A recent visit to Hathaway Park

Posted on 2011/08/08 by birds n' bugs

Hathaway Park is a small park on Shell Creek.  It has two entrances on Washington Loop Road off US-17 in Punta Gorda FL.  With the recent heat, and rain, I haven’t had a lot of bird or animal activity to shoot.  They seem to like sitting in the shade and moving around only in the cool of the morning and evening.  But, the bugs and wildflowers were abundant today.  The park has two entrances.  One enters the boat ramp and bridle trail area which has ample parking for trailers.  The other does not have trailer parking spaces.  It does have the Canoe/Kayak launch area which leads to Shell Creek.    The left picture shows the view of the boat ramp looking down Shell Creek from the Canoe/Kayak/Nature trail area and the one on the right shows the view from the Kayak launch point.  Once launched, you would go right around the foliage shown on the right and you would enter Shell Creek near the boat ramp.  But, I wasn’t on the water, I took the nature path to see what was to be found.  The rains had refreshed and invigorated everything.  Wildflowers were abundant as were insects.  If you recall the old fable of the ants and grasshopper you might find this picture amusing.  The grasshopper is an Eastern Lubber – Romalea guttata and the ant is uhhhhhhh, an ant.

  

The spider on the right is an Orchard Orbweaver – Leucauge venusta which is sometimes called a Venusta orchard spider.

But the most interesting sight today was a group of leafhoppers which were emerging from their nymphal stage in the saw palmetto.  it was possible to see them in several stages.

  

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Babcock-Webb WMA after the rains

Posted on 2011/08/01 by birds n' bugs

I hadn’t been to Babcock-Webb WMA outside of Punta Gorda for a few weeks. The high temperatures were keeping most of the critters down for the day. We have been having some rain lately and the mornings are a little cooler so I thought I would take a run out to see what it was like now.

The recent rains had flooded a lot of the low lying areas of the recreational area.  Not deep but a good few inches of water all around.  Here is a shot of normally dry ground next to Seaboard Grade.

I was very pleasantly surprised. The management had clearly been working on the roads. The Seaboard Grade run between Tuckers Grade and Tram Grade had been completely redone. The cross sump that allows drainage was new and the road had been graded and covered with fresh gravel.

The left picture is the new cross drain and the right a view down the road from the cross drain.  I had previously reported this as being suitable only for high ground clearance vehicles but, now, I believe that any car could travel on it.

Once I got to Tram Grade, I kept heading north on Seaboard to the gates to the hunting area.  This area is closed to vehicles except in hunting season but, there is a pedestrian gate which makes it a great place to walk.  It’s fairly well off the beaten track and used for cattle grazing in the off season.  It’s a grass track here used by farm vehicles.

   

The picture on the left is looking back to the end of the gravelled section of seaboard and the right picture is of a couple of locals I found about a 1/4 mile down the grade.  I did see a pair of young deer running for the sheer joy of it parallel to the grade.  They were too far away to get a decent shot but, watching the backlit spray as they ran was a great picture.   As I returned along Seaboard, I found this Southern Leopard Frog on the edge of the water.

   

 

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Death of a dreamcatcher

Posted on 2011/07/26 by birds n' bugs

Whenever I walked the Nature Trail at Ponce De Leon Park, I always went to the harbor end of the fishing pier to see what was being caught.  Not by the fishermen, by the mangrove branch I called the dreamcatcher.  The branch projected out from the shore near the end of the pier and frequently caught the lures, leaders, line and bobbers of the fishermen.  It was always nicely festooned with that assortment and each line was the end of the dream of catching a fish.  For the moment at least.  Here is the dreamcatcher with a fair amount of its pirated booty.


The leaves of the branch were always stripped as people tried to pull the lures and line loose but, eventually, they gave in and cut the line. The recoil of the branch wrapped the lines even tighter. On Monday, I went around the walk and discovered that someone had pruned the branch well back ensuring the end of fewer dreams. At least, for a while, you can see that even more branches are beginning to grow out.

I was a bit late getting out so, the birds had fed and were resting in the heat. I saw several Green Herons deep mangroves but, the only wildlife in easy shooting range were mangrove crabs.

The fishermen grab these from the mangroves as bait.

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Mockingbird vs. Osprey – Fierce and fearless

Posted on 2011/07/08 by birds n' bugs

The other day, an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) chose the mast of my boat to dry off after missing a couple of fish.  This drew the attention of a of Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) which was nesting on the other side of the canal.  I haven’t found the nest over there but, it must be close enough to need protection.  Here are the protagonists.  On the left, a wet Osprey which needs to rest up and dry before trying again.  On the right, the Mockingbird taking a break from harassing the Osprey.

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There is a big difference in size but, the Mockingbird certainly does not lack courage.  The Osprey varied from anger to frustration.  Being wet, it was in no shape for aerial combat so, it just sat there.  Here are a few shots from the many attacks.

   

   

   

Polyglottus in the Mockingbirds name means that it imitates the calls of many other birds, mocking them in other words.  This is used to keep other birds away from it’s range.  The other birds hear the false calls and assume that there is another of their species there and go find another place to stake out.  So, the Mockingbird is not only fierce and brave it’s pretty smart too.

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It’s CHNEP Calendar time

Posted on 2011/07/01 by birds n' bugs

The annual submission period for the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program (CHNEP) calendar ends July 14 at 5PM.  If you have nature photographs taken within the Peace or Myakka river watersheds you can enter them for the calendar.  The only award is publication and credit but, it’s certainly a worthwhile educational cause for all outdoorsmen and women to support.

Here is one I got published in the 2009 calendar.

More information is available at the calendar web page.  Once they are all assembled, the on-line voting phase will begin.

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It sure is hot out!

Posted on 2011/06/25 by birds n' bugs

Last week, I was headed down to Ponce De Leon Park whenI noticed this Yellow Crowned Night Heron cooling off in the Vivante pond.  You don’t often see wading birds actually immersing themselves like this but, I’ll just bet the water felt nice and cool.  Originally, he was in completely up to his neck with only the head showing but, when I got a little closer, he gradually lifted himself out of the water for a  shake and a little run along the shore before resuming his normal standing, but slightly damp pose.  As usual, you can click on the picture for a larger view.

       

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The fatal squirrel?

Posted on 2011/06/23 by birds n' bugs

Our city council has been considering some restrictions around the local eagles nest which I commented on in a letter to the editor.  The letter basically summarized some of the posts in this blog.  I did mention a photo of the eagle carrying a bedraggled squirrel which may have been poisoned.  This is the picture.  The day after this was taken, all three eagles became very sick.  The baby did not survive.


Previous posts regarding the eagles are at

Punta Gorda’s Urban eagles

2010 Update

Extreme Sports for Squirrels

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Flying things at the airport

Posted on 2011/06/21 by birds n' bugs

I had to go to Southwest Florida International Airport today to deal with a luggage issue.

I took the camera bag along to see what I could find around the airport to take pictures of.  Well, no unusual airlines or aircraft today but, while I waited in the observation area near the General Aviation Terminal, I noticed a lot of other flight activity.  I popped the 105mm f2.8 VR Micro-Nikkor on the D90 and used the SB-800 flash on-camera to shoot bugs while waiting for airplanes.   There were several butterflies around feeding on the Asters and Spanish  Needles so I got down low.  Looking under the first Spanish Needle, I found this Midge.


How do I know it’s a midge? Well, I uploaded the image to http://www.bugguide.net
and got an identification in 3 minutes! I’m not sure if that’s a record but, it was unbelievably fast.  For bug shooters it is an incredible resource.  I also found a Dainty Sulphur feeding on an aster and a Jumping Spider.  You can click on the images for larger versions.

   

As to the luggage issue, well, they said I’d hear something in a couple of weeks.

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Snakes in trees

Posted on 2011/06/19 by birds n' bugs

OK, snakes aren’t everybodies mostest favorite thing but, they are actually useful critters.  Even the venomous ones.

On Friday, I was trimming one of my small palm trees.  I’m not sure of the type but, they are usually planted in pairs, have curved trunks and a ruff of dead frond material around the top.  As I started pulling out the dead leaves and cutting them, I noticed a bit of an unusual color and texture in the ruff.  When I took a closer look, I found this Corn Snake – Elaphe guttata coiled in the ruff.  After moving down from Maryland, I thought it was a Copperhead until I checked the range and coloration.

 
It reminded me of another snake I had found climbing the same tree. It was a Black Rat Snake – Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta and a Yellow Rat Snake – Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata I had found in Ponce de Leon Park.  Here are their pictures, just click for a larger view.

   

They all reminded me of an airboat ride in the Everglades near Everglades City.  The airboat driver pointed out that, in Florida, snakes can climb trees and that sometimes one gets knocked into the boat by accident.  The airboat drivers are all trained in snake recognition and know which are venomous and which are not.  We were instructed that in the event of a snake falling into the boat, we should look around to the driver.  If he was still in the boat, the snake was NOT poisonous.

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Shooting Fireworks Displays

Posted on 2011/06/09 by birds n' bugs

Well, it’s that time of year again.  In the US, the Fourth of July holiday will bring out the questions of how to take pictures of fireworks.

The first thing to consider is a location to shoot from.  Watching fireworks is fun from up close but, taking pictures might mean staying a bit further away.  This is a picture where I wanted to get our local bridge into the picture so, I shot from well down the harbor near the Isles Yacht Club.  I wanted to get some foreground in the picture so, I used 1/8th of a second to make sure I stopped the boat in the reflection.  When you are shooting back like this, just set the focus to manual and infinity.  You don’t want your AF system to suddenly start hunting as the fireworks appear and disappear.

You can see that the actual trails of the fireworks are rather short.  You might want to get more of the ‘blossom’ .   Fireworks are self illuminating and what you see as a blossoming picture is actually a lot of individual burning pieces which your eye remembers as the trail.  So, we need to expose our digital sensor or film remember over a longer period of time to see the trail.  To start with, I use a shutter speed of 2 seconds at f8.0 unless I have some other reason like the foreground above.  Obviously, with that sort of shutter speed, you are going to need a good support, so, be sure to use a tripod.

Here are a couple of shots.  The one on the left was 2.5 seconds at f11 but, I didn’t manage to get the entire blossom in the frame.  The one on the right was 5 seconds at f11 but, while it was better centered, some of the lighter colors were blown out.  You can click on the image for a larger view.

    

Obviously, you can’t predict the height, elevation or color of a particular launch so, you are going to get a lot of unpredictable results.  That’s just a starting point though, I like unpredictable results so, after getting a few reasonable blossom shots, I start panning up and down to see what I find in the final image.  Here are a couple of those.

   

The one on the left, I call Alien Butterflies and the one on the right, the comet or ghost.  the one below is Warp 8, Mr. Sulu.

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