Posts in Category: wildflower
A Praise of Blazing Star! Happy Sunday.
Northern Blazing Star. Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
You might remember that back in late July and early August I was tracking the bloom of the Northern Blazing Star on the Kennebunk Plains and predicting one of the best years for the flower in recent memory. On August 5th I left for 2 weeks of travel and it rained for a few days when I got home…so it was yesterday before I got out to the Plains to see how the Blazing Star was doing. And it was certainly doing! I have not, in my more than 20 years of living in Southern Maine, seen the Blazing Star so dense or so extensive. To say that the Plains are purple with it is an understatement. This might be full bloom. I saw no unopened buds, and the oldest, topmost buds on each plant are fading…but, oh my, what a bloom!
Sony HX90V, in-camera HDR at 67mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.
I sometimes think that mankind is unique among all God’s creation in the ability to praise the creator. We have the privilege, not only of being created, but of knowing that we are. And we know, if we know God at all, that we are created with love…lovingly created…and loved all life long. We respond to the greatness of that love with praise…thankfulness, awe, joy…we make a joyful noise before God…lifting hands and faces…bold in the awful presence of the Creator of all.
But then I see the Kennebunk Plains ablaze with the purple of Northern Blazing Star, and I am not so sure we are alone in our ability to praise. A plain full of Blazing Star in bloom looks a lot like praise to me…as though the earth itself lifted its face and hands and broke out in exalted song.
A praise of Blazing Star!
When we praise the creator of all, how can we not believe that all creation praises with us. And I, for one, can not look on the Plains ablaze with Blazing Star without praising… Happy Sunday!
NM Sunflower! Happy Sunday.
Sunflower, just over the NM border from OK.
There is a substantial stone sign to mark the border crossing between Oklahoma and New Mexico on Route 56, and a more subtle shift in the landscape from high plains to volcanic plateau, but the real difference, at least this year, is sunflowers. Evidently New Mexico distributed tons of sunflower seeds this spring, and sprayed them along roadsides all over what I have seen of the state so far this trip. And it has been a wet (by NM standards) summer…with enough rain so that the sunflowers, watered by runoff from the roads, have prospered. Big, bold, beautiful sunflowers provide a foreground for the volcanic uplands and mountains of this section of New Mexico. It is great! It is wonderful. It is an act, intentional or otherwise, of worship and praise…guaranteed to lift the spirits of everyone who lives in, or visits the state.
We had to stop a few miles into New Mexico at a little roadside rest to take in the view, and I was compelled to photograph a few of sunflowers. The glancing, high altitude light of late morning, with in-camera HDR to keep the shadows and highlights in range, contribute to image that makes me smile…and I hope it does you too. It is just so cheerful. And yet it is authentic. This is not a pampered garden sunflower. You can see the wear and tear of life on the roadside all over the plant…and the great green hairy fist of the new bud adds a contrasting element and another dose of reality. This is cheerfulness in the face of adversity. This is a great big simile despite the challenges. This is praise for the good life even when that life is not easy. It says to me: God is great. God is good. And nothing life can throw at me will change my mind.
All that from a sunflower on the roadside? Certainly! Happy Sunday! And may it be a sunflower day for you!
Blaze of Blazing Star
Northern Blazing Star, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
For the next two days I will be in a van with my daughter Sarah, helping her move from Pittsburgh to Santa Fe, NM, and then we move on from there to Tucson for a birding festival. It seems I am always traveling at the height of the Blazing Star bloom on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area. This year I might have just caught the forward edge to of the peak. 🙂 It will not get much better than this, but it will get better. I shot this at a fairly long telephoto to compress the mass of blooms.
Sony HX90V at 520mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Northern Blazing Star on Goldenrod
Northern Blazing Star in the foreground, Goldenrod in the back. Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine
As though the Northern Blazing Star were not purple enough already, I found spots on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area where it was growing in association with Goldenrod. I made several attempts to capture the effect. 🙂 The Blazing Star is, as predicted, doing well this year.
Sony HX90V in-camera HDR at about 300mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Early Northern Blazing Star. Happy Sunday!
Northern Blazing Star with Skipper, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
I have never seen the Kennebunk Plains so thick with Northern Blazing Star. The budded plants are everywhere, in thick stands this year. By the first week in August, the second at the latest, the Plains are going to be purple with Blazing Star. Right now, there are only a few plants here and there in bloom, but the promise is there, and barring any unnatural disaster, it is going to be a very good year for Blazing Star. Of course, the Kennebunk Plains are managed, at least in part, for Blazing Star, which is endangered in much of its historical range, and only has the one major foothold left in Maine. Blazing Star is fire dependent, and patterned and scheduled burns on the Plains keep the population healthy.
And, when the Blazing Star is in bloom, it draws its compliment of insects. Bees of several species, lots of Skippers (like the one captured above, which might be the Least Skipper), Hairstreaks (mostly Coral), Swallowtail and Monarch butterflies, and lots of orb weaver spiders. The Halloween Pennant dragonfly hunts among the the other bugs. And the insects draw the birds: Clay-collared and Grasshopper Sparrow, Upland Sandpiper, (all at the limits of their range on the Plains), as well as Savannah and Song Sparrows. The Blazing Star is the base plant, or the most visible member, for a whole community of life…and because it is so beautiful, and so visible, protecting it has protected the whole community. This is good!
I feel privileged to live so close to the remnant population of Blazing Star…to track it year to year in my informal visits to the Plains, and to share it with you in my photos. Being on the Plains when the Northern Blazing Star is in bloom is, for me, a spiritual experience…a instance of natural, spontaneous, worship. Though the Plains buzz with life in August, and hundreds of people come to pick blueberries, for me there is always a hush…a reverence in the presence of the stands of this rare and beautiful plant. It is awesome in the literal sense of the word. I feel the awe, and can only give praise and thanks. Happy Sunday!
Jeweled Wood Lily
Wood Lily, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine.
I was on the Kennebunk Plains early enough, a few days ago, to find the Wood Lilies still jeweled with dew. Wood Lilies, at least on the Plains, come in two basic colors. This is the oranger of the two. The other is still orange, but edging over toward red. It is not a matter of age, though both get lighter as the bloom ages…it seems to be a genuine difference in the plants. We are seeing the last of the Wood Lilies this week. You can tell from the bare anthers that this one has opened several days now.
Sony HX90V at 44mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 80 @ f4.5. Processed and cropped for composition in Lightroom.
Bobolink in flowers…
Bobolink in Knapweed. Kennebunkport ME
While photographing this meadow full of Knapweed, I observed several male Bobolinks competing for territory. I had, through an oversight, only my little Sony HX90V with me, and it only has 720mm equivalent field of view…only! That really shows how spoiled we are in the Point and Shoot Superzoom world. I used some Clear Image Zoom (Sony’s enhances digital zoom) to stretch out to 1440mm for this shot of the Bobolink with prey among the flowers.
Camera as above. 1/250th @ ISO 125 @ f6.4. Processed in Lightroom.
Masses of Wood Lilies
Wood Lilies, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine
It was three years ago that I first found Wood Lilies growing on the Kennebunk Plains. I am certain they have been growing there for as long as there have sand-plains there…but I had not seen them. This year, though, is special. There are Wood Lilies everywhere on the plains…well, not everywhere, they tend to cluster in open clusters of 5 to 25 plants…but lilies in much higher numbers than I have seen before, by a factor of 10 at least. More clusters, and more flowers in each cluster. Not only that, but a much higher percentage of the plants are making double, and even triple blooms. In the past the vast majority of the plants hand only a single bloom, with a few doubles. This year at least half have multiple heads and at least a quarter of those are triples. I have even see a plant with 4 blooms, but they were not open simultaneously…or at least were not on the day I saw them. This shot is three plants, all triples, for 9 flowers in a single group. One Wood Lily is beautiful. Nine together is breathtaking. 🙂
Sony HX90V at 92mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 80 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.
Great Spangled Fritillary!
Great Spangled Fritillary, Emmon’s Preserve. Kennenbunkport Land Conservancy.
You just have to love the name! Great Spangled Fritilllary! Great Spangled! (And then, of course, there is the issue of remembering how to spell fritillary…or is it frittilary? I always have to Google it to be sure.) There were dozens of Great Spangled Fritillarys in the fields at Emmon’s Preserve in Kennebunkport yesterday…doing their thing…which is fritting. They frit constantly, often never coming to full rest while in sight. You get the occasional bug, like this one, who is apparently nectaring, and therefore lighting on the Knapweed, at least for a few seconds. This bug turned and showed me all sides. This composite image shows both the Greatness of the wings, and the Spangles on the underside…or is great spangles on the back?
Nikon P900 at 500mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 220 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Wood Lily Glory. Happy Sunday!
Wood Lily, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
The area near Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area has not been burned for several years now so the Wood Lilies are much taller, and more of them produce a full head of 3 flowers. This plant was growing right at the edge of the forest at the west end of the pond, in partial shade much of the day. While I did find several heads of three flowers in bloom out in the full sun of the plain, these were blooming out of sequence. I suspect that today all three are open. Still, as a study of shape and texture and how the light molds the world we see, these lilies are just right. I reached out with the zoom on the camera to frame them from a distance, and isolate them against the out of focus foliage of the trees behind, which only emphasizes the basic forms more, and allows them to balance within the frame.
This is an “artistic shot”…carefully conceived, composed, and photographed for itself, as an image, rather than just as a capture of a slice of reality to share. It draws attention to itself, as an artifact, while most of my photos act simply as a window frame, through which I show you a bit of the world I see. In that sense it is more creative than most…which are more simply records of creation. There is more of me in it…my vision…my little portion of the one creative spirit. Mostly I show you bits of the world that might make you clap…in this shot you can hear me clapping. 🙂 It is a celebration of creating as much as creation.
Or that is what I am thinking as I look at it this morning, and, to be honest, what struck me first when I saw it on my monitor yesterday. I said to my wife when I showed her the photo soon after processing it, “Now that is a beautiful photograph…not just a beautiful flower.” And I guess it is okay, once in a while, to call attention to what is creative in me…since I am under no illusions as to where that creativity comes from, or who it belongs to. There is only one creator…if I am privileged to occasionally be the instrument of creation, that can make me thankful…but never proud.
And my prayer for you today is that the good and loving God will make you, in some way large or small, the instrument of creation. Happy Sunday!