Posts in Category: Pic of the Day
Working Iron. Happy Sunday!
Blacksmith working iron, Common Ground Fair, Unity ME
When I see a wrought iron fence or baluster, still standing from the 18th and early 19th century, I don’t really think that each twist and curve, each leaf shape, had to be hand forged from iron in fire, with a hammer on an anvil…but, of course, it was so. I suppose today they are machine twisted and laser cut, laid out and sheet welded…done in a matter of moments, but traditional wrought iron was an art embedded in a craft, and each individual piece of the pattern took time and care to form. A four foot section of railing would have taken one craftsman blacksmith a full day to forge.
These shots are from the blacksmithing demonstration at the Common Ground Fair in Unity Maine. As I mentioned yesterday, The Common Ground Fair features demonstrations of a variety of folk and primitive arts and crafts. The Blacksmith shed is one of the most popular. In a small rough wood-shingled building, about 16×12, two blacksmiths, two anvils, and 2 furnaces work continuously all day long. One side of the building is open from head height on a 10 year old to just above my eye-level, and the crowd is 5 people deep on the 16 foot side all the time. The Blacksmiths keep up a running commentary on what they are doing as they work, and layer in a good dose of history and blacksmithing theory as they go. It is fascinating. I could have stood there all day…and I suspect there were some 10 year old boys who did.
This is another effort to fulfill my commitment to you and to myself to look for the beauty and inspiration…the spirit…in humans and the human condition as well as in nature. The Generous Eye has to see the spirit in our fellows or it is not generous at all. It is not hard to see the beauty and the creative spirit at work in a traditional craftsman or woman…in an artist or an artisan who shapes raw materials into something both beautiful and useful…beautiful in its usefulness…or useful in its beauty. Our trouble today is that we are, too often, separated from the process that makes the things we use, and the things we enjoy. We forget too easily the human labor…the beautiful work…the creative energy…the spirit of creation…the living breathing souls…that are behind every little thing we surround ourselves with…from cars to cameras to tea kettles and toilet paper. Some of us buy a few “hand made” things to remind ourselves, or go once a year to the Common Ground Fair, and some of us maintain a hobby that allows us to work with our own hands. We do try to keep the Eye Generous so that we can see the spirit in all we are and all we do.
Personally I am thankful for events like The Common Ground Fair, or the PunkinFiddle festival yesterday at Laudholm Farms, for the reminder of the dignity and beauty of human labor. No one participates more directly in the creative action of God than the human artist and artisan. It is good that we remember that! It is even better when that spirit informs our own labor. Happy Sunday.
Sony HX90V in Hand-held Twilight Mode.
Common Ground Fair
In the Maine Fiddle Camp tent, Common Ground Fair, Unity Maine
A few weeks ago, in a The Generous Eye post, I made a commitment to myself (and to my followers) to take more pictures of people…to look for beauty and inspiration in human faces and forms. I spent the day at the Common Ground Fair in Unity Maine…the Maine Organic Farmers Association fair…and had an opportunity to put my commitment into practice. It is not easy for me. It does not come natural to point a camera at a stranger…right out in public…but it something that I want to work at. The Common Ground Fair draws an interesting crowd. Hippies, want-to-be-hippies, former hippies, and back-to-the-landers from infant to senior citizen…and quite a number of family farmers who have converted to organic at least in part as a way of keeping the family farm alive and in the family. They have Ox pulls, sheep-dog trials, herbal and holistic medicine lectures, a building full of rabbits and another of chickens, folk and primitive arts demonstrations, at least 3 stages of folk and ethnic music, a large area of alternative energy and green-building displays, a food court with a huge variety of healthy food, two farmer’s markets, a fleece market, etc, etc. I captured this moment in the tent sponsored by the Maine Fiddle Camp. Friday was the first day of the fair, but already this one was wearing out.
Sony HX90V in Superior Auto mode at 95mm equivalent field of view. 1/100th @ ISO 80 @ f5. Processed and cropped for composition in Lightroom.
Autumn Geese
Canada Geese, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine
We are only just now getting the first of the colors of fall. It is a good two weeks late. We should be at peak in northern Maine and only 3 weeks from peak here in Southern Maine. There is just enough color along the edge of Day Brook Pond to set these Canada Geese, part of a flock of about 50 birds that had settled out on the pond, floating in color. I worked my way down to the pond edge through the pines and birches to an opening that gave me clear shots, and worked this patch of color as the Geese shuffled back and forth at the end of the pond.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 180 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Milkweed Time
Milkweed. Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
It is Milkweed season. As I mentioned yesterday, the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms in Wells Maine was one of the first facilities in our area to devote significant amounts of meadow to milkweed in an effort to ensure the survival of the Monarch Butterfly. On my last visit the Milkweed pods were getting ripe and popping…releasing seeds and the silky parachutes that carry them to new fields. This is a panel of 4 images which catches some of the wonder of that release. The wind was blowing and tugging the seeds and silk away from the plants.
Sony HX90V at various focal lengths for framing. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Monarch on the edge of fall
Monarch Butterfly. Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
Laudholm Farms was one of the first places in the area to devote significant amounts of their meadow land to milkweed, and, consequently, it is one of the easiest places to see Monarch butterflies. This year has not been a great year for Monarchs, if you go by the number I have see at Laudholm and elsewhere around my patch, but I did find this large specimen working the Goldenrod in the meadows below and left of the farm buildings. It seems late to me…this image was captured just a few days before the equinox…but perhaps it is a migrant from further north fueling up for the flight south.
Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 80 @ f6.4. Processed and cropped for scale and composition in Lightroom.
Steampunk Express
Giant Red-legged Grasshopper, Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
Who knew there were so many species of grasshoppers? I certainly did not until this morning when I attempted to identify this very steampunk bug. (According to the Kaufman Guide, there are 630 species of grasshoppers and crickets in North America.) I think it might be a very big Red-legged Grasshopper, but it also might be a Two-stripped Grasshopper…or not. It was among the bigger grasshoppers I have seen…at least 3 inches long. There were too…this one with the bright reg legs and another very similar but without the bright red legs. Male and female? I just don’t know my Grasshoppers well enough.
Whatever it is, as a study in living architecture, it is spectacular. (Or that is what I think.) Steampunk for sure!
Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent. 1/500th @ ISO 80 @ f6.4. Processed and cropped for scale in Lightroom.
Pileated Panel
Pileated Woodpecker, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
I can not resist posting the Pileated Woodpecker again…this time a panel of three shots showing off the bird in three poses. The panel is actually two shots from the Nikon P900 and one for the Sony HX90V. Not only was this the biggest Pileated Woodpecker I have ever seen…it was the most cooperative…giving me a chance to photograph the bird from several angles and with two cameras as it worked around two trees. Definitely a memorable experience.
Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Pileated Woodpecker. My alleluia bird. Happy Sunday!
Pileated Woodpecker, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
When I got to Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center) yesterday, the fog was just rolling in over the top of hill and the farm buildings and I almost turned around and left. I am certainly glad I did not do that. 🙂 I took some lovely foggy landscapes on my way across the bog boardwalk, and from the observation deck just north of the Drakes Island bridge, but the fog had mostly rolled on by the time I neared the crossing where the Pilger Trail meets the road to the beach. I went slow that last 100 yards, as on my last visit, that was where the Immature Red-tailed Hawk was sitting. I stopped on the spot where I had taken the photos and had a good look around. While looking I became aware of a heavy tapping somewhere overhead, and turned to see the largest Pileated Woodpecker I have ever seen working a dead snag something over 40 feet from me. The bird was in the open, flicking large chunks of dead bark and sawdust from the tree, and I only had to move slightly to the right to clear foreground foliage. Amazing! I worked the bird as it worked the tree. At first it had is back completely to me, silhouetted against the trunk…a difficult spot for photography…but eventually it moved around to the side in search of fresh forage. I took pictures and video with both cameras I had with me…everything from head shots to full body portraits. Eventually, while I was actually videoing it, it climbed up and glided over to a tree deeper in the forest, but still in easy sight, and, what is better, landed on the sunlit side of the tree. It stayed there as I moved down the trail for a better angle. I got off another set of images, this one among them. (Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view.)
This is all the more exciting to me as the Pileated Woodpecker, photographically, has been my nemesis bird (nemesis bird is what birders call a species that they are always close to seeing but never see). I have seen the Pileated, but not often…so rarely that I can clearly remember each instance…several in Maine, a few in Florida, and a few in Arkansas (including a glimpse of an albino)…but, though I have tried as often as I have seen the bird, I had yet to get any really satisfying images. Until now. The bird at Laudholm Farm provided me with enough good shots to satisfy my Pileated hunger for some time to come. 🙂 Alleluia! There is a special satisfaction when a nemesis bird finally yields.
And the Pileated is such a great bird. They are all large as woodpeckers go…a size bigger then any other North American Woodpecker…almost the same size as Crow…and this one was big as Pileateds go. When it glided silently off through the forest, flashing the white on its wings, it looked absolutely huge. It has, as you can see from the photo, a long neck and a massive bill, and it does real damage to a tree trunk with each blow. And look at the intent in that eye! There is power in its foraging. Bark flies. Bugs can not hide! Such a beautiful bird. Such a privilege to see one…such a wonder to be able to photograph it.
Again, alleluia! For me it was a real “thank you Jesus” moment…a moment when I could not help but be conscious of the love of God the creator…and God’s love specifically for me. Now, I am not blind. I know that for many this world is a hard place to be. I know there is pain here, that people, some much more deserving than I, suffer…and I know, more than that, that I, myself, have caused some of that pain. There is no way that I deserve to be so blessed. In no way have I earned, or could I ever, the privilege of seeing and photographing a Pileated Woodpecker as I saw and photographed it yesterday. No way! And yet, alleluia, there it is…my alleluia bird! Alleluia, hallelujah: God be praised! And I am compelled to say it.
The light that fills me, that illuminates a world of wonder through an eye made generous by the gift of Jesus, is hallelujah. I don’t own it, it is not mine, but it lives in me by faith…a faith that is ever renewed in every encounter. Yesterday it was my alleluia bird…the Pileated Woodpecker.
Pelecinid Wasp is strange all over!
Pelecinid Wasp, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, Maine
It has been at least a year, and it may have been two, since I encountered a Pelecinid Wasp. My first sighting was at Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport. This one came from Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area. I was surprised to see it fly across the path in front of me and land in a small birch at the edge of the forest…but there is no mistaking this very strange bug with its extended abdomen trailing out behind a body with such small wings that it seems totally impossible that the thing could fly. The long abdomen is used to inject eggs into scarab beetle larvae while they are still underground. Close up, the hind legs feature strange bulges, which have no apparent use. Stranger still, almost all Pelecinid Wasps seen or collected in North America are females. Males, with a shorter, swollen abdomen, only account for 4% of sightings. It is possible that female wasps develop from unfertilized eggs…and that would make them very strange indeed, as insects just do not do that. But then, if that is case…why are there any males at all? Strange. The Pelecinid is strange all over.
Sony HX90V at about 1400mm equivalent field of view (using Clear Image digital Zoom). 1/250th @ ISO 400 @ f6.4. Processed in Lightroom.
Snake Tongue
Common Garter Snake, Bay City Recreation Area, Bay City MI
We found this tiny (less than a foot long and not much bigger than a pencil) Common Garter Snake when returning from the trails at Tobico Marsh at the Bay City Recreation Area. It was just where the trail come back out on to the road, and it was crossing the pavement. My friend Rich had actually stepped over it without seeing it when I happened to look down. While I have seen snakes flick their tongue before, this specimen had its tongue in almost constant motion. I took lots of images, trying to catch it with its tongue fully extended.
Of course this morning I had to do some research to find out why snakes, and this snake in particular, flick their tongues. The reason I remembered is the most commonly held…the snake uses its tongue to collect microscopic scent oils from the air and delivers them to a sense organ in the roof of the mouth. The most recent research suggests that the tongue serves two related functions. When the tips are turned up, it is indeed sampling the air for odors, but when they are turned down, as in this image, it is more likely that snake is sampling the ground ahead of it for something more like taste than scent. This snake might then have been tracking something that crossed the pavement ahead of it, or it might just have been looking for the edge of the pavement for escape. Hard to say.
Sony HX90V at something over 1000mm equivalent field of view (using Clear Image Zoom). 1/250th @ ISO 200 @ f6.4. Processed in Lightroom and Topaz denoise.