Posts in Category: Sunday
Special Delivery. Happy Sunday!
Osprey on the nest. Falmingo Campground, Everglades NP
Roy Halpin and I met another friend, Robert Hunt, yesterday for a brief exploration of the south end of Everglades National Park. The Falmingo area suffered greatly in Hurricane Andrew is has not been fully restored even yet. It was one of those days when it would have been easy to be disappointed, because not much seemed to be happening…the trails were muddy, and the mosquitoes thick…and we did not find any crocodiles at the Marina…but when we got back to the hotel and went through our images, it became apparent that we had indeed had a good day! We had several excellent photo-ops, including a healthy adult Eastern Diamonback Rattlesnake, a Red-shouldered Hawk on the ground hunting lizards, and this nest of Osprey. The nest was right in the middle of the Falmingo Campground, surrounded by campers in tents, so the birds were pretty calm. While we were there they were being photographed from 6 different angles :). They were still building the nest, or at least repairing it for the season, and the male flew out frequently and returned with sticks and twigs. It was fascinating to watch…and delightful to photograph. Along with about 30 shots of three different species of butterflies, some flight shots of American White Pelican, some scenic landscapes of the mangroves along the bay, the Rattlesnake, the hawk in the grass, etc…this nest made for actually quite a good day!
Roy and I were talking about it…how if you seize the highpoints of any day, and celebrate them…even an apparently disappointing day becomes something to rejoice in. And that is a great attitude to take into life…to make into a lifestyle and a worldview. And, on the spiritual side, it is certainly the only way to live. We need to seize the highpoints…those times when we feel both connected to the creator of all, and blessed by creative love…and fully celebrate and fully enjoy them. If we do, our lives, in hindsight, will be full of blessing…just as full as our day in Falmingo! And that is a good thing. Happy Sunday!
Bittersweet. Happy Sunday!
This is somewhat a reprise of yesterday’s theme…though yesterday the Bittersweet was the ornament in the landscape (seascape?) and today it is the subject itself. 🙂 It would not be too much to say that East Point Sanctuary in Biddeford Pool is a riot of Bittersweet right now. This composite image catches both the mass and the macro effects.
I was inspired to do a little Bittersweet research this morning. Bittersweet is a vine that grows over and eventually dominates other bushy plants and small trees, and, as such, deserves it’s name. It certainly puts on a striking show in late fall when nothing else is very showy, but at a price to it’s hosts. There are actually two varieties in Maine: native American Bittersweet, and invasive Oriental Bittersweet. While both are climbing vines, and both will kill the vegetation they grow on, I suppose it might, from our standpoint, be preferable to be strangled by a native. ?? The berries, while pretty, are poisonous to most mammals…which is why they are still on the vine in late autumn. Birds to eat them, though I doubt they derive much nourishment from them.
This, unfortunately, is most likely Oriental Bittersweet, and therefore (except for beauty) has no real redeeming value. You can tell because the berries grow along the vines as well as at the tips. Most stands of Bittersweet today are actually a mix to the two species, or even a hybrid of the two. This could well be hybrid Bittersweet.
To complicate matters, neither of the common Bittersweet plants are actually Bittersweet at all. Both American and Oriental Bittersweet are more properly called “False Bittersweet” as the name Bittersweet belongs to Bittersweet Nightshade, also an invasive plant introduced to North American from Europe. While false bittersweets have a red berry in a yellow husk, Bittersweet Nightshade has berries that begin yellow, turn orange, and end up red. I found a few plants of Bittersweet Nightshade growing at East Point as well. And, like all Nightshades, Bittersweet is poisonous.
By the way…all of the Bittersweets get their name from the taste of the bark…which has been used in herbal medicine as a diuretic.
So what is the spiritual dimension to all this Bittersweet talk. It is Sunday. I will admit I got distracted in my research…but there is just so much to know. And knowing is such fun. Bittersweet fun, certainly…always…since looking deeply into anything is likely to turn up both the bitter and the sweet. That is the way of this world…or at least the way we humans see this world. And I think that is okay. As long as the world is…as long as life is…both bitter and sweet I think we are okay. We need to be able to taste the sweetness so that we do not despair…and we need to be able to taste the bitterness, so that we do not forget our capacity for causing pain. Sweetness is our delight. Bitterness keeps us humble. This is good. Bittersweet is good. You might say Bittersweet, like the plant, is beautiful. And beauty is always its own redemption.
Bosque Sunrise Sunday
Sunrise at Bosque del Apache NWR
Just a week ago, last Sunday morning, I was standing along the edge of the ponds on Route 1 headed into Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, before dawn, waiting on the sun and the birds. The congregation had gathered. The parking lots were full, and all up and down the dyke between the road and the ponds the faithful, photographers and birders, stood hushed and expectant. As it was the weekend of the Festival of the Cranes, there were more visitors than usual…just folks who had traveled down from Albuquerque early…many of them making a once a year pilgrimage to Bosque for the dawn and the birds…kind of like the way the congregation swells around Christmas and Easter in any church. (You can always tell a visitor…they have no binoculars and they are attempting to photograph the Geese and Cranes in the half-light with phones, God bless them 🙂 We stand on the dyke, and the Cranes stand as darker shadows in the shallow ponds between us the mesa and the mountains behind. They too are waiting on the sun. Behind us, across the road and the rail-road track, well away at the other side of the valley of the Rio Grande, the sun itself is climbing up to crest the eastern mesas, seeking the open air between the land and a shelf of clouds along the horizon, filling the sky with gold. As a photographer, I am attempting to take it all in…the whole experience…and I spin there on the alter, between the sunrise itself and the waiting birds. All up and down the dyke I see other worshipers like me caught in the same liturgical dance, some just rotating in place and some, the long lens folk, dancing around the fixed point of their tripods. The birders, more refined in their habits, largely ignore the rising sun and concentrate on the birds, punctuating the dance with stillness. There is a hush among the gathered, but it contrasts with the continual chatter and mutter…the rising chorus of caw and quack and honk…of the cranes and the few geese and ducks among them as they quicken with the coming day.The visitors among us, like visitors to any congregation, are not quite sure what to do. Many watch us as much as they do the sunrise and the birds, seeking clues to what brings out the faithful in the dawn. Some put us to shame in their devotion…this being a once a year event…they are visibly transported. They could not lift their binoculars or cameras if they had them for the wonder. This dawn there is no real climax to the celebration. The sun slides golden above the mesa. Light strikes across the water to illuminate the Cranes as they begin to think of flying out for the day. Far off against the gilded sky large flocks of Geese arise and wing. In moments it is day. The Bosque dawn has come and gone. Slowly, with a lot of chatter now, the congregation begins to disperse and head back to parking lots and cars, stamping feet, thinking of coffee and hot chocolate, and the reminder of their Sunday on the refuge. They will drive the tour loop a few times. Stop at the Flight Deck, the Decks on the far side, and perhaps catch the Snow Geese flocks on the ag fields in full panic, when an Eagle puts them all up in the air at the same time. It will be a good day, fulfilling the promise of the Bosque dawn. And next year, we will all be back, God willing, even the visitors among us. Happy Sunday!
🙂
Sony HX400V. Processed in Lightroom and Phototastic on a Windows tablet.
Cranes against the Sunset. Happy Sunday!
 Sandhill Cranes. Bosque del Apache NWR
Yesterday promised to provide one of those amazing Bosque del Apache sunsets…there were just enough clouds along the horizon to light up as the sun sank behind the mountains. We set up at the ponds along Route 1 to watch the Sandhill Cranes fly in for the night, and to wait for the sky. Bosque performed as expected. This is a classic Bosque del Apache shot, with the Cranes framed against the flaming sky. There were probably 100 other photographers lined up along the dyke by the ponds trying for this, or a very similar, shot. And that was just yesterday. Hundreds of thousands of images of Sandhill Cranes against the sunset have been taken at Bosque over the years. I have taken quite a few myself 🙂 Still, that does not keep me from trying again every chance I get. There is a beauty and a wonder that persists…that is just as intense the 100th time you experience it as was the first. A beauty and a wonder so rich and rewarding that you are compelled to try to capture and share it every time. Or at least I am. Moments like these put us in touch with both who we really are, and, as I see it, with the loving creator of all that is (including us). They are bridge moments…open window moments…moments of profound connection with all that is and to the meaning…the message being written…the life being lived. Beauty, wonder, and meaning written large and bold in Cranes against the sunset at Bosque del Apache. Happy Sunday!
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. Processed in Lightroom.
November Light. Happy Sunday!
November Light
The season between leaf fall and snow fall in southern Maine is not the most attractive of seasons. The weather is often raw, even on sunny days, the birds are silent or already absent, and there is little to attract the eye…little, at least in the landscape, it sometimes seems, to keep the spirits up. And it is hunting season, so the woods are not safe. As it happens I miss most of it. I have a festival in New Jersey in late October, and two in November…in Texas and New Mexico. I am only home like 9 days between mid-October and Thanksgiving. The one redeeming feature of the season is the light. It is not the warmth, though we are thankful for the sun these days, but the angle as the sun drops lower in our Maine sky. Mid-day light in November is the equivalent of early evening light in July. The shadows never do get short. They remain long, molding all they touch. Though the landscape attempts to deny it, the light is even just about the same color as a mid-summer evening.
And yet it is unique. There is no mistaking November light across the landscape for the light of any other season.
I suppose, in a way, my whole life is in just such a season. I had a heart attack in April and I retired in July, but I am still active with ZEISS on the festival circuit. I have made some moves toward the next phase of my life, putting out feelers, making tentative plans, but I am mostly coasting, enjoying this interval when there is nothing much happening, this time between. Trying to find enough in the slant of the light across the landscape to keep my spirits up while I settle into my winter…trying to imagine a winter that I might enjoy. No worries really. As long as I can appreciate the light of November, I think December and January will pretty much, spiritually, take care of themselves.
Sony HX400V in camera HDRs. Processed in Lightroom. Assembled in Phototastic. On my Lenovo Miix 2 tablet.
Palm Warbler: feathers! Happy Sunday.
Palm Warbler: Cape May NJ
Nothing beats a sunny morning in Cape May after the passage of a front in the night. The birds pile up at places like the Meadows, Higbee Beach, and the dike. They are so busy feeding they pay little attention to us. This is in the overgrown meadows at Higbee. A Palm Warbler. It does not get any better than this!
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/500th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly in Lighroom on my Windows tablet.
Part of what attracts me to birds and bird photography is intricate detail of feathers. Good binoculars or a good camera can catch every little interlocking barb of the flight and body feathers, and every plume of the downy breast. If you are on a tablet or have a touch screen, zoom in on the back of this bird. (If not click to open in another window and zoom.)Â See what I mean? Every barb!
I find it satisfying that the beauty of a bird can be appreciated from the form and color of the living creature, the active aliveness of it that you can see with the naked eye, right down to the unlikely design of feathers. And of course I find it hard to imagine that any amount of chance and natural selection could have ever resulted in anything as amazing as a feather. On the other hand, I can easily imagine that the feather was created, was actively designed by an intelligence, and more than that, an intelligence with a sense of wonder and delight…a loving intelligence with a true appreciation of functional beauty. While I might feel a kinship with that intelligence, expressed in my own sense of wonder and delight, I know that the feather is so far beyond my power to conceive that I can only be awe of such a being, of such love. I don’t believe because of the feather. My belief is based on a living encounter with love itself, but the feather certainly conforms to my faith, is another chime in the great chord of faith that informs my life.
It is, unfortunately, all too easy for the pressures and confusions of daily life to obscure my faith, to mute the chord…but a day with the birds, and few images like this one…a few feathers always serves to bring faith, and my sense of wonder, swelling to the full. Happy Sunday!
Hoping for Kinglets. Happy Sunday!
Golden Crowned Kinglet
I do not generally go out.to photograph a.particular bird. On a trip to.a.bird place.like.Cape.May I set myself to photograph whatever will sit still long enough to get the camera on it. I come back with a lot of Yellow-rumped Warblers because.that is what is there,and.I am happy with that. That does not mean that I do not hope for more. In fact with every new Yellow-rump the hope creeps up on me. This trip it was: Yes, but a kinglet in good light would be nice. 🙂
There weren’t many kinglets this year compared to some. Sometimes, in Cape May, they are dripping from bushes and littering lawns. Not this year. I had only seen a very few Ruby-crowned until yesterday when I walked up on a group of Golden-crowned avidly working around the base of some saplings way out behind the Hawk Watch at the State Park. I photographed them on the ground in the shadows, but again I was really hoping to catch one in a tree in good light. They just would not perch long enough. Until, of course, one.did 🙂
Such a blessing! Hope rewarded. And of course I walked on full of gratitude. I mean, really, a Golden-crowned Kinglet perched just below eye-level in the late afternoon sun. It does not get any better than that.
I made a point of telling the next 6 birders I met that the kinglets were there. Share the blessing! And I am doing it again right here. Happy Sunday.
Masked Shrew. Happy Sunday!
Tiny Masked Shrew by my foot.
Funny story. Carol and I went for a walk on the Carson Tail at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Headquarters yesterday afternoon. The day was struggling, with a bit of momentary sun here and there to lift it from its late October gloom, and rain threatening on the horizon. The maples are passing fast, and the oaks this year, most places, are going direct from green to brown. Still, it was good to be out. A Hairy Woodpecker flew ahead of us for a ways, until it was displaced from a particularly attractive (apparently…and to woodpeckers) dead branch tip by a Red-bellied Woodpecker. We don’t see many Red-bellieds here in Southern Maine, compared to Hairy and Downy that is, so that was a special.
We turned the corner by the overlook at the junction of Branch Brook and the Marriland River, where they join to become the Little River, in time to see 4 people…two couples, old and young…clustered around something on the trail, clearly excited about it. As we approached, they were debating what it was…mouse? mole? vole? They moved on and left their find to us. It was tiny and it was fast, but it did not seem to be going anywhere in particular. It certainly was not trying to get away. It scampered repeatedly across the trail and burled under and ran over the litter of fallen maple and oak leaves, as though looking frantically for something it had lost…its house keys perhaps, or a coat button. And it was strange. It was mouse like, but had tiny ears and a long mobile, almost prehensile, snout. Its tail and nose were both too long by far for a mole or vole, and it was so small…barely as wide as quarter, and only two quarters long, not counting the tail. We stood watching it, and I, of course was trying to get a shot of it as it zipped around under us.
Then suddenly it scampered up on my shoe and looked for a way up my pant leg. I was wearing field pants cinched with elastic around the ankle so It was defeated there, but then on its way down, it found one of the ventilation holes in my Crocs and nipped inside next to my foot…right inside my shoe. Perhaps that is an added benefit of the box toe on the Crocs: Room for visiting rodents. Fortunately, it popped back out and went off to explore the leaves beyond the edge of the trail. Carol was finding all this very exciting, but she was nearly and clearly, as they say these days, creeped out by the creature’s familiarity with my pants and shoes and wanted none of it for herself. She was rapidly backing way down the trail. The creature, however, apparently liked the experience in my shoe, because it came back for more, exploring several of the Croc holes before we moved on…though it never got right inside again. Maybe my socks smelled like insects? It kept me very busy, because, of course, I wanted a picture of it with my shoe. Priorities you know. And I got it going in…or thinking about it…but I never got it coming out…that would have been a picture! I think it would have played with us as long as we wanted to stay there, but I had visions of it actually getting caught inside my shoe, and hurt, so we moved on.
Of course I wanted to know what it was, so I did some research when we got home, first in Kaufman’s New England Guide, and then, when I could not find an exact match there, on-line. Kaufman’s got me as close as Shrew…not mouse, or mole, or vole…but certainly some kind of shrew. Eventually, by process of elimination, and consulting mammal lists for Maine, I narrowed it down to Masked Shrew…which is logical, as the Masked Shrew is the most common shrew in North America…and why should my first shrew encounter be anything other than the most common? The shrew population in New England is reputed to be among the most numerous of any mammal, but they are very rarely seen in daylight (though they are active around the clock), so they are, in fact, very rarely seen at all. They live among us, but we know it not 🙂
Last night, as I lay contemplating the writing of this story when I should have been sleeping, it occurred to me to wonder how “shrew” came to have its meaning, its monumental Shakespearean meaning, of “bad tempered woman.” I mean, there was nothing bad tempered about the Masked Shrew…on the contrary it was friendly and almost too cute for its own good. I am not sure but what, if it had gotten in my shoe once more, I would have been tempted to bring it home 🙂
Research. It turns out that shrew is a pure English word that seems to have sprung into existence, in either its rodent or anthropomorphic sense, about the time Shakespeare used it. There is some theory that moles and shrews were thought to have a venom that produced bad temper in women when bitten…and I suspect, from Carol’s reaction, that just being bitten by a shrew would be enough to produce bad temper in most women even without venom…but I simply can not imagine the shrew I encountered biting anyone…let alone a woman grown enough to cause her husband trouble. There has to be more to the story than that…and I certainly suspect the shrew has gotten a bad rap! One wonders, in fact, if Shakespeare coined the “bad tempered woman” usage based on his own dramatic conceit and the physical characteristics of a particular actor assigned the first role…perhaps that prehensile, unattractively mobile and narrow nose? The shrew is certainly in the habit of poking it where it does not belong, if my Crocs are any indication. Of course, we shall never know. Lost in the mists of time and among the many myths of Shakespeare.
It is Sunday, so of course, you are expecting the spiritual side of all this (or at least I am). I hope I have conveyed some of my delight in the shrew encounter. It filled me with quiet amazement…flooded me with pleasurable wonder. Exactly the opposite of bad temper…the shrew gave me the inestimable gift of good temper. Such a treat! You don’t often encounter wildlife that is willing to climb into your shoe. That sense of familiarity, of intimacy, is very special, and I feel wonderfully privileged to have been included. And that, my friends, is the pure essence of spirituality…the sense of being privileged to be included in something wonderful. Or that is what I think. Thank you, Masked Shrew, and I can only hope this piece does at least a little to undo the harm Shakespeare did your reputation. 🙂
Intimacy thy name is Chipmunk! Happy Sunday.
Chipmunk. Kennebunk Bridle Trail.
The prediction yesterday was for clouds pretty much all day, and it was indeed a dark and gloomy fall day in Southern Maine, and chilly with it…until it started to rain. They had not predicted the rain. But then, about 3PM, the rain stopped and the clouds broke and the low afternoon sun of an October day in Maine lit up the wet foliage in the back yard, and I grabbed the camera and headed for the Kennebunk Bridle Path. And it was glorious. There were birds…not only the abundant Yellow-rumped Warblers that are passing through on their way south, but a Great Egret relatively close, feeding and striking striking pose after striking pose. Such a treat. And the Chipmunks in the wooded area along the Bridle Path beyond the marsh on the east side of Route 9 were apparently making up for lost time. Like kids finally let out after a rainy inside day, they were everywhere, scampering, filling the woods with their sharp challenge calls. I caught this one fully exposed, in good light, with the interesting colors of fall behind it, out on a limb and determined to drive me away before he abandoned his perch. I took well over 100 exposures, from all angles, of this fellow as I slowly worked my way closer. 🙂 I even took a break to photograph a challenging Grey Squirrel across the Path, high up in a tree, also, as it happened, in a spot of sun…and the chipmunk was still there when I turned back. That is cooperative! I finally walked on and left him to his perch in peace. There were other chipmunks to photograph, warblers, and the whole wet marsh and fall foliage ambiance under an interesting sky in the late afternoon October light. It was glorious!
I felt like a chipmunk, let out after a long day of rain…making up for lost time!
Now I am certain, the Chipmunks and Egrets and Warblers felt the same elation…the undeniable positive energy of the afternoon…I do not think I am reading too much into their behavior…but I suspect they did not feel the thanksgiving that flooded me. Maybe they did? I know I did. It was so good to be alive for such an hour…and so good to be aware of how good it was. What do people do with such thankfulness if they do not believe in God…the creator God who loves, who loved such a glorious afternoon into being? I sometimes think that is our part…our particular notes in the symphony of the day…we are the instrument of praise…our voice proclaims the good…highlights the grace…exalts the giver…gives thanks for all that lives…for all that enjoys the intimate pleasure, the raw exhilaration, of being alive in Southern Maine on an October afternoon after rain.
Can you see that in the Chipmunk’s eye?
Happy Sunday!
Sony HX400V at 2400mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 640 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
The Unbearable Beauty of Fall. Happy Sunday!
The Unbearable Beauty of Fall
Sometimes nature is just unbearably beautiful…as though it were a leading a conspiracy to overload our senses and our hearts. Sometimes it is place, like the Grand Canyon, that overwhelms…sometimes it is a spectacle like the Snow Geese rising at dawn at Bosque del Apache…sometimes it is just an otherwise quiet corner of our neighborhood, like this narrowing of Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains. Almost always the season is a member of the conspiracy, and often the weather…though some places, like the Grand Canyon, are unbearably beautiful in all seasons and all weathers. The few clouds caught over the water here are the weather’s contribution…and of course the fall foliage is courtesy of the season. The birch lying in the water…beaver work…but certainly the beaver knew his part no better, or suspected how essential his role, than the leaves scattered across the water or the wind that scattered them.
It is Sunday, and of course the spirit is on my mind. The spirit, both small “s” as in our spirits, the spirits that animate each of us, and big “S” as in the Spirit of all, the Holy Spirit, the Creative and Loving Spirit that is the ground of all and in all, and which embraces all our spirits…both are essential parts of the conspiracy. In fact, when I attribute leadership to Nature, that is just shorthand for what is visible in the world of that Spirit, and what our spirits can recognize as Its workings in the world.
When confronted with such a conspiracy to overwhelm with beauty, it is all we can do to keep breathing…but that is all that is required of us…to breath, to be, to receive, to let the beauty engulf us and lift us up to become a willing participant in beauty…part of the conspiracy. We are compelled not just to witness but to celebrate, not just to celebrate but to give thanks. That is the truth of the unbearable beauty of fall.
Sony HX400V in camera HDR. 24mm equivalent. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.