As I mentioned on Sunday, our wildflowers are about 3 weeks late here in Southern Maine. Lady Slippers are generally in full bloom on Mother’s Day. This year, this past Saturday at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Headquarters, all but a few were still in the green bud stage as above…still more than a few sunny days away from bloom…and we aren’t expecting any sun until at least Thursday of this week. Maybe next weekend they will have popped.

There is one spot, on the back side of the loop trail at Rachel Carson, where they have cut a new opening out to the marsh and built a new deck…new two years ago that is. Below the deck, on the slope facing the sun most of the morning, is where Lady Slippers will first be in bloom if they are in bloom anywhere, and this year was no exception. I found 5 or 6 plants and 6 or 7 blooms…but oh how pale compared to last spring’s show. Still, they are always magnificent. Ours are the Pink variety.

The new camera allows an even closer approach than last year, and I took advantage of all the macro it has to offer in the second and fifth shots. This new lens has wonderful bokeh, assisted, I suspect by a little in camera digital wizardry!

Nikon Coolpix P500 in Close Up Scene mode, 32mm equivalent field of view at anything from 6 inches to 3/4 inch. All images at f3.7 and ISO 160, shutter speeds from 1/200th to 1/640th.

Processed for Clarity and Sharpness in Lightroom. (I have added a bit on the Lightroom processing required with the new camera on my Lightroom processing page here or via the link in the header.)