Black racer

I found this black racer sunning himself on a pile of old lawn debris. It was a somewhat cool day so cold-blooded animals like this snake need all the sun they can get. Black racers like this one are a very common nonvenomous snake in this part of Florida.

I used my telephoto lens for this photo. Black racers are shy and will slither away if you get too close.

Little Blue Heron

I've seen this little blue heron on the neighbor's dock many times. It is very shy so the only way I can get a good photo is with my telephoto lens. Even then, it usually flies away while croaking. The little blue heron is not a songbird. Today I had the lens zoomed in all the way, to about 300mm, and I used the cloudy setting on my camera, as it was a very gray day. Once I had the photo on my computer, I tweaked the color and contrast a little and cropped it to 50% of its original size.

Insects on a desert rose

The weather's been unseasonably warm this winter so far. We actually have the air conditioner on and it's the day after Christmas. Today it rained. These insects were hiding from the rain underneath the seed pod of a desert rose.

These photos were all taken with my 105mm macro lens. I set the camera to AV mode and tried various aperture settings until I found one I liked. 

Zebra longwings on Christmas night

Last night I went outside after dark to look for these butterflies. They rest on twigs and vines at night. Their zebra coloration actually works well to conceal them, as at night, they resemble dead leaves on wild grapevines from a short distance away.

I used my macro lens, a tripod, and a flashlight. This photo was taken with a 0.5 second exposure and ISO 6400. You can tell it was a high ISO setting because of the considerable graininess of this photo.

Green anoles

Green anoles are a fairly common lizard in Florida. Around here, they're not as common as the Cuban anoles, an invasive species that has outcompeted green anoles in recent decades. I found these two anoles mating on the leaves of a gumbo limbo tree.

Mud

This is just a picture of some mud and silt on the bank of the Indian River, I thought it looked interesting so I snapped a photo.

Barnacle

Barnacles are strange creatures. They're actually crustaceans, like crabs and lobsters. They live a sessile existence in adulthood, but earlier in their life cycle, they actually exist as free-swimming, one-eyed larva, similar in appearance to a copepod. They molt several times as they grow, like most crustaceans. As adults, barnacles feed using their legs, called cirri. That's what you see here. I took several photos before I could get a clear photo of the cirri.

Another weird thing about barnacles is that they are hermaphrodites, having both male and female organs, but they rarely reproduce through self-fertilization. They also don't sexually reproduce the way coral does, by releasing eggs and sperm into the water. Instead, barnacles mate through the use of an extremely long, prehensile penis. Barnacles may have the largest ratio of penis size to body size in the animal kingdom. Eventually, the fertilized eggs hatch, and they live within the shell of their parent for a while, until they molt for the first time and go off to look for a place to develop further and eventually attach themselves to something.

I took this photo shortly after I got my 50mm prime lens. If you're interested in a DSLR, you should definitely get that lens. It takes nice sharp photos, it's cheap, and it's compact. This picture isn't really representative of its capabilities though, as it was taken through water, causing the blurriness.

Airplanes at night

Sometimes I go out at night and take photos of stars. With a telephoto lens, you can photograph the Orion nebula, Andromeda, and a few other things. I'd like to eventually hook my camera up to a stronger telescope though, and maybe use an equatorial mount to take long exposures without the stars blurring.

These photos are of airplanes, however. If you take an exposure several seconds long, you can get interesting patterns caused by flashing lights on the planes.

Owl

 I found this owl back in May. I believe it's a screech owl. He seemed a bit sleepy, as it was still afternoon, so he let me take a number of photos before flying away. The two photos are the same owl.