Local Patch-Bonus Time

In answer to Martins post yesterday i am in the camp of DIY, I much prefer to do my own thing and find my own subjects whether its near home or abroad, The satisfaction of the DIY approach far exceeds being shown where and how to shoot a subject, You do your own fieldwork and use field craft which is something that you learn along the way-anyways

This week has had its ups and downs, I have continued to go to the Kingfisher perch but he seems to want to pose on every other perch around the lake, He is always in sight or hearing range but that's life and in time it will happen-persistence normally pays off, Last night i left the perch and walked towards the car, I stopped and watched the KF from a distance and 5 mins later he caught a fish and landed on the perch i had just left-DOH, The light was gone there anyways and it was good to see him still using it, Whilst waiting i noticed a large turtle half out of the water,He made a sudden dash and was nearly out of the water when he stopped, I didn't know what he was doing until a few minutes later a smaller (female) turtle scooted away from under him-so i got my first reasonable turtle shots in the bag-look close and you will see the smug look on his face
Yesterday morning i noticed a small flock of birds shoot out of the garden and when i looked outside a sharp shinned hawk landed in the tree, I grabbed the D3 and600+1.4x and grabbed a few shots from outside my back door, The light wasn't all that and thank god for image stabilisation, A beautiful bird and difficult to get on camera-bonus
Today i was back in my garden looking for spiders and found 8 webs with spiders on, I shot from every angle and changed various setting to try to get a different shot, One spider had a meal so i shot him eating and afterwards it repaired its web, Black and yellow garden spiders like the European wasp spider have a thick zig zag design in the center and it was this that the spider repaired, First it laid a thick multi strand web and then a single thread-incredible to watch and very difficult to shoot without a proper macro lighting system, You can see the multi thread web in the first image and then in the second spider image the back legs are holding the web whilst the spider lays thread fixing them together-amazing nature at its best
So far the week has been far from unproductive-maybe not what i had set out to get but so what


Dave

Spiders and Walmart

Each evening this week i have been up shooting the Belted Kingfishers at a local lake, During the days when i have some spare time i have been out in my garden shooting some spiders and bugs, There seems to be an abundance of yellow and black (wasp) garden spiders at the moment so i have been trying to shoot these at all sorts of angles, After shooting some yesterday i thought how nive they would look with some dew on the web like you get in the early mornings in Europe, We dont get much dew here so i thought i would make my own, I popped down to my local Walmart and purchased an atomiser or spray mister for the princely sum of 89 cents and this morning i took some straight on shots then gently sprayed a fine mist on to the spider and web, The spider took no notice and i thought that the water droplets gave the image an extra dimension, Either way the agency will have a choice of with and without





I noticed a spider next to one of the small bushes and noted that there was some of its left overs and a nice leaf caught in the web above it so i carefully set up and took a couple of shots, I checked them on the screen and thought the image would look better if i moved a foot to the left, This small move gives the image a much different cleaner look, I think with a little more work in processing-cleaning up the damaged leaf on the left and toning down the leaf above it will be a nice image and a good lesson in composition






Dave

Local Area-Raleigh

Well like Martin i have been giving some rooms a touch up with the paint brush as we have the outlaws arriving next month so i haven't been too far afield, But then i haven't really needed to, I live in suburbia and have been pleasantly surprised just how much wildlife comes into my very small garden, Siding onto a farm obviously helps as that where the deer,possum and raccoon appear from but every tree and bush has some form of bird,butterfly or bug in it, I have a small low water container in the garden which helps attract things into garden in the hot weather from squirrels to hawks all have a drink an a bath in it, The hummingbirds are now constant visitors to the nectar feeder and woodpeckers and crows at the fat feeder, The usual suspects of cardinals and goldfinch eat at the seed table and now i have 2 buddlia (butterfly bush) there are swallowtails and skippers constantly in and around the garden,I have been trying various things to attract more and varied species into the garden, I cut a small orange in half and after a day there were all sorts of bugs and flies on it, The Black Widow unfortunately has been killed off but i did enjoy spending some time with her and i am sure if i look hard enough i will find another, There is a very small stream just down the road and the other day i popped down to have a look to see what was around it and came across a Water Snake,which was laying on a rock catching some rays, A first for me, I only managed to shoot it from distance and it bolted off when i moved-it was 92 degrees after all and the snake was plenty warm enough,I didnt really mind not getting too close to it as it made me think about the composition and by having it low in the frame shows some habitat, Its amazing what you find when you look for it and people living in the community have no idea whats close by as they go about their everyday lives,

Beauty and the beasts

Like Martin i have only been shooting around my garden, because we have had such hot weather with temperatures in the high 90's and a couple of days where it hit 100, which is great and one of the reasons we chose North Carolina to live in, The downside is that its hot during the day and still 70-75 at night so most of the wildlife choose the nighttime to come out and rest in the shade during the day, The garden is in bloom and that has bought lots of bugs and butterflies out so i have decide to document these, The light is/can be very harsh so most of my shooting has been with flash to try and even the lighting out, My best find so far has to be a beautiful Black Widow female with egg sacks attached to the side of my house under a hangover, I have noticed that during the hot days she has the egg sacks in the open and in the evening she carefully cuts the web around the sack and moves it tight to the house bricks, i am guessing as well as keeping it safe from rain etc the hot wall will help keep the young warm



I must say that the Sigma 180mm Macro has been great when tripod mounted and working with these deadly spiders, I shot @ F16 in manual mode and on some images used an off camera flash as the spider was partly under an over hang which caused heavy shadows
At the bottom of my garden there are a couple of bushes in bloom that are covered with every type of fly/bee and bugs, Whilst shooting some bees here i noticed what i later found to be an Assassin Bug-never seen or heard of one before and i was abit apprehensive of getting too close as i knew nothing about it, It was very concealed and in the end i had to move a branch and use the camera with one hand to get the shot-so most were OOF and the others were not to brilliant, I soon found out that it could fly as i got closer so the shots ended up just as record shots-see below



This is something i will continue to look out for as i would like to get some decent images of it,
Butterflies are becoming very common especially the beautiful swallowtails so i now have 2 buddlia in my garden and they are there everyday along with assorted skippers



truly beautiful and great to have in such abundance, I shot these handheld with the Nikon 200-400 which suits big butterflies well

I mentioned a long time ago that i had purchased a Hahmel remote release and that i doesn't work at line of site as it was radio frequency, I have been feeding the local deer that coming into my garden with some corn and they come every night,I can even be on the BBQ and they will come and feed, I tried to set a camera up a couple of weeks ago on a beanbag and with camo netting over it near the corn but the deer spooked at the large piece of glass on the 14-24 so i put an empty water bottle there and after a few days they got used to it and now take no notice of it so the other day i again swapped it for a 24-70 on the D3 set at 24mm and had the lens hood on to try and hide the glass abit more,The deer noticed it straight away and i was amazed at how they know what small changes you make even when covered it was all covered in camo netting, The 2 deer circled for a while and got closer and closer before backing off them after an hour one approached and took some food,after a couple of minutes i managed to get a shot which made the deer jump but they come back and i ended up with 8 shots of which only 2 were ok-this one being the best

Exactly what i had envisaged and now i have something to work with, Next time i will try portrait mode, The remote release worked great, I was on the second floor!! looking out of a small window-all for $60

Dave