Zebra Swallowtail butterfly

A Zebra Swallowtail butterfly (Eurytides marcellus, Protographium marcellus) was spotted along the Potomac River at Riverbend Park, Fairfax County, Virginia USA.

29 JUL 2019 | Riverbend Park | Zebra Swallowtail butterfly

Notice the Zebra’s proboscis is extended and inserted in wet mud and sand along the shoreline of the river.

Adults take nectar and (males only?) take fluids from damp sand. Source Credit: BugGuide, Species Eurytides marcellus – Zebra Swallowtail – Hodges#4184.

Copyright © 2019 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

Reminder: New schedule

Effective 29 October 2018, blog posts will be published on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every week.

Please revisit my blog on Monday, 12 November 2018 when the next scheduled post will be published at 4:00 am EST.

New schedule for publishing posts

Regular readers of my blog know that I publish a new post every two days. That way readers aren’t overwhelmed by the stream of information, and I’m not overwhelmed by the demands of publishing a post every day. Plus I like to follow a regular schedule.

I decided to tweak the schedule for publishing posts slightly. Beginning on Monday, 29 October 2018 blog posts will be published on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every week.

So if you were expecting to see a new blog post today (Sunday), then please revisit my blog tomorrow (Monday) when the next scheduled post will be published at 4:00 am EST.

Eye injury

A Blue-faced Meadowhawk dragonfly (Sympetrum ambiguum) was spotted near a vernal pool at remote location in Huntley Meadows Park, Fairfax County, Virginia USA. This individual is a male, as indicated by his terminal appendages.

When I post-processed the RAW images of the male dragonfly I noticed he has an eye injury, highlighted in the following annotated image.

22 OCT 2017 | HMP | Blue-faced Meadowhawk (male, with eye injury)

(See a full-size version of the original photo, without annotation.)

The eye injury can be seen in two more photos of the same male.

22 OCT 2017 | HMP | Blue-faced Meadowhawk (male, with eye injury)

22 OCT 2017 | HMP | Blue-faced Meadowhawk (male, with eye injury)

Related Resource: Eye injury, a blog post by Walter Sanford, featuring photos of a female andromorph Blue-faced Meadowhawk dragonfly spotted on 18 September 2013 along the boardwalk of the central wetland area at Huntley Meadows Park.

Copyright © 2018 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.

Close to a Garter Snake

See Mike’s excellent macro photos — well worth the risk to get so close to the snake!

Mike Powell

This past Monday as I was exploring Huntley Meadows Park with fellow photographer Walter Sanford, he spotted an Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis). We both like to photograph snakes, so we sprung into action. Following my normal instincts, I moved in close to the snake. How close did I get? At a certain point in time I actually had to back up a little to make sure I included the snake’s entire head in the image.

Some readers of this blog may recall that Walter and I use different camera systems and approach our shots in different ways, partly because he is using a zoom lens and I am often using a macro lens with a fixed focal length. If you shoot side by side with another photographer, you’ll often get the same shots, but that’s usually not the case for Walter and me. We normally…

View original post 288 more words

Common Baskettail dragonfly

Another view of the same Common Baskettail dragonfly, as seen from a slightly different viewpoint. Good photo, Mike!

Mike Powell

Despite its name, the Common Baskettail dragonfly (Epitheca cynosura), one of the first dragonflies of the spring, has been observed only infrequently at my local marshland park. Therefore I was pretty excited when sharp-eyed fellow blogger and photographer Walter Sanford spotted a Common Baskettail last week when we were out together searching for dragonflies.

Walter consulted with some experts and  was able to confirm his initial identification of this dragonfly as a female. How do you tell the gender of a dragonfly? Check out Walter’s recent posting What was your first clue? to learn how he did it.

If you are more interested in photography than in dragonfly anatomy, check out Walter’s initial posting on the Common Baskettail dragonfly. We both photographed the dragonfly at the same time, but our angles of view and equipment were different, so the resulting images are similar, but not identical.

Personally i enjoy seeing how the creative choices that…

View original post 36 more words

Posterous going dark

It’s official: Posterous will turn off on April 30, 2013. My new photoblog will be hosted on WordPress. I will post a notification here when walter sanford’s photoblog goes live. I hope you will follow me to my new home. Please stay tuned.

Frogs alive!

“Frogs alive!” was recorded live on 25 February 2013 at Huntley Meadows Park, Fairfax County, Virginia USA.

Copyright © 2013 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved. www.wsanford.com

Green-winged Teal (male, female)

A couple of Green-winged Teals (Anas crecca) spotted during a photowalk at Huntley Meadows Park, Fairfax County, Virginia USA. The male is shown in Photos 1-2; the female in Photo 3.

Tech Tips: BorderFX, a free plug-in for Apple Aperture, was used to add a text watermark to the photos.

Copyright © 2013 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved. www.wsanford.com

Common Whitetail dragonfly (immature male)

A Common Whitetail dragonfly (Libellula lydia, Plathemis lydia) spotted during a photowalk at Huntley Meadows Park, Fairfax County, Virginia USA. This individual is an immature male. As a young male the dragonfly’s abdomen will be covered by white pruinescence, hence its common name, “Common Whitetail.”

Tech Tips: BorderFX, a free plug-in for Apple Aperture, was used to add a text watermark.

Copyright © 2013 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved. www.wsanford.com