Posts in Category: Kennebunk Plains
American Copper Butterfly
American Copper Butterfly, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine
The American Copper is fairly abundant in Southern Maine, but it is small enough so it is often overlooked. This one was hard to miss. It was at eye-level in a tall stand of Meadowsweet and other brush right next to the parking area at Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area. It was working the flowers in the company of a few Coral Hairstreaks, which provided a nice contrast, and also drew the eye. In could not get the Copper to pose with its wings fully open, so this 3/4s view will have to do.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/1000th @ ISO 100 @ f5.6. Processed and cropped slightly in Lightroom.
Halloween Pennant Mating Wheel
Halloween Pennant, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine
Until last year at this time, I had never seen a Halloween Pennant…and then I found one on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area near my home in southern Maine. After that first sighting I saw several in different spots around home. This year I have been on the look-out for them on each trip to Day Brook Pond. When I got to the pond on Saturday there were several dozen Pennants paired up and flying in tandem over the pond, ovapositing by dabbing the water sharply. I assumed they were Calico Pennants as they have been abundant around the pond so far this season, but then I found first a single male and then this mating pair of Halloween Pennants along the shore. That brought my assumption into question, so I had to try for a flight shot of the ovaposing pairs over the water. Not easy, but I eventually managed a shot that shows clearly that the mated pairs over the pond are indeed Calicos.
Mated pair of Calico Pennants over Day Brook Pond.
Both shots with the Sony RX10iii. Halloween Pennants at 1200mm (2x Clear Image zoom). Program shifted for greater depth of field. f8 @ 1/125 @ ISO 100. Processed and cropped slightly in Lightroom. Flight shot of the Calico Pennants using my custom Sports Mode. 300mm @ 1/1000th @ f4.5 @ ISO 100. Cropped heavily for scale.
Hairstreak photobombed by Yellowjacket! Happy Sunday.
Coral Hairstreak Butterfly and Yellowjacket Wasp, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk ME
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
This might be one of those Instagram or Facebook celebrity photo bomb shots 🙂 The Choral Hairstreak was busy with the Meadowsweet blossoms and I was busy taking it’s pic, when this Yellowjacket buzzed in from the left. The Yellowjacket was after smaller prey lower in the flower cluster, but it looked for an instant like it might go for the Hairstreak. Talk about being in the right place at the right time!
And I had already had a great morning at the pond. This shot was right next to the car in the parking area. I had already put my camera bag in the car and was looking forward to cranking up the AC…but the Hairstreak right there beside me was irresistible, so I dug the camera out again. And you just never know what God is going to provide when you open your eyes and turn them on nature. I am, based frequent experiences of this kind, always ready to be blessed when I turn my attention outward, with or without my camera lens.
In a week of news from the Republican Convention and the presidential campaign, I need this kind of experience to remind me that the world is not nearly as dark as the politicians portray it. In fact, for the generous eye, the world is as bright as it has ever been…and that is bright indeed. Yes there are pockets of darkness…always have been and always will be while human beings exploit each other…where greed and self-interest rule the human heart…but that is not, no matter what you hear from the podium or the pulpit, the norm. The norm is generosity and light. The norm is grace. The norm is love. That is because light, grace, and love…generosity…is the nature of the God who creates all we know and all we are…who lives in all we know and is the true being of all we are. For people my age, i can say that the world is a brighter place today than it was when we were children. Safer, saner, with more people who walk in love…less want, more openness, more fairness, more inclusiveness. And yes the actions and effects of those who are motivated by greed…the stingy eyed…is often on display in today’s “bad news is good news” media world…but that does not mean we have to give the darkness, or those who peddle it in whatever from, power over our lives. God is good…in God there is no shadow or turning…and we get to live in the world we choose. Open your eyes wide in generosity…and be the light in this world we are intended to be. Happy Sunday!
Goldbug?
Teneral dragonfly? Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine
This is a newly emerged dragonfly from Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area in West Kennebunk Maine. Though I have looked through my dragonfly book, it does not cover tenerals, so I am have little idea what it is. Hopefully someone will help me with the ID. I love the look of it, as though it were fashioned from gold. (If I had to guess, it would be a female Saffron Winged Meadowhawk…but that would be a wild guess. 🙂
Sony RX10iii at 600mm. 1/250th @ ISO 250 @ f4. Processed and cropped slightly in Lightroom.
Wood Lily, Blueberries, and Little Green Metallic Bees. Happy Sunday!
Wood Lily, Blueberries, Little Green Metallic Bees, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
There are still lots of Wood Lilies in bloom out on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area. I have only explored the Day Brook Pond side this summer so far, but, despite earlier impressions, the Wood Lily bloom is at least as good as last year, and maybe better. (It is about a week late, which contributed to my earlier disappointment.) Yesterday, I found a bunch growing right in among the ripe blueberries and wanted to frame both the blue and the bright red/orange in the same shot, but as I focused I noticed the Green Metallic Bees at work gathering the abundant pollen of the flower. I have shots where I adjusted the camera’s program to get the blueberries in better focus for better color contrast, but for this shot I was after the motion of the bees, so I let the camera choose a high shutter speed. (Photography, like most things in life, is all about choices and balance.) I remember finding my first Green Metallic Bee among the flowers of our yard a few years ago, and being totally amazed that such a creature could exist. In this shot we have two species, one much smaller than the already small Green Metallic, but clearly in the same family.
This shot, to my eye, has captured a vivid slice of life…full of a rich variety of color, form, and texture, and alive with energy. But then, so often, that is what the generous eye sees in the world around us…life both abundant and bright with promise…with the energy of the spirit at work in the world. And there is a unity. The bees are not separate from the flowers. As they gather the pollen of one plant and carry it to another, they are an essential part of the Wood Lilies’ life…there would be no more Wood Lilies without their action. Even the way the Wood Lilies and Blueberries are growing together must serve both…it is always about choices and balance…fulfilling the spirit’s vision of abundant life. If you push back behind the surface of this second, or any second, you become aware of the pure radiant light of creation at the center…expanding, expressing itself in form and color and texture, in all that lives and all that is…expressing itself with intelligence (choice and balance) and with all embracing love. You become aware of God. And God’s light fills you, not from the outside in, but from the inside out, as you realize yourself as another expression of the creative love and light that is all in all. Choice and balance…unity. Generosity.
Happy Sunday! And may your eye be generous.
Chipper at the pond
Chipmunk, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine
Chipmunks are always more attractive in the field, as opposed to on our back deck on the bird feeders. This one posed so nicely on a branch hanging over the water at Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area. It is actually the pattern of out of focus leaves and water behind the chipper that lifts the image slightly above the average “portrait of chipmunk”. Or that’s what I think 🙂
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 160 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Wood Lilies again
Wood Lilies, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine
I hope you don’t mind another Wood Lily shot. The season is short and I have to get my shots in while they bloom 🙂 This cluster of three, at Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, with the petals still wet from overnight rains, shows off the lily at its best.
Sony RX10iii at 135mm equivalent field of view. Some program shift for depth of field. f6.3 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom.
Wood Lilies after rain.
Wood Lily, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine
We finally got some much-needed rain in Southern Maine over the weekend, and I hoped that it would pop the Wood Lilies out on the Kennebunk Plains. I had been disappointed with the show last week, when, if it followed past patterns, it should have been at its height. A visit to the Plains yesterday did not disappoint. Where there were single blossoms before the rain, there are now good stands similar to last year’s bloom. In one small area we found all three color varieties, from deep red to this bright “safety-vest” orange. The deep orange variety continues to dominate, but at least this year, all three are showing. This close up of a bloom still wet from overnight rains, also shows off the purple in the stamen, anthers, and in the dots on the base of leaves, but the light orange makes the contrast between the yellow base of the petals and the upper petals less obvious.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm. 1/80 @ ISO 100 @ f8 (program shift for greater depth of field). Processed in Lightroom.
Wood Lily. Happy Sunday!
Wood Lily, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
I have been posting images from our trip to Honduras for the past two weeks now. I have been home a week already. Of course I have been out around home a few times too. 🙂 I had to check for dragons and damsels and for the Wood Lilies at Day Brook Pond for one thing. This is Wood Lily season, and this week last year, there were the best stands of Wood Lily out on the Kennebunk Plains that I have ever seen. We have had a long dry spell in Maine this year, and the flowers are much less numerous, and somewhat late to bloom, but there were a few when I visited on Wednesday. It rained yesterday, and it is raining hard at the moment. That may be just what the Wood Lilies need to pop out in full display. We will see tomorrow when I get back to the Kennebunk Plains.
It would take an ungenerous eye indeed not to appreciate the beauty of the Wood Lily. They grow sparsely in open shade along the edges and in the clearings in the forest, and out in full sun on the Plains. They appear to like sandy soil, but with a rich mix of humus. They range from deep red (rare in Maine) to the bright orange caught in this image, always touched with yellow at the base of the petals, and spattered with purple/brown spots. The prominent Stigma and Stamens are tall and graceful, with large velvety Anthers that produce a lot of pollen. They attract many insects, like the little Green Metalic Bee you see on the petal at the right.
Wood Lilies are the essence of a wild flower. They don’t do well in cultivation, so they have rarely been tamed to ornament our yards and grounds. They grow where they will, and boom only to suit themselves, briefly. You have to go out into the woods and uncultivated fields at just the right time to see them. I had never seen one until about 5 years ago when I found two growing along the Kennebunk Bridle Path. I had no idea they bloomed in such numbers on the Kennebunk Plains until 3 years ago when that bright flash of orange drew me out away from the road. Now I go look for them every year. While they are apparently doing well in Maine, they are threatened or endangered in many states, as true wild-lands grow more rare. To me, they will always be a celebration of God’s generosity of spirit and sense of wild beauty. One more reason to be thankful and happy on this Sunday. May you find the Wood Lilies in bloom, and always be filled with light.
Calico Pennant Posing
Calico Pennant, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk Maine
There are still lots of Calico Pennants emerging every day at Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, though they must disperse widely, since I only ever see a few adult males at the pond at any given time. This beautiful specimen landed right at my feet, on a stalk a foot tall, so I only had to bend over a bit for this shot. They really should have named this dragon the Valentines Pennant.
Sony RX10iii at 840mm equivalent field of view (600mm plus in-camera crop to 10mp). 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.