Tag: Feather

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Spurge Hawk Moth Foraging

Spurge Hawk Moth Foraging
Spurge Hawk Moth Foraging

Spurge Hawk Moth Foraging

These big moths are really way more attractive on their pink underside than their dorsal olive tan pattern. Their legs and antenna are white as can be. Without a doubt they are a gardeners/ranchers friend as they lay their eggs on “Leafy Spurge”, a noxious weed. These big moths are active in the day sucking nectar and trying to find some Leafy Spurge. They lay their eggs on the noxious weed with the larva destroying the plant as they grow. Devouring it as they develop as it were.

This moth was introduced (foreign species) into Western Canada years ago. They apparently are spreading with no ill effects noted to the rest of our biosphere so far. Just larva eating Spurge and some nectar use by the adults which competes with other native species of course.

The color scheme here was too obvious to ignore. I adore right primary colors surrounding a “plain jane” subject. Garden plants with big moths flying about is a target rich environment for sure. The hard part is getting them to stay put long enough to capture the scene. Their big bugs which are quick and zip around when warm. They are impossibly hard to photograph well without cooling them down. Usually you can catch them in my experience but it takes some luck. Funny I’ve seen so many of them this year. Wish they ate grasshoppers 😜 📷

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Spurge Hawk Moth Foraging

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Polarized Light Feather Filter

Polarized Light Feather Filter
Polarized Light Feather Filter

Polarized Light Feather Filter

The science of this is a little complex but here it goes. The light source is the late day setting sun but bouncing off my back Ford Raptors hood…you know…glare..😎 That bounce is important though in getting the photo as it effects the light…

The reason you guys buy polarized sun glasses is due to that reflection. When sunlight hits the hood, the light bounces off with a majority of it being horizontally polarized. Mostly all those reflected light waves are in the same plane, not a bunch of randomly oriented waves. The sunglasses you buy are plastic lenses with all vertical lines which only allow in light that is vertically polarized. This blocks all the glare horizontally oriented.

SO that is called “Crossed Polarizers”. A double filter as it were. Take two pairs of polarized sunglasses and cross them at 90 degrees and try to look through them…. They go totally black.

NOW put something between the source of the polarized light (either the hood or the first pair of sunglasses). I used here a delicate transparent feather that will pass light…. It bends/ refracts light a little bit out of that horizontal plane so some of it makes it through the second filter this side of the feather. So you see the colors as a direct result of a single polarizing filter on my lens (hand held and rotated), the camera on a tripod and pre focused. F22, ISO 300 and 1/100th to get your camera close .. It was very bright but the filter cut out 80 percent of the light but you can change that by rotating the back filter…. . 90mm macro.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Polarized Light Feather Filter

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Feather Filter for the Sun

Feather Filter for the Sun
Feather Filter for the Sun

Feather Filter for the Sun

Here on the high ridges of the borderlands of Montana / Wyoming there are millions of acres of grasslands. This was very bright sky with a sharp sun and a dense cloud deck above the glare. The combination of the two required a foreground for the image to suit me.

To use randomly obtained feather to grace an unveiled sun is not a new effort but is always a worthy target. Anything to reduce the light into the camera (filter).

Feathers contains such an elegant form. Smooth curves abound. Working cameras, my mind wanders to the “filter materials at hand” for this kind of Close / Far perspective. When your in the middle of a square mile of pasture land, you have to act fast with a wonderful sky as behind this shoot and use what is at hand.

I am generally soured on using glass filters in front of my cameras while shooting into the sun to start with. I WAY prefer to use natural filters to reduce the glare from the furnace above. Here the edge reflections create a star shape into the camera. Even a few percent light reduction helps operating a camera outside that normal envelope.

Any attempt at a photo is a light balancing act inside the camera. You only have just three settings to play with . I suggest to you that it would be good to learn to use that camera on Manual Mode finally. (If you don’t already know how). I am happy to keep talking about HOW I take my photos for you guys to follow along. Ask if you have a question. 🤔📷

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Feather Filter for the Sun

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Down Feather Sun Filter

Down Feather Sun Filter
Down Feather Sun Filter

Down Feather Sun Filter

Here on the high ridges of the borderlands of Montana / Wyoming there are millions of acres of grasslands. This was very bright sky with a sharp sun and a dense cloud deck above the glare. The combination of the two required a foreground for the image to suit me.

To use randomly obtained feather to grace a veiled sunset is not a new effort but is always a worthy target. Feathers contains such an elegant form. Smooth curves abound. Over the years I have found that “you are where you are during the final minutes of sunset”. My mind wanders to the “filter materials at hand” for this kind of Close / Far perspective. When your in the middle of a square mile of pasture land, you have to act fast with a wonderful sky as behind this shoot and use what is at hand.

I am generally soured on using glass filters in front of my cameras while shooting into the sun. I WAY prefer to use natural filters to reduce the glare from the furnace above. Here the edge reflections create a bullseye into the camera. Even a few percent light reduction helps. Any photo is a light balancing act inside the camera. You only have just three settings to play with . I suggest to you that it would be good to learn to use that camera on Manual Mode finally. (If you don’t already know how). I am happy to keep talking about HOW I take my photos for you guys to follow along. Ask if you have a question. 🤔📷

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Down Feather Sun Filter

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Wild Flowers and a Raptor Feather

Wild Flowers and a Raptor Feather
Wild Flowers and a Raptor Feather

Wild Flowers and a Raptor Feather (only 4 months till flowers up here in the borderlands) When Simple is elegant…

I call these wildflowers Rock Daisies but they are growing on an eastern exposure of a long sandy ridge. Please correct me if I’m wrong on the ID. The soils on ranch are mostly sandy and well drained with exceptions of some hillocks of bentonitic clay soils (gumbo). A Sunny well drained sandy hillside is a prime environment for these. These daisies spread in clumps around the landscape. I’m driving by this remote spot on a two track I might travel on every couple weeks randomly.

Mid-winter I can still smell the summer scents of nearby sage patches pungent upwind of my position. Pollen circulates from dozens of flowering species including many tree species. This is the time of year my eyes start reacting. Something rare here called humidity was in the air at this capture. Taken on a rare mid-day photo outing.

I don’t know which raptor owned this big feather because it might be a small feather from a very big bird. I don’t have a clue how to key a bird on an individual feather. If you do, pitch in your knowledge below please. As to the identity of this feathers owner, your guess is as good as mine.

I saw the occurrence as a good one and thought it worthy of catching it’s photons in my photon capture boxes.

One must leave the feather where it lay as owning/possessing/selling/putting on the shelf in the living room is illegal under federal law. No raptor parts pieces may be owned without tribal affiliation or federal permit. Some old Raptor parts (feathers/bird mounts, claws etc) are grandfathered as antiquities. I came across a great horned owls body a few miles into the bush over a decade ago. I left it lay. It had wonderful claws all mummified by the dryness and sun out here.. Long since they all have been destroyed by the weather. Some laws are a shame but preventing the trade in these birds is the end game of the regulations and it get’s a pass as such (barely with a frown). Letting things decay seems silly but hey, what do I know. It’s a complex issue I’m sure. . The disreputable among us ruin it for the rest of us.

Reference (50 CRF 21.31 of federal Regulations.) Takes a federal permit to hold, move transport any of these. Don’t pick them up. There are serious penalties. I’ve left hundreds of random feathers up here on the prairie over the decades.😔

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Wild Flowers and a Raptor Feather

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Frost Feather

Frost Feather
Frost Feather

This Frost Feather was actually on the bottom of a very well insulated window taken from the inside out with a flashlight doing the highlighting. Dark as pitch outside. COLD AS HECK…

Seeing this as it was small…

This was a TINY 1/2 inch growth which was just screaming to take it’s photo as frost is so Fractal in it’s design by the master architect of such things. Window frost forms as a pane of glass is exposed to sub-freezing temperatures on the outside freezing the relatively moist air on the inside.  Water vapor from the air condenses as frost on the inside surface of the window.  The picture above demonstrates a patch of window frost about the size of U.S. Quarter Coin. .  Window frost often makes elaborate patterns as the crystal growth is strongly influenced by the window surface because scratches, residual soap, cleaning streaks, etc., can all modify the way the crystals nucleate and grow.

Damage?

Window frost was more common in the before about the 1970’s, when houses still had single-pane windows.  Snow used to actively blow in the windows of the 1970s ranch house we first moved into up here lol. The newer double-pane windows are working far better insulators and thus not so cold on the inside surfaces. Frost can cause damage because as it melts, it transfers moisture to whatever is next to it. If that’s a wooden window, it can discolor varnish and crack paint or even damage the wood. Frost can also melt off single-paned windows and seep down into a wall. resulting in damage of one kind or another.

If moisture is not handled swiftly and completely, mold can begin to grow. Keep it warm and dry inside to avoid the frost. A dehumidifier will help. But the best way is to replace older inefficient windows with double or triple layer windows. Boy they make some nice ones these day lolol. (Ours are 20 years old and one just lost a seal 😖. ).

We had a lot of moisture/rain/snow today. Wet year overall so far.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Frost Feather18 x 18 inch square aspect.