Since we prohibit the use of pesticides outside and inside (except for mosquito spray for your feet, inside), we have lots of helpful spiders both inside the outside the office. I prefer to have spiders capture the mosquitos rather than to use room-spray. There are probably 80 or more spiders happily residing inside the office. And this week we found four outside with their webs within a few inches of each other.
With the wind the spiders were moving, so no way to do stacked focus (in depth focus) and since the webs were high it was tough to get the camera parallel to the spiders. But at least we got good snapshots. We will have our team identify the genus and species but wanted to post at least one view now.
What was interesting is that the spiders were completely different species (yet very close together).
Went outside to see if the pregnant opossum was still wandering around (it was gone). But much to my surprise saw a giant moth “the size of a small hummingbird.
If flew so fast there was no way the camera could focus on it (or even keep the month in the viewfinder). The photos are blurry but eventually we would be able to identify it.
I estimate it is a pollinator? Time will tell. It had more color and beautiful design than I expect for a moth.
Over and over again biologists emphasize that some species of heliconia are pollinated “only” by hummingbirds. So much to my pleasant surprise we found dozens of stingless native local bees buzzing around several of the Heliconia collinsiana in our Mayan ethnobotanical garden overlooking Guatemala City. There are plenty of hummingbirds elsewhere in the garden, but I must admit I have not yet noticed them running after any of our four species of local native Heliconia flowers.
I estimate we have minimum of three species of stingless bees happily flying around our garden, plus some much larger bees (with stingers) which are attracted to the Brugmansia flowers (very common garden flower, but not documented to be native specifically to Guatemala).
I would not rule out hummingbirds pollinating heliconia out in the wild, but we have all kinds of pollinators happily flying around our garden, and so far have seen only bees working away at the Heliconia flowers.
Found what appeared to be a very pregnant opossum in our Mayan ethnobotanical garden (in the hills overlooking Guatemala City). It did not hiss, nor run away fast. It simply climbed up the vines on the wall (surrounding the property).
Quetzal came to the Cecropia (Guarumo) tree for food, 5:10 pm, Ranchitos del Quetzal, June 15, 2017.
Photo by Nicholas Hellmuth, Nikon D5, AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8E FL ED VR lens on Gitzo tripod with Wimberley WH-200 gimbal tripod head II), overcast sky. Pure sunlight (almost no flash would reach as far away as this bird was).
This is cropped down since a 400mm lens will simply not capture a view of any bird at this distance. We hope to have a 600mm lens by July, but frankly I estimate that the only way to photograph a bird this far away would be to use a Swarovski digiscoping system.
The quetzals come to feed on the guarumo treetops about 5 to 6 am and 5 to 6 pm (the worst possible times of day for “sunlight” photography in a rainy cloud forest).
Photo of Egretta tricolor, Garza tricolor, en el Canal de Chiquimulilla.
We are working on preparing tips and suggestions How-to do bird photography, or better titles, how to improve your bird photography. We will be working on this the entire year.
Today we offer a set of fine art giclee quality images of the tricolored heron, Egretta tricolor, photographed along the Canal de Chiquimulilla, near Monterrico, Guatemala, Central America. We list the camera, lens, ISO, speed, and f.stop used for freezing the bird in flight.
For many years we have cooperated with the pleasant and knowledgeable team at CECON in Monterrico. Alex Cuellar and other capable guides from Monterrico have taken us in boats so we can photograph Neotropical flowers, crabs, birds, tule swamps, and mangrove swamps.
CECON is a university institute dedicated to protecting the fragile eco-systems of several different parts of Guatemala.