Today’s Image | Turtle on Concrete

5/027/2023 Today's Image | Turtle on Concrete

Today’s Image | Turtle on Concrete   This Painted Turtle was crossing a driveway headed for the street.  After capturing a few images, it moved right into the street and started to follow the gutters going uphill.  Obviously, this route would probably not end well for the turtle.  So, I picked it up with gloves and moved it to some woods with a nice shallow lake just down a short hill. (This image again used a 10mm extension tube to focus so closely.)  Note: I post an image most days at hankconrad.com.

Spring 2020 Hodgepodge | Painted Turtle

Spring 2020 Hodgepodge | Painted Turtle

Spring 2020 Hodgepodge | Painted Turtle   The Painted Turtle is the most widespread native turtle of North America.  It likes to live in slow-moving fresh waters.  Fossils show that the painted turtle existed 15 million years ago. Must be a tough little critter!  This female is laying her eggs in some nice dirt along a grassy edge.  For the whole story with all images, see Spring 2020 Hodgepodge | a 7 Image Story.

Spring 2020 Hodgepodge | a 7 Image Story

Spring 2020 Hodgepodge | Rough RoseSpring 2020 Hodgepodge | a 7 Image Story  This year’s spring was wetter than normal.  The flowers as well as the weeds seemed to grow sooner, faster, and higher. These images were all captured on my daily walkabouts. The big change this spring is my use of extension tubes to photograph flowers and greenery.  They allow the camera to focus closer to the subject allowing more detail in the image.

Rough Rose  This extension tube macro image captures the weather wear of this hybrid tea rose.   Rose-breasted Grosbeak  The rose-breasted grosbeak is a large seed-eating bird in the cardinal family.  They have a lifespan of  about 7 years in the wild and up to 24 years in captivity.   Tiger Lily  Although the Nikon AF DC 135mm f2D coupled to 10mm extension tube is a manual focus lens on the Nikon 1 V3 camera, it can produce a very nice detailed image like this Tiger Lily.   Blue Jay  The Blue Jay is a common songbird in northern Illinois They mainly feed on nuts and seeds so they show up every day to the bird feeder.  They are very aggressive and sometimes attack other birds.  When they arrive at the bird feeder, all the other birds leave.   Orange Lily  Lilies of various types are common to northern Illinois.  Macro photography allows us to get a closer look.  And, of course, sometimes a lucky shot captures a sweat bee in flight.   Painted Turtle  The Painted Turtle is the most widespread native turtle of North America.  It likes to live in slow-moving fresh waters.  Fossils show that the painted turtle existed 15 million years ago. Must be a tough little critter!  This female is laying her eggs in some nice dirt along a grassy edge.   Green Leaf  Again, macro photography reveals interesting shapes.  Not sure what type of plant has been captured in this image!  Macro photography seems to force a very thin depth of field regardless of the f-stop used.  In this image, keeping the leaf tips and the stem in sharp focus seemed virtually impossible.

Each image will be posted individually this week with a bit more narrative under category Spring 2020 Hodgepodge.

Click any image below for a slide show.

Painted Turtle

Painted Turtle

The Painted Turtle is the most widespread native turtle of North America. It lives in slow-moving fresh waters.  Also, fossils show that the painted turtle existed 15 million years ago; it’s a tough little critter.  However, it’s too heavy for a lily pad.  This guy took off into the water onto a lily pad, but it gave way under the turtles weight.