A Visitor To The Wild Potato Vine /  by Todd Henson

A visitor to the wild potato vine.

In mid-July my father and I walked around the shoreline trail of Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I’m often drawn to the various flowers, many of which look very similar. In this case we found what I believe was a wild potato vine (Ipomoea pandurata), a member of the morning glory family, with their beautiful white flowers and deep pink interior. 

As I was attempting to find a decent view of a flower an insect, I believe some kind of bee, flew right into the one I was looking at. I then focused all my attention on that flower, getting as close as I could and attempting to see into the dark interior of the flower. The insect had flown in head first but by the time I had my camera positioned it had turned itself around and was facing me. I’ve photographed insects like this a few times and always enjoy the view it presents. Notice how the insect has its legs splayed out pushing against the flower to position itself.

Below is a slightly wider view to show the flower with the vines and leaves, and if you look closely, the tail end of the insect.

A wider view of the wild potato vine flower with the bee inside.

Tech Talk

For those technically inclined, I was photographing with my 105mm macro lens. It was an overcast day so I had my ISO up a bit to better see into the darker regions and still keep a high enough shutter speed for me to handhold.

For the wider view I used an ISO of 800, an aperture of f/6.3 and a shutter speed of 1/640. These were general middle-of-the-road settings while I was exploring the scene.

When I moved closer to see inside the flower it might have made sense to raise the ISO to better see the much darker region, but I didn’t think of that and was working fast before the insect left the flower, so I stayed at ISO 800. I was much closer to the subject so I had the foresight to stop down my aperture to f/9 to try to get more of the insect and interior in focus. The closer you get the shallower the depth of field. Stopping down the aperture helps get a wider depth of field with more in focus, and at this close range the depth of field is very small even with smaller apertures. But stopping down the aperture requires a slower shutter speed (ah, physics!), in this case 1/320 second, which I hoped was still fast enough for a sharp image.

In the end I’m pleased with how it turned out.

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Greens and Browns Along the Ground /  by Todd Henson

In autumn most of the forest floor is the brown of fallen leaves. But there are still patches of color, mostly shades of green, sticking up every so often through the brown. I’ve gathered together a small collection of photos from one hike through Prince William Forest Park on October 29th, 2023, that show some of these greens and browns along the ground. I hope you enjoy them.

Fan Clubmoss

One of the common plants that remains green late in the year is fan clubmoss with its distinctive fan shape. It tends to grown very low to the ground and spreads out all over the forest floor.

Fan clubmoss spreads across the leaf-covered ground

Fan clubmoss and beech leaves (and a couple red oak)

Tree Clubmoss

Not quite as common in these woods is tree clubmoss, which grows taller than fan clubmoss and is far less smooth. In fact, the combination of the sharper bristles and the tall yellow stalks make it one of the plants sometimes used to create Christmas wreaths and other greenery. On one trail you can find fan clubmoss on one side and tree clubmoss on the other with the trail seemingly the dividing line between the two.

A field of tree clubmoss

Looking down on tree clubmoss

Delicate Fern Moss

What struck me about this scene was the beautifully delicate green fern patterns growing out of a hole in the fallen tree. Delicate fern moss is a very appropriate name. Sadly, I didn’t quite nail the focus with this image, but it still conveys the wonderful patterns and color.

The beautiful green patterns of delicate fern moss grow from a hole in a fallen tree

Partridge Berry

And speaking of color, it’s not at all uncommon to see the darker green leaves of partridge berry vining their way over other greenery like moss and lichen. And of course the bright red berries are an extra treat, especially when seen against all that green.

A bright red partridge berry with its darker green leaves set against lighter greens and brown leaves

Quartz

And let’s not forget the geology of this forest, one with plenty of quartz underground and sometimes poking out for us to appreciate. Here we see examples of quartz surrounded by leaves and some bits of greenery.

A wide view of quartz, leaves, moss and lichen

A quartz closeup


Autumn and winter often lead to less color in the landscape, but that doesn’t mean there’s no color. We just need to look a little closer to see it. And when we see it, to appreciate it.

Thanks for reading.

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Approaching a Gray Treefrog in November in Northern Virginia /  by Todd Henson

A beautiful gray treefrog in Northern Virginia on November 18, 2023

Finding natural subjects in the field is often about pattern recognition developed over time such that it becomes almost subconscious. My father or I will just see something out of the corner of our eye and do a double-take, not necessarily knowing what we saw, just that something stood out. It could have been movement, or color, or texture, anything that stands out as different than we’d expect in that area.

In this case I noticed a round splotch of light color atop a fallen tree. And my first thought was, that can’t possibly be a frog, not on a cool morning in the latter half of November. I figured it was too late and too cold to see amphibians. But I had to check it out.

Did I just see something on that fallen tree?

So I very slowly and carefully moved closer to the log, trying to minimize noise while crunching and shuffling the fallen autumn leaves. I didn’t move directly at the frog. It’s almost never a good idea to directly approach a subject. Instead I moved towards the tree a little ways down from the frog, photographing every so often in case I scared it away, something I was trying very hard to avoid.

This is as close as I got to the gray treefrog with the 35mm lens.

When I reached the log I was on the ground. I moved as close as I thought I could with the wider angle zoom I had (a 16-35mm) and created a photo at 35mm. Then I paused and swapped out lenses for the longest I had with me, moving slowly and quietly. With the 105mm macro I was able to get a closer view of what I now knew was a gray treefrog. And with this extra reach I was also able to confirm it was alive as I could see it breathing.

I switched to my 105mm lens to get a closer view of the gray treefrog.

So I kept moving closer, as close as I felt comfortable I could without scaring away the frog. Thankfully, I’ve found treefrogs are often very tolerant, perhaps trusting in their natural camouflage and hoping by sitting still that nothing can see them. Eventually I got down as low as I could, resting the camera on the log to get as close to eye-level as possible. I do love these frogs, and I love photographing creatures at eye-level.

This was as close as I chose to get to the gray treefrog.

Then I rested the camera on the log to get this eye-level view of the gray treefrog.

As I slowly moved away I stood up and captured a view from above. This is a habit I’ve tried to build, to capture views from as many angles as possible to help identify the species later on. In this case I didn’t need to do it as I knew it was a gray treefrog, but I still try to capture different angles.

Standing up for a top down view shows off the gray treefrog’s patterns.

An interesting note on species is that there are two gray treefrog species in this area, the Cope’s gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) and the gray treefrog (Hyla versicolor). They look identical and the only ways to tell them apart in the field are via their call, unless you happen to be in an area that’s home to only one of the two. And seeing as how I’ve yet to hear a gray treefrog, I’ve no clue which this was.

Regarding my surprise seeing one this late in the year, I learned from the Virginia Herpetological Society that they can be found in November (obviously, because we found this one then) and potentially later. They have some natural tolerance to freezing temperatures, producing glycerol and glucose to protect them from freezing. This lets them survive at temperatures down to -2 to -6 C for short periods of time, and they can even survive multiple freezing and thawing events. Pretty interesting, eh?

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