The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning
Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Other creatures in our world
A praying mantis appeared along the top of the living room windows:
They’re ferocious hunters and we’re in favor of them… but having them on the outside of the window works better for all of us.
Those old Anderson windows seem to attract big critters…
The season of giant orb-weaving spiders comes again to Poughkeepsie, with this one stretching a web across the decorative grasses bracketing the (unused) front door:
While I screwed around with the camera, she dashed off to one side and began wrapping a package:
Her spinnerets release a torrent of silk during that operation!
Dragging it back to the middle of her orb, she settled down for breakfast.
So did I…
Hand held with the Sony DSC-H5, facing westward in dawn light, using the flash to bring the image up out of the mud. A touch of unsharp mask and some contrast stretching; nothing too drastic.
The corn cob sat on the patio after an outdoor supper, awaiting a trip to the trash can, when an all-black woolly bear caterpillar appeared from nowhere.
I’m sure it’s a direct descendant of that one. We put this one in the garden, too, for the same reason.
Mary puts damaged cherry tomatoes beside our resident chipmunk’s favorite hideout:
The critter eats them from the inside out, then tosses the shredded skins.
Since she started leaving her offerings, the chipmunk has been leaving the good cherry tomatoes in her garden untouched. We’re both astonished at how many tomatoes fit inside one chipmunk…
These turkey vultures were settling in for the evening on the south bank of the Rondout Creek in Kingston:
Hand-held with the HS-230SX at dusk and cropped a bit. There’s no way to get a good exposure of a black bird backlit by the sky…
Mary grows Scarlet Runner Beans with vivid red flowers specifically for the Ruby Throated hummingbirds that frequent the back yard:
This female perched quite a while on that tendril while sticking her tongue out; it looks like a length of monofilament fishing line. The male also feeds on those flowers, although I’ve never seen him perch anywhere for more than a few seconds.
We wish them success in raising their chicks!
Hand-held with the Canon SX-230HS zoomed all the way in, then ruthlessly cropped.
It seems toads really like the plant cell packs that Mary uses to start her garden veggies:
The garden isn’t quite as snug, but the camouflage works much better:
It’s been a dry year and we haven’t seen many toads or slugs around the house.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 