Digi-oding

Well, I'm packed and ready to head to the airport early tomorrow morning, Alaska-bound for my PolarTREC expedition. Follow along via the tease links above this post as I update my journals or go right to my PolarTREC page: http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/international-continental-shelf-survey

Feeling mostly ready I decided to head out and do a little photography this morning. For a new twist I decided to try digiscoping some dragonflies at Walden Ponds in Boulder, CO. I've shot dragonflies with a telephoto and with a macro but this was my first serious attempt at digiscoping them. I'm using my Nikon EDG (65mm angled model) and a camera that is new to digiscoping for me- the Panasonic DMC-ZS7. I got the Panasonic for my trip to AK based on its all-around utility; 300mm equivalent zoom, HD video, and GPS-tagging capabilities. But I wasn't expecting it to be very good at digiscoping, as most cameras with more than 4X optical zoom don't work well. But it is pretty serviceable!

I felt mostly confident on these IDs except for the brown job which had me stymied. Luckily some of the state's best ode experts bailed me out. Enjoy- Bill

Female Blue Dasher

Calico Pennant

Young male Autumn (or maybe Striped) Meadowhawk. Much thanks to Bill Prather & Dave Leatherman for the ID help on this one.

Halloween Pennant

Varigated Meadowhawk