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Day 101, April 12, 2021. The landscape reflected the season, with the forest understory sprouting Mayapples reminding me of tiny palm trees, lance-like Trout Li...ly blades, and ferns poking up through the leaf litter. On our mountain slopes, at least at the lower elevations, trees are coming into bud, creating a veneer of reds and limes over the landscape. As I was driving and crested a hill, the spreading landscape before me had me screeching to a stop. Farm fields, hillsides, and distant mountains shrouded in low hanging clouds just screamed to me ‘The Spring Wave,’ a term Mary and I use to describe the progression of this season, as forests and fields go from brown to green. This Spring Wave, to us at least, is so explosively exciting that a thought came to me as I shot a standard shot of the distant landscape. Why not symbolize this explosion? I was using my 150-400, hoping to spot some wildlife, but the long lens proved to be perfect for isolating a vivid patch of color on a distant hillside. Since this is a zoom lens, I could zoom and change focal length, going from a shorter focal length to a longer focal length (more magnification) while I shot. To do this, you have to use a slow shutter speed, otherwise you can’t capture the effect. So I used ISO 100 on this cloudy day, allowing me to use 1/15th sec at f22. The lens I’m using has a very smooth zoom, so it was easy to zoom and change the focal length smoothly and fast. I think the trick to this is to shoot a motor drive sequence as you zoom, so you can just keep changing the zoom constantly as the camera is firing. By doing this, you’ll lessen the chance that you’re just firing at the beginning or end of a zoom, as the firing will be random. Although the zoomed images were interesting (well, some, anyway!), I thought the image would be more effective by really symbolizing the explosion with a detailed center, where the distinct leaf buds and branches are visible. To do this, I had to combine two images in Photoshop, and by using a mask and by a brush set at varying opacities I could blend the sharp image with the ‘explosion.’ I hope I captured the mood. An abstract, yes, but a fun way to convey this exciting season. The Green Wave, near Hoot Hollow, PA USA 4/12/2021 1/15 f22 ISO 100 150-400 zoomed during exposure - Photoshop composite of two images. See more

Day 100, April 11, 2021. It is hard to believe that I’m one hundred days into the year, posting at least one image taken that day. The project has been fantasti...c and has pushed my creative envelop. I find myself envisioning an image I hope to make, and finding my patience has increased far beyond its previous limits and that was at the Outer Limits even then. Today’s shot is a great example. Looking out our sunroom’s window I saw a suspicious dark oblong on the lane leading past our house and I was fairly certain a turtle was crossing the road. Grabbing some shoes, I raced (well, faster than a turtle at least) down the steps and towards the road. I wasn’t a minute too soon. As I ran down the lane a pickup truck was headed towards the turtle. I don’t know if the turtle would be hit or not some perverse excuses for humanity purposefully run over turtles, while others simply don’t pay attention and crush turtles accidentally but I wasn’t taking any chances. I ran down in the driver’s lane, expecting that the driver would see me and slow down. I reached the turtle first. It was a Wood Turtle and as I picked it up the driver, a neighbor, came to a stop. I showed him the turtle, a female, and he asked how I knew this. Female Wood Turtles, like many other turtle species, have a flattish plastron, or bottom shell, while male Wood Turtles have a concave shell, creating a nice space for the female’s shell to rest inside when a male mounts her for mating. The indentation keeps the male in position, whereas with a flat shell, this would be difficult. Since we moved to Hoot Hollow I’ve seen a depressing decrease in the number of Wood and Box Turtles we see, and the principle reason for this is vehicle encounters, where turtles are crushed. What is particularly tragic about this is that an adult Box Turtle could easily be 50 or 60 years old, representing, perhaps, the only turtle from a clutch of eggs that survived to adulthood. In fact, that turtle may have been the only turtle that survived from several years of clutches produced by its mother. Skunks, Opossums, Raccoons, and Foxes will dig up the nests, and a baby turtle well, think of a tasty cracker! Their shells, upon hatching, are no defense from those predators and many more. So when a turtle is killed by a car, it is not as if there are dozens more in the local woodlot. Instead, that turtle might represent the only survivor of a generation or a decade, and if it is a female, its many clutches will face the same dangers that the adult has. If a female turtle is killed, that might be the end of the line for turtles in that area. Chances are, no new turtles will replace the lost from other areas, after all, it is likely any wandering turtle will face the danger of many roads as well. Turtles are not a renewable resource. As I released the turtle to a safer environment, a hundred yards or so off the road, I shot the photo of the day. I wanted to include habitat, so I used a 7-14mm wide-angle (equivalent full frame 14-28mm), and to illuminate the dark areas beneath the shell I used an off-camera flash, set on manual mode at 1/64th power. I used a sheet of paper towel, secured by a pipe cleaner, over the flash head to diffuse and soften the light. I exposed for the ambient light, and used the flash merely as a subtle fill. Wood Turtles spend the winter in streams, either hibernating or going through a fairly dormant state, but in Spring most leave the streams and wander the forest floor. I wanted to convey this in the image, and the sprouting May Apple plant and first leaves of Trout Lilies contribute to the image, indicating that Spring has just begun. That’s what I meant when I mentioned earlier about envisioning an image, although I was thinking of photographing a toad in this way when I had the idea. By the way, some males may stay in or near water throughout the year, but females get into trouble as they leave the streams to seek an open area to lay eggs, which leads them to roads, and way too often, to the end of their lives as well. Wood Turtle, Hoot Hollow, PA USA 4/11/2021 1/200 f10 ISO 1600 7-14mm at 10mm, off-camera flash at 1/64th power

Day 100 of the Photo Challenge - and this isn't the photo for the day. But, to commemorate the 100th day of this project, I'm going to do something I've never d...one before. I've had a canvas 24x48 inch print made of what is my favorite shot for the first 100 days, and I'm auctioning it off in a blind auction. The canvas print is a wrap-around canvas, so there's no need for a frame ... it hangs as is. If you'd like to purchase this print, packaged and ready to ship (yours is still in the box - this one is ours), email me with your bid at [email protected]. Proceeds from this will go towards my turtle conservation project ... which will probably be my 100th photo post, later today. I'll keep this auction open through Saturday. See more

Day 99, April 10, 2021. Rodents in Paradise if I had to give a title to the day, that would be it. We live in Paradise, I was thinking, as I had my truck park...ed on our two lane road, in the wrong lane and mostly blocking that side of the road. A bicyclist and one vehicle passed by while I spent over an hour there, undisturbed, as I waited for Groundhogs (aka Woodchucks) to present themselves at their burrows. That feeling of Paradise was only reinforced when Mary and I drove my friend’s ATV to my photo blind (she hadn’t seen it in real time) and there, at about 200 yards off, Mary thought she spotted a Porcupine high in a tree. With my 150-400 zoomed to 1000mm I confirmed what she’d spotted a pretty impressive observation considering I WAS distracted by Common Ravens overhead and never glanced at very distant trees. We headed down to the Porcupine, which seemed to be sleeping, and I got some shots a great omen for more Porcupine activity as the season progresses. Both Porcupines and Woodchucks are rodents, and both are often maligned. Our elderly neighbor used to sit on his front porch and shoot any he had in view, a common past-time as farmers often complain that equipment or animals drop into their burrows. Porcupines are potential pests on woodland property, as these rodents are attracted to salt and will chew into anything that has salt residue, so wires, window panes, railings, all may be chewed upon and destroyed by their gnawing. For Mary and I, we love them both, and although we only rarely have a Porcupine pass through our wods, we usually have at least one family of Woodchucks living under our shed or in a burrow right next to our kitchen door where my bird shooting site is located. Today, Mary looked out the window and found a Woodchuck on the feeder, having climbed up the railing and braces. The Woodchuck was shy, and climbed down, with a lot more awkwardness than I imagine it exhibited climbing up to the bird seed. Rodents have very prominent front incisors, ‘buck teeth,’ that are their principle teeth for gnawing. After a small gap, where canine teeth (fangs) would be on carnivores, molars finish their dentition. The front teeth are continuously worn down by their gnawing, and these front teeth continue to grow throughout the rodent’s life. I’ve seen one skull of a Woodchuck where the front teeth, upper and lower, did not meet, and because they did not, they continued to grow, and grow. The skull I found had half an arch as the teeth curved, but there have been reports of skulls where the two teeth in the lower jaw grew up and around, eventually piercing the back of the Woodchuck’s skull. How the animal was able to eat while this was going on is beyond me. Porcupine near Hoot Hollow, PA USA 4/10/2021 1/50 f5.6 ISO 400 150-400 w 1.25X TC at 459mm, hand-held, lens resting on a tree trunk Woodchuck, Hoot Hollow, PA USA 4/10/2021 1/500 f5.6 ISO 1600 150-400 w 1.25X TC at 500mm Showing his fine incisor teeth as he chirps a warning whistle

Day 98, April 9, 2021. Garden Flowers and Meadow Mysteries I had an hour to find something to shoot for the Year Long Challenge and after scouring our fields ...for a likely subject I settled, at first, on Bleeding Heart flowers right outside our door. I used the Olympus Bracket/Focus Stacking feature, which gave me extended focus throughout much of the flower. I wasn’t satisfied just photographing a garden plant so I headed to our field, hoping to find a Praying Mantis egg case where I could further demonstrate the power of this Focus Bracket/Focus Stacking feature. The egg case, deposited by a female in late summer or early fall, stays dormant through the winter, with the tiny, miniature insects emerging on silken lines when warm weather returns, generally hatching some time in May or early June. I noticed far more Goldenrod Gall Wasp galls, which I suspect many people have seen but didn’t know what they were looking at. The Gall Wasp lays her eggs in the stem of a Goldenrod, triggering a cancer-like but distinctive growth, called a gall, where at least one egg is laid. When the egg hatches the larvae feeds on the fibrous tissue created in the gall. Look carefully, and you’ll notice a hole near the top of the gall. This might be the exit hole for the emerging wasp, but more likely, it is the entrance hole where a Downy Woodpecker or Black-capped Chickadee has poked a hole to reach the larvae inside. I’ve shown two versions of the Mantid egg case and the Goldenrod Gall. In each example, one has a busy background with the background weeds visible, and potentially distracting, while the other view has a ‘boka’ (bocca? boca?) background, a diffused, soft background that doesn’t compete with the principle subject or detract from it. Why? The soft background images were shot at f4.5, an extremely shallow depth of field, while the busy background shots were made at f20 or f18. Yet the f4.5 images have sharpness throughout the egg case and the gall! Why? That’s because I used Focus bracketing, where the camera shot 15 images with a focus differential of 1, and the camera composited the shots into one image, where the entire subject is sharp. But because the actual depth of field was f4.5, the background was ALWAYS out of focus and remained so, and hence looks diffused. This Focus Bracket/Focus Stacking feature is available on the Olympus cameras, and is so, so handy for this type of work. By the way, I have an entire ebook on eJunkie on this, if you’d like to learn more. Check our website for a link to the eJunkie page. https://mcdonaldwildlife.e-junkie.com//Using-Focus-Bracket See more