Posts in Category: wildflower
Jack-in-the-pulpit. Happy Sunday!
Jack-in-the-pulpit, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Maine
“If you eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
Until last year I had never seen Jack-in-the-pulpit in the wild. I had seen it at botanical gardens in Boothbay and Bar Harbor (Coastal Maine Botanical Garden and Wild Gardens of Acadia), but never actually growing out of “captivity”. Then they cleared back the encroaching bushes and ferns along the boardwalk through the Red Maple Swamp at Laudholm Farms (Wells National Estuarine Research Center) and last year there were two separate stands of Jack-in-the-pulpit revealed. This year, a fairly careful search only turned up one stand, but they have really razed the vegetation to the ground along the first section of the boardwalk, perhaps in an attempt to eliminate the invasive Japanese Barberry that grows in abundance there.
Considering, if clearing the brush along the boardwalk revealed two clumps of Jack-in-the-pulpit, the there are probably many such clumps, perhaps hundreds, scattered through the surrounding forest of Maple, Birch, and Pine. They grow low, under the cover of ferns and brush, and so go unseen and unsuspected by those of us who obey the rules and stick to the boardwalk. And if they are growing there, at Laudholm Farm, they are very likely growing in similar habitat all through Maine and New England. So probably not a rare plant at all…though one that is seldom seen.
Still, seeing them growing there along the boardwalk fills me with delight. What a wonderful thing it is to know that something so strange as the Jack-in-the-pulpit is growing, out of sight, and unsuspected, all around us. I do suspect, however, that the majority of people who walk the boardwalk every May never see the Jack-in-the-pulpit even though it is now out in plain sight. It is not that their eyes are not open…it is just that they are occupied with other things. Part of the generosity of the eye that Jesus talks about is being open to any and everything…to whatever God puts in front of us…to whatever is waiting our discovery. I can promise that getting your eye off what concerns us as humans, and opening ourselves to what is right in front of us will have its rewards. The delight of discovery first among them. Who knows what else the forest hides. If there are Jack-in-the-pulpits there, there might be anything! Happy Sunday.
Lady Slipper time. Happy Sunday!
Pink Lady Slipper, Rachel Carson NWR, Wells ME
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
I have been watching the patches of Pink Lady Slipper at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge and along the Kennebunk Bridle Trail in Wells and Kennebunk for weeks now. There is one patch off a deck at the back at Rachel Carson, overlooking Branch Brook, where the sun comes in all day. Lady Slipper orchids bloom there at least a few days, sometimes a week, before they bloom anywhere else in our area. Yesterday the first blossoms opened fully. I can go back through my archives on my WideEyedInWonder site and find images of this plant going back at least 7 or 8 years, maybe more. I don’t mean this plant as in Lady Slipper, I mean this plant as in this Lady Slipper. It always produces at least two blossoms, sometimes as many as 6. There is a delicacy, a rare beauty in these strange blooms, and I do my best to catch it year by year.
My yearly Lady Slipper vigil is part of what keeps me aware of the constant renewal of the beauty of creation…the cycle of change…no two years the same…but each year with its beauty…that is God’s creative love at work, day by day. It is not that Genesis has it wrong when it says that after God created the heavens and the earth God rested…it is that we have the wrong idea of rest. Rest, in the divine sense has to be creative, radiant…an ongoing action producing peace…an continual outflowing and outworking of love. Rest is not a pause in the dance, or a silence in the music…it is the moment of perfect balance within the motion of the dance…it is the moment when the notes of the music echo in the room…echo in our hearts and minds…and fulfill their beauty. That is a little, a very little, like the rest of God.
When I see the Lady Slippers bloom, in the quiet beauty, I sense the active rest of God, and the notes of God’s love echo and swell in my life to fill it. This is reason enough to love the Lady Slipper, reason enough to watch for its coming, and to celebrate its bloom year by year. Happy Sunday!
Waxwing in Apple Blossoms
Cedar Waxwing, Magee Marsh, Ohio
I have watched this tree bloom at Magee Marsh for years, during the Biggest Week in American Birding, and I always hoped to catch an interesting bird in it. This year I caught several. This is a Cedar Waxwing, and the bird was busy eating the petals of the flowers…a behavior I have never seen before, and something I did not know any bird did.
Sony RX10 iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed and cropped for scale in Lightroom.
Maple Flower time again!
Maple Flower, the back yard, Kennebunk Maine
We are having a strange spring…but then I am beginning to believe that strange is the normal for southern Maine. No two springs in the two decades I have lived here have been remotely the same. This year the Maple Flowers are at lest 2 weeks early…but when, on the strength of that, I checked for Trout Lily in the forest, it was barely sprouting leaves above the leaf litter. Last year I photographed both Maple flowers and Trout Lily on the same day around the first of May. Go figure.
The lowest Maple Flowers in our back yard are just far enough above my head so I need a strong telephoto to reach them, and yet too close for my Nikon P900’s minimum focus of 16.5 feet…so I got out the P610 for this shot (and many others 🙂 This is at about 2000mm equivalent field of view, using the P610’s full 1440mm optical and bit of Perfect Image digital zoom. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Bucks County April Wildflowers. Happy Sunday!
Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, Bucks County PA
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
This is a panel of some of the April wildflowers we found on our unscheduled stop at Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve in Bucks County Pennsylvania. We will not see our Maine wildflowers, with the possible exception of Trout Lily, for another 4 weeks at least…six for some of them, so it was a real treat to be in the woods this early with blooming wildflowers. I am certain by the end of April, if Bowman’s Hill is any example, that the woods of Bucks County are carpeted with wildflowers.
We have here, clockwise from the upper left…Bluebells, Marsh Marigold, Bloodroot, Dutchman’s Breeches, Wood Poppy, and Spring Beauty. They were all taken with the Sony HX90V, processed in Lightroom, and assembled in Coolage.
I find it difficult to understand how anyone can look a the abundant beauty of spring wildflowers and not see the work of God who creates in love…who loves to create. Even before Jesus broke into my life and demanded that I take notice, I went in awe of the beauty of spring. Awe must have its origin…if we call it Nature…or if we call it The Universe…we are already attributing intelligence and creative love to something bigger than ourselves…something that is so big that it encompasses all that is, including us. It is only one more step to calling what we feel in awe of “God.” And if God then the author of all that is, who moves by the spirit to give us life. And, in my experience, if God, then the father of Jesus Christ, who gives us new life when the troubles of this world, and our own failings, have dulled and deadened us. I can not see the wildflowers of spring without awe…without praise…without the joyful response of my spirit to the spirit of God moving in love in the world.
May your eye be generous and your being full of light. Happy Sunday!
Bluebells in Bucks County
As I mentioned in yesterday’s poem, I found myself unexpectedly wandering Bucks County Pennsylvania yesterday afternoon. We visited Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve. Though the season is well advanced compared to southern Maine, it is still early for Pennsylvania wildflowers. Sill, there were a dozen species or more in bloom, especially along the several streams that wander though the wooded property. These are Bluebells…more properly Virginia Bluebells. They nod, and this shot is low looking slightly up.
Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ISO 80 @ f3.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Master Gardner in the Desert. Happy Sunday
Di Giorgio Road, Borrego Springs CA
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light.” Jesus.
This is a “chance” arrangement of wildflowers from the end of Di Giorgio Road in Borrego Springs, California…part of my Desert in Bloom series from my visit to the Anzo Borrego Desert last week. If you believe in chance, which I don’t. 🙂 I see the hand of the Master Gardner here, in this arrangement of Desert Lily, California Evening Primrose, Sand Verbina, and Common Cryptantha (I think it is Common but it could be one of the others). All I had to do was see it, and put a frame around it. And even if you don’t believe in a Master Gardener who makes arrangements in the desert where they may or may not be seen and appreciated, there is a little bit of Master Gardner just in seeing, framing, and sharing the arrangement when found. Or that’s what I think. 🙂
The generous eye is active…proactive…constantly looking for, and therefore seeing, God in the world. God working beauty. God working love. God working good. God working blessing. God working protection. God working. Here in the desert, God works beauty, as the Master Gardener. In my drive over the mountains in a sudden snowstorm to get to the desert, God certainly worked protection. Both were a blessing…totally undeserved…total grace. Just God being God. That is what the generous eye sees. I remember the feeling of finding this arrangement of wildflowers in the desert. I was delighted! The light within me leapt up. I thought “What a God!” and gave thanks…thanks for the work, thanks for the seeing, and thanks for the opportunity to share. It was a moment of pure generosity. Happy Sunday!
Nikon P610 at 115mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.
Desert Lily, Anzo Borrego
Desert Lily, Anzo Borrego Desert, Borrego Springs CA
It is a year for Desert Lilies in the Anzo Borrego Desert. The Desert Lily, according to my sources, is not a Lily at all…though it certainly looks like one…but is more closely related to the Agave. It does not bloom every year. The bulbs are up to 2 feet underground and it takes a deep soaking rain, or a series of deep soaking rains, to trigger growth and bloom. This year the conditions must have been just right because they are locally abundant at the end of De Giorgio Road in Borrego Springs and up Henderson Canyon toward the mountains on the west. This is an unusually tall specimen. Most bloom when the plant is only inches tall, so the flowers are practically on the ground. Interestingly most of the Lilies on Di Giorgio Road were tall, and most of the Lilies off the western extension of Henderson Canyon were short. ?? You see lots of Sand Verbina and California Evening Primrose in the background, as well as rain moving in the Laguna Mountains.
Sony HX90V. 1/320th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Anzo Borrego in Bloom
Henderson Canyon Road, Borrego Springs CA
The bloom in Death Valley is a “once in a decade” bloom this year, but Death Valley is just too far from San Diego and the San Diego Birding Festival for me to make the trip. Anzo Borrego Desert, on the other hand is just 2 hours over the mountains. I put an extra day in my trip just in case the bloom was good. Late in the week, considering rain on Sunday and Monday, I reserved a room at the Borrego Springs Resort and Spa, checked out of my hotel in San Diego a day early, and drove from San Diego to Borrego Springs through a heavy snowstorm in the high country around Julian, inching around hairpin turns. But the reward was worth it. There is not a desert wide bloom…nothing like Death Valley…but there are pockets of very impressive wildflowers. This is mostly Desert Sunflower along the valley end of Henderson Canyon Road…one of the faithful spots of wildflower production most years when there are any. You can see the storms still in the mountains…they swept out and over the valley about once every two hours all day, and I did some of my photography from under an umbrella, but all it all it was an excellent day. I will post a gallery of individual wildflower shots when I get home to Maine later this week.
Nikon P610 in Landscape mode at 125mm equivalent field of view. 1/1000th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.
Monarch in Asters
Monarch, East Point, Biddeford Pool, Maine
East Point in Biddeford Pool Maine forms one boundary where the Saco River (or perhaps more exactly, Saco Bay) meets the open Atlantic. It is directly across a narrow channel from Wood Island and Wood Island Light. Perhaps because it sticks out into the ocean a ways and has some interesting vegetation, it is always a good spot to find butterflies, and Monarchs in the fall in particular. This seems to be a particularly large specimen, caught foraging among the New England Asters growing along the edge and in the under-story of a large stand of wild rose and other plants. From the overall brightness of the bug I am tempted to say it is freshly emerged, but in this close view you can see some wear on the wings…which might make it a migrant from further north.
Sony HX90V at 1440mm equivalent field of view (using 2x Clear Image Zoom). 1/250th @ ISO 320 @ f6.4. Processed in Lightroom.