Perchers and Flyers

I like perchers. Dragonflies are divided into two types- perchers and fliers. Perchers are dragonflies that have a territory that they'll patrol from a perch, spending quite a bit of time perching and watching. I have many, many pictures of perchers. They're cooperative- if you find a perching species, focus on the perch the dragonfly is on. Even if it leaves, most of the time it will patrol a territory and return to it or a nearby perch. That allows you to let the camera autofocus and get sharp shots.

Fliers, on the other hand, never stop moving unless it's dark and they find some place to perch, usually up in a tree where they're (1) impossible to see and (2) it's too dark to shoot anyway. As I was doing some dishes in the kitchen today I looked out at the pond and noticed we had a visitor- this Shadow Darner, a species that has visited the pond in the Fall for the last few years. This darner is a flier, which means it never stops moving. It took me about 40 shots, using manual focus (an interesting exercise), to get this shot, which was barely in focus. As an interesting note, as I was trying for the shot another darner came in and there was a brief dogfight before the other darner departed.

Bird Banding at ESP

Went out to Environmental Studies on the Piedmont today for a meeting and a tour of the property. Just before we climbed aboard the ATV this little Magnolia Warbler decided that it would rather be inside than outside and zipped through the door someone had left open (me). Tom Woods, the Director of ES, caught the warbler and gave Kevin Munroe and I a nice demonstration of how birds are banded. Tom did mention that normally it takes a little more time to catch the birds and you have to go outside to do it...

More shots of the banding procedure here:

http://www.pbase.com/harry1/banding

Magical Morning Moment

Back from being away for a few days and doing the morning ritual of filling the feeders- new suet cake, fill the sunflower seed feeder, and make up a new batch of sugar water for the hummers. Suet feeder has a Red-bellied on it a few minutes after I go inside to get the cooled off sugar water for the hummingbird feeder. I head outside to the deck, take the hummingbird feeder down, unscrew the bottle and turn it upright to fill it, and as I'm doing that a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird appears six inches away from the bottle and hovers, close enough so I can feel the breeze from her wings. She flies away, but just to a branch a few feet away to watch me putting the feeder back up on its hook. They're starting to fuel up in preparation for their long migration across the Gulf of Mexico south to Mexico; they'll lose a third of their body weight during the flight.

Argiope aurantia

A what? This is a Black and Yellow Garden Spider, just discovered in the back yard. Big guy- probably 2" across. An interesting fact about this spider is that it eats the center of the web every night and reweaves it. The web looked especially pretty this morning with a coat of dew on it. Harmless to people, but a fly might not survive a meeting with it.