Posts in Category: river
Branch Brook, Kennebunk ME
I continue my search along the streams of York County Maine, for the American Redspot…an so far elusive broadwinged damselfly that might or might not be found in York County. I want to see one. I have not. Yet.
The search, however, has taken me some interesting places. I feel compelled, when the road crosses any stream or river, to, if at all possible, park the car and climb down to the water. I am often surprised by what I find.
This is Branch Brook, which forms part of the water supply for the Village of Kennebunk, a mile or two upstream from the Water Works. It runs in a fairly deep and steep cut through most of the last part of its course, but where Wells Branch Road crosses it, you can, if you are careful, climb down to the mossy banks and the peat brown water.
This is one of those scenes that is very difficult to capture. The range of light is well beyond the ability of even the best digital sensors. Even traditional HDR techniques, in this kind of scene, too often result in a flat imitation…something very different than what the eye sees.
I started by dialing down the exposure compensation by one and one third stops (which, visually, brought the highlights in the water just in range), and letting the exposure system do its worst for the rest of the scene.
Then, in Lightroom, I brought up the shadows, toned down the highlights, shifted the backpoint to add depth, and finally added clarity and vibrance to give some life to the moss. Finally I used the Auto Color Temperature tool to remove a bit of the shadow blue. The result is about as close as I hope to come to the impression the scene would make if you were standing there.
I did try an sudo HDR treatment using Dynamic Photo HDR…and the result was interesting…with brighter greens and more open shadows…but it produced a different impression than I remembered.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –4/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view. f3.2 @ 1/30th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom as above.
Black-shouldered Spinylegs at Old Falls Pond: Happy Sunday!
With my new interest in Odonata (dragon and damselflies), I am beginning to look at the landscape of Southern Maine in a different way. I know where most of the good “classic” photo ops are, and I know, pretty much, where to go for most of the birds that either live here or pass through. But I am only learning where to go for dragons and damsels.
This is the season when the American Red-spot flies…and I really want to see one. American Ruby-spot is a close relative of the Ebony Jewelwing, a broad-winged damselfly, which I featured recently, but it has clear wings with bright “ruby” spots close in to the body.
Unfortunately it is not listed on Odonata Central as occurring in York county, nor is it featured in range maps covering the county in the USGS data base of Odonata, and notes I have read elsewhere place American Ruby-spot in Maine but not on the coastal plain. I live on the coastal plain. Still, there are places in York county that have the kind of “clean” swift running rivers with lots of exposed rocks that the American Ruby-spot likes. (I am confident of all of the above but the “clean” part.) So it is worth looking.
The nearest likely spot is about 10 miles inland, on a little stretch of the Mousam between Estes Lake and Old Falls Pond. The Mousam tumbles down over rock ledges and through boulders for a quarter mile or so, all in a rush. It is one of my favorite places for fall foliage, with the overhanging maples and the white water of the falls and rapids.
But now, with my new Odonata eyes, I have to look at it as possible American Ruby-spot habitat as well! Like I say, a whole new layer to the landscape.
Unfortunately the American Ruby-spot does not seem to see this little stretch of the Mousam the same way I do. There were none.
Not that it was not a worthwhile trip. The view and the music of the falling waters would be enough, but I found Palm Warblers, a tiny Northern Leopard Frog, an even smaller Toad, and several new or seldom seen dragons and damsels. The lead image is, as you might have guessed from the title, a Black-shouldered Spinylegs. It is a member of a large family of dragons (Gomphidae) which all have more or less broad tips on their abdomens (tails)…clubtails, snaketails, spinylegs, etc. The Black-shouldered Spinyleg favors waters very similar to the American Ruby-spot, though it will tolerate slower moving “muddy” streams, and oxygen-rich ponds and lakes, where you would not find the damsel.
The full body shot shows off the broad tail.
I had a job identifying this dragon…made more difficult by the fact that Odonata Central does not list Black-shouldered Spinyleg for York County, Maine either, nor does the USGS data base. In fact I posted pics to the North-east Odonata Facebook group just to me sure of my id.
In researching for this piece this morning, however, I visited the Maine Dragon and Damselfly Survey site. Maine is one of only a few states to have such a comprehensive, scholarly survey of Odonata, conducted over several years by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. I have not used the site much, since it makes few (as in no) concessions to the amateur dragon and damselfly fancier. It uses only Scientific names, and cryptic codes for distribution. Still, with a bit of Googling Latin names and a bit of common sense on the codes, I found that the Black-shouldered Spinyleg is indeed recorded for York County Maine. It was not seen in the first round survey in the late 90s…but it was added a more recent 2006 follow-up. So there!
And for the Sunday thought: My own knowledge of dragon and damselflies is miniscule. I am humbled by every encounter with the folks who really know…which is most of the regular posters on the North-east Odonata Facebook group, the authors of the guides I use, and those who maintain the web-sites…to name a few. But I have to consider that even the experts admit to knowing very little, comparatively, about Odonata…compared, of course, to what there is to know…compared to what we have yet to learn. Odonata from an interesting, highly visible and certainly vital layer in the life-scape, and yet even the authorities are not sure if something as striking and identifiable as Black-shouldered Spinyleg lives in York County Maine (or at least not in agreement).
I love learning new stuff. I love discovering new bugs and new birds and new frogs and new ways of seeing the landscape in which I live. It makes me feel more alive to have found a Black-shouldered Spinyleg along the Mousam between Estes Lake and Old Falls Pond. And everything I learn brings me closer to the Creator of All Things. The love of learning, the love of discovery, is a vital aspect of the love the God. When we stop learning, when we stop discovering, then love is dead. This is a true of the love between people as it is of our love of creation. We have one eye…it is either open or closed. If I am not discovering a new way to look at the landscape around me, then it is likely I am not discovering new things to love about the people around me. That is death.
And that, this morning, hits me right in the face! That challenges me. That makes me wonder what I don’t know about the people around me…it makes me wonder if I am not seeing the Black-shouldered Spinylegs of their souls…of their spiritual landscapes?
One thing gives me hope. That same Maine Dragon and Damselfly Survey that lists the Black-shouldered Spinyleg for York County Maine, also lists the American Ruby-spot! That is enough to keep me checking likely spots in the landscape.
And this morning’s Sunday thought, is, I hope, a timely reminder to check the spiritual landscape of those around me to see what I am missing that I might love (and better love). That is what it means to be alive. And that is what it takes to keep love alive.
Another Wide on the Mousam.
A three shot panorama looking up the Mousam from the bridge on Route 9 in Kennebunk. Again. I have been compelled to take this view before. It is one of the few spots in our flat forested county were you can get a mostly unobstructed view of the horizon to the west. East is easy. We have the ocean on that side. West, well you can go here, or you can go to the Kennebunk Plains, but that is about it. And here you have the river to catch the sky. 🙂 We are coming up on some of the best skies of the summer, as fronts pass in late August and early September. This is certainly one of them. (For the best view, click the image and it will open at the full width of your monitor.)
I thought about cloning out the bit of telephone pole on the left and the wires on the right, but decided they add to the framing and don’t distract too much. Besides I like the bobber and bit of ribbon caught on the wire 🙂
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. Three 24mm equivalent shots. f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 125. Stitched in PhotoShop Elements’ PhotoMerge tool. Final processing in Lightroom.
Ebony Jewelwing, Emmon’s Preserve. Happy Sunday!
I have been enjoying getting out most days on Froggy the Scoot (my frog-green electric scooter) on short lunch-hour and after-work photoprowls and dragonfly hunts, but some places are just beyond the range of the batteries in Froggy. Emmon’s Preserve, along the Batson River beyond Cape Porpoise (and managed by the Kennebunkport Land Trust) is just such a place. At something over 8 miles one way, it has to wait for a Saturday when I have a car available (rare in these days of driving-to-work daughters). It takes some planning.
I did manage a pilgrimage to Emmon’s yesterday, in hopes of finding the Ebony Jewelwings in flight, though it is a few weeks earlier than I photographed them there last year. The Batson flows down through mixed forest over a series ledges…little waterfalls and rapids…alternating with deep pools in the Preserve, so it is ideal Jewelwing habitat, and indeed, the male Ebonys put in an appearance soon after I arrived, as the sun worked its way through early clouds and the branches of the overhanging trees. Oddly I did not see a single female yet. I will get back there in the next few weeks to try to video some of the mating behavior.
There are few damselfies so striking as the Ebony Jewelwing. Jewelwings are large (comparatively speaking) broad-winged members of the Odonata family (damsel- and dragonflies), and carry their intensely colored wings vertically above the body most often when perched. They fly much more like butterflies than dragonflies, with a lot of flop and flutter, in short flights from perch to perch, and in even shorter flights as they flycatch from perches. It takes a lot of mosquitoes to keep a a hunting Jewelwing in flight, and, all things considered, I am very much on the side of the Jewelwings. 🙂
In the Ebony, the large black wings that give them their name are spectacular, but no more so than the metallic body flashing in the sun, most often an intense emerald, but sometimes, in certain lights, electric blue.
There is a level of intensity to the green that the camera just does not catch…though some of the shots from yesterday come as close as I have come.
Since the Ebony Jewelwings tend to return to favored perches even after flycatching it is easy to come back from Emmon’s, as I did, with way too many images…but they are, I think, worth the effort…even when it involves planning around drive-to-work daughters.
And for the Sunday thought: While I certainly see evidence that some process similar to that described by evolutionists is operating in nature, it will never be enough, to me, to explain the Ebony Jewelwing.
The Ebony Jewelwing is just too much fun…too whimsical, too utterly beautiful in such unlikely ways…for me to believe that it is the result of any process that is based on random chance and natural selection, no matter how long you give the process to work. I mean, for a simple little mosquito eating machine, or even organism, the Ebony Jewelwing is certainly overly ornate, well beyond any idea of practical functionality…delightful in a way that requires intelligence and a larger view of existence to appreciate, or even to imagine…or that is the way I see it.
I don’t need to go to nature for evidence that there is a creator (though I enjoy doing so)…the knowledge that there is a creator, and one who is loving all we are and all we know into existence, is inescapable in a relationship with Christ…but if I did need more evidence, then the Ebony Jewelwing would be pretty much enough, all by itself, for me. Happy Sunday!
7/5/2012: Mousam at High Tide, Kennebunk ME
On my way to the Dragon Ponds the other day I had to pull over where the fishermen park by the Route 9 bridge over the Mousam River to catch this view. That is one of the unforeseen advantages of Froggy the Scoot (the electric scooter I bought for my local summer photoprowls, in case you have not been keeping up). You can stop on a dime on a whim on a view, anywhere there is sufficient shoulder to prop a kickstand. No excuses for missing any photo-op. On this day, a storm front was coming over, the clouds were spectacular, the river was brim full and just rippled enough for interest, there was this enticing little island of grass, and, on closer inspection, a rose in foreground. What could be better?
I framed this scene twice, once with more sky for drama and once with the rose. Only in looking at the two this morning, trying to decide which one to post, did I realize that what I really wanted was both…rose and sky. The two frames did not line up perfectly, as, of course, I was not thinking of a vertical panorama when I took them, but they were close enough to give it a try in PhotoShop Elements 10’s PhotoMerge tool. I expected to loose a lot on both edges where the images did not overlap, but PSE’s auto fill did an excellent job of projecting the content to fill the corners. If you want the challenge, try to see what is real and what is generated in the top left and bottom right corners. Amazing software. And I ended up with the image I wanted, even when I didn’t know what I wanted until too late. 🙂
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200.
Two frames merged vertically as above. Final processing in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
6/7/2012: Morning at Back Creek
Rain is in the offing again today, starting by 10am, so I got out early and took my electric scooter to the beach. That is what I bought it for, after all. The sky was interesting and the morning light was amazing. Well worth the ride. Here we have Back Creek behind a bank of Beach Rose under that interesting sky with reflections. What more could you ask?
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And here is the scooter in it’s intended milieu. 
4/15/2012: Wonder Brook Park, Kennebunk ME, Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday. I have lived in Kennebunk 17 years, and I have passed the sign for Wonder Brook Park probably thousands of times. It is, after all, still in the village proper, on Summer Street, which is the main route between Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, and the beaches. It is an unassuming sign that simply says “Wonder Brook Park, Hiking Trails.” I have wondered from time to time what Wonder Brook is all about, and I think we even set out to explore it one afternoon 17 years ago, but got rained out. Yesterday, as part of my Saturday photo-prowl, I decided it was high time for Wonder Brook Park.
I had ulterior motives. Last weekend, at Emmon’s Preserve, I saw more Trout Lily plants, not yet in flower, than I have ever seen in the Maine woods, and I was looking for a place closer to home where I could check to see how they were advancing. I would like to catch the bloom if possible. My instinct was sound. The trails at Wonder Brook lead out through a relatively old pine forest (with some of the biggest Pines I have seen in Maine, like the multi-trunked giant above), caught in an angle between Wonder Brook itself and the Kennebunk River, and, here too, the Trout Lilies were thick on the ground, though nowhere near blooming.
The trails themselves are well marked and maintained, with little bridges over the many streams that feed into Wonder Brook, and split-log walks in the wet places. After about a mile, you come to an overlook on a tidal section of the Kennebunk River (where I saw a Belted Kingfisher), and then the trail turns north along the bluff over the river, providing some views through the trees of the rocky run above the tide’s reach.
I was also on the lookout for birds. I have been following the radar images of the migration and a small wave of birds was promised for Southern Maine this weekend. Evidently it had not crested over Kennebunk by noon yesterday. I saw the Kingfisher, a few Robins, Chickadees, and Titmice…but that was it. I did walk up on a Common Gartersnake crossing the path, who posed nicely for me.
Wonder Brook is amalgamation of Kennebunk Land Trust properties, set aside under conservation easements. I am always impressed at the efforts local Land Trusts in Maine make to open these properties to public enjoyment. The Wonder Brook trail system, with at least 5 miles of trails on various loops, clearly took considerable resources to construct, and must still take considerable resources to maintain.
Personally, I was delighted to find this pocket experience of the Southern Maine woods right here, right in Kennebunk, only a few miles from my front door. Now that I have found it, I am certain to return on a regular basis. I need to catch those Trout Lilies in bloom for one thing.
And for the Sunday thought. Well, I have to be thankful, when faced with a little gem like Wonder Brook, for spirit of conservation that moves people to set aside some land just to be…to be whatever it is and whatever it will be…with only enough human intrusion to keep people to a trail so the forest itself does not get trampled. I need to be able to get out in the woods, or to hike the Kennebunk Plains, or to walk along the little waterfalls of the Baston River at Emmon’s Preserve, or to stand on the rocks at Parson’s Park along the ocean in Kennebunkport. It is important. As important to me as church. I enjoy corporate worship, and I certainly find God in the praise of his people, but I also find my creator in the woods of Wonder Brook. I am pretty sure I need both to keep my faith a living faith.
And, with such thankful thoughts I am in a forgiving enough mood to overlook the tick I just found attached to my wrist. Another souvenir of my visit to Wonder Brook 🙂
4/12/2012: Fishing the Mousam, Kennebunk ME
I made a brief stop at Roger’s Park along the Mousam River on my way back from a hardware store run yesterday afternoon, hoping to catch the towering sky above the run of the river or reflected in the skating pond. What I found there were fishermen. The rapids above the park attract fly-fishers, and the transition water between the rapids and the more open still reach below is a prime area for Alewive traps.
This is a somewhat classic fly-fisher shot, displaying the concentration of the sport. Fly-fishing is closer to fish-hunting than anything short of spear-fishing. It is a strange combination of talents in fact. There is nothing more graceful in sport than a well cast line…and then, once the fly hits the water, there is nothing more intense than the concentration of the play of the fly, hand on line, and eye on the prize.
Nothing could be more different than fishing for alewive (for more on the Alewive see the wiki). You deploy your trap (relatively sophisticated traps these days) and you go home and watch TV (or to your real job) until it is time to go back and check the traps.
Oh, and I did catch some clouds above the skating pond.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 190mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/100th @ ISO 200. 2) 24mm. f5.6 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 320. 3) 120mm. f4.5 @ 1/100th @ ISO 125. 4) 24mm. f7.1 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 320.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/10/2012: Brim full on Back Creek, Kennebunk ME
This another image from my Saturday photo-prowl. As I mentioned on Sunday, the tide was abnormally high over the weekend and Back Creek was brim full, right up to within a foot of the road. Getting dowm low and using the flip out LCD I was able to catch the clarity of the sea water standing over the normally dry marsh. And of course the drama of the sky and the finely detailed line…thin line…of the landscape across the frame as a divider. Normally I would not have put the horizon so near the center of the frame, but I think it works here. I find that I am unwilling to lose enough of the detail of the clear water at the bottom or the drama of the sky at the top to make a difference in where the horizon cuts the frame.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
1/11/2012: Back Creek and the Mousam under Skies.
This is another experiment with the Dynamic Photo HDR application and another shot from the gloomy Sunday at the coast. DPHDR gives you all kinds of options for fine tuning the tone mapping, even from a single .jpg…and it produces a well rendered image with very little haloing (halo is the light band where dark sections of the image meet light sections, common in HDR work…or it is a similar light band around individual pixels that limits the smoothness of tones in HDR work.) Final adjustment in Lightroom using a Graduated Filter effect to lighten the sky was required to keep the whole thing from going surreal. As you may have noted, I don’t mind hyper-real images, but I do try to avoid the surreal look of overcooked HDR.
For comparison, here is the pure Lightroom version.
The Lightroom version is perhaps a bit truer to the mood of the day. It was undeniably gloomy. But the DPHDR version has more impact as an image. I am going to have to pay more attention…take some shots intentionally to test and challenge my memory for light values before I can say which one is “truer” to reality…to the naked eye view.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160. Program with iContrast and –1/3 EV exposure compensation.
Processing as above.
And just for fun, here it is rendered as a paining in Dynamic Auto Painter, with the original overlayed in PhotoShop Elements as a grayscale using Vivid Light to bring up more detail.
