Posts in Category: Pic of the Day
Winter Finch
House Finch, Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine.
I misread the thermometer getting ready to go out yesterday and was considerably underdressed for the 17 degree temperatures at Roger’s Pond on the Mousam River in Kennebunk Maine. But there was a flock of feeding birds there, visiting the ornamental berry tree, and they kept me out until I was way too cold. House Finches and Goldfinches, Eastern Bluebirds (all around but not in the berry tree), Cedar Waxwings, Blue Jays, and both Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers. It was quite a show, and I got enough good pics to make freezing bearable 🙂
This House Finch has clearly been eating too many of those red berries already…it is rare to see one so intensely colored, especially in winter. Of course the winter light helps. I have closer shots, but I like the berries in this shot almost as much as the bird.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Cropped for scale and composition and processed in Snapseed on my Android tablet.
Ice bells on willow wands, variation.
Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
Sometimes ice bells (see my previous post) overlap to form extended structures…natural ice sculptures in the abstract mode. They can get quite complex, as you see here in this image from the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond in Kennebunk Maine. They have a beauty all their own.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. F4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 200. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Under the winter pines. Happy Sunday!
Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. Wells, Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
It snowed all day yesterday. After clearing the drive (lunch and a rest) I decided to brave the snow covered roads at least as far as Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge headquarters where I was pretty sure I could get in to park and walk in the snowy woods. I was all suited up for the adventure…longjons base layer to high snow boots and a fleece lined parka. I took my umbrella as I hoped to take some pictures and I wanted to keep the camera relatively dry.
The woods were quiet. I was the only one foolish enough to brave the roads and the unplowed Rachel Carson driveway. The light was subdued. Snow fell steadily, in big flakes, to continue to fill the wood. Every tree and bush carried its burden of white. It was…I am tempted to say “magical”, but I don’t, on principle believe in magic.
We hear a lot about “magical thinking” today. Many people seem to believe that results can be achieved without effort if you just know the right thing to say. And many more seem willing to believe that our leaders will be able to achieve what they want, and have promised, just by saying it so and waving a hand (or wand as the case may be). And apparently there are those who want to be deceived by slight of hand, for the entertainments’ sake. They find it amusing, and admire the skill of the trickster. If you stop to think about it, magical thinking explains a lot about what has happened recently in American politics.
So “magical” is out as a way of describing the silent woods with the snow falling. Even this slightly other-worldly “under the snowy pines” scene. We need another word for what the generous eye sees. It has to catch the sense of awe…wonder…the sense that we are experiencing something out of the ordinary, beyond ordinary…the sense we are glimpsing the work of forces and intelligence larger than we are. It has to imply that we are touching the divine. And yet none of the words suggested: awesome, wonderful, extraordinary, supernatural, divine…at least in common usage, quite catch my meaning either. Maybe all of them together, but no one alone. If I were writing this in German I could just string them all together into one long unpronounceable word…or in English I could hyphenate them, or use the modern “/” (as in awesome/wonderful/extraordinary…which basically says I don’t know which word to use.) Though it still is not quite right, as it depends on this contrast with “magical” for part of the meaning, “blessed” or “full of blessing” comes close. The silent snowy woods with the snow still falling in big flakes was full of blessing.”
But then, everything we see is if we look with the generous eye. Happy Sunday!
Ice bells on willow wands…
ice bell, Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk, Maine
For those who were mystified by my reference to “ice bells on willow wands” last week, here is an ice bell on a willow wand. When willows grow close enough to the stream-bed so that they dip their branches or tender shoots in the water, and when it gets cold enough (it was 3 degrees when I took this photo), and when the willow is placed just so, so that the current can keep dipping it under. and when it is just stiff enough to keep popping back up…well, then ice bells form at and just above the surface of the water. We are deep in the polar vortex at the moment. It was 10 below last night…just the weather for ice bells to form on the Mousam River. Unfortunately the water is still high from the rain we had last week, and the willows where I go to photograph ice bells have been cut back away from the water (to accommodate the fly-fishers), so the crop so far this year has been meager. I was blessed to find this one. I will check again today, and I might even look for a more likely spot (though access to the river is limited here.)
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ f4 @ ISO 400. Cropped and processed in Polarr on my Surface Pro 3.
Reflections in a flood tide…
Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters, Wells Maine.
This week’s Supermoon (the last for this year) caused exceptionally high tides all along the coast here in southern Maine. This is Branch Brook at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells Maine, a good mile inland from the sea. All about color and clouds and reflections.
Sony RX10iii at 24mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/1000th @ f4 @ ISO 100. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Oak in winter…
Oak Tree, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W Kennebunk Maine
This little oak tree, along the edge of Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area in West Kennebunk Maine is one of my favorite local trees. I took the opportunity, as someone had been ahead of me from the road to the parking area in the new snow and made a way for the car, to walk into the pond to see it in the snow. We had rain for the last few hours after the snow fell, so the snow on the branches of the tree is pretty much frozen in place. This was early morning, and I assume that after two days of sun now, the branches will be bare again, but catching it at the right moment made for an interesting contrast with the Grey bark of the tree.
Sony RX10iii at 30mm equivalent field of view. 1/1000th @ f4.5 @ ISO 100. Program Mode. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Hairy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker, back deck feeding station, Kennebunk Maine
Yet another shot from my mixed feeding flock experience on the back deck last week. The Hairy Woodpecker is a size bigger than the more common (in our yard) Downy, with a correspondingly heavier beak. This specimen was on the rail of deck, looking up longingly at the suet feeder. 🙂
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet. There was a large green feeder pole running up through the image just to the right of the end of the bird’s beak, decorated with worn strips of Duck Tape no less…which I was able to remove entirely using Handy Photo. It worked so well that I really did not have to tell you that…but there you go…full disclosure. 🙂
Crabapples in winter…
Crabapples, Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk Maine
I found these Crabapples still hanging in a tree along the Kennebunk Bridle Path down by the lower reaches of the Mousam River, a half mile in from the sea. They, and the red berries of Winterberry (Bog Holly) and the few remaining Beach Rose hips, inspired yesterday’s Day Poem.
Down by the Mousam River in its last
mile run to the sea, on a cold, snowless,
December day (snow in the forecast
after mid-night), ice in the drainage, ice
smooth on the marsh pools, the world
done in browns and grays…mostly
texture in the slanting winter light…
the red of winterberries (bog holly),
beach plums, withered crab apples,
startles the eye, arrests the attention,
forms the color axis around which the
winter landscape and the dull sky turns.
In this image, I like the apples, of course…the delicate shadings of the red…but it would not be the image it is without the background…the bokeh. I played with angles until I got the effect I wanted. I have a slightly closer view, but I like the context the bare branches give this image.
Sony RX10iii at 407mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. 1/60th @ ISO 125 @ f8 (program shift). Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Titmouse. Happy Sunday!
Tufted Titmouse, back deck feeding station, Kennebunk Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
Yet another shot from my productive moments with the mixed feeding flock at the back deck feeding station the other day. The Tufted Titmouse is the Eastern and New England variety of the Titmouse clan, and a common bird at our feeders all year long. Titmice are perky birds at the worst of times…alert, apparently cheerful, and active. The crest helps with the impression, but there is no disguising the attitude. This bird, small as it is, appears ready to take on whatever comes…confident and hopeful at the same time.
Jesus, as he is recorded in the Bible, only rarely used wildlife in his teachings. But he did use birds…as an example of the attitude toward life we, as children of God, should adopt. And it is exactly the Titmouse brand of confidence and hope, cheerful expectation, that Jesus taught his deciples to value. We should, he said, take a lesson from the birds, who do not worry, but have a cheerful expectation that God will take care of them. He is not teaching, so much, about birds, or about us, but about God. God takes care of the birds. Surely God will take care of God’s sons and daughters…of the children made in God’s image. That is something we can believe, absolutely. It can, and should be, the ground for confidence and hope to take us through our days without anxiety or worry.
Easily said, and so hard to do! So, today, when you find yourself challenged by all that does not seem to be going well…or dwelling on the potential for disaster this year, and every year, displays…turn your inner, and most generous eye, on the Titmouse. Remember this image, and this attitude. I sincerely hope it will ease your way, and make the day more enjoyable. Happy Sunday!
Chickadee, dee, dee…
Chickadee, back deck feeding station, Kennebunk Maine
This is another shot from my productive session with the feeding station on our back deck the other day. The Chickadees, of course, are totally fearless, and will land on the station while I am actually out on the deck. This is only slightly less than full frame at 600mm equivalent field of view. I especially like the bright eye on this bird, and the natural feather detail.
Sony RX10iii. Program Mode. 1/160th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Snapseed on my Android tablet. Distracting branch in upper right corner removed in Handy Photo.