Chalk-Fronted Corporal

A photo from back in June, at the time it was a new species for me to spot and I never got around to posting it, no idea why.

October Shadow Darner

It's not often darners are nice enough to just land where I can photograph them. Most of them fly above head height and land on trees much too high to even see what they are, never mind get close.

Another Tricky Bug

I tried wandering Broadmoor again Thursday with no great results. On the way out on 16 I parked next to the Charles River at the Natick Historical Society. There's a small grassy picnic area right by the river. There are also numerous dragonflies right at the edge of the river. A few twelve spotted skimmers fluttered about and one widow skimmer. The widow skimmer landed a few times and I stalked it about. Eventually, I switched to a high iso and put the zoom lens on just to give me a shot at a good image.

One of the Tricky Ones

You'd think with a name like Common Whitetail catching one of these guys in a photo would be easier. While I do see them practically everywhere getting them to land and stay down can be frustrating. The worst part is they aren't always even reacting to me. This is just one of the dragonflies that tends to hop around. Now that I think of it the Common Pondhawk is quite jumpy sometimes as well. Maybe they got named common just because you see them everywhere, but can't get close enough to actually see what they look like.

An Old Standard

Slaty Skimmer - male

Just a slaty skimmer male. They're easy to photograph and ridiculously common. The only dragonfly I have more photos of is the blue dasher. It has gotten to the point where they have to be lined up perfectly for me to even bother photographing them.
This of course has a huge downside. I've found in some of my old pictures before I was paying attention to dragonflies that I've photographed a few species I haven't seen again. At this point I should be photographing everything and sorting out the images at home as you never know what you actually got until you research.

My Holy Grail... of Dragonflies

12 Spotted Skimmer - Male

I've been going on no hikes all summer, mostly due to work. Yesterday I got up early for something else and decided to suck it up and put my camera in the car. I went a few places, but only Broadmoor had anything I liked, even though I had to keep dodging the kids at camp who were all over screaming into the woods. At least I wasn't trying to look at birds, it would have been impossible with all the shrieking.

It was around ten in the morning and the usual suspects lined up along the Quacking Frog trail between Glacier Hill and Old Orchard Trail. It's the edge of a field with the sun shining into a set of shorter brush and trees and you can find dozens of dragonflies sunning there in the mornings. I picked my next trail about the time the camp caught up with me and wandered to the wildlife pond, which has grown huge and eaten parts of the meadow and killed off the trees that used to line it. The trail close to the pond was closed, but I found this dragonfly sunning himself about 6 feet off the leftover trail. I also almost stepped on several frogs as the footing was a little flooded.

July Amberwing

Amberwing Dragonfly

Since I'm freezing, here's a pic from last July. This is from a set I took then got annoyed with. I'd left the ISO high to get a photo of something else, and I find these photos too noisy. Never mind that you can barely see it even when zoomed in all the way.

Close Up Frost

Another one from a few weeks ago. This time I cropped it so the detail is a little more visible.

Linear Frosted Leaf

Last one for a bit. More frost, though of a different type. This stuff occurs near the driveway, and just dusts items, rather than covering it in fuzz.

Untouched Leaf

In one are of the yard the frost tends to crawl under items. I flipped this leaf after and the entire undersize was covered in frost, but the top was clear.

Frosty Grass

A note on scale. The longest frost is maybe 1/2" long, so this isn't a very large area at all. The whole photo is in the space of a few square inches. I'm using ambient light, a tripod, and a remote to keep the camera from shaking. the settings were a 1/2 sec shutter speed with an f stop of 13. ISO was set to 200. I tend to set the f stop and let the camera decide about the shutter speed, unless they're coming out too dark.

More Frost

Different parts of my yard grow different frost. The back near the rock wall cultivates longer frost chains and hangs around the longest since a fence shelters it from the sun.

Frosty Weekend

Saturday arrived and I didn't need to work when the frost was available. The last few weeks I'd notice we had a frost as I was rushing around trying to get to work. I have a few furtive shots I took with my point and shoot in thee five minutes lee way I have between getting up, feeding the dogs, feeding myself, getting the dogs out and back in, dressing for work and making my lunch. None of them were very good and since I didn't have time to do better I was getting frustrated. Here's the week of photos to make up for it.

I won NanoWriMo, meaning I finished my 50,000 words.

I won NanoWriMo, meaning I finished my 50,000 words. However, work isn't letting up and for whatever reason I decided to make everyone's Christmas gifts this year and that seems to be eating my extra time. I'll see what I can do about posting pictures, but since my free time has disappeared after Christmas is the best bet for daily photo resumption.

Tis the Season for Amberwings

So On Sunday when I took photos of the fallen tree I upped the ISO on my camera. I didn't care if the photos were grainy, it was dark and I was in a hurry. Move to Monday when I wandered around Hemlock Gorge with the ISO still at 1600. Grr. I don't generally put it past 200, I abhor noise in my photos. I noticed when I got home and started looking at the photos. I was sort of wondering how I was getting the shutter speed the camera kept giving me.

Leafhopper

Just a leaf hopping garden pest from last week.

Female Amberwing

I have found a few new hiking locales on the way home from work. One Hemlock Gorge had little flocks of amberwing dragonflies. I saw my first female as well. The males have completely gold wings, the female has pretty bars.

Blue Dasher

Blue Dasher Dragonfly

I find these to be the ubiquitous dragonfly. They're everywhere, in the woods, in the pond, in your yard. They're also calm about being approached if they're perched.

Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

Sometimes having ridiculous quantities of bee balm comes in handy. This swallowtail just fluttered back and forth for quite some time.

Painted Skimmer Dragonfly

Painted Skimmer Dragonfly

A few weeks ago I wandered around Borderland on a Sunday morning. This would be what I found the most interesting. There were plenty of other dragonflies, but nothing else I hadn't seen before.