Butterflies

"The Aging Monarch"

Thanks to my conversation with the black and yellow butterfly herself, Caryn, I'm posting these 3 pics I took last year. The picture above was taken at the Beaver Brook gardens. I wish I didn't get so much haze, but I like it anyway. I could probably edit the haze out, but that would defeat the purpose of perfection in nature. :)

The next is one of my faves from the Granite Town Rail Trail. I took this in autumn, down a power-line corridor and under a bleaching sun. So, I'm not too surprised it's very yellow and fading - it captured the day nicely.













The blue and black butterfly was taken on the same trail, but earlier in the year. It was drinking dew from the rocky terrain.

The Nature of Water

This is a waterlily (lotus) that I photographed last year at Heald Pond in Wilton. Right now, lotuses are just buds on the water.

It is a warm and sunny Monday. I'm not a lover of heat so I was drawn to the watery habitats in the area - the brooks, ponds, swamps and wetlands (yes, there is a difference between the last two). I spent most of the late morning noting the best areas to find lotus blossoms for photographing in July, documenting hatchling turtles leaving the nest, and feeding Canadian goslings . Yes, I live a charmed life on occasion.

I started off looking for lotus buds. They look like little yellow and pink fishing bobbers on the ponds right now. I hunt for concentrations of them so I can go back to that spot for the couple of weeks in July when they will be in full healthy bloom. While walking a sandy bank to a swamp, I found a hole in the sand at my feet, just dug that morning. I followed tiny scrapings in the sand to the water's edge to find tiny painted turtles who were completely new to the sun and water world that they'll spend the rest of their lives in. Adorable, right?

And just to drive the 'adorable' home in your heart - here's some fluffy Canadian Goslings to take a *chuckle* GANDER at! Hehehehe Ok, that was a really bad pun and I'm sorry. :)
Now for some reason, I can't get the blog text to line up with the photos, so the next photo is below. This bullfrog needed a time in the limelight. He just chillaxed by my side as I took pictures of turtles and watersnakes. However, he's no William.

And to wrap up a picture of water life taken from the shoreline, I have a picture I took last year and is admittedly one of my favorites. This is a Northern Water Snake. These guys are not poisonous, but they do have anticoagulant in their fangs that makes a bite slow to heal. I handle them rarely because they are quick to strike and musk.

Sky Fire

I thought I'd put together a tribute to the sun with a collection of photos I took over the past year. The one above was taken at dawn last December from my balcony. I haven't touched the color at all, only shrunk the size of the image down. :) It always reminds me a bit of a painting. Oil on canvas - Janna, get on it! (after you paint me a turtle)

<-<- This is another dawn shot a few months later in March. In all my photos, I'm always trying to capture the lighting. With my little digicam, it's pretty difficult. I usually end up taking about a dozen shots only to find one good one.


I had about 15 of this rainbow ->->










<-<- This is the noon sun reflecting on a pond in Amherst. I was really out there to photograph great blue heron, but got bored and started photographing the sun on the water instead. :)

Hatching Dragons

Yesterday, I spent my time outdoors in two failed photo-journal pursuits. The first was tracking down a black capped chickadee nest I was watching. To my dismay, the nest was ransacked by some unknown predator (probably a raccoon) with nothing to show but stray feathers and egg shells. The second was to catch a freshly hatched painted turtle. A nest hatched and they quickly dropped into the stagnant, green waters of a deep roadside culvert - just out of reach. I sidled down the banking and realized with just one step in the water, I could reach one. So I took off a shoe, rolled up a pant leg, took a step down into the gross water and tried very slowly and carefully to ... and fell in! Nasty! AND I didn't get a turtle either. That was the worst part! So just when I was about to write off my day as *insert raspberry sound here*, I came across a seldom seen transformation; the hatching of dragonflies.That picture looks even nicer expanded. Click on it to see! There are so many different species of dragonflies and darners in NH, that I don't even know how to begin identifying this one without a good guide (the web is seriously lacking in good identification keys).

I walked along the grassy area by the Wildlife Pond at Beaver Brook where crickets and snakes can usually be found. Instead, I found lots of discarded, creepy shells of "dragonfly excuvae." These are the empty skins of dragons before they become flies. Don't expand the picture to the left if you don't like insects. It's rather "ew"-worthy.

Like butterflies from cocoons, dragonflies emerge from these skins complete with beautiful patterns and wings. The excuvai is normally insanely tiny compared to the dragonfly that emerges. The crumpled wings that were inside the skin are supple and crumpled. Here's a dragon that just emerged.


From this point, they try to sit stationary in the sun to dry off and let their wings harden enough to allow them flight. Just walking through the grass, I had many climb up onto me. It was very windy, so they were having a tough time of it. I sat with this one in particular, protecting it from the wind, just to see it all the way from excuvae to flight. It took a while, but it was pretty wonderful to experience. A half hour after the picture to the right, the picture below
shows the dragon's progress.


And the picture at the very top was the final snap I got before s/he took off into the air. I think it was a thank you shot. ;)