October 17th entry. Numerous days photography of a slime mold group and various photos from local park flora and fauna.
A couple of bucks tussled while a couple of does kept a very close eye on me. Meanwhile a younger buck stayed off in the distance
I'm currently working on improving my bird photography technique so going out everyday to simply practice photographing birds. Many photos, few worth sharing, but that is not the point right now. However, here are a few. The ones with totally black background were taken in full sun at really fast shutter speed (1/16000). Hey, that first one's not a bird- yes but it does have wings. A bald faced hornet still in the otherwise abandoned looking hive.
Bald-faced Hornet
Red-shouldered Hawk
Eastern Bluebird
Northern Mockingbird
Red-shouldered Hawks
Red-shouldered Hawk
House Sparrow
August 30th entry. Finally slime molds are showing up on the rotting logs in my local park
Morning photo
Afternoon photo. Notice spores visible
July 5th entry. I've been following two females and their ducklings for weeks now. Here's what happened one day 2 weeks ago
Competition for the log.
One female and her ducklings are on a log when another female comes along with her ducklings and gets up on the log.
This is not tolerated for long by the first female.
After being driven off the log the second female gathers her ducklings and approaches from the rear and gets herself and five ducklings up on the log.
Challenge accepted and first female drives second off again. Second female then immediately regains the log and drives her rival’s ducklings from the log.
First female drives second female off the log and turns her attention to the second female’s ducklings.
On subsequent days the females were observed staying away from each other.
Having started with eleven and eight ducklings the females are now down to 2 and 1
Is this how the idea of an ugly duckling came to be?
Looks like tadpole for breakfast today
June 12, 2026 A half hour in the car instead of on the bike yielded the opportunity to get the following shots. Taken in Huntley Meadows Park.
An osprey hunting high over head and then upon sighting something prepares to dive. Ended up not diving though.
A Great Blue Heron fishing close to a Red-winged Blackbird nest. The blackbirds keep a close eye on the heron and the male even makes a couple of passes which the heron pretty much ignored.
Other critters observed: frog, goldfinch, barn swallow, garter snake, pileated woodpecker
There is a pond a half hour bike ride from my house that I have been visiting regularly this spring.
Here a wood duck pair is joined by another male and who is quickly run off.
Here he is, on his own, with just his reflection to contemplate.
Three weeks later, likely after eggs have been laid, the extra male is tolerated.
Over in the Mallard group two males just wouldn’t give up.
Now weeks later. There are two females with ducklings. Here seen all lined up on a log and shortly there after huddled under mom.
First full week of May is peak of migration season in this area. The only migrator I saw was a Solitary Sandpiper (solitary being its name and current status).
The migrating Sandpiper shared a log with some local residents. Female Wood duck and female Red-winged blackbird
Two grackles. Had there been many more of them it would have been a plague of grackles.
Red-winged blackbird in flight and female red-winged blackbird (who is neither black nor red-winged)
Other citizens of the pond.
Green heron flew from pond to Four Mile run just behind me.
Cedar waxwing in our backyard in February
I often see these spider webs and have not seen a spider to go with them, until today when I zoomed in on the photo and saw the spider. The web is about 4 inches across (10cm).
December 11, 2025 Entry
Another Thanksgiving trip out to the Pacific Northwest resulted in a good time with the humans and out in nature with my camera.
Sunrise in Eugene, OR
Delta Ponds in Eugene had a nice variety of birds. Gadwall, Cormorant drying its wings in the fog, Bufflehead, American Wigeon pair, Great Blue Heron, and Kingfisher
Seattle proved to be a good place to find mushrooms. The following ones are really small, pretty easy to walk right by without noticing.
And these are larger mushrooms, easily spotted while walking along.
And now miscellaneous images
Slime mold on a moss. Feeds on bacteria not the moss.
Slime mold that has released all its spores.
Lichen
What can happen if on mushrooms while looking for them.
Bird's nest fungi. Always fun to see and hard to spot as they are so small. And what a reproductive strategy: rain drop ejects the 'eggs' some of which will stick to plant material which then may be eaten by a passing animal and disperse the spores widely.
Inkcap mushroom of some sort
May 5, 2025 Well spring inevitably brings flowers to the forefront . So here are a few.
Same bleeding heart days later
Lady slipper
Wild azalea
Redbud
Money plant
Spiderwort
Quince
Fritillary
March 2025. Birds observed while out in Seattle and Eugene.
Snipe. Very hard to see in the wild. Thrilled to have gotten some good photos of it.
Hooded Merganser pair
Scrub jay
Sunny morning at the pond
Foggy morning at the pond
Ring-necked duck pair in the fog
Keeping watch over the pond after the fog cleared.
Anna's Hummingbird
It is spring in Northern Virginia.
Fall of 2024 entry following.
This is a submission for all you mycophiles (you know who you are) with a few slime molds thrown in. It has been very dry here this summer and start of fall but we had an eleven day stretch of rain and that has loosed the reproductive actions of both slime molds and fungi.
The bird’s nest fungi are small, about half the size of my little finger nail. There are more than 30 species and I think my photos encompass two species. In one day I could see all the different phases of the fruiting body. For other mushrooms I had to follow for a few days to see the changes.
When out in the wilds (of suburban Washington, DC) you have to be prepared for anything. When the big buck showed up fortunately I had a camera ready with a long lens so I could get a photo even though I was focused on mushrooms inches or less above the ground.
Incredibly the little orange puff ball in photo below grows into the bird's nest!
Fluted Bird's Nest (Cyathus striatus)
Fluted Bird's Nest (Cyathus striatus)
Stemonitis sp
Physarum sp
Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa with mushroom
Lycogala sp
Lycogala sp at 4x
Physarum sp
Stemonitis sp
9/4/2024 entry. Slime mold season has come to an end in my area. Following are the few I have seen in the last month. I have been finding other items of interest to me to photograph and those are included here as well
Ceratiomyxa is a very widespread genus of slime mold with numerous species and is the genus I saw most often this year.
The following 5 shots are of a crab spider looking for a place to hide and wait for prey to arrive and then the outcome.
Looking for a spot.
Lying in wait
Incoming
Getting closer
Making the grab.
Missed
I don't see how this crab spider is going to catch anything with no flowers to attract prey.
Arrowhead Orbweaver
Day after super blue moon reflected in Delta Ponds in Eugene, OR
Almost lost in a riot of color
7/26/24 Entry. In mid April I spent a day in the Mojave National Preserve a few hours from Las Vegas.
Even in April an early start on hikes is advisable. Sunrise in the Mojave Desert
He may be bigger than me and with horns but it didn't want anything to do with me.
Good camouflage or what?
A flycatcher. I guess it sees something flying towards it.
Really that's where the trail goes.
Then it gets challenging.
I spent one day in Death Valley in mid April. The place is stunning and one day is certainly not enough. Preparing these photos has just made me determined to get back there again some day and spend more time
This was taken at sunrise.
In the next two photos notice the small white rectangle in the cliffside. The third photo below is a close up.
And then turning around one sees
After time below sea level I went above sea level for a hike.
Sand dunes? I wasn't expecting that.
And there were flowers.
I spent four days in the desert in the vicinity of Las Vegas the week of April 15th. While I had all my gear for photographing small things, I was so taken by the larger picture that I never took any macro shots Following are photos from the Valley of Fire state park and Red Rock Canyon. Both close to Las Vegas.
And it is only April! Naturally, I hiked anyway and did carry plenty of water.
Now on to Red Rock Canyon
In a slot this is a good way to keep your feet dry.
Still nothing new from me on the slime mold front, but a trip out to the west coast yielded a lot of bird photos.
A good morning kiss at sunrise? Heron rookery in Eugene.
Choosing only the best branches, one presumes.
Meanwhile in the water below a Grebe works on a pretty big fish
Cormorant drying his wings.
Red-winged Blackbird on a grey day.
Ring-necked Duck
Mallards may be common but their coloring is sure beautiful.
The rookery at Ballard Locks (Seattle) has at least a dozen nests and cormorants waiting to appropriate the nests after the chicks have fledged. This group of cormorants is hanging out lower down the hillside from the heron rookery.
Nisqually Wildlife Refuge is a nice day trip from our place in Seattle.
Northern Pintail
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Yellowlegs
Female Common Goldeneye
Surf Scoter
Sapsucker
Mt Rainier from Nisqually Wildlife Refuge
Pacific tree(chorus) frog
And finally, Fritillary across the street from our house
Osprey hunting while being harassed by crows on Four Mile Run (Arlington, VA)
Slime mold with nematode
Mushrooms come in so many different sizes, shapes and colors. the mushrooms above are all small and some really small and this next colorful one is about the size of my fist. There were a number of them growing on the tree trunk.
Following are some shots from trip to Maine and environs Sept of 23
And finally, a slime mold. Lycogala sp. aka Wolf's Milk
Cape Neddick Nubble Lighthouse
Portland Head Lighthouse
Owls Head Lighthouse
Bass Harbor Lighthouse
Acadia Sunrise
Cog railway up Mt Washington in New Hampshire
View from top of Mt Washington (clouds, not smoke)
My niece has chickens and turkeys.
A couple of rainy day shots.
While watching the eagle nest this flying pair caught my eye and I got their photo when they landed.
Spring means wild flowers and around here blue bells. Not all blue bells are blue just like not all violets are violet.
Spring in the high desert of eastern Oregon doesn't look like spring here in the DC area.
An attempt to summit Black Butte was foiled by thigh deep snow. But still got some nice views.
Sunrise over Key Bridge
Our resident hawk in our backyard.
Viewers have perhaps noticed I take a lot of pictures of spiders. Some of them are tiny and I get to have fun figuring out how to best photograph them. The first one was so small I decided to use my laptop so I could get a bigger view of what I was photographing.
I've seen bees get caught in a spider web and work their way free. In the following sequence the spider was so quick it was as if it had anticipated the bee's arrival. It immediately began wrapping it and then left it to be consumed later.
While wandering about looking for fungi I frequently find other interesting subjects.
This little guy is about the size of my pinkie finger nail.
Thanksgiving means time spent in Seattle, WA and Eugene, OR. Both places offer good birding opportunities in biking distance.
Late fall and early winter offer a different view of flowers. The final three shots in the grid are close ups of lichen and fungi. The single white mushroom was taken at 3x. It is very tiny. The three mushroom group is around an inch tall.
This August's trip out west yielded the following shots
Since getting back from June's Seattle trip (pictures farther down the page) my photo opportunities have been pretty diverse but mostly centered in my yard. The electric bike has made getting down to (and especially back up from) the river something I can consider doing more than once a week.
After putting a lot of miles on the bike I've found much to photograph in the yard.
The yard has an incredible variety of life forms, most of them very small.
Trip to Seattle and Eugene yielded some good photo opportunities
Green heron coming in a for a landing
At a pond near our house in Seattle
At Mt St Helens. The elk were so far way one could barely see them with the naked eye.
Thirty first wedding anniversary celebrated by hiking 5 miles in view of Mt St Helen's
The starlings took quite an interest in the pileated woodpecker's cleaning out a cavity. Eventually the woodpecker drove them off.
And now for something entirely different:
I had a day where I wasn’t feeling very energetic (post Covid booster) and so I was able to stand behind my camera for an hour or so and watch a preying mantis. If I had been feeling good I would not have had the patience. But between the covid shot and not being able to play the viola due to my shoulder I was enabled to stand and watch for a long time while nothing happened. Which to say no prey come by for the preying mantis. But it did seem to be keeping an eye on me. I tried a shot from the side and it turned and looked straight at me. I was close at that point and decided to move further away lest I disturb the creature and prevent it from getting a meal. That’s when the hour or more wait started.
I have a pretty long lens so I was able to get some nice portrait shots without disturbing the creature. For the hour we were head on to each other 5 feet apart. I had seen (presume the same) this mantis capture a bee a few days before in this same hanging flower pot, but not this time.
This time after so long watching each other it came over to where I was and checked out my flash and then came to me and walked up my leg and up across my shoulders and then onto my neck. On my bare skin was more ticklish than I could take so I scooped it up and walked it back to the hanging flower pot. Whereupon it immediately made its way back to me and crawled up to my head again. I put it back in the flowers again and left since there did not appear to be any good shots forthcoming.
Walking down the tripod leg before then walking up my pant leg.
My experience with the restrictions of living in a pandemic and with a rotator cuff injury have been interesting and gotten me into photographing in a way I might not otherwise have done. Such as the cicada invasion: https://spark.adobe.com/page/pq9u66kt4l2me/
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