northeast-flora-and-fauna

There were a small number of Cedar Waxwings up in a tree, and I got pictures of 2 of them. Surprisingly I haven't shown these guys before. They don't have close relatives that are usually around here, but Bohemian Waxwings can be found north and west of us [1]. Though they'll eat some insects when they're available, Cedar Waxwings love eating fruit, especially berries. They actually get the "cedar" part of their name because of their love of the "berries" (technically blue/purple seed cones that resemble berries) of the Eastern Redcedar . Their love of fruit can get them in trouble; they sometimes feast on fermenting berries and get drunk , making it far more difficult for them to survive threats they normally handle pretty well. But it also has some advantages; like other vegetarian birds , Brown-headed Cowbirds usually can't successfully brood parasitize them. These birds are also famously social, and where you see 1, you'll probably se...

Here's a butterfly I had only photographed once before, the Juniper Hairstreak . (I do see their (appropriately named) Red-banded Hairstreak cousins fairly regularly.) I was pretty sure I had a Juniper Hairstreak when I saw the green on it; there's only one other green hairstreak in NJ, and that one is usually seen in the southern part of the state. I wondered if I processed this picture incorrectly when I saw pictures of much greener Juniper Hairstreaks elsewhere on the web, but it does sound like there are color variations , and tend to get browner with age . (If this one had been a little older, I might not have recognized it as a JH.) I take pictures in "raw mode", then use software to try and get the best image before producing the pictures you see. In theory this gives me more ability to correct lighting, centering, and zoom limitations in the original photo, but I could also change an image to look much different than what I actually saw. It sounds like the Ea...