You'll Put Your Eye Out!!!

 One minute they were grooming and smooching, Ringo giving TinyTine a delightful massage with teeth and tongue, and the next thing I knew, Ringo was all of a sudden sorta jabbing TinyTine in the neck. You liked the massage? How you like this? Bucks will be bucks.

 

And the poky-jabby move morphed into a push-fight.

 I hope you click on these and view them all larger, because my eyes, at least, aren't good enough any more to see the detail at this size. Look at TinyTine's eye in the photo below. (he's the right hand animal). It's shut. I have seen enough buck sparring matches now to get really nervous about the combatants' big vulnerable eyes. I wonder why I don't see more bucks with one eye, the way those tines rattle and thrust around. Maybe there's something in the architecture to spare their eyes when they're locked together, but it makes me extremely antsy to watch these matches.

 

The other thing that makes me nervous is the possibility that their antlers will lock together. Then what do I do? Go out and throw a tarp over them and take a hacksaw to them? Arrgh. What an awful thought, and far too dangerous to mess with. You could really get banged up getting in the middle of two terrified, locked-together bucks. It'd be like climbing into a Cuisinart.

So I watch these matches with a mixture of excitement and anxiety, hoping nobody gets his eye poked out, or worse. Obviously, Lil' Pisser is watching with some concern as well!

I love this portrait of the three of them. TinyTine on the left; Ringo on the right, and Lil' Pisser in the middle, right where he likes to be, alla time. Do you know how lucky I feel to be able to witness stuff like this?

 

This is what it looks like from the couch. Thanks to Bill for this shot of the deerstalker, stalking deer from inside the big heated blind! Most of my sessions are done around daybreak. I look out, see deer, throw on a bathrobe and go. I usually freeze my tuchis off in the process. 

Worth it, though, because the deer never know they're being watched, and they do whatever they do, which is exactly what I want them to do. 

Sorry to dash the vision of anyone who thought I get shots like this while wearing a ghillie suit and jungle-crawling through the little bluestem.

 

Do click on this one, to see TinyTine (on left) get a prong-scrape to his jaw. That HAS to hurt! I just hate the idea of fighting with your head. I would make a lousy whitetail buck. I'd be all, "You two fight it out. I'm gonna see if I can find a doe while y'all are going at it." I understand that young bucks do exactly that, with some success. :)

 

And click on this one, to see what I mean about the eyes being so vulnerable.  I do love how Lil' Pisser watches so intently. He's picking up pointers, for sure.

 

 It's hard to believe that TinyTine and Ringo had that tender couple of minutes earlier, as Tiny drives Ringo to the ground. Tiny is long and rather short-legged, but he's got tremendous hindquarters and a lot of strength. He's clearly besting Ringo here. If I had to guess I'd say Lil' Pisser is rooting for Ringo. He looks quite concerned.

 

 Tiny keeps driving, and Ringo is still down.

Finally, Ringo breaks, and Lil' Pisser leaps backward, too, as the clinch explodes in a defeat for Ringo. 

 I don't care who wins. I'm just glad nobody got hurt. You'll put your EYE out!!

 The two pals became combatants. And not long afterward, they went for Round Three! I couldn't get good shots that round because they were too far down the slope. Clearly, Ringo hadn't had enough.

 I was about to say I don't know how we got so lucky as to have all this fabulous buck action in the meadow. But I give all the credit to my little gal Flag, for stinkin' up the place and bringing them into the ring.
Now I'm curious as all getout to see if Flag turns up with a late fawn in August!

So the story goes, on and on. I love a story that goes on.

photo by Bill Thompson III

This post is dedicated to the memory of my Canon 7D, seen here in use, which probably made more than 250,000 photos for me and you before giving up the ghost on January 24, 2019. It was not performing very well, having increasing trouble seeing and tracking birds in flight, and its low-light performance was flagging. A probably minor issue with the SIM card slot (I couldn't get it in or out!) was simply not worth repairing, given that the camera is pretty much done for. It went to South Africa three times, to Ecuador twice; to Costa Rica four times; it gave us Jemima and Chet and all the beautiful birds and butterflies of Indigo Hill and surrounds. So when I couldn't re-insert the memory card, I knew it was time. I called Sonnie the Canon/Sony Guy at Midwest Photo Exchange, who knows me and what I do, and asked him what I wanted. What a thrill, to recognize his voice the second he picked up the phone! The entire transaction was finished in minutes, though we spent quite awhile catching up on other fronts. Gosh, it's lovely to just cut to the chase, eliminate the research, pick up the phone and ask Sonnie what to buy. My Canon 80D  (I like saying it because it sounds like Canon ADD) camera body arrived the next day (Jan. 25) and I've been having a blast test-driving it. Photos soon to follow. 

Because life without wildlife photography is just breathing, eating, pooping and sleeping. Thank you, 7D, for all the memories. 

Shooting a glorious sunbittern at Villa Lapas, Costa Rica. Trying hard to remember who took this. And it was Amy Girten, my dear love. Thank you. Glad to smoke you out. And yes, I remember dropping my iPhone 4 down over the bank onto rocks, and the sweet guide who retrieved it for me!

Red-eyed Tree Frogs!

It's the iconic rainforest critter, on every cereal box, every kids' book, every poster on every schoolroom wall. The red-eyed tree frog Agalychnis callidryas has it all--color, pizazz. Thanks to all this exposure, it's possibly the most charismatic and recognizable of all frogs. But I'd never seen one. Never even hoped to see one. Imagine my delight when our guide Mario Cordoba told me that a little cement pond at Selva Verde, Holbrook Travel's lodge in Sarapiqui in the Caribbean lowlands, was full of them. Calling, mating. Oh my gosh. This has to be the jazziest frog of all.

Darkness fell and Mario fixed his flashlight on a frog for me. I almost swallered my tongue, as we say here in Appalachia. Oh my gosh!! I couldn't believe I was seeing this.

But how to photograph them in the black night without a flash? Well, you prefocus, crank the ISO up, and twiddle your dials until you get something nice. You try not to keep the light on the frog for more than a few seconds. You don't want to disrupt their business. These photos are all hand-held--given the low light I probably should have run a few blocks to my room to get my monopod to steady the camera, but ehh. The frogs were there and so was Mario and so was I. Carpe diem.

This little guy's calling, his throat pooched out. He may also vibrate the stem or leaf he's perched on to attract a female. What's shakin', baby?

He has a friend.

Such intensely decorated creatures, with that electric blue on thighs and neon orange on their feet...but their colors show only at night!

I was really happy with this pose. Right off a poster.

Ready for a surprise? Here's a red-eyed tree frog, sleeping during the day. Mario had to tell me it was the same species when I found it. Frogs are so darn cool. How do you switch those colors off like that?

Chromatophores, that's how--special skin cells that can show or hide brilliant color in an instant. Last night: dressed for the gala. Now he looks like a dead leaf. 

Also calling: Rain frogs. Sweet little things in their own right. What a treat to see such creatures calling, doing their froggy things. What a privilege.

This second night's try at photographing them worked out even better. Mario coached me on exposure, and through trial and error we found that shutting the F-stop down a click or two and boosting the ISO a bit allowed the frogs' colors to glow. The trick is not to wash them out with too much light. That's better for the frogs, too. 

We want them to keep doing things like this. If you click on this photo, you may see the really cool Venetian blind pattern on the male's nictitating eye membrane. The female will eventually lay a cluster of eggs on a leaf overhanging water. These will hatch about a week later, the tadpoles falling into the pool, where they complete their metamorphosis. Tiny juveniles often hang out in the water wells of aerial bromeliads, preying on small insects. 

I think this is my favorite of the shots. I maneuvered around to get it all in the same frame.  What looks like the full moon rising is actually a light fixture in the open-air bar behind the little pool. No, I'm not crouched in the rainforest risking a bite by a fer-de-lance. I'm hanging out with Mario, talking light and frogs, by a little water garden at a jungle lodge, loving every minute of it. Holbrook Travel built it, and the tree frogs came.

Costa Rica well deserves its reputation as an ultimate ecotourism destination. Everywhere we went, we felt at home with our binoculars, cameras and spotting scope. Tiny home-cooking restaurants in the mountains are festooned with hummingbird feeders and buzzed by incredibly arrayed birds (just you wait!!) Tanagers flit to bananas and rice laid out for them. It's so different from the vast majority of American restaurants, where the whole focus seems to be to get you inside and wall you off from nature. (When you go to a Bob Evans, I'm the one who raised the blinds and opened the shutters and left them that way). The Alajuelo airport itself is given over to images of toucans and quetzals. Costa Rica knows where its riches lie. 

all photos taken with my Canon 7D with 70-300 IS L telephoto lens

and the expert tutelage of guide Mario Cordoba

Stalking the Wild Kingfisher

If there is a warier bird than the belted kingfisher, I don't know one. Wild turkey? But turkeys taste good. They've got reason to be wary.

Did people once shoot kingfishers on sight? Have these birds evolved believing to their bones that we mean to kill them? These are things I wonder.

The same thing that makes kingfishers frustrating subjects for photography also makes them great fun. The Science Chimp loves a challenge. And now that I have a bitchin' Canon 70-300 mm 1:4-5.6 L IS
 telephoto lens, mounted on the nimble and responsive Canon 7D body,  the happy accidents turn out to be my best shots. This isn't fabulous, but oh what a cool position! Freezing birds in flight is so satisfying when you've been drawing them all your life, trying to figure out how those wings work.

Flying, always flying. Much more interesting than perched, you have to admit. And a bird with some habitat is always more interesting to me than one that fills the frame. That's why the 70-300 is such a good fit for what I like to do. Context. For a painter, it's all about context, giving the bird a place to live in your photos and paintings.

Ehh, anybody can take a photo of a perched bird...

It's getting close enough to get that photo of a kingfisher that's such a delightful challenge.

Getting eyeshine on one, so much the better.

They're like coiled springs, always ready to take off with a blistering rattle. 

The Science Chimp doesn't let a little vegetation or a few dead branches get in the way. DANG! This would have been such a sweet shot.

It's this kind of thing that can occupy me all day long, muttering and cussing and laughing at my lack of luck.

Well, this one doesn't stink... 

and this one is cool on a stick! Kingfishers remind me of woodpeckers with their spots, bars and patches. Not so far apart, taxonomically, I think.

This one makes my heart sing. Thank you, Kingfisher. See you in a few weeks? We'll do our dance all over again.

More Dogtography

Chet, pensive, in the blue-eyed Mary. I'm happy with this shot because, although Chet looks a bit dark, the color of the flowers comes through. It's really difficult to photograph a black dog in sunlit surrounds. The same thing happens when I turn my camera to black Angus cattle. They look kind of ghostlike and the background gets blasted out to almost white. I hit the same obstacle when photographing hippos and rhinos in Africa. Large, very dark objects fool the light meter into opening way up, which blows out the background. So this photosafari was an exercise in fiddling with aperture and ISO. I got it right a few times.

The Bacon purely loves wildflower safaris. So do I. To take a couple of friends with the express purpose of admiring flowers...well, that's one of life's greatest luxuries. 

Chet Baker gazes up, looking for squirtles. Looking as happy as he feels. 

Pensive again. The boy knows how to relax.

If I look just one more time, there may be a rodent.

Meanwhile, Shila's focusing on wild larkspur, a real rarity around here.

We find the King of all Larkspur.

and a very nice toadshade (Trillium erectum)

What looks like grass growing around it is actually wild camas, a kind of lily.

I can't stop shooting pictures of Chet. Knowing him as I do, I know he's going to want to explore the pool below a gorgeous little waterfall on Newell's run. So I set up and pre-expose and pre-focus on the rock I know he'll use to enter the pool. Bingo. If only he were a bobcat...

He stops to take a drink, my little Narcissus looking at his reflection.

He meanders through the pool. And, unexpectedly, leaps. And the Canon 70-300 L series telephoto lens, with the nimble Canon 7D body, saves that shining moment. For me, it's the shot of the day, of the week, maybe of the month. 

He is the perfect dog.  Except when he rolls in coyote poo on a perfect spring day in this perfect spring place. He comes creeping up to me, ears back and eyes saying I'm so sorry Mether! I couldn't help myself! and I know even before the smell hits me that he's found something deathly bad to roll in. 

I play my part and give him a round scolding before scrubbing him with leaves and dirt and taking him back down to the creek for a cold bath, which is the best I can do under the circumstances.

Diane, who I suspect is here to visit Chet Baker as much as me, feels very sorry for the crestfallen Bacon, who only moments before was my Olympian ideal of dog perfection. Well, that's what living with a Boston terrier can be like. You're gazing down fondly, maybe embracing this sweet animal, cuddling him close and pbbbbbt! and you drop him like a hot potato and wave your arms around like there's a swarm of African killer bees buzzing around your head. Smells. With Bostons, it's all about smells. Some they make themselves, and some they outsource. All are bad.

Sara says that emanatory capacity is all that stands between her and a Boston terrier puppy. Imagine. Well, I can imagine. This is my life.

It is good to have friends who love you no matter what. Miss Diane loves me no matter what. She is nicer to me than you are, Mether. Someday you will be sorry you wrote such things about me. If you have nothing nice to say you should just not say it.

Chet Baker you know I love you.

The Ultimate Chet Baker

Update on the peas: It went into the low 20's the night of April 2, and what parts of my several hundred pea plants that were sticking out of the straw mulch are looking decidedly dark and translucent this morning. Crap. I may wind up doing the whole durn start-em-in-the-greenhouse thing all over again. Well, my gardening is highly experimental, and I'm no stranger to failure. I'll keep you posted. I WANT PEAS BEFORE WE GO TO NORTH DAKOTA IN MID-JUNE. And I WILL GET THEM.

Update on the update, 3:47 pm April 3: Yep, more than half of the plants look like they've been nipped in half by frost, their little waists pinched, with the tops dying off. Some that were completely covered by straw look fine. The roots of the ones that are nipped are doubtless still alive, and they may send up more shoots, but I think some more pea planting is in my future. That's OK. I've got a greenhouse, and more seed. I still love the idea of starting them in the greenhouse, labor-intensive as it may be. It's a way to beat the rotten germination I get in the cold, cold ground. Looks like tonight's low of 26 is the lowest it'll go for the next ten days. Current plan: Start more, plant them next to the cold-nipped ones, see who wins. Life is an experiment, and the garden is but one of my laboratories.

S.J. Perelman:  "I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws."

So here we are, with the last Chet Baker in snow photos that I suppose I'll take this wintry spring. You never know, though. We've had plenty of April snowstorms. Usually during those, I'm so busy hand-feeding baby bluebirds that I don't have time for dog photography.

Little dog, big barn. He loves to look for the animal inhabitants of such ancient spaces.

Looking for voles. Always with the voles. Here, he pauses while digging out a vole tunnel. I've never seen him catch one, but he enjoys the hunt. I grew up with a dachshund named Volks who, not having badgers to hunt, was similarly obsessed with shrews. He'd dig vast tunnels under tree roots, lying on his side, wearing his front nails to little buttons, and sometimes drag himself home, having been bitten and poisoned by a short-tailed shrew, North America's only venomous mammal. Back then, nobody knew Blarina brevicaudata had venom sacs in its tooth roots. And we used to think he'd been poisoned as he'd lie around for a couple of days afterward. Well, he had been, but not by an irritated neighbor. By a shrew.

Don't mess with shrews, Chet Baker.

He plunges down a steep bank, a picture of unerring grace

and races by me smiling. Did you catch that? Was I magnificent?

Always magnificent, Chet Baker. The best doggeh.

I will show you magnificent. Try this pose.

Ahh, perfect. Look at that topline. Thank you for that one. You look like a fullback, missing only a small leather helmet. 

Here I come! Ready or not!!

I'm ready, Chet Baker. Bring it on.

It was a very dark day, still snowing, actually, and I had no business getting photos like this with a 300 mm telephoto lens, but mine is not just any telephoto lens. It is a dream lens, on a dream camera. Not to mention a dream doggeh.

All photos taken with my Canon 7D and Canon EF 70-300 mm 1:4-5:6 L IS USM telephoto lens. You can get yourself one from my friends at Midwest Photo Exchange by clicking the links. Questions? Ask for Sonnie. He's the Canon guy, and he is awesome.  P.S. You will never be sorry you got yourself an awesome camera and lens. The sorry is in not doing it.