Essays

Moseying: Outdoor Recreation Activities

Stalking the wild – daytripping with a digital camera
December 12, 2007

Digital cameras are marvelous inventions! After the initial investment in the camera and a computer, a photographer is unleashed to go absolutely hogwild. A thirty-minute walk in the pasture becomes an incredible adventure. In January 2006 the Sibley Nature Center started with four goals for photoessays on our website; to record the diversity of our ecoregion (the Llano Estacado), to record animal behavior (bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, insect, fish), and to have a collection of photographs about the many wonderful xeriscape (drought adapted) ornamental plant species for urban gardens. Our section on recommended daytrips is one of our most visited sections of the website. Over 90 photoessays with over 2500 photographs are now on our website.

We now have additional goals; to capture the subtle changes in the landscape throughout the year (Check out either the photoessays on mesquite or on prickly pear in the prairie to mesquite habitat section, to see our first products.) We also plan to record the ways that humans interact with the landscape (historical structures, human altered landscapes, iconic economic endeavors of the region, recreational activities, and folk art).

Digital photography facilitates detailed examination of the minutiae of the natural world. Photographs can reveal the actions of tiny creatures, illustrate the intricate workings of the symbiotic flora of the soil, bring to light the delicate structures of plants, or the delicate wonders of precipitation. Anyone with a digital camera can discover something never before recorded.

For example, the Sibley Nature Center website has a photoessay on “rainbugs,” the plush red velvet mites that emerge after a summer rain. (Go to the animal behavior section and scroll down to the photoessay to see what we have discovered!) Sibley’s Development Director Richard Galle photographed the small loops of silk laden with spermatophores the along which the male herds the female. We have not found any mention of this behavior (nor any mention of the circle dance) in any scientific literature.

Digital cameras have different settings for the resolution of the photographs. For display on the Sibley Nature Center website, we take an image photographed at 2400 by 3000 (or more) pixels resolution and then crop it down to around 1000 by 1000 pixels, so it can be seen as a compete image on the computer screen. The field of view in the photographs of the rainbugs is less than a square inch. The silk line is visible because of the initial high resolution. Dozens of photographs were taken, so each step of the creatures was recorded. For the photoessay less than two dozen were selected.

The importance of cryptogamic flora in arid soils is not well known. Few people even know what it looks like. Without closeup digital photography we would not have become more familiar with how prolific the flora is, or with the sequence of its brief pluvial vitality. Go to the August 2007 Virtual Trail and scroll down a half-dozen photos to the short series on the cryptogamic soils. You will be amazed at the bizarre texture of “dirt!” Until the photographer had purposefully set out to record the response of the cryptogams to rainfall, we had not seen any printed (or Internet) resources that discuss or illustrate the “blooming” of the flora.

With experience, the photographer does not have to look at the viewscreen, so unique angles can be utilized. In the habitat section “Prairie to Mesquite Habitat,” scroll down to the photoessay “Prickly Pear, the most ubiquitous desert plant in North America.” Scroll down to the photograph of the walking stick on the nopalito. Above the walking stick is a ground bee coming to the cactus blossom. This photograph was a providential accident. The photographer had been steadily (point and shoot) photographing the walking stick from all angles and was not aware of the bee’s presence at any time.

Sequential photographs also illustrate the subtle posturing of creatures. When a photographer first begins to attempt to photograph a creature, the first goal is to capture a “portrait” of the creature. “Stalking” a creature is a challenge – just how close will it allow the photographer to approach before it flees? If the photographer can remain still, many creatures will exhibit “displacement” behavior. In the animal behavior section scroll down to “Playa Lake Wildlife” and view the actions of a black-necked stilt as it interacts with the photographer.

If the animal is busy (eating or searching for food, displaying for a mate, or preening or grooming) a photographer can “capture” its actions. In the animal behavior section, scroll to the photoessay on snake behavior and view the actions of a hognose snake capturing a baby toad. In the same section, a bull snake is photographed as it “takes a bath.” Is it really blowing bubbles? In the same section, take a look at the photoessay on tadpoles and toads in the sanddunes. Why do the tadpoles “aggregate?” What is the bizarre red growth on one of the toads? What was the translucent water bug among the tadpoles? Close observation of the flora and fauna lead photographers to ponder many questions that often lead to further photoessays.

Bill Loos, a board member of the Sibley Nature Center, photographed the toad series, and three other sanddune photoessays. Several excellent photographers with superb observational skills have blessed the Sibley Nature Center website. Joe Carter, recently of Ira and now a naturalist-interpreter with the South Llano River State Park at Junction, contributed the “Wildlife of Scurry County” photoessay. Chris Cherry contributed two Virtual Trail photoessays, and Briley Mitchell sent us "the insects of the urban forest” photoessay. Students volunteering for “Legacy hours” for Midland College have contributed to several of the virtual trail photoessays.
“Xeriscape” gardens are beautiful and full of life. The Gone Native Photo Diary in the Xeriscape section has 20 photoessays (over 700 photographs) that record the marvelous happenings in such a garden. Something new can be discovered daily during the cycle of the seasons. The August 2006 photoessay demonstrates that even in the heat of summer blooms, birds, fungi, and bugs abound in the garden. “Walks of discovery” become avidly anticipated endeavors – “What is happening today?”

Digital photography is an excellent educational tool to becoming familiar with the world around us. It is superb fun and an exciting challenge to creep up on an animal. Discovering the subtle patterns within the landscape develops a deep appreciation of the complexity of the natural world. The world is a beautiful place – even “dusty, brown, and dry West Texas!”