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

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

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

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

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

August 03, 2017 - Lake birds

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