Wednesday (17-July-2019) — New Jersey

Summertime Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Daily Walkabout. My back hurts and it is really hot and humid outside. I only went out for a short time with a much lighter kit — Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. Bumble Bees, Butterflies (Skippers? and Monarch), and of course the Hummingbird Clearwing Moth. In addition to the Zinnia flowers, one Hummingbird Clearwing spent some time feeding on Larkspur (Delphinium) flowers. Later in the evening, before it started raining a small herd of deer passed through the backyard. I captured these images with a Fuji X-T3 camera and 200 mm f/2 OIS lens with a 1.4x teleconverter. There were only three fawns (used to be four), and one of the fawns has some open sores on its face. Three wary does stayed nearby. They were all being harassed by flies.

Bumble Bee. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens (DAVID J MATHRE)
Bumble Bee. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens (DAVID J MATHRE)
Bumble Bee. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens (DAVID J MATHRE)
Bumble Bee. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens (DAVID J MATHRE)


Click on the above image to access the individual slideshow images in my gallery.


Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe) feeding on Larkspur Flowers. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens (DAVID J MATHRE)
Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe) feeding on Larkspur Flowers. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens (DAVID J MATHRE)
Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe) feeding on a Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens (DAVID J MATHRE)
Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe) feeding on a Zinnia Flower. Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens (DAVID J MATHRE)


Click on the above image to access the individual slideshow images in my gallery.



Click on the above image to access the individual slideshow images in my gallery.



Click on the above image to access the individual slideshow images in my gallery.


Daily Power Use (67.9 kWh) from Sense and Solar Production (71.8 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. More clouds as the day progressed with the outdoor temperatures increasing, but still generated about 3 kWh more power that I used. The GeoThermal HVAC heat pump needed to run at full capacity (stage 2) part of the afternoon just to keep up with cooling the house. It will be interesting to see how the GeoThermal system does Friday to Sunday as the outside temperatures will be approaching 100 °F (38 °C).


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