Early-Bird Traveler

Today’s post features a phone camera image I captured yesterday in my church’s butterfly garden, here in the Missouri Ozarks … a large, Monarch butterfly caterpillar.

Typically, I haven’t seen Monarch “cats” in the garden until later in the summer. But this year, the milkweed plants from last year have really re-seeded themselves and there is an untypically high number of milkweed plants … and much earlier than I typically see. Consequently, the early Monarch butterflies (that are migrating north in the spring) have found the milkweed and have laid eggs much earlier than normal.

By the way, I found 6 Monarch cats on this day!

Monarch Caterpillar feeding on Milkweed

Photographic Equipment Used:

  • Pixel 3 Phone camera
Posted in: Butterfly Photography, Nature Photography, Wildflowers | Tags: ,
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Ozark Trillium

Today’s post features a focus-stacked, macrophotograph of a Trillium wildflower as it blooms in the woodlands, in the Missouri Ozarks.

I captured 25 individual images and then combined them into a single image. As you can see, the detail can be seen in most of the resulting image. But you can see that flower movement is a huge factor in capturing focus-stacked images … it is very obvious that the reddish petals are gently moving in the gentle wind:

Trillium wildflower

Photographic Equipment Used:

  • Canon 5D Mark 3 camera body
  • Canon 180mm, f/3.5 macro lens
  • Bogen 3021 tripod, with ballhead
  • ISO 400
  • Aperture f/3.5
  • Shutter 1/350 sec.
  • This image is a focus-stacked image of 25 individual images, and combined in Helicon Focus software
Posted in: Focus Stacking, Macro Photography, Nature Photography, Wildflowers | Tags: ,
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An Oxymoron?

Today’s post features a wildflower I captured recently while hiking around Burnt Mill Cave Conservation Area, located in the Missouri Ozarks:

White Violet

Photographic Equipment Used:

  • Canon 5D Mark 3 camera body
  • Canon 180mm, f/3.5 macro lens
  • Bogen 3021 tripod, with ballhead
  • ISO 400
  • Aperture f/3.5
  • Shutter 1/6,000 sec.
  • This image is a focus-stacked image of 7 individual images, and combined in Helicon Focus software
Posted in: Focus Stacking, Uncategorized, Wildflowers | Tags: , ,
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Dwarf Larkspur

Today’s post is a recent find at Fiery Fork Conservation Area, here in the Missouri Ozarks. This Dwarf Larkspur woodland wildflower is a new wildflower for me … I have seen the larger larkspur species, but this shorter version was a “lifer”:

Dwarf Larkspur wildflower

Photographic Equipment Used:

  • Canon 5D Mark 3 camera body
  • Canon 180mm, f/3.5 macro lens
  • Bogen 3021 tripod, with ballhead
  • ISO 500
  • Aperture f/8
  • Shutter 1/125 sec.
  • This image is a focus-stacked image of 11 individual images, and combined in Helicon Focus software
Posted in: Focus Stacking, Macro Photography, Nature Photography, Wildflowers | Tags: , ,
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Missouri’s Northern Resident

Today’s post features a couple of photos of Ring-necked Pheasants (males) that were captured at Squaw Creek NWR in northwest Missouri, a few years ago.

Squaw Creek NWR (now called Loess Bluffs NWR) is located near the northwest tip of Missouri, and is at the southern edge of the ring-necked pheasant range:

Ring-necked Pheasant, male

R

Photographic Equipment Used:

  • Canon 1D Mark 2 camera body
  • Canon 100mm-400mm, f/4.5-f/5.6 IS lens
  • Handheld, with IS “On”
  • ISO 200
  • Aperture f/8
  • Shutter 1/400 sec. and 1/320 sec.
Posted in: Bird Photography, Nature Photography | Tags:
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One Week Old and Growing

Today’s post features a couple of phone camera images I captured yesterday at my church here in the Missouri Ozarks. Yesterday the five baby Eastern Bluebird babies turned one-week old!

One-week old baby Eastern Bluebirds

While photographing them, one of the “toddlers” thought I was mom, bringing some food to the box:

One-week old baby Eastern Bluebirds

Photographic Equipment Used:

  • Google Pixel 3 phone camera
Posted in: Bird Photography, Nature Photography, Uncategorized | Tags: ,
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