Two Water Moccasins fighting.

I was on vacation in the Austin area with family.  We went to Lake Buchanan to catch some bait for fishing and to see some land a family member used to own around the lake.  I had my camera with me like I normally do.  Its a Canon 5D Mark II.  On the way back from the lake, we were heading to Kingsland.  I was watching the roads looking for stuff to photograph.  We drove over a creek.  Off in the distance about 100 yards up the creek I noticed two slender objects sticking out of the water and were twirling around.  We were travelling about 45 miles and hour and the opportunity to spot these objects from 100 yards away couldn't have been more than 1-2 seconds.  It took me a few seconds to process what I saw and asked my dad to turn around.  I wasn't sure at the time what I had seen.  I thought it might be two ducks submerged or possibly two snakes fighting.

We pulled over and I got out while everyone else stayed in the car.  I walked down the creek and first spotted a small ribbon snake in the creek which quickly took off into the brush.  As I approached what I saw, I started to get excited.  I peered over the edge of a small rock cliff and confirmed that it was infact 2 Water Moccasins.  I went back and got my camera as well as informed the rest of my family.  We all took our time getting down to the area so as to not disturb the snakes.  I filmed about 6 clips of these two male Water Moccasins fighting.  At first I wasn't sure is they were courting or mating, or actually fighting.  I later learned they were fighting over mating rights to a female that was likely in the area.  I have lost all but one of the clips when a hard drive crashed.  I was using a kit canon lens, I believe my 28-125mm.  I shot this hand held with no tripod.  I wish I could visit the spot again in the future but I have several issues.  First I probably couldn't find the spot again even if I tried.  I am not familiar with the Austin area at all.

During the 10 minutes or so that I filmed and photographed these reptiles, not once did they notice my presence.  I was as close as 3 feet during some of the filming and they were too busy fighting to notice me.  This has been one of my favorite things to film.  It's not often you get to witness this behavior for yourself.  I have seen less than a dozen Water Moccasins in the wild.  I have caught hundreds of water snakes but very few are Water Moccasins.  Unfortunately to most people every water snake is a Water Moccasin.  They don't care to properly identify the snake and often it is killed for no reason except some naive person believes it is poisonous.

Water Moccasins are thick bodied and stubby.  Usually dark brown with darker stripes that are usually uneven.  They have cat eyed pupils as all pit vipers have.  When harassed they will coil up and open their mouths which is pure white.  This is where the name Cottonmouth comes from.

The Blotched Water Snake and the Diamond Back Water Snake are often confused with Water Moccasins.

Here is a video I took of a Blotched Water Snake.

I don't have any videos of a Diamondback Water Snake, but here are a few photographs.  Notice in the first photograph of a Diamondback Water Snake the pattern is very different from a Water Moccasin.

In the photograph below you can see the Diamondback Water Snake has eaten something.

The eyes are round and not cat shaped. 

Lady Bug Larva

I was at a local park taking photographs when I came across an unusual orange and black insect larva on some concrete.  I had seen a few of these before but never photographed them and never really took the time to identify them.  I had my Canon MP-E 65mm 1x-5x lens with me so I put it on and snapped a few photographs and a few videos.

Once I got back home I searched and identified these are Lady Bug larva.  I was quite surprised since nothing about the larva indicated to me that it was a going to turn into a lady bug.

Ladybug Larva

Ladybug Larva

A year or so later I observed the same larvas shedding.  A tree in the yard had several of these Ladybug larva on it.  The video below shows a Ladybug larva shedding.

Catfish pictures63 pound Flathead catfish Lake Fork

This is a collection of some of the catfish my family and I have caught over the last 5 or so years.  The largest catfish in these photographs is a 63# flathead catfish from Lake Fork.

63 pound Flathead catfish Lake Fork.

This is the largest catfish I have caught.  It was 63# caught on a goldfish.  This was on the north side of Lake Fork.

Bluecatfish Lake Grapevine

Bluecat Lake Grapevine

Flathead and Bluecatfish Colorado River Austin area.

Flathead Catfish Colorado River

50 + pound Flathead Catfish Lake Fork

40 and 20 pound Flathead Lake Nasworthy

Flatheads and Blue Catfish 3-40 pounds Lake Nasworthy

Flathead and Blue Catfish Colorado River

Flathead and Blue Catfish Colorado River

Blue Catfish Lake Grapevine

Blue Catfish Lake Grapevine

Blue Catfish Grapevine Lake

Flathead Catfish Colorado River

Wolf Spider with babies

A few weeks ago while cleaning the drains in the pool I found this mother Wolf Spider with hundreds of babies on her back.  I tried to gently scoop her from the water but when I did, about half the baby spiders jumped off and went everywhere.  I still managed to get a few photos of her with some of the babies but there were less than half still on her back.

Wolf Spider with babies.

Wolf Spider with babies.

Wolf Spider with babies.

Wolf Spider with babies.

Wolf Spider with babies.

Wolf Spider with babies.

Extreme macro photographs of red pepper flakes

Ever wonder what things look like up close.  I often see things like spices and wonder what they look like when magnified to an incredible size.  Today I used my Canon 5D Mark II and my Canon MP-E 65mm 2.8 1x-5x lens to take some 1x, 3x and 5x shots of red pepper flakes.  At 3x and 5x the flakes begin to look like beef jerky.

This is a 1x magnification of red pepper flakes.

1x view of red pepper flakes

3x view of red pepper flakes

5x view of red pepper flakes

Slug photographs

These are some photograph of a slug I took a few years back.  I took them using a Canon 5D Mark II camera body and a Canon MP-E 65mm 2.8 1x-5x lens.

Slug

Slug

Macro photographs of guitar strings.

One of my favorite lenses in my collection is my Canon MP-E 65mm 2.8 1x-5x macro lens.  This lens is capable of magnifying objects to 5x magnification.  No other lens shoots this close without adding extention tubes and such.

In this series I have taken three photographs of a guitar string.  This is the thickest guitar string out of the six.  The first shot is 1x magnification, the second is 3x and the third is 5x.

MP-E 65mm 1x example photograph

Guitar string 1x magnification

 This is the same guitar string at 3x magnification.

Guitar String at 3x magnification

This is the same Guitar String at 5x magnification.

Guitar String at 5x magnification.

Squash Beetles

We tried to grow a lot of Squash this year in the garden.  The Squash Beetles were worse this year than normal.  We barely managed to get any squash after the bugs got most of the plants.  These are some photographs I got of the Squash Beetles.

Squash beetle nymphs

Squash beetle mother with eggs

Squash beetle hatchlings

We spent a lot of time trying to get rid of these pest.  We didn't want to resort to using any pesticides so we tried some natural things and they didn't work.

Flowermound pumpkin patch

I took my family to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch this weekend.  We spent a few hours and took a few photographs.