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all creatures great and small

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DSC_2619 the butterflies of New Dorp beach
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DSC_2619 the butterflies of New Dorp beach

fallStaten IslandNew Dorp beachbutterfliescommon clouded yellow butterflyNYC

  • The weather was too cloudy to give me the lighting conditions I needed for the shots I wanted to get in Brooklyn, so on this day off I chose to stay closer to home and went to the Staten Island Zoo instead. I've mentioned before that the peacocks here have the run of the place. What I've never seen prior to this was white ones. I found out they are very uncommon - but not to the point of being classified as rare. I asked one of the staff about them, and they said they were fairly new to the place. Not only that, they had only a couple to begin with, but they had chicks earlier this year, and now the have a whole bunch, which also enjoy hanging out, just like their blue and green cousins, here where we patrons all sit to eat our lunches outdoors. Being a cloudy rainy weekday, there was no paying customers around (except for myself!), so the place was filled with peacocks instead - lucky me.
  • Another inhabitant of the Staten Island Zoo, it is known as a spiny crevice lizard. No doubt because of where you often find them, but this one I found resting on this log instead.
  • Now this one I DID find in a crevice. Boy talk about great camouflage!
  • I believe this is a carpet python, but don't ask me to swear on it.
  • As I've mentioned, the Staten Island Zoo has what most consider the finest collection of snakes in the world, a distinction of the highest honor for any zoo. All the more impressive when you consider how small a zoo this charming little place is.
  • DSC_1760 crevice lizard
  • Besides having the finest collection of snakes at any zoo, the Staten Island Zoo also has a large collection of imaginative and eye catching displays that they house them in. But this little fellow and his two companions I spotted here in a small fish tank in the office window of the Reptile House. No doubt they are getting a little "TLC" until they are big enough to have a great looking display of their own to crawl around in.
  • As I checked my watch one more time while gazing at the displays in the reptile house, I knew I had to pack things up and leave soon because I still had some important banking things to do before days end. So after I finished capturing my last photo at the Staten Island zoo, I originally had planned to get home quickly. With that in mind my feet started to take me out the back gate where I could walk a scant 3 minutes to the #48 bus on Forest ave., and be home in 40 minutes or so. But somewhere between leaving the reptile house and the zoo's back gate my heart somehow managed to wrestle control of my body from my head, and coerce my feet into taking the 45 minute walk out the front gate, then through Clove Lake and finally out the other side of the park, for the group of buses that travel down Victory blvd. <br /> <br /> The leisurely trip through the park was almost always good for at least a nice shot or two, but today as I approached the eastern edge of the park for home, I hadn't come up with a single shot. Again my head turned my feet towards the bus stop now within easy eyesight. Again my heart took over and led my feet around the bend where I knew wading birds favored, as they looked in the shallows for fish. A few moments later my head finally gave up fighting the lopsided battle with my heart.
  • DSC_2228 floral gardens at dawn
  • Taken back in august of 84' I was still living on my mother's living room sofa bed back in the Bronx. Seeing that as a child I would try to make a pet out of anything that breathed, it was probably inevitable that when I reached adulthood I would end up becoming a member of the Bronx Zoological Society. The ease of getting to the zoo from my place via the number 2 or 5 trains on my day off had me visiting the zoo (usually in the winter when foot traffic from visitors was at a minimum) fairly often. But despite my numerous trips to the zoo's world famous reptile house, capturing a good shot of this particular guy always eluded me. On every trip he would be up in some remote corner, or he'd be in the open, but then he'd have his head turned completely around (the way only an animal can) and out of sight of my camera.<br /> <br /> Then on this day as I passed by his exhibit to my delighted surprise he was out in the open in plain camera view in all his glory. But I didn't want to commemorate this occasion with one of those head on shots taken directly in front of the snake as he sat on a branch - that look has been just done to death. But what new angle to take?? After trying every high and low angle in creation with no satisfaction, I came across this angle, and in a moment of pure clarity I felt a sensation inside of my body like the tumblers on a bank vault all line up and the giant safe door swing open. I slapped my camera onto my tripod before he could turn his head around and face the other way. (Which he did almost on cue, but I had already gotten this shot first - HA!) In all the years since then I've never been able to get a better shot of him, making this shot quite memorable.<br /> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> Nikon F3<br /> Ectachrome 100<br /> nikkor 105mm f4 micro<br /> 1/8th sec.<br /> F4
  • DSC_2506 the butterflies of New Dorp beach
  • DSC_2513 the butterflies of New Dorp beach
  • I started tracking these guys first (not sure yet of the species), but then I saw some wonderful looking buckeye butterflies fluttering about, and I became determined to get a good clean shot of one of them with their distinctive wings spread instead.
  • My original plans had me out of the house at dawn, and having a friend drive me to Gateway Recreation park, here by the south eastern coast of Staten Island, so I could walk to a secluded part of rocky shoreline favored only by men fishing in wading boots and migrating shore birds. I wanted to capture shots of any last shorebirds fattening up on crustaceans during low tide, as they stopped here on their journey down south for the winter. But access to that part of the beach was cut off, both by a ford I hadn't come across before, and the authorities closing off the one road there because of an unspecified emergency. <br /> <br /> So after spending several hours lugging 15lbs. or so of camera equipment up and down several alternate thicket filled routes, I finally settled down a half a mile or so away from my intended target. Too tired to try some more hiking, I plopped my equipment near a patch of beach growth that I could pick out again easily from a distance, and started hunting down the only things I saw around that my camera could get a good shot of.
  • DSC_2633 the butterflies of New Dorp beach
  • DSC_2554 the butterflies of New Dorp beach
  • DSC_2588 the butterflies of New Dorp beach
  • After successfully capturing shots of those beautiful "Buckeye" butterflies, I turned my attention to grabbing some nice shots of these "Clouded Yellows".
  • While I never did get anywhere near the part of the beach favored by those migratory shore birds, at least I didn't go home empty handed. You can often find pretty plants and animals almost anywhere that men have left alone.
  • DSC_2619 the butterflies of New Dorp beach
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