Posts in Category: Sunday
Blueberry Art. Happy Sunday!
Blueberries, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine. Illustration Picture Effect.
Last Sunday I posed a very studied and classical composition of a Wood Lily, and talked about how, as an image, it drew attention to the artist behind the photo as much as to the subject…and how that made it different from most of the images I take. It was a celebration of the act of creation, as well as a celebration of creation itself…of my small part in the ongoing act of creation, and well as what the creator of all as done. Now, if you think about it, every photograph I take is both…but not so obviously, or so consciously, so.
This “photograph” of low bush Blueberries on the Kennebunk Plains takes the concept even further. Here I used an in-camera Picture Effect to intentionally render the image to look like a drawing…clearly an artifact…rather than a photograph. Though it was taken with a camera, and recorded pretty much just as appears here on the SD card…it is intentionally un-photo-like. The image is simplified to basic shapes and tones, so that the pattern becomes as important as, actually more important than, the subject…the blueberries. If it went any further it would be abstract…as it is it balances on the line between abstract and real, tipped just toward reality. It demands to be looked at as an image, an artifact, a rendering…not as blueberries in the field. And, I think it is beautiful. Striking. Arresting. It rewards your attention. It, itself, not the blueberries.
But, of course, I can not, and do not, take any more credit for this creation than I do in any of my work. Actually, my only creative decision was to play with the settings on the camera…the software in the camera…written by engineers who never saw these blueberries, and certainly never envisioned this image, did all the work. The creator of all still put the blueberries in the field, and, I have to believe, inspired the software engineers in their creative play…so that I could play with the camera. No matter what else I did, I am still only pointing and saying “look at what the loving God has created.” If anything, this image makes me smile…it is fun in way a straight photograph would not be…it is playful. And I like that about it. Because, of course, I appreciate the sense of play that infuses the work of the creator of all in everything I see, in all my experience…and that only inspires even greater love…providing evidence of the playful love of the creator of all. Play is creative love in action. Always! Happy Sunday!
Webhannet Falls. The Generous Eye. Happy Sunday!
Webhannet Falls, Wells Maine
At the south end of the village of Wells Maine the Webhannet River crosses deep under Route 1, and, tucked back off just off the road there is a little park built around the old bridge over the river…with a good view, in some seasons, of the falls. They call it the Bridge of the Flowers and it is maintained by the local Garden Club. The falls themselves mark the spot where, in 1640, Edmond Littlefield built the first waterpowered grist and saw mill near the original settlement that became Wells. You can see old stonework on either side of the river that must date from much later attempts to harness the falling water, but the falls have run free for many years now. The vast majority of tourists to the beaches of Wells and the rocky headlands of Ogunquit (not to mention shopping centers, gift shops, art galleries, restaurants, motels, and summer theaters) drive right by the falls without seeing them. I have stopped there a few dozen times in the past 20 years, when I remember, for pictures of the falls, and I have yet to see anyone else there. Most people do not know it is there.
And much to their loss, as it is a lovely spot in all seasons…worth, for anyone who takes the time to look, the 1 minute detour from Route 1.
When Jesus spoke the the words we talked about last Sunday: The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is “single, simple, generous” then your whole “being” will fill be filled with light…the concept of vision was significantly different than it is today. It was used, almost always, as we do when we say “that woman has real vision”. The eye was the lamp of the body because it shed light on the world around us…not because light came in through it. Jesus might have said “if your whole being is full of light then it will shine out through your eyes and the whole world will be good place.” He might have said “be generous in your vision”…”give your light freely to the world around you. and the world will be bright.”
In thinking about it over the past week, that idea of the “generous eye” has grown on my…and “generous” is essential to the idea of The Willing Eye. Maybe to the extent that it is a better name for this aspect of what I do. Be willing. at any rate, to be generous in what you see, generous in what you expect of the world around you, and generous in what you are willing to give to the world around you…and the world will be a good place, bright with beauty, rich with meaning…refreshing to the spirit and the soul. As it was intended to be. Happy Sunday!
Rose Pogonias. Happy Sunday!
Rose Pogonias. Off Brown Street, Kennebunk ME
Yesterday afternoon it was such a beautiful day, and we were back from my early Father’s Day lunch at Unos in plenty of time: I had to get out of the house. Both cars were gone so it was walk or bicycle, and I decided to walk to the gravel pit down the road from us, where, in years past, a tiny emergent bog one level down into the pit has produced a crop of Rose Pogonias about this time of year. I have been checking for them regularly in the real remnant bog at Laudholm Farm, but my memory is that they bloom even earlier on that exposed wet shelf of the pit. Indeed they were in full bloom, and they have spread from last year as the moisture level in the boggy area changes year to year. There had to a 100 plants in one area the size of a decent living room or a spacious bedroom. I had two cameras with me, and I spent a half hour or so among the flowers, enjoying every moment. The panel above, assembled in Coolage, shows several aspects of these beautiful blooms.
While looking up the spelling of the name, I came across the Robert Frost poem of the same name.
A saturated meadow
Sun-shaped and jewel-small,
A circle scarcely wider
Than the trees around were tall;
Where winds were quite excluded,
And the air was stifling sweet
With the breath of many flowers–
A temple of the heat.There we bowed us in the burning,
As the sun’s right worship is,
To pick where none could miss them
A thousand orchises;
For though the grass was scattered,
Yet ever second spear
Seemed tipped with wings of color
That tinged the atmosphere.We raised a simple prayer
Before we left the spot,
That in the general mowing
That place might be forgot;
Or if not all so favored,
Obtain such grace of hours
That none should mow the grass there
While so confused with flowers.
I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Robert Frost. I grew up on his poetry…a few miles, in fact from where he lived part of his life…and saw him read as poet laureate at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration…surely a high-point for poetry in America by anyone’s standards. It grieves me then to take issue with his poem. Sentiments have changed perhaps, but I could not imagine picking Rose Pogonias, or any other wild orchid…and the notion that no one would miss them…that is so “man” centered that I am surprised Frost could have written it even a few years ago. Of course, here in Southern Maine, I have never seen them growing in a wet meadow…only in mossy areas so saturated with water that no one would be tempted to mow them anyway. I do expect, some dry spring, to find that the bulldozers have scraped the boggy area clean, and drained the marsh that feeds it in the gravel pit…but the remnant bog at Laudholm is protected, as are the others in Southern Maine that I know of…so I am pretty certain the Rose Pogonia will continue long enough so my children’s children will be able to find the flower Frost wrote about in its wild state. Like Frost, I do offer a prayer for a “grace of hours” for the Rose Pogonia, for all the wild orchids, and indeed all the wild things of this world, which, for certain, whether we know it or not, we would so sorely miss if they were gone. They might be of no practical use to anyone…but they enrich our lives…feed our spirits…in ways we can appreciate even if we do not understand.
So when I find a spot, as Frost did in his sheltered meadow, or as I have done on the exposed wet lip of a gravel pit, where orchids still grow, I have that same instinct to worship and to share. I spend my half hour among them…in reverance and in joy…and bring you back a panel of images to share. Who knows, if Frost had had a digital camera with a good macro lens, the world might have lost some fine poetry…but it might be a world with a few more Rose Pogonias still in it. In the spirit I might be tempted by that trade. 🙂
So, with apologies in advance to the Poet Laureate.
I have never seen
the Rose Pogonia grow
in any place a man
would want to mow.Mossy bog or fen,
where both worship
and photography
are wet business
about the knees and feet
as you bowto breath and frame,
to fill your SD card
(and your spirit)
with the essence of what is still wild,
of no use, and of such great value
the stars would weep
if you picked one.Therefore the picture,
and this poem,
that your spirit might also know
that still, the Rose Pogonias grow
in a forgotten corner of a gravel pit
just down the road from home.
Happy Sunday!
Eastern Towhee. Happy Sunday!
Female Eastern Towhee, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
There are Eastern Towhees calling all around Day Brook Pond. I have never heard as many in any one location. For some reason the ones I see around the pond are mostly females or young males, and they are only giving the rising “chewink” whistle call…though I hear the occasional adult male (presumed) singing it’s “drink-your-tea-tea-tea” song from further out in the plain or deeper in the forest. Until 1995 the Eastern and Spotted Towhee (common in the west) were considered one species…Rufous-sided Towhee…and there is still some debate. Hybrids certainly appear in the contact zone…and there is a third distinct, pale-eyed, variety found in Florida, which might be hybridizing with southern Towhees in their contact zone…producing or blending with at least one more recognized sub-species. Complicated. I suspect much more complicated from our point of view than from the Towhees’. 🙂
The emphatic call of the Towhee is one the things that makes Day Brook Pond seem so alive this season. It is simple and clean. The very essence of uncomplicated. I think sometimes, in our efforts to categorize and quantify nature, we obscure as much as we elucidate. There is more than one way to understand nature. When we approach nature as a problem to be solved…a puzzle with a solution…then the call of the Towhee, the color of its eye, the extent of rufous on the breast, etc. become “evidence” for our theories…particulars for our enumerated construct of reality. I don’t mean to imply that that diminishes the Towhee in any way. Science is an important way of understanding the world. But it is not the only way. Appreciation is also understanding. Immersion is also understanding. The clean clear chewink that draws the eye to the brown and while bird in the dappled light of a birch or maple…that draws the mind to contact and the heart to joy…that awakes the spirit to a delight in life and living…that is a valid understanding of reality, even the particular reality of the Towhee, as well.
It is tempting to put the mind and science on one side and the heart and immersion on the other…but that is not the way we are made. The spirit is always seeking life, seeking understanding…and it seeks through naming and enumeration just as it seeks through appreciation and contact. As long as we do not become focused on one way of understanding to the exclusion of the other, then we will grow ever more alive…and the Towhee will grow in its meaning for us…its meaning to us…and every encounter will be richer, more vivid, more full of life. And that is how it ought to be…what the spirit of creation in us is striving in us to create. God, the creator, is good. Happy Sunday.
Black Swallowtail! Happy Sunday.
Black Swallowtail on Honeysuckle, Timber Point Trail, Rachel Carson NWR, Biddeford ME
Yesterday I made my first pilgrimage of the year to the Timber Point / Timber Island section of Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge just south of Bidderford Pool. You might remember that I highlighted this is a new addition to the Wildlife Refuge in a few posts last fall. They only made a decision on how to use the property in the early winter, after the predictable period of study, recommendations, public comment, (the expected bit of controversy), etc. The property includes an large building, formerly a guest lodge, and the NWR system does not have the funds to renovate it for use. They have decided to bring only the exterior up to code, and post “interpretative personnel” there for an expanded range of activities and programs during the season…the minimalist approach. We will see how that goes. The property consists of the tip of a rocky peninsula leading out to low-tide-only crossing to Timber Island. Both the headland and the island are rocky outcrops, with lots of big boulders. On the mainland much of this is covered by a mature oak forest, with some open fields and old ornamental trees right along the water. On the inland side of the trail/access road there is an extensive fresh water marsh. Timber Island was pretty much clear cut, and is now home to a dense thicket of pine and bramble, with some fresh water marsh. All in all, a prime piece of habitat for birds and mammals and bugs, and a great addition to the NWR system!
It is not very big and you can explore the accessible parts on the point in a couple of hours. If you time your visit for low tide, you can cross to Timber Island and do a loop around the rocky shore and the edge of the pine forest. That will add at least an hour to your visit. It is not the most exiting place in the world, but I have only been there 4 times now, and on each visit I have had at least one significant sighting…and it is a great place to get out and walk. The highlight of yesterday’s visit might have been this male Black Swallowtail butterfly, caught sipping from the Honeysuckle that lines the trail in open areas most of the way down the point. The Black Swallowtail is a common butterfly over much of North America, but certainly a beautiful bug. This panel shows off both top and bottom views of the wing patterns. The Black Swallowtail is a partial mimic of the Spicebush Swallowtail…a poisonous cousin…the female on both upper and lower surfaces…the male only on the under-wings. This mimicry, apparently, provides the much more common Black with a measure of protection from predators.
As with the puddling Tiger Swallowtails I posted last Monday, this was a particularly fresh male, probably only emerged a few days to a week ago. It showed little wear on the wings and both “tails” were intact. I rarely see them in this kind of pristine condition. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 800mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 125 @ f5.6. Processed and cropped in Lightroom. Assembled in Coolage.
Many of us (humans) have a fascination with butterflies. The beauty and delicacy of the wings…the slow dancing flight…make them the angels of the bug world…so much so that most people do not really think of them as insects, and if they do, they don’t think of them the same way they think of other insects. Butterfly collecting is not what it once was…due partially to ecological awareness…and perhaps more to the advent of the digital camera and lenses long enough to photograph butterflies in the field and field guides to “butterflies through binoculars”…but a “butterfly house” is still a major attraction for any zoo or park. Many of the birders I know now will now confess to being butterfliers too. We love our butterflies. One of the new features of Timber Point this year, in fact, is several large plantings of “Monarch” habitat along the trail, with signs for protection. The Monarch, you might know, is a long distant migrant butterfly that is in serious decline due to habitat (host plant) loss. There is not much there yet, on Timber Point, but I assume they are Milkweed plantings, since Milkweed is the host plant of the Monarch. They have even brought in a portable pump to make sure the Milkweed gets a good start this year.
And of course, conservation and restoration is the most sincere expression of love. Love that does not “take care” of what it loves is not love at all. We respond to the love of the creator not because we are created, but because we are cared for…and we experience, once aware, that care in every moment of our lives. And of course, the creator cares for the butterflies too. We are uniquely privileged, when we take an hand in conservation and restoration, to share that care. What a gift! Happy Sunday.
Jack-in-the-pulpit in the wild! Happy Sunday.
Jack-in-the-pulpit, Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
My photographer friend Robert, who lives in Australia, liked yesterday’s picture of a Pink Lady Slipper, because it was a chance to see a plant he only sees “caged” (his word) growing in its natural habitat. Until yesterday, though it is native to Maine, I had only ever seen the Jack-in-the-pulpit, so to speak, in “captivity”…at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Booth Bay Maine, and at Wild Gardens of Acadia at Sieur de Mont Springs in Acadia National Park. You can imagine my surprise, and delight, when I looked down off the edge of the boardwalk yesterday at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm in Wells Maine and caught sight of the unmistakable hood of a Jack-in-the-pulpit. It was almost completely buried in its own foliage, and in the foliage of other plants growing with it. Further investigation showed 4 Jack-in-the-pulpit plants (also called bog onion, brown dragon, Indian turnip, American wake robin, or wild turnip) in a cluster within a foot of the boardwalk. I kept my eye peeled, and found another cluster of five plants, similarly placed, before I came to the end of the long boardwalk. The second cluster, two of which are shown above, were younger, with the leaves not completely unfolded and the hood stripped inside and out and lower on the jack. The first cluster were mature plants, fully flowered with the hood completely green on the outside and drying at little at the tip.
Jack-in-the-pulpit
According to the wiki article, the Jack is actually covered in tiny, both male and female, flowers. The male flowers on any one plant dominate early and then die, leaving more female flowers, so the plant is not self pollinating. I also read that it takes 3 years for the plant to mature enough to flower for the first time, so these Jacks have been growing beside the boardwalk for at least that long. There is more in the wiki, and as you might suspect from some of the alternate names, the tuber of the plant is edible…and has been used in traditional herbal medicine.
Finding a something new to me in nature always delights me. To know that I have walked by these plants for at least 3 years, and to have finely “chanced” on them, is simply wonderful…so wonderful that I totally reject the notion that there was any “chance” involved. I could so easily have walked by them again this year. To have found them is a gift outright, an undeserved and unearned gift, the very definition of a blessing. And “wonderful” too in the literal sense of the word…filling me with wonder…with that sense of awe at the beauty of nature and the love of the creator. That they are there is wonderful…to have found them, to have been lead to glance down just at the right second, is awesome! And then to be rewarded with a second cluster…such love!
And now I get to share them with you! How awesome is that? Happy Sunday!
All photos Nikon P900 in Close Up Mode. 80-100mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom and the panel assembled in Coolage.
Redstart. Happy Sunday!
American Redstart, Magee Marsh OH
The American Redstart is one of the more common warblers in North America…found most places…and nesting over a wide area of the continent. When they come through Magee Marsh in Ohio during the Biggest Week in American Birding they dominate the marshy forest by sheer numbers. They come in droves. It is easy to begin to think…Oh just another American Redstart…but every one is worth a look. They are perky, active, and fearless…often feeding within a few feet of birders on the boardwalk…and their bold colors, two shades of orange, jet black, with a white undertail, make them stand out in any foliage. These shots, as you see, were taken through openings in the foreground foliage, but the bird certainly stands out.
Nikon P900 at 1800mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage Pro.
This is the last day of the Biggest Week in American Birding. I have been here 10 days. I am, but put it mildly, tired out! It has been, as always, a real treat to walk among the warblers and the birders on the Magee Marsh boardwalk…seemingly thousands of each. This week is as close to homecoming as birders get. It is the one time during the year that I can count on some actual face time with many of my social media birding friends. Someone said, “a gathering of the tribe” which implies a bit more blood ties that we actually experience…but it is certainly a convocation of the community…and a celebration of the birds that bring us together. Almost a religious experience, and certainly a spiritual one. Community is good…and the birding community is among the best. Birders are interesting, engaging, mostly very civil folk…people you can enjoy being around even if you are not a birder. And it comes out most strongly where they gather in numbers.
So, though I am tired out after 10 days, I am also uplifted by the community. This is good. Somebody this year coined the hashtag #warblerstock (which dates at least some of us rather obviously), but I do experience The Biggest Week as a kind of spiritual renewal each year. I go home with my eyes full of warblers, and heart full of good feelings…it is not to strong to say…”my heart full of love.” This is good. Happy Sunday!
Cuckoo! Happy Sunday!
Black-billed Cuckoo. Magee Marsh Ohio
I don’t often get to see cuckoos. In fact I can count my sightings, all well away from my Maine home, on the fingers of one hand, and I have never, until this week, had what I would call a really good view. Not that this is a really good view…but it is my best so far. 🙂 I post it this morning, in part, as a reminder that Magee Marsh and the Biggest Week in American Birding, while it is justifiably famous for warblers, is not just about warblers. The Black-billed Cuckoo, for many people was the best bird of the past two days.
The woods at Magee are full of migrating birds. There are droves of Orioles, flocks of Blue Jays, at least two species of Tanager, White-throated Sparrows, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, singing wrens and flitting gnatcatchers, and several varieties of Thrush. And that is on top, of course, of all the warblers.
That is, again in part, the wonder of birding. No where is the amazing variety of creation more obvious than when studying birds. And no where is that variety more obvious than at Magee Marsh in the spring. It is good to be here. And that, along with the Black-billed Cuckoo, is enough reason to give praise and thanks this Sunday! Happy Sunday!
Chiperality. Happy Sunday!
Chipmunk. Rachel Carson Headquarters, Wells Maine
After a week in Panama surrounded by exotic wildlife and a week in St Augustine Florida surrounded by nesting Egretsĥ, Herons, and Wood Storks (not to mention lots of dragonflies, butterflies, and lizards) coming home to Maine at the end of a long hard winter, with the snow barely off the ground, is, well, shall we say “different”. There are a few crocus up in the yard, and the Daffodils are budding (one is open), there are flowers on the Maple trees, and a few birds coming through on migration, but it is, relative to more tropical climes, pretty quiet. There is not yet much color in the landscape. We are still weeks of sunny days from dragonflies. I could not find a single Egret in the marshes. It is going to be a very late spring. Even the Hobblebush, generally in full bloom by now, is barely budding. I am only here a few days, and then I will be off to the warbler migration along the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio, but I am resisting the temptation to sit at the computer all day processing images from Panama and Florida. It is necessary to seize whatever photo ops are here! It might be only a passing Palm Warbler (my first in Maine I think, and certainly my first photograph in Maine), or, as in the case of my wander down to the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters yesterday, this Chipmunk posing against an irresistible backdrop of out of focus forest floor, displaying all his chiperality…or my seasonal pics of our blooming crocus or the maple tree flowers…but there is always something to celebrate in the natural world around us, wherever we are. After all, if we can not find the joys of home, what makes us think we will find joy anywhere?
So, though the best of chipmunks might not compare to a Three-toed Sloth or a White-faced Capuchin Monkey, it is here, and it is worth sharing and celebrating. Homage to the creator. Thankfulness for the day. Joy in life and in sharing life. Or that is what I think this Sunday morning. Happy Sunday!
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/200th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Dejpeg and Lightroom.
Display! Happy Sunday.
Great Egret in full breeding display, St Augustine Alligator Farm, St Augustine FL
Many of the Great Egrets at the wild bird rookery at the St Augustine Alligator Farm already have chicks in the nest, some at least 3 weeks old, but there are also still male Egrets in full breeding display…apparently attempting to attract a mate. They might have come late to the party, or they might be young birds in their first mating cycle and still learning the ropes, or they my have been unsuccessful on the first round and are making a brave show in hopes of still finding a female willing…or they may just be stimulated by all the Snowy Egrets just coming into display around them. Whatever the reason, I am always amazed by the grace and beauty of the Great Egret in display. The delicacy of the breeding plumage, only deployed once a year, the arch of the neck, the single minded concentration implied by the pointing bill, the energy of the dance the male preforms…it is truly eye-catching, breath catching, wonder inducing…and I am not even a female Egret!
Nikon P900 at 380mm equivalent field of view. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. Because the dance is so energetic, you have to zoom back you to keep the bird in the frame even at its most extreme gyrations, so this is slightly cropped from the full frame. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
And for the Sunday thought…well all I can say is that anyone who believes this display, and the feathers and the body that support it, evolved by chance mutations and survival of the fittest has a lot more “blind faith” than is required for me to believe that what I see here is the work of a loving creator. Just saying. I can not believe that such beauty evolved…any more than I can believe that it is an accident that both female egrets and human beings can, apparently, appreciate it. It is a matter of wonder…and gratitude. Happy Sunday!