Testing a new lens

I took my new 85 mm lens (AF-S Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G) out for a walk yesterday: around the yard, over to the neighbours' gardens, and across the street to the vacant lot. I came home very happy with it, and am even happier now that I've seen the results on the computer.

First, I took only one shot at some subjects, and almost all of those photos turned out fine. Where I took three photos, I had trouble choosing which worked out better; only a very few were total duds.

Next, I stood at the edge of a garden and took photos of daffodils several meters away, and the flies perched on them turned out in focus. No need to trample a neighbour's flower bed.

The vacant lot was soggy and muddy; I had trouble finding secure places to stand; I didn't dare get down on my knees to get photos of critters, nor even bend over to shoot, for fear of losing my balance. I took photos through several inches of muddy water, and the ground underneath turned out nice and clear.

I turned over a board with my foot, and shot the underside, from a standing position. Here's what I found.

Centipedes, pill bugs, and a tiny blue-headed snail.

The lens is fast, and without the need to crawl in close, I could get the centipedes before they ran off. And get them in focus, too. I took three photos of this group of wood bugs; all three turned out ok.

Large egg case. The shadow turned out a bit noisy.

On the mud where the board had been. The cluster of eggs glowed a true lime-green. I don't know what laid them.

Egg case, in a pale yellow web.

There were a few miniature red ants running on one end of the board, so tiny I had to bend over to see them. The camera did get them, but barely.

More test shots tomorrow, maybe the water pics.

Compost critters

I garden as much for the pleasure of the work itself as for the results; the shapes and colours, scents and tastes of the growing garden and its harvest. I just love to get my hands dirty, to dig in a shovel and turn the soil, watching the earthworms twist and squirm and head back down into darkness, to crumble friable loam in my fingers and smell its nutty aroma, to make holes and fill them with new plants, to trim and weed and prune. I love to straighten up after a few hours on my knees, holding my aching back, to stand for a bit, looking at the newly-loosened earth, the happy plants. As Mom used to say, "It's clean dirt," and so it is also "good pain."

I love the fixings: peat moss, well-aged manures, humus, fish fertilizer "tea", mulches, compost.

There's a limit to my madness. I draw the line at making "hot" compost; it needs a large pile or container; it must be turned frequently and soaked even more often;  it involves heavy lifting. And I have to wear gloves. Which never, ever fit, and always irritate my hands.

So I make lazy gardener's "cold" compost. In a back corner, behind the hydrangea, I toss all the day's clippings and cuttings and raked-up detritus, as-is, stems and sticks and all. A piece of log holds it down until the next time. Occasionally, I mix it up a bit, maybe shoving the new stuff underneath the old, maybe pulling out a few sticks from the middle and tossing them on top again. That's it. In between, I forget about it.

It takes years to build up good compost that way, but the end product is perfect, a joy to dig and to spread.

Last week, I dug up my compost pile for the first time in three or four years. I shoveled everything onto a tarp and hauled it out to the lawn to sort. Sticks, evergreen cones and unrottable rhododendron leaves here,  dead nettle runners there, stones from the soil underneath over there, clean compost in a loose heap in the center. And hundreds of live critters scrambling for cover everywhere. There were sowbugs of both types; the small, panicky ones, and the big, calm ones that just roll into a ball when things get awkward. There were ants, all disorganized, looking for the way home. Earthworms and spiders, millipedes, centipedes and assorted grubs. And at least a dozen small, shiny moths.

What was this doing in a compost heap?

I collected a moth and a few of the less frequent residents to look at later, then worked for another couple of hours weeding, raking, digging, transplanting, then finally spreading chicken manure and the compost. I cleaned up my mess and went in to examine my critter collection.

All that hard work is my excuse for what I did next; I took a couple of photos of each animal and released them without double-checking my photos. I was tired and hungry, and my back was aching, so I was careless and foolish.

Unidentified grub. There were many of these, about 1/2 inch long.

Fat, brown grub. Unidentified. Probably something that will eat my plants.

He's about 1 inch long, and has a series of black dots down each side. (See full-size.)

Centipede. (One pair of legs per segment.) This is the tail end.

Head end.

Woolly caterpillar. Unidentified.

When I looked at the photos later, I realized that I had a mystery on my hands. I'll explain that tomorrow.

Bioblitzing the creepy crawlies

Years ago, I read a book by David Bodanis, The Secret Garden: Dawn to Dusk in the Astonishing Hidden World of the Garden, and was enthralled by this vibrant, busy, teeming world that we so heedlessly pass through. I have since spent many a peaceful evening examining the inner parts of tiny plants and the beasties that live on and under them.

So it was inevitable that I would start and end the Bioblitz with my eye to the magnifying lens.

This, however, is my first attempt at photographing what I am finding. Not the best photos, but definitely better than my scrawled notes and sketchy drawings.

These are all inhabitants of the soil around my back door; most too small to see with the naked eye; some, even with the 40x hand microscope are just little dots with legs. You'll see what I mean here:
The larger beetle-like thing* here was barely visible without a lens. Up on the left, there is a tinier beetle. I found quite a few of them; I could see them walking around, sometimes see that they are green, sometimes even see the two antennae. Nothing more.

About that larger one; they hop, like a grasshopper, whenever they are disturbed. There were many of them in a couple of pine cones. (*Later: these have been identified as springtails, Orchesella cincta. See note below photo on Flickr.)

This one was big enough to track without a lens. I caught him and photographed him on a paper towel. About 1 1/2 cm. (5/8 inch).
A millipede. Very tiny.
A pale brownish mite.
A centipede, the "large" variety. A bunch of smaller ones were impossible; too fast, too pale, too tiny.

A spider on a clay pot.
On the bottom of that pot, collembola, springtails. Isn't this one cute? I love these things; so busy, always, so shiny white, even in a bucket of mud, so irrepressible. (See note by Frans Janssens.)
Miniatures: red, shiny mites. These guys are really, really tough; put a piece of Scotch tape on them to hold them still while you go for a better light, come back and find them walking around in the glue. Pour alcohol on them, to disolve the glue; they slow down a bit, then recover and go on about their business as if nothing had happened. (Other beasties would die instantly.) I don't know if they get a hangover.
And macro-biota; an earthworm, trying to get out of the light. I left this in the larger size, so you can click on it and see the "ribs"; it looks rather like one of those outlet hoses for your dryer.
Not photographed: something that scuttled out of view very quickly. Baby slugs. Sowbugs. And, in the water in the bottom of that pot, some tiny swimming worms, about the length of the springtails, but much skinnier, of course.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Flickr Blogger Bioblitz Photo Pool

Notes along the way: Bioblitz homework

Later tonight, animalia from my lawn.

But for now, bits and pieces picked up as I organize and fill out my notes:

• Centipedes have one pair of legs per segment. Millipedes have two (mostly). They move them in sequence, so it looks like a wave moving down the body. So the one I found in the vacant lot was a centipede. One closer to home (and smaller) was a millipede.
• Sow bugs and pill bugs are not the same. Pill bugs form a ball when disturbed; sow bugs do not. (And I always called them all wood bugs, rolled up or not.)
• Google images works, unless you don't know what you're looking for. It helps to have at least a genus name.
• It was Montia exigua. Was. Now it's Claytonia exigua. At least I found it.
• Carex macrocephala is red-listed.
• Something weird: I am not in the least squeamish about assorted bugs and beasties, but whenever I see a photo of a millipede on someone's finger, I shudder involuntarily.
• Bug Guide is a great source. Of bug id, naturally.
• "Although they look white to the human eye, many springtails are beautifully colored. Since they are so small, people can't see the colors without a microscope." From The Field Museum.