Monthly Archives: September 2013
Wild Harvest
Wild grapes and crabapples along the boardwalk at Magee Marsh on the Lake Erie shore in OH, waiting for migrating birds to harvest them.
As an image it is all about form, color, and light. The apples and the gapes at the rule of thirds power-points anchor the otherwise somewhat chaotic composition. And I like the way the light wraps the round shape of the grapes and apples.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in macro mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Google Nexus 7.
Cabbage White on Aster
They have really huge Asters in Ohio! Especially compared to our New England asters. And I managed to catch a well worn Cabbage White in a rare moment of rest.
This is at the Midwest Birding Symposium near Lakeside OH. Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in macro mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
So much depends on the red fire-plug…
Lakeside Chautauqua maintains a slightly Victorian air, in part, because residents take pains with paint and plantings to make it so. You may know the Chautauqua movement from history lessons, but few are aware that there are still two in full swing: the original in Chautauqua NY, and this one in Lakeside OH. Lakeside offers a full summer program of art, music, and cultural enrichment, and its thousands of privately owned homes and cottages are rarely empty for more than a day during the season.
We are here for the Midwest Birding Symposium, an every other year event that draws pretty much the full who’s who of the birding world and thousands of interested birders to Lakeside for several days of workshops and lectures and networking 🙂
I could not resist this little snippet of the Victorian air. The house and the flowers would have been enough but the bright red fire hydrant makes it a mandatory shot. (And perhaps you recognize the oblique reference to the poem by William Carlos Williams in the title.)
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F in Rich Tone Mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Google Nexus 7.
Spot-winged Glider
The Wandering Glider, a close relative of this Spot-winged Glider, is the dragonfly with the widest distribution worldwide of any odonata species. Still the two gliders I have been able to photograph in Maine have both been Spot-wings. 🙂
This appears to be a very fresh specimen. The pattern on the abdomen will quickly fade. As it is it is certainly a striking bug.
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. Program and Macro focus. With Intelligent Zoom to reach about 700mm equivalent at 10mp. Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Opening in the forest.
On my Sunday morning photoprowl, I discovered that the folks at the Kennebunkport Land Trust have installed all new signage at Emmon’s Preserve. The new trail maps alerted me to sections of the Preserve I never suspected existed, and trails I had, obviously, never walked. Well, there is a fix for that! 🙂
I picked a new trail, largely because it included what was labeled on the map as “the Batson River Bridge.” I like rivers and I like bridges. And the bridge was impressive: A long arch of shaped aluminum, very modern and very efficient, and just wide enough for two hikers to pass abreast. The trail on the other side of the Batson is called “The Learning Trail” and is a cooperative effort of the Land Trust and the Alternative Education Program at Kennebunk High School. It is a great trail, with lots of interpretative sings and its own website, which you can access via QR codes on each of the signs. How great is that!
This is the view down a little brook, complete with its own boardwalk, that makes an opening in the forest canopy about half way around the loop of trail. It is a vertical sweep panorama taken with the Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. I love the effect! Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Fall is coming…
The leaves that are falling now, in mid-September, are that dull brown of leaves that have died of simple old-age. The brilliance of frost killed leaves is still several weeks away. Still a little scene like this is a clear reminder that the summer is about to go out in its usual New England blaze of glory. That is a little of what I have captured here, but of course the image is really about the play of light over the various textures and the reflected patterns in the moving water. 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone mode (in-camera HDR). Processed in Snapseed on the Nexus 7.
Arrow-shaped Micrathena. Happy Sunday!
Here’s odd. I saw my first picture of a spiny Micrathene spider some time last week, most likely in a #spidersunday post on Google+. Strange creature! That is what I thought, along with “never seen the like.”
So I go out Thursday this week, between thunder storms, to photograph rain droplets on the leaves in the yard, and what should I find building a web in the Rhododendron, but this strange and wonderful creature. At least I had been prepared 🙂
Come back inside to process the pics, and find that someone has just posted a series of spider images on Facebook, among them two different spined Micrathene. There’s odd. That’s what I thought.
This particular Micrathene is the Arrow-shaped. Micrethenes are orb weavers, but this is not the Arrow-headed Orb Weaver. That is a different spider, though I have seen this one listed as Arrow-headed Micrathene as well. Odder.
The only speculation I have found as to what the spikes are for is that they might make the spiders harder to swallow for any interested predators. 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in macro mode. Processed in Snapseed on the new Nexus 7.
And for the Sunday Thought. It is exactly this kind of odd in nature which reinforces my belief in an intelligence and personality in the universe. In God. It is, as I see it, much easier to believe that this creature, with its elaborate miniaturized structure and its exotic coloration, was designed…than it is to believe it just happened by any sequence of random events, no matter how long you give chance to work. Of course if Spinny Micrathene spiders were the only evidence I had, I might be able to avoid believing in God…but it is all part of an all encompassing reality that is being proved moment to moment in my life. An Arrow-shaped Micrathene in the Rhododendron on a rainy day, after spiny spiders on Google+ and just before spiny spiders on Facebook is just part of the ongoing proof…exactly what I have to come to expect of the slightly whimsical (from my point of view) love of the creator God.
Sure as God made big green tomatoes!
Yeah, I know that is not the quotation, but this image certainly brings it to mind…or maybe that is just the way my mind is working this morning. 🙂 It is Saturday the 14th and I am proclaiming it a “lucky” day (though I am not a believer in luck of any kind…let’s say a “blessed” day). Saturday the 14th is, from this day forward, such a good day as to make people look forward to it with as much good energy as they (if the do) invest bad energy in Friday the 13th. It will be such a good day today that late green tomatoes will ripen on the vine! Sure as God made big green tomatoes.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in macro mode. Processed in Snapseed on the new Google Nexus 7 and Auto Enhanced by Google+ Photos. Taken in our yard between thunderstorms.
Bumble Bee in the Goldenrod
This is a busy time of year for the busy Bumble Bees. They are harvesting the pollen of the fall blooming flowers as fast as they can. They go deep onto the large blossom of a Turtlehead and come out laden. It has to take a lot of Goldenrod to even begin to equal such a haul, and yet you see them all over the Goldenrod where ever it is in bloom.
And the Goldenrod itself, now that I know it is not the source of my watering fall eyes, is a beautiful flower. In mass they make a brave show of bright yellow in a green world, and if you look closely each tiny aster-like flower is thing of beauty.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in macro mode. Processed in Snapseed on the new Nexus 7.
Admiral of the Oostvaarderplassen
Along with many Small Tortoiseshells and an abundance of Large Whites, there were numbers of Admiral butterflies, both in Germany and in Holland. I have shots from Germany with the wings fully spread…classic field guide shots…but this less posed shot from the Oostvaarderplassen in Holland is my favorite from this trip. I like the contrast with the…well in the US it would be Iron Weed…the flower at any rate, and I like the glimpse of the underside of the wing. There is also a dynamic tension to the shot that I find interesting.
Canon SX50HS in Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Google Nexus 7 2013.