Not sure what type of fly - but it hung around long enough for a few shots both with the Tamrom SP 90 and the Laowa 25mm @ 5x. The third and forth shots demonstrate with and without image stacking. Later in the day, I discovered a Kneeled Treehopper on our sunflowers.
Comet Hunting 2.0
Some clearer skies tonight as we hunted NEOWISE.
I Found Goldbug!
A few more backyard friends - two lined spittlebug, long legged fly. leaf hoppers mating, fly, and mystery gold bug.
Friends on a Fence
Some bugs hanging out on our back fence.
Searching for Comets
With only a little success…
Little Bugs
Leaf Hopper (3mm) and a Keeled Treehopper (Entylia carinata) with eggs (~5mm)
Jumping for Joy!
My whole day came to a stop when my youngest daughter noticed a spider on the ceiling. A great visit from a tan jumping spider.
The first images are taken with the Tamron SP 90mm macro lens with the Raynoc DCR-250 magnifier. In the final two images, I wanted to see how close I could get and switched to he Laowa 25mm 2.5x-5x lens. An extremely difficult lens to shot, but the results were great. No crop on the second to last image and the final image only has a 10% crop. One drawback, you’re so close, the spider keeps keeping on the lens. (click on the images to enlarge.)
Downtown Dayton
The dust storm apparently hasn’t gotten here yet.
Bug Season
Limited depth of field. In macro, depth of field is always the biggest challenge. Testing the sharpness of my lens - here are some images off the Tamron lens with f/stops between f/11 - f/22. A note on these images - the artifacts in the background are an effect of exporting the high-res files to the web (jpeg.) This happens with very smooth gradations - if you add some noise to the background, you can avoid this.
Bugs (and stuff) Around the House
Dusting the rust off my macro photography (and a few backyard birds.)
At Home Photography - A Few I Missed
Here are a few photos I missed posting the last few week. The dragonfly was saved from our pool, and lived to fly another day.
Backyard Photography
For the last several days, I’ve been working on some backyard photography. The quality of image you can get with flash and tripods is just miles ahead of what you typically get doing handheld wildlife photography. I wish the Yellow warbler was in my backyard (we heard one, haven’t seen one.)
Gray Day :(
The Weather.com app had a picture of the sun - reality ended up being different. Gray skies, wind, and cold, cold, cold. And to boot, the birds were to to be found - except at home.
Big Day Out
Not exactly big, but a great birding trip to Spring Valley Wildlife Area. It was a big photo day, with warbling vireo down low, a short visit with a black and white warblers, and the Virginia rail out in the open.
More Migration (at Spring Valley Wildlife Area)
A few from Saturday….and a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak from home.
And a few from Monday…
And some more from May 7th (Thursday) . Also very excited to have a Yellow-Throated Warbler visit the house.
Baby Birds and More
Tuesday brought 70-degree temperatures and sunshine (that’s gone today. A long trip to Spring Valley Wildlife Area almost ended with no keeper images. I then had a great encounter with Sora and Virginia Rail that changed my luck.
Birding (near and @ home)
Morning trip to Spring Valley and evening in the backyard.
Visiting (and revisiting, and revisiting) Spring Valley Wildlife Area
Apparently the groundhog was wrong, as spring migration appears to be a few weeks later than normal.
Nearby, Spring Valley Wildlife Area is one of the few wetlands attractive to a wide variety of migrating warblers, marsh birds, and waterfowl. This time of year, the yellow-rumped warbler would usually be in large numbers already, and consistently I am only finding a small handful. I was fortunate to find a singular Prothonotary Warbler by the shore last weekend, and a friendly Northern Parula Thursday. No signs yet of Palm warblers, Yellow Warblers, Eastern Kingbird, or waterthrush.
Back in Ohio (for quite a while)
Coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused SCAD to switch to teaching online this spring quarter. While I’ve been trying to get out and hike, I’m quickly remembering that finding birds in Ohio is a lot more challenging than along the low-country coast. Here are a few shots from this week. The spring migration is not hitting as soon as I thought it would.
Here is a 9-image stack in Registax 6 of the full moon. April’s ‘Pink’ full moon is supposed to be the closest moon of the year. The blue-gray gnatcatcher below is one of the few early signs of spring in Ohio.
Jekyll and St. Simon Island
A quick day visit to the Emerald Isle proved fruitful. Horton Pond played host to several wood ducks. Marshes of Glenn Park hosted American White Pelican and more. And lastly, the moon rose beautifully over St. Simon Island at sunset.
