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2020: Photographic Year in Review

Posted Thursday, December 31, 2020Thursday, December 31, 2020 Jess Yarnell2 CommentsPosted in Year in Review

2020 started out as a great year for photography. I was on a great streak with Florida rarities until March, when the coronavirus pandemic shut down most of my outings for the rest of the year. Looking back, I had as many blog posts in January and February as I did for the whole rest of the year! Like most people, I’m not sorry to put 2020 behind us. Hopefully things will start to get closer to normal sometime in 2021.

There were some good rarities that popped up in Florida early this year. They were good incentive to get out in the fields on the weekend and enjoy my camera. My favorites were the Mountain Bluebird on Trilby Road, the Hooded Oriole at Weekiwachee, and my lifer Yellow-breasted Chat from my first trip to Sweetwater Wetlands.

After several years of chasing, I found my nemesis bird in early 2020 – a beautiful Cinnamon Teal! I’ve chased this rarity many times at Merritt Island and Lake Apopka. It was almost too easy to find this one swimming with other ducks on the Blackpoint Wildlife Drive. He even gave me a wing flap!

I re-discovered the Oakland Nature Preserve this year. Rich and I went there a lot when I was discovering bird photography. This year I ventured beyond the boardwalk and found that the other trails are great for quiet me-time. I enjoyed hanging out with the bluebirds, seeing my lifer Field Sparrows, and being surprised by Baltimore Orioles and a gopher tortoise.

Speaking of tortoises and turtles, 2020 was the off-year for Green Sea turtle nesting. Rich and I did make it Archie Carr once this summer. We were excited to find a nesting mother turtle returning to the sea before Hurricane Isaias. Thankfully here in Florida we were spared the worst of the tropics this year.

The birding highlight of 2020 was Fred Bassett’s visit to my parents’ backyard to band their hummingbirds. He travels all over the US to study hummingbirds, and he banded two Ruby-throated hummers that were regular visitors to my mom’s feeders. I’ll never forget the look on my mom’s face as she briefly held the tiny bird before releasing it! :)

Ruby-throated Hummingbird banded at my parents’ house

2020 was a good year to watch the skies. I photographed the SpaceX launch that returned us to American-made spaceflight, the African Dust Storm over the East Atlantic, and the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. However, my favorite space-related event did not involve a camera. During the Geminid meteor shower, Rich and I simply laid on a blanket and watched the sky dance with shooting stars.

I didn’t go to Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive as much this year, as it’s overrun with cars these days. But one visit does stick out in my mind: the day that I saw my first-even baby Gray-headed Swamphen. What a cute little guy!

Gray-headed Swamphen with Baby playing peek-a-boo under her tail

On the feline front, Whiskey carefully observed all birds and butterflies outside his window, and even did a guest blog post about the pandemic. Squirt spent the year begging Rich to feed him! (That’s why we work from home, right? So we can feed cats more often?) In the fall, we said a sad goodbye to my parents’ cat (and Goldy’s sister) Missy. Then we welcomed Precious into the family. In just three months she has successfully trained both my parents to spoil her completely. :)

Hopefully 2021 will bring this pandemic under control. The Beast and I want to plan some photography trips that I’m really looking forward to! In the meantime, I’ll continue to get to know the areas near home. Wishing all my readers a great 2021!!

Metamorphosis

Posted Monday, December 28, 2020Thursday, December 31, 2020 Jess Yarnell2 CommentsPosted in Butterflies

Whiskey would like to provide an update on the Monarch butterflies growing up outside his window. You may recall Whiskey from his guest post on feline ornithology (corona-style). All year he has carefully observed the adult monarchs fluttering around his flowers, watched the caterpillars nibble away at his milkweed, and closely monitored the transformation of a chrysalis into a new butterfly!

Whiskey saw some of the smallest caterpillars as they hatched outside his window. He sent Jess outside with her macro lens to photograph them. The images don’t do justice to how tiny they were. They weren’t even as wide as Jess’s smallest fingernail. This was taken at 65mm at between 1x and 2x magnification…

It doesn’t take long for those tiny caterpillars to grow. One night Whiskey went to bed with a big milkweed full of green leaves, and the next morning he found this:

Screen-Shot-2020-12-20-at-9.14.43-PM — There were at least 12 Monarch caterpillars crawling at the top of this plant alone!

We relocated some of those caterpillars to a different milkweed plant. A few days later, Whiskey had a new chrysalis to watch. The chrysalis starts out a beautiful pale green color. It blends in very nicely with green leaves, protecting the creature as it transforms from caterpillar to butterfly.

Monarch Chrysalis in its early stage – taken 11/23

A few weeks later, the chrysalis looked very different as the butterfly prepared to emerge. We got a last photo on the day that the butterfly emerged.

Monarch Chrysalis - Day of Emergence — Monarch Chrysalis – Day of Emergence 12/13

A few hours later, Whiskey noticed a beautiful new butterfly on the lawn, slowing opening and closing its wings as they hardened. What a cool cycle of life!

This year our annual cross-stitch Christmas ornament features a monarch butterfly. The ornament theme is always related to a significant event of the year. This year we’ll remember being quarantined and passing our days, like Whiskey, watching the world through our virtual window!

2020 Christmas Ornament - "looking out from the panedemic window" — 2020 Christmas Ornament – “looking out from the panedemic window”

As crazy as 2020 has been, it’s reminded us of an important lesson: always stop and enjoy the little miracles around us, like the metamorphosis of a butterfly. It’s always good to stop and wave hello to the butterflies!!

The Great Conjunction (Plus a Day)

Posted Wednesday, December 23, 2020Sunday, January 3, 2021 Jess Yarnell1 CommentPosted in Astrophotography

On Monday, Jupiter and Saturn passed very close to each other in the “Great Conjunction.” At our house, that event happened behind a nice bank of clouds. It was actually impressive that we could still see the planets through the clouds, but the photography was disappointing. So we tried again on Tuesday night. We started with a sunset at Lake Apopka, then pulled out the big lens for the planets. The second time was the charm!

Since the sunset forecast projected a nice sunset, Rich and I headed up to our favorite sunset location at the Magnolia Park boat ramp. It’s going to be closing in January for construction, so we wanted to enjoy it while we can. As always, the sun was beautiful as it sunk lower on the horizon, illuminating the clouds and hinting at a gorgeous afterglow.

Apparently Rich and I weren’t the only ones who wanted to see the sunset. Santa and Mrs. Claus were there too! They were relaxing with a picnic and some wine to prepare for Santa’s big night on Friday!

We ran into a retired co-worker and had fun catching up with him as we watched the sunset turn into afterglow. Then we spotted two now-familiar dots in the sky. Jupiter and Saturn! They shown brightly against the blue clouds as the sunset light faded. You can see the “Christmas Star” in the very middle of this next photo, in between the center trees.

When the mosquitos got the better of us, we returned home and went out with the Beast to photograph the planets. I used LiveView with 10x zoom to refine the focus, then used a remote shutter release to minimize camera shake. We could see the rings of Saturn, four moons of Jupiter, and sometimes one faint moon of Saturn. The image below is a composition, with one exposure for Jupiter and a different one for Saturn. Pretty cool!

So now that the Christmas Star is here, Rich is giving me the Christmas countdown several times a day (in several languages and number bases, just to keep it interesting!). Merry Christmas to all our readers!