have to say that I did love that Claude and the wasp had the same colors and are both stripes.  It makes the visual effect simpler and, I think, more striking.  There's probably a joke about them calling each other to coordinate their outfits that day. :)









Okay, I'm still not done with the day's hike, but I think I may be done with Claude.  He was an awesome 'portrait model' though, and I wish him well in his butterflying days ahead.

South Pond - 8.30.10 - Post 2 (The Very Hungry Caterpillar)

Americans (at least) of a Certain Age were raised on children's books by Eric Carle.  One of my favorites was always The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which was written in 1969 (so it's just a bit older than I am. ;) and while on this walk, I finally got to meet The Very Hungry Caterpillar. :)

I had been thinking just before went out that day that I'd seen so many varieties of butterflies this summer, but I hadn't seen even one caterpillar. I was sure part of it was that butterflies *grab* your attention.  When something flies across your field of vision, you follow it. Caterpillars inch along slowly and hope to not be seen, since they can't exactly bolt if they're detected by someone who wants to eat them.  So I made a mental note to look harder.  And sure enough... big, beautiful monarch caterpillar on my very next walk.  Even more fortunate, he was busily munching away on a milkweed plant that had sprung up between the boardwalk and the fence, so I was able to sit (and when necessary, lay) on the boardwalk and shoot from any angle I wanted to without anything between us blocking my view.

Monarch Caterpillar Munches Milkweed

Here he is, looking right at me.  Well, I think he is.  His eyes aren't exactly well-defined.  His antennae were amazing to watch as they wiggled and probed and twisted.  You can see here that he's munching away on the milkweed flowers.

One Petal at a Time

You can sort of see it at this size, but if you enlarge this one it's a lot easier to see; he's holding the flower petal with his front feet as he eats it.

"Bite Size" is Subjective

So much of the detail in these shots is lost when I scale them down.  In this one, you can see where he's taken a bite out of the flower petal right in front of his 'nose'.

Redefining 'Plant Food'

Here he's holding himself up with his front feet as he continues to work on the flower.  He's actually caught the flower and pulled it down to him to make eating easier.

All You Can Eat Milkweed Buffet

Here he is in context.  I love how you can see the difference between the slim front feet he'll keep as a butterfly and the stocky, blocky back feet that he needs to move his little caterpillar butt along with his front.  Again, great views of his antennae.

Petal Power

Here's a closer version from that same sequence of shots.  (You can tell it isn't the exact same shot with a different crop by his antennae positions.)

No, You Can't Have Any

Here he's coming straight at me with his antennae out like the ears of a dog.

So Many Flowers, So Little Time...

I pulled back and shot with my kit lens for a few minutes to give a greater depth of focus.  I can just hear him thinking, "So many flowers, so little time..."

Flower Powered

Here he is coming at me again, still working on that flower he'd pulled down.

*burp*  All gone.

But this is my all time favorite of him alone.  He's eaten the whole flower.  You can see the stem still on the plant.  And in his four front feet he's holding the very last bit of the flower as he chows down.  This shot, more than any other I took, makes me think of the caterpillar from "Alice in Wonderland".  I think it's the pose.




Now I need to keep an eye out for a chrysalis.  I know it's getting to the end of the season, but hey, they still seem to be procreating, as this guy proves.

Up next, my little buddy here gets a friend.