When you’re photographing hummingbirds, you have to use a modified flash because even regular flashes are too slow to really freeze the motion of the wings.
Lego hummingbirds are easier.
All posts by Josh More
Lego Sea Turtle
Lego sea turtles swim the North Sea looking for Lego looking for Lego jellyfish to eat. It can take a team of builders several hours every day just to construct the food the turtle needs.
Lego Snow Leopard
Lego dodos were not preyed upon by the Lego snow leopards. They live in two entirely different regions of Denmark.
Lego Dodo
I was lucky enough to be at the Indianapolis zoo during the few months when they were playing host to endangered (and extinct) species Lego sculpture.
If you ever are lucky enough to see something like this, you’ll be saying “Lego Dodo” all day.
Bird
The boss wants to remind you that that report is due by end of day Friday.
Wood Lake
Then, in the final minutes, just before the land succumbed to the growing darkness, they sky did lighten portending the impending arrival of the great wizard, prophesied to defeat the ultimate evil and save all the peoples of the land.
Alas, he forgot to correct for daylight savings time and everyone perished.
Dakota Skipper (Hesperia dacotae)
This picture is even worse than the previous one, but I like it because you can see their vicious fangs that they use to attack humans and suck out their souls … or eat grass.
It’s so hard to tell sometimes.
Dakota Skipper (Hesperia dacotae)
This is a test photograph of a Dakota skipper caterpillar. It’s not a great shot, and I forgive you for not appreciating it right away.
The Dakota skipper is an endangered butterfly. Like other prairie butterflies, the caterpillars hatch from teensy tiny eggs and make a weensy little home at the base of a grass stem. They then eat grass all summer in the hopes of becoming a full grown butterfly the following year. They then help pollinate the plants as they eat nectar, mate, and make more teensy tiny eggs.
Now, the words “teensy tiny” might not mean much. What you have to realize is that these butterflies are small. Their wings measure one inch* across. Their body is then less than an inch* long and quite slender. The eggs are smaller than that so they can fit in that little body. The caterpillars, of course, have to fit in the eggs.
When I saw the eggs, they reminded me of seeds. Poppy seeds, specifically … but whitish green … and a bit smaller.
That means that this little caterpillar, who fit into an egg about the size of a poppy seed was quite little. He looked like a little eyelash … but whitish green … and a bit smaller. The lab people moved them around with soft paint brushes because anything else would hurt (or kill) them. The hope is that a captive population will help to identify why the species is dying out.
I was not prepared to take this photo. I had with me a 10x microscope objective, an adapter, a basic lens, and a flashlight. To do it properly, I’d have used a proper microscope. Alas, that requires timing to work out and I was not so fortunate. Still, given the conditions I was working with, I think it worked out okay.
* That’s 25.4 millimeters for those of you lucky enough to live somewhere** with a rational system of measurement.
** Also known as “the rest of the world”***
*** Except the United States, Liberia, Myanmar****
**** You know, Burma
Krill
I went to the Akron Zoo today to see their reef exhibit before it closed. As many of you know, I love shooting seahorses. However, they were all hanging out at the bottom of the aquarium and I couldn’t get a good angle. Luckily, their food was free swimming and well in range.
This is a krill (or something krill-like). This little guy is about three millimeters long and about half a millimeter wide. It is capable of moving in three dimensions just slightly faster than autofocus allows. I took this shot, free hand, with the help of a single solitary flash.
This may be the most challenging normal* photo I’ve ever taken … so even though I’m not caught up on processing, I’m posting this one early to brag.
* The non-normal photos I took in Nicaragua are more challenging, and that is why the photos have paused. I need to finish those suckers.
Cow
Where’s my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes, “Moo!”
It is my cow!
Bunny
Where’s my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes, “Mootz!”
It is a bunny!
That’s not my cow!
Lamb
Where’s my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes, “Baa!”
It is a lamb!
That’s not my cow!
Horse
Some horses need scaffolding.
Red Panda
Unlike the stereotypical human variety, red panda artists aren’t starving.
Bird
I was going to make a joke here about dunking biscuits in tea.
Then I found that Wikipedia has an article specifically on this topic ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunking_(biscuit) ), and that fact alone is funnier than anything I could come up with.
Porcupine
“I sense something different about this place. Something … unnatural.”
Bird in Fog
Conceptual comic wondering if the audience will appreciate his “mime trapped in a temporally-shifting hyper-cube” act.
Sign
Dude’s a rebel.
Red Panda
Red pandas start with a +2 base attack bonus, a bonus feat, and one free third level spell per day.
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)
These birds are named after the Catholic cardinals, yet not once have one of them turned into a Northern Pope.