HEADLAMPING
For NIGHTTIME NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY

by Jerome Rovner

It’s easy to visit a world filled with species that you may never have had a chance to photograph before. After sunset, nocturnal animals come out “on stage” in fields, forests, and deserts. The one item to add to your gear is a headlamp. Unlike a flashlight, a headlamp allows both hands to be free for taking photos.

NET-CASTING SPIDER (black background)
As a spider enthusiast beginning in my teenage years, I was fascinated when first reading about the nocturnal net-casting spider of the tropics and subtropics. To see its prey, it has the largest eyes of any spider. I was excited about finally getting the chance to observe and photograph this remarkable spider one night in Gainesville, Florida.

Most—probably all—of the headlamps that are available in discount stores or hunting/fishing shops usually aren’t powerful enough, no matter what claims are made on the package. Many of them use AA or even AAA batteries and usually have LEDs rather than a typical flashlight bulb. If you find one that does use a flashlight bulb, it likely will have 2 D cells for power—not bad, but you can do better.

FLOWER
There are tropical flowers that only bloom at night—yet one more reason to go headlamping. This extraordinary flower was impressive in both pattern and size (about 8 inches in height.)
I consider myself lucky to have seen and photographed it, but did not have to trek far for the opportunity. It was just a few dozen yards from one of the lodge buildings at Banana Bank, Belize.

  

For the past several decades, I’ve used a unit powered by 4 D cells, yielding a powerful beam for spotting subjects and illuminating them well when shooting photos. It’s the Justrite Electric Head Lantern, sold by

Forestry Suppliers (www.forestry-suppliers.com). An elastic headband holds the light in position above your forehead. A 4-ft. cord connects the light to a corrosion-proof, polypropylene battery case that clips onto your belt. (My preference is to carry the battery case in a waist pack. The belt clip doesn’t always suffice if I have to squat to take a photo and the battery case gets pushed upward off my belt.) The headlamp can be purchased without the battery case, for those who wish to use a single 6V battery instead of 4 D cells (fewer contact points in the circuit).

BARK MANTID
It’s easy to miss some really neat creatures because of their camouflage. Sometimes, they’re easier to spot within the circle of a headlamp beam. I was really surprised to see that a mantid would be “preying” in the dark, resting on a tree trunk in a Belizean rain forest.

Two extra items will keep your outing from turning into an unpleasant experience: (1) An empty film canister with a couple of spare bulbs (cushioned with tissue paper filler). (2) A Maglite or similar flashlight, so you can see what you’re doing if you have to replace a burned-out headlamp bulb. Also, it’s never a good idea to depend on a single light source during a nighttime nature walk. Should your only light source fail in a forest environment--especially a tropical rain forest--you’ll not be able to see anything and therefore will have to wait until morning to find your way back.

TARANTULA
In the daytime, tarantulas are hidden deep in their burrows. At night, they can be partially seen and photographed face-on, as they wait for prey at the burrow entrance. What a thrill to see and photograph a male redrump tarantula wandering completely in the open on the floor of the Costa Rican rain forest.

  

A unique experience awaits the nighttime nature photographer. Securely place the headlamp on and tilt the light so as to throw an illuminated spot about 12 to 20 feet away. As you scan the environment with your beam, jewel-like points of light may catch your attention. The eyes of wolf spiders and many other wandering spiders sharply reflect a greenish light back to your field of view. Six of the eight eyes of such spiders have a reflecting layer (the tapetum) behind the photoreceptive layer. It’s a visual sensitivity-increasing arrangement like that of cats and other nocturnally active mammals. In some wandering spiders, this and other features of their visual system enables them to utilize starlight (!) as their sole illumination source for orientation and prey capture when no moonlight is available.

BIRD-DROPPING MOTH
What a peculiar object: a perfectly shaped bird-dropping—apparently still fresh, as the seemingly wet surface suggested. Well no. When I approached and looked closely, it turned out to be a moth at rest in the Amazonian rain forest of Peru. And it hadn’t been raining recently, so the “wetness” was just part of this moth’s remarkable camouflage.

  

It’s fun to locate well-camouflaged wandering spiders that would be very hard to find in the daytime. When you spot an eye reflection, which can be seen at a remarkably great distance from even a tiny spider, you then walk slowly toward the light source, keeping the glowing dot precisely in the center of your field of view. Once you’re close to the substrate where the spider is resting, you’ll no longer be able to see the eye reflection. Instead, you’ll now be fully illuminating a small area to search for the spider, as if under daylight conditions.

COCKROACHES
What an odd sight: a pair of cockroaches—one nearly black, the other white—sharing the same leaf in a Belizean rainforest. As I looked through the viewfinder, I realized that a newly molted individual was resting near its just-molted cuticle.

This endeavor is much more challenging on a humid summer night, when dewdrops glisten everywhere in your field of view. However, with practice, you’ll eventually learn to distinguish the greenish spider eyes from the colorless dewdrops. By the way, you’ll also find resting insects when you are headlamping. In particular, many moths have a tapetum-like layer in their eyes that produces an orange-colored reflection. Of course, your headlamp also will enable you to spot and photograph a wide variety of larger

OPOSSUM
Although I’m a macro-man, I also get a kick out of the relatively rare opportunity of getting shots of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. One night in Belize, this four-eyed opossum showed up in the beam of my headlamp as it clambered about in the trees. Luckily, unlike a nearby armadillo of which I couldn’t get a photo, this tropical species of opossum didn’t move away as I slowly approached and took flash-illuminated photos.

nocturnally active animals—frogs, snakes, opposums—making for a night of surprising finds and interesting photographs.