a little wild   (a small slice of wildlife)

A good test for the night mode of my Sony A33. Venus and Jupiter were about 1/3 of a degree apart.

From 20150630_conjunction

On June 23rd, we had some fantastic weather (it was fantastic because nobody got hurt and there was no damage). We saw plenty of action, and some conical clouds that did not touch the ground; but a couple of towns over, in Wrentham, there was a documented tornado at around 6 pm. Sunset, around 8:30, was spectacular.

This is a good time to remind everyone that I try to minimize the photo processing on my photos, because in the end I want to go back to nature and see the patterns where they live. This particular set has no post-processing at all. (An exception, of course, is black and white photos, where I feel justified in playing with the contrast — it’s an honest form of lying.)

From 20150623_after_tornado

From 20150623_after_tornado

From 20150623_after_tornado

Cast the photo black and white, crank up the contrast, and pray for atmosphere:

From 20150620_king_phillips

From 20150620_king_phillips

From 20150620_king_phillips

From 20150620_king_phillips

Love Odonates! Especially love to get them flying, which is tough.

From 20150620_king_phillips

From 20150620_king_phillips

It was a big day for beetles, too:

From 20150620_king_phillips

Ground beetle? Tiger beetle? This seems an awkward angle:

From 20150620_king_phillips

This is genus Calosoma, ground beetles (Carabidae). Looking at this shell with and without flash was interesting — see where the color comes from?

From 20150620_king_phillips

From 20150620_king_phillips

From 20150620_king_phillips

What a gorgeous scarab beetle (June bug, Phyllophaga nebulosa?).

From 20150620_king_phillips

I turned over a rock, and saw a sowbug killer spider (Dysderidae); in fact, I’ve pretty much only seen these spiders when I look under rocks. Also some interesting unidentified ants.

From 20150620_king_phillips

From 20150620_king_phillips

From 20150620_king_phillips

And finally, plenty of very mysterious insect signs:

From 20150620_king_phillips

Note that in this next photo, the twigs were only on top and did not pass through the leaf. Perhaps from the bagworm, Psychidae.

From 20150620_king_phillips

A very shiny egg sac for somebody:

From 20150620_king_phillips

This is the cocoon of a parasitic wasp. There is a shrivelled caterpillar somewhere in this mess that has been eaten away by the wasp larvae.

From 20150620_king_phillips

A wet morning. The droplets on the grass and bushes were too inviting, so I took some time to take some photos.

I find it tough to properly frame and crop photos like these, as they are composed of an accumulation of lots of small but interesting elements. There’s not always a well-defined focus or flow to them. When you see an opportunity for a good photo then, go and grab it!

From 20150616_droplets

From 20150616_droplets

From 20150616_droplets

From 20150616_droplets

From 20150616_droplets

What I’ve noticed about photographing water droplets is that it’s critical to consider what’s behind the droplet, in terms of both background (flowers and leaves are nice!) and sunlight. Still trying to get better at this.

From 20150616_droplets

From 20150616_droplets

From 20150616_droplets

Finally, this one is the one that got away. I was really looking forward to showing the blades of grass skewing in all directions, each with its strand of droplets — unfortunately, I didn’t calculate for the foreground piece out of focus.

From 20150616_droplets

Here’s the best crop I could recover from it:

From 20150616_droplets