Posts in Category: Laudholm Farm
A picture about nothing. Happy Sunday!
White Birch, Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
On my photoprowl out to the snowy fields and forest a few afternoons ago, I was on the boardwalk at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms in Wells, looking for whatever spoke to me of winter. It was early afternoon and the light was already almost horizontal, but where, in the days before the snow, it seemed to pick out the warmth and texture of the world…now it cast blue shadows and drew the detail sharp. The contrast between the texture of the bark on this birch, standing a foot from the boardwalk, and the fine grained texture of the snow behind it caught my eye. There was something in the shadows, the way they lay across the snow and behind the birch, that added interest, and the little shattered stump, so pointy, fell in place as an accent. It was the matter of seconds to lift the camera, already set for great depth of field, frame, placing the diagonal just so, and shoot. In-camera HDR and processing in Lightroom brought up the shadows on the trunk and in the snow to make them look natural, subtly molding the surfaces the textures where they fell.
And still it is a picture of nothing in particular. It is a composition about composition…an image about imagery. I could look at it forever. I am tempted to make a really large print of it and hang it where my eye could discover it again, sometimes, in passing, and pause to see what is new in it. It would make a great picture for the wall of a doctor’s office. 🙂
It is, so to speak, a playground for the generous eye…inviting vision…inviting the light inside to come out and play. I think it brings the spirit to the surface, so it fills the eye, brimming like water in a spring. I think it wakes the wonder that is the life of our souls and tempts us to touch what is eternal in us and in the world. Ah, but it is just a picture, you say…a picture of nothing in particular. Yes, I say, and that is what is so wonderful about it! But it takes a generous eye to see. Happy Sunday!
Red in his element… Happy New Year!
Red Squirrel, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
When it got up to 40 degrees early yesterday afternoon, I thought, “now or never.” You could almost watch the snow cover disappearing under the December sun. I needed to get out further than I had been, and find some snowy fields and forest while it lasted (oh, we will get more, but every boy must play in the first snow of the year 🙂 I decided on Laudholm Farms (Wells National Estuarine Research Center). When snow is on the ground you have to think about where parking will be plowed. Laudholm is always safe, and Rachel Carson NWR headquarters, but I wanted the open fields of Laudholm…and of course Laudholm has forest and marsh too.
I got my fields and entered the forest going the wrong way on the boardwalk through the wet maple swamp. I heard a skittering off to my left and looked up to see this Red Squirrel in a pile of limbs from a downed tree. I have posted a few shots of the Red Squirrel that has been visiting our deck and feeders over the past few weeks…but here was Red in his element…snowy forest…tangle of limbs…scampering free. It looks to me as though he had dug up a tightly rolled fern with a core of snow. ?? He was, over the next few moments, intent of pulling it apart for some nutrient inside. A Red Squirrel on the deck under the feeders is cute (if you can ignore their destructive side), but a Red Squirrel where it belongs, deep in the forest, doing its thing…that is beautiful.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
And may you, this coming year…find rolled up ferns full of nutrient on even the snowiest days…and my you be as beautiful and as vital as a Red Squirrel in his element each and every day. Okay, so if you have to, you can be cute a few days too! Happy New Year!
Solstice Light in Forest
Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
I have never been so aware of the light as I am these weeks in December, just at the solstice. Our odd weather maybe is helping…as I am out, and further out, than I generally am at this time of year. The light, even at noon, is just skimming the earth…coming in a such a low angle that it illuminates things I do not normally see, and turns the mundane magical. Take this random pile of tree sections beside the trail at Laudholm Farms. I suspect they are piled and waiting for staff to come and haul them out, but the solstice light turns them into a study in shape and texture, color and form. On any other day I would have passed right by…but in this light I was stopped in my tracks and forced to record the scene.
Of course, this morning we have 7-8 inches of fresh snow on the ground…so everything will be very different today!
In-camera HDR. Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view. 1/60th @ ISO 80 @ f5. Program shift for greater depth of field. Processed in Lightroom.
Winter hat
Fungi growing on a birch stump. Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
I have walked right by this rather amazing cap of fungi growing on a birch stump at Laudholm Farms hundreds of times. Of course, in summer, it is somewhat hidden by the brush around the base of the tree…still I am surprised that I did not find it before this. The December light the other day helped. The low angle illuminated things not ordinarily seen. This cap is old enough to have picked up some algae. Unlike its role in lichen, with is a compound organism, I think the algae here is just in symbiotic relationship with the fungus. What caught my eye, and what is still of primary interest to me in the image, is the texture of the fungi. The tiny hair like structures on the surface caught the light and made the fungus glisten. And then there is the form of the thing. I find it fascinating.
Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/250th @ ISO 80 @ f5.6. (Program shift used to increase depth of field.). Processed in Lightroom.
Mocking December. Happy Sunday!
Mockingbird, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
The warm December in Maine (and the whole east coast) continues…setting all kinds of temperature records. If all the rain we are getting was falling as snow, we would already have huge snow-plow piles in every drive…but as it is, the fields are still bare, and the forests are still skeletal. Worse yet, the birches are already red at the tips.
I spent a few hours at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms yesterday, walking the trails to see what I could find. Not much was moving. In that, and nothing else, it was a typical December day. I did come on this lonely Northern Mockingbird and a few Blue Jays, and of course there were gulls on the dunes on the back side of the beach (the front side too, I am sure, but I did not get that far).
We were talking about all this, the unseasonable warmth etc., at dinner, and one of my daughters said, “yes, our earth is certainly deteriorating.” I replied, “Our earth is certainly changing…there is lots of evidence of that…but there is no evidence that it is deteriorating.” I am not one of those “climate change deniers” but I am also not convinced we fully understand what we are observing. Of course I do see that part of what is going on is very likely tied to our dependence on fossil fuels and our sheer numbers on the planet…but the earth is a living thing…incredibly complex…and with its own immune system and sources of healing. I think we know way too little to say that the earth is deteriorating…that it is sick. Changing, yes. Sick, maybe. Able to heal itself, undoubtedly. And we, of course, will be part of that healing. If we are part of problem, we are also part of the immune system. Hopefully the intelligent part…the creative part…the problem solving part. The part that embodies the creative love that created the earth and the universe, and that sustains it now.
And, of course, all the long range forecasts predict another abnormally cold and snowy winter for Maine this year. A month from now, things at Laudholm Farms might look totally different.
The generous eye sees hope, because hope is in the light that fills us. Like the Mockingbird on an unseasonably warm December day, we may be confused by the weather, but that dose not mean we are not storing up songs for the spring.
Tree Sparrow
American Tree Sparrow. Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
Like most of the US, we only get American Tree Sparrows in Maine in the winter…and, even though winter weather has not yet arrived in Maine, the Tree Sparrows have. We are right at the northern edge of their winter territory, but get them migrating through to points south, so it is hard to say if this one stuck around or if it is now somewhere in the Carolinas, but it was a treat to see it as I walked the paths on am otherwise very quiet day at Laudholm Farms (Wells National Estuarine Research Center).
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 200 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Hermit Thrush
Hermit Thrush, Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
Sometimes it is nice to have multiple views of a bird. This Hermit Thrush, which we walked up on along the Maple Swamp boardwalk at Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center), was fairly busy in the bush, and gave us front, back, and center views over the few seconds it took to take a series of photos. Then it was away, across the boardwalk and into deeper brush under the trees. This collage shows off all the recognition triggers for the species. The general Robin-like fat oval thrush shape and distinctive beak shape, the speckled upper breast, and the “tells” for this species…the rusty tail and wing tips and the fairly bold eye-ring. The mid-afternoon October light was great.
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/160th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Young and restless…
Immature Cedar Waxwing. Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
I mentioned yesterday that migration is happening right now in Southern Maine. Among the birds moving yesterday when I visited the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms in Wells Maine was a flock of immature Cedar Waxwings…no adults…only this year’s juveniles. They were all around me at one point…buried in the bushes and sitting out on higher branches of the trees. This specimen was showing off his new crest…I am not sure why. It gives him a young-and-restless look, which, translated to behavior, pretty much defined the flock. First migration, and none of them sure of what they were doing or where they were going…just responding to the irresistible urge to be moving…a restless urge to head south.
Nikon P610 at 1325mm equivalent. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom. Not an easy shot with the bird tucked back so deeply in the bush. I am always amazed when the Nikon P series pulls something like this off. 🙂
Blue-green Cricket Hunter (?) Wasp
Blue-green Cricket Hunter Wasp? Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
I believe this amazing creature, only a little over a half inch long, might be a Blue-green Cricket Hunter Wasp. It could also be a Blue-green Mud Wasp. I have not been able to find any images via a Google search that have the white spot between the wings or the white section in the particularly long antenna. If it is not one of the species mentioned above, it is certainly a close relative. I found it while photographing Bittersweet at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms a few days ago. This is a collage of three shots.
Sony Alpha NEX 5T with 16-50mm zoom @ 140mm equivalent field of view (2x Clear Image Zoom). Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Harvey Ried on Banjo
Harvey Ried. Punkinfiddle Festival, Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
The yearly Punkinfiddle Festival at Laudholm Farms in Wells Maine is a celebration of harvest and folk music, and a fund-raiser for the Wells National Estuarine Research Center. Lots of kids activities. And music on the porch of the Education Building. This is Harvey Ried, a well known local musician with several albums and several books of Autoharp and Banjo instruction. He and his wife, Joyce Anderson, play a variety of folk and old-time music on the fiddle (Joyce), guitar, autoharp, and banjo (Havey).
Sony HX90V in Superior Auto. Processed in Lightroom.