Fairweather Zealot

Well, it’s official – my wife is a professional photographer. Continue reading

This past Saturday, I finally had a few hours in the morning to get out and do some birding. Almost all of fall migration has gone by and I had yet to see any warblers. Time has been a precious commodity, and so I got up at the crack of dawn Continue reading

Catalpa Sphinx Moth (parasitized)
Ceratomia catalpae

When I was hiking around Palmyra Cove last Sunday, I came across several Catalpa trees that were rife with large caterpillars. And most of those caterpillars were rife with something else – little eggs all over their bodies. Continue reading

Not a whole lot of time to write now, so I figured that I would just throw up some pictures from Longwood Gardens from last weekend. I’ll be back soon. Continue reading

Last weekend started early for me, as our company has ‘summer hours’ – meaning that assuming you put in your time, you get out of the office at 3 p.m. on Fridays between Memorial and Labor days. I happen to think it’s a great idea, and enthusiastically try to support it. I say ‘try’ because I’ve yet to actually leave at 3 – my record, so far, is 3:30 because I’m a sucker and things come up at 2:55 all the time.

When I got home, I really needed to get out and take some pictures. I’d been fairly cooped up all week at work, and needed some outside time. Shari wasn’t feeling well, so I ran out to some local ponds in search of dragonflies. The hunt wasn’t entirely successful as most of the local ponds had little more than Common Whitetails running around, although I did see some cool damselflies, including my first Citrine Forktail.

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Common Green Darner – female
Anax junius

Ever since I saw my first one of these huge dragonfly beauties (they measure about 3"/80mm in length), I’ve been trying to get a good shot. The closest I’ve had before this was a flight shot, which you couldn’t really tell what it was. It turns out that the reason is that they rarely perch at all, and their flight speeds reach upward of 55mph (about 85kph). No wonder they’re hard to get in flight.
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After working until 1 a.m. Friday night and then again Saturday from about 10:45 a.m. until nearly 3:30, I needed a break. I really wanted to get out birding, but it was a little late for that. We did have a bunch of nice birds in the yard, but it wasn’t until I went over to our rosebush to look for aphids that I started seeing a them and a bunch of other cool things. Continue reading

On our last day in Texas, we were a little bummed – the trip had been just too short. But we had planned it that way – I was still new at my job, so taking a lot of vacation wasn’t a great idea, and we wanted to skimp and save on costs where we could. In retrospect, both seemed short-sighted, LOL. Continue reading

We are having a small art exhibit at work, and I am submitting a few pictures to be displayed. I can have two pictures and I know that I am going to use my shot of the Amur Leopard as my first, but I’m trying to figure out what the second should be. Alternately, I could print smaller versions and combine them into an 8×10 collage. Continue reading

Red-Tailed Hawk
Buteo jamaicensis

Today, Shari and I took the dogs out to celebrate our being together for 6 years and well, because it was a beautiful day. Our trip to Tinicum was well-rewarded, because at the very beginning of the trail, two red-tailed hawks were perched within 20′ of the trail. Continue reading