Posts in Category: flowers
Lady Slipper Orchids in Array
Pink Lady Slipper Orchids, Rachel Carson NWR, Headquarters trail, Wells Maine
It is not often you get this kind of a display of Pink Lady Slipper Orchids in the wild. This stand is along the trail at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Wells Maine, and is one of several clusters in the same area.
Sony RX10iii at 277mm equivalent field of view. 1/200th @ ISO 100 @ f8. Program shift for greater depth of field. Processed in Lightroom.
Wild Iris
Wild Iris, Fennel Brook Pond #2, Kennebunk Maine
Further inland the Wild Iris are well out, in roadside ditches, and in wet fields, but here along the coast they are just beginning to bloom. I have been watching this clump for several days. It is by the spillway from one of my favorite ponds along Rt. 9 near our home. Iris are always beautiful, and here, the dark background of the water behind sets off the flower to perfection.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/100th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1. Program shift for greater depth of field. Processed in Lightroom.
Hawkweed
Hawkweed. Laudholm Farms, Wells Maine
It has been a while since I had a camera that does really good macros…or at least the kind of macros that I like. My new Sony RX10iii focuses to 28 inches at 600mm. Add the in-camera crop to 5mp and you have 1200mm equivalent at 28 inches for some impressive macros. This Hawkweed flower is just over 1/2 inch in diameter.
I think Hawkweed is an under-appreciated flower…maybe because it is classed as a weed…and, of course, lest we forget, has weed in its name. I think it is beautiful in both its yellow and orange forms…or I should say…yellow and orange species. Some experts, wiki informs me, count thousands of species of Hawkweed. Others group them into a few hundred “species” on grounds that may strain the definition of species. It is a matter, apparently, of some debate. Most would agree however that Orange Hawkweed is a separate species from any of its yellow cousins. I found this cluster of Orange growing only about 10 yards from a large cluster of Yellow. Though they reproduce by seeds, they do not hybridize as reproduction is asexual. All the flowers in any one cluster, orange or yellow, are genetically identical. But that is not why I find them interesting. I just think it is a beautiful flower.
Sony RX10iii at 1200mm equivalent from about 3 feet. 1/1000th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.
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!
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.
Crocuses in the snow… Spring surprise.
Crocuses in the snow, our yard, Kennebunk ME
Though April snow storms are not unheard of in Southern Maine, they always come as a surprise, especially right after a week of really spring like weather. We had a day in the 70s last week. Then it snowed a bit on Sunday, and then pretty much all day on Monday, and we woke to something over 2 inches on the ground. The crocuses, as you see here, were not happy! I don’t know what will become of them…whether that’s it for blossoms this year, or if these blooms can recover, or if they will push out new buds. Time will tell. They are hardy plants and we can only hope. I feel for them. I was ready for spring too! 🙂 Still, there is no accounting for the weather…and don’t get me started on climate change!
Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view from a few inches out. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure 1/2000th @ ISO 80 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Croci!
Crocus in our yard
I had to look it up, but the plural of Crocus is, as I might have expected, either “crocuses” or “croci”…both are accepted forms. We have had a single crocus blooming for several days, and lots of buds showing, but yesterday it got up to 70 degrees in your yard and the whole little bed burst open. The crocus is such a cheerful flower, and I find our variegated variety is particular festive.
Sony HX90V macro. 37mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 80 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.