Tuesday, August 29, 2017

August 29, 2017 Mating Dragonflies and Cyclosis repairing her web

What a surprise -  a large two headed dragonfly - no it was a male and female mating while flying - or maybe even "Flying United".  Here is the video.  Later, photos as I walked around the lake.

United Dragonflies - mating while flying


Snowy egret taking off


Video of Cyclosa repairing the radial segments of her web.  At about 50 sec, she pauses and cuts a section of silk ribbon near the web hub 



Cyclosa sp.rebuilding her web


Cyclosa weaving a circumferential segment


Tight wire act by Cyclosa


Red-shouldered Hawk


Red-shouldered hawk looking for dinner


Red-shouldered hawk thinking


Saturday, August 26, 2017

August 21, 2017 . Solar Eclipse at Brentwood Tennessee



Jack and I decided to try to photograph the solar eclipse.  We were partly successful - clear skies until 10 min before totality and continued cloudy until about 20 minutes after totality.  Was a fun trip.


7:32:14 CDT.  Note the line of three sunspots sort of anchored at the center of the image.  These will rotate about 80 degrees as I was photographing. 



08:29:06


11:40:43


12:01:38


12:17:25


13:00:08 - clouds for the next 50 minutes


13:50:19


13:57:32 (poorly focused)


14:07:32


14:13:07 - Note the line of sunspots has rotated quite a bit since my test shot


14:18:07



14:23:07


14:28:45


14:33:45


14:38:35


14:49:10



14:51:28



14:52:35 . Note the line of sunspots has rotated almost 80 degrees from early morning




Thursday, August 17, 2017

August 17, 2017 . Leucauge venusta: music and mating

This morning, a real treat: Watching male and female Leucauge Venusta

Male (upper right) and female (lower left)


Male approaches and is rebuffed by the female


He uses his 3rd legs to pluck the radial strands of her web


The female


More plucking - hoping he will find the tune she wants


Here is a video of a failed approach and then success - after a lot of plucking the radial web strands.



The couple configuration (unable to make the formating work properly)

 

In the coupled configuration



A close view of the male injector inserted into the female epigyn



Tuesday, August 15, 2017

August 15, 2017 . Anole Dewlap

August 15, 2017: Anole Dewlap
The male uses the dewlap to attract the attention of a female.  Here are the different configurations:

Retracted


Partially erected


Fully erect


Thursday, August 10, 2017

August 9, 2017: White Ibis foiled by a turtle

I look for patterns of behavior in my nature walks.   Today, I saw a white Ibis with a piece of trash in its beak.  This seemed unusual to me so I watch and took photos for about 20 min.  Got home and discovered that the Ibis had caught a small turtle (Florida softshell turtle, Apalone ferox.  The ibis was unsuccessful penetrating the shell and after quite some time.  Gave up.  Here is the pictorial story.



Nictitating membrane covering the eye




NIctitating membrane covering the eye


Dropping the turtle




Thursday, August 3, 2017

August 03, 2017 - Lake birds

Today a walk around the lake - capturing the local birds and behavior