Savoring 2014

As 2014 winds down, I am savoring my favorite memories of the year - for every month and then some aspects of continuity across the months of the year.

January

The year started out particularly cold. The high points of the month were photographing ice crystals while I waiting for my daughter to finish up the last sessions of a conference (and yes - I am savoring her January visit too!).

February

February was the month I rediscovered the joy of microscopy. I took the 40 year old microscope out of its wooden case and began looking at insect wings, onion skins, and feathers. It was a time to stay warm inside and savor the continuous interest over a lot of years.

March

It was our first time to enjoy The Philadelphia Flower Show. I savor the memory of the day because it was full of spring color weeks before the outdoors was warm enough flowers. I also savor the super gardening gloves I bought from one of the vendors which I wore frequently over the summer and into the fall.

April

Seeing the cherry blossoms are a spring tradition for us in the Washington DC area. I enjoy them every year!

I went to Dallas last April and saw the Klyde Warren Park in downtown for the first time. This may become something I want to do every time I go to the area!

Looking back through my notes for April - I remembered seeing the Wood Frogs, and am remember them as a sight and sound of spring as well.

May

Every May, I keep a special lookout for fiddleheads and Jack-in-the-Pulpits. 2014 was not a disappointment. There were plenty to see!

Longwood Gardens is beautiful in the spring as well. I particularly enjoyed the tulips; they are always flowers I want to see in profusion.

Last May was my first experience with Letchworth Falls State Park in New York. Now that I am thinking about it again - I want to go back!

June

This was our first year to see the lotuses blooming at the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens.

The dragonflies were an added photographic opportunity of the place.

July

Mid-summer is an excellent time for enjoying fireworks! Some years they are rained out or we miss them .... but this year the weather was great, we found a good vantage point at the last minute and enjoyed the display.

I also made a trip to Dallas just in time to catch the Naked Lady Lilies blooming in my parents' garden.

August

While I was in Dallas, we walked around a small lake near my parents' several times and observed a swan family - with one cygnet that was almost as large as the parents.

There were also a profusion of sunflowers in Dallas and I now have seeds from those plants to grow some of my own next spring/summer.

September

September was a good month to walk around the Maryland side of the Great Falls of the Potomac. Lots of water coming over the rocks. Maybe we'll go again sometime this winter.

October

At the beginning of the month I was in Newport, RI with one of my sisters - touring mansions and gardens...walking the cliff walk. Great memories.

November

Chincoteague and Blackwater Wildlife Refuge are some favorite fall destinations for us. This year we were a tad early for the winter birds but there were lots of herons and gulls that made photography worthwhile.

Catoctin/Cunningham Falls was another fall destination - for foliage and shelf fungus!

December

December has been full of things to savor - the poinsettias, solstice hike, decorations, pomegranates and the US Botanic Garden. I'm going to skip adding pictures since they are too numerous (and still very fresh in memory).

Themes

There are themes for the year too that I'm savoring:

• The sweet potato I grew in a trough pot from January to October. The leaves were good as salad greens...and the sweet potatoes were baked then eaten with butter and cinnamon.
• All the Coursera courses I took. I was looking back through the list and trying to decide if I had a favorite. There are ones that were thought provoking...others that caused me to change the way I do things...others that were just a joy to learn.
• Visiting Brookside Gardens. I go there frequently and savor the parts that are available while renovations are occurring.
• Being a Volunteer Naturalist for the Howard Country Conservancy. It is a thrill to lead nature hikes for elementary school field trips.
• Community Supported Agriculture. 2014 was my first season to belong to a CSA from June-October and I'll probably continue for as long as there is a CSA near where I live.

That's it for the trip down memory lane for 2014. I enjoyed it....but anticipate 2015 will hold just a much that I'll be savoring next year on December 31st.

US Botanic Garden in December 2014 - Part I

We made our annual holiday trek down to the US Botanic Garden in Washington DC on the last Sunday of the year. Their holiday display includes models of Washington area monuments constructed of natural materials such as pine cone scales, willows branches, grape vine tendrils and acorn caps. The slide show below shows 6 of the models. Some things to note: the dome of the Jefferson Memorial Is some kind of guard with the stem still attached (1); the Smithsonian Castle is very ornate (2) so I included a close up of the right side to show the stick-bark-seed construction (3); the National Museum of the American Indian is made mostly of shelf fungus (4); and the US Botanic Garden glows from within (5); the capitol is one of the larger models (and it doesn’t have scaffolding around the dome as the real one does right now) (6); and the Supreme Court building (7) is very ornate so I included a close up of the columns that were just as ornate and more colorful than the actual building (8).

The other part of the holiday display involves model trains. The structures to the side of the tracks change every year. This year it was light houses. The winding path through the exhibit was packed with people that had stood in line for over an hour to get in - many with young children. But the wait was worth it. The child in front of us had a ‘Thomas’ lunch box and was very excited to see the trains. The older couple behind us had visited many of the lighthouses and were surprised at how many of the models they recognized. These models are built of natural materials like the monuments. A good time was had by all!

 

Posts from previous holiday displays:

• 2011
•  2013 (part I, part II, part III) 

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - December 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations’ - as had been the usual for the past few months. Here are my top 10 for December 2014.

Christmas

Christmas Decorations - at home and other places. I like Christmas decoration - my own and others. Over the years I have enjoyed the less glitzy ones the most: the clove studded fruit, the fresh greens, and poinsettias…but in the end, I really enjoy the whole look of the season. It’s a celebration that always ends the year on an up beat!

The Snowman. I like the music and the visuals of the film. Every year it is an integral part of our celebration of the season.

Food

Apple Cherry Crisp. Yum. I love apples and cherries…and even more together. The oatmeal of the ‘crisp’ is just right from my perspective - better than crust.

Garlic Tuscan Bread. I don’t eat bread very often but I could not resist the loaf in my grocery store bakers…crunchy crust and soft on the end side. I toasted it and ate it sprayed with olive oil.

Butternut Squash Soup. My grocery store has butternut squash already cut up into chunks which makes the two kinds of soup I make simple easy. I alternate between the two because like them both so much. The first is butternut squash with curry seasoning (sometimes I sprinkle unsweetened coconut on top…pretty and tasty). The other is butternut squash with salsa. Sometimes I add parsley or chopped kale. It only takes about 15 minutes for the squash to soften in the broth; I mash it in the pan with a potato masher (and wonder if I will ever buy an immersion blender for the purpose).

Birds

Bluebirds. We have some resident bluebirds. They are visiting our deck because we have a bird bath that does not freeze (I bought a heater for it). Every time I see them, I celebrate. I hope I can get some pictures of them eventually.

Canadian Geese. Usually the Canadian Geese bother me because there are so many of them but they were so photogenic at Centennial Park this month that I changed my mind about them.

Activities

Solstice Hike. I enjoyed the hike this year and plan to add a hike on the shortest day of the year to our family tradition for years to come

Wildlife Photography Class. The class from Creative Live was well worth the time…but I celebrated it because my husband and I did the class together in our den with the Christmas tree decorated and a fire in the fireplace. Some wonderful hours!

Bundling boxwood and holly. Somehow group activities in December are an important part of the holiday. Bundling boxwood and holly for a nature holiday sale was not something I’d done before … but it added to the celebration of the season seeing the piles of greenery and knowing that most of it would find its way to other homes for the holidays!

White Throated Sparrow

It was a cold and cloudy day when I walked around Brookside Gardens earlier this week. My plan was to spend most of my time inside the Conservatory but I made a quick walk around the gardens surrounding the building. There were a lot of small birds that were very active in the rose garden. I should have brought my monopod and bundled up better. It was too hard to get close enough to the birds to get a good image. I managed to get close enough and then zoomed to 20x to get one good picture of one bird…figuring out when I got home that it was a white throated sparrow once I got home.

I’ll have to go back prepared to sit on a cold bench for a time and get many more good pictures of birds finding food in winter.

Centennial Park - December 2014

I visited Centennial Park between rain showers yesterday and photographed the Canadian Geese. They were conveniently at the lake shore close to my favorite parking lot.

It is fun to title pictures…give the geese people-like personalities. What do your think of The Orator (below)? The geese in the water look like they are paying attention!

There always appears to be one Guard Goose in the flock.

When one decides to leave - there is often a Follow the Leader exodus.

And what about the strategy of the Big Stretch when they first get out of the water?

Brookside Conservatory - December 2014

Brookside Gardens cancelled their Garden of Lights display this year but the conservatory has the model trains on display…and is a great (warm) place to spend some time on a winter’s day. I always see something new and wonderful in the conservatory. Sometimes it is something that just happens - like the pink begonia flower that fell into a pool of water

Or noticing the cycads near the front entrance that have always been there but have recently been trimmed so that more of the plant structures show.

There is a cactus display near one corner - with threatening long thorns next to

More benign looking desert plants - sometimes with a surprising amount of color.

The water feature running through lush plants always is attractive.

But I made my way to the model trains rather quickly….following the mothers with very excited young children. Watching the trains was more fun with the chatter of children experiencing them for the first time.

Zooming - December 2014

There is a lot of Northern Hemisphere Christmas imagery in this month’s zooming series. It is the time of year that we bring green indoors for decorating - to contrast with the view from most of our windows of bare tree branches. We notice the subtle changes in color and texture now that the leaves are brown mulch on the forest floor - raked away from the lawn.

Enjoy the zoomed images…and take a closer look at decorating in your area too!

Chincoteague Egrets

This is the last post about our weekend trip to Chincoteague back in November. I enjoyed photographing the egrets too much to not include a post about them. They were not as plentiful as the Great Blue Herons or cormorants. The yellow bill and dark legs distinguish the birds as Great Egrets.

It was a very cold day but evidently the fishing was still good. Most of the birds were standing in water - or at the edge of the water - actively looking for their next meal.

Look at those long toes! The angle of the light shows how fluffed the birds feathers are against the cold.

This one has fluffed feathers too - and that primordial looking kink in the neck that egrets and herons share.

Most of the bits they caught were quite small.

This scene with the mallard and two egrets speaks of communication between species - but what exactly are they communicating?

Right after the encounter one of the egrets flew off into the sunset. And that was the end to our egret observations at Chincoteague.

December Sunrise

It is easy to be up for sunrise these days. Yesterday - when these images were taken - the sunrise was at 7:18 which is well after the time I am up and about in the morning. Another benefit for this time of year - the leaves are gone so the horizon is not a solid wall of vegetation. It was a very cold morning so I took the easiest vantage point: through a window on the second floor of my house!

The first image was taken about 10 minutes before sunrise. Doesn’t the sky look like molten lava behind the trees? The second image is about 5 minutes after sunrise when the light was turning lemony.

Chincoteague Kingfisher

Kingfishers are usually too fast for me to photograph but there was one that had a favorite place along the road to the beach at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge (in November). He kept a close watch on the cars that parked along the road but evidently realized that the narrow band of water between him and the road was enough security. He kept his perch while protesting.

What a photogenic bird!

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 06, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

12 Ways Airports Are Actually Getting Better - Some good trends. I’ve noticed the increasing number of art work particularly - like the floor mosaics in one of the DFW terminals.

Wanderers - A short video. Wish we were doing more space exploration these days….thrilled that the Orion test flight yesterday was successful.

WHO Report: Climate Change to Cause 250,000 “Extra Deaths” a Year by 2030 - Not good.

This Linguistic Family Tree Is Simply Gorgeous - It’s only the Indo-European languages….not all the world’s languages. It would be interesting to see all of them in this same format

Apple Crisp - Yum. I have some apples in my refrigerator I need to use up quickly….this will be a good way to use them!

The Chemistry of Poinsettia Plants - Did you know that the pigment in the red leaves changes color with pH? This could be a project to try as your poinsettia sheds its petals!

Losing air: barrage of small impacts likely erased much of the Earth’s primordial atmosphere - Since I am in the middle of an ‘Origins’ course on Coursera - I am noting this type article more. There is geochemical evidence that Earth’s atmosphere may have been completely obliterated at least twice since its formation. This research investigates a possible mechanism.

Citizen science increases environmental awareness, advocacy - Talking and thinking are enhanced by doing when it comes to really understanding something. It happens is so many areas of life.

New Model of Media Consumption in 'Age of Interruption' - 15 hours a day is the average…that is almost every waking hour! I’m disappointed that they did not have statistics for the ‘retired’ segment of the US population. The average hours are a bit high for me (very high on days that I am leading nature hikes!) and the distribution (at least for me) is heavily skew toward computer (tablet and laptop) rather than the other types of media….largely because of courses, ebooks and the amount of writing I like to do. And there is another difference too - I am not sedentary in front of my laptop when I am at home (Swopper chair).

The weird world of everyday liquids - I’m always liked these kind of images. There are videos worth viewing too.

Chincoteague Cormorants

The cormorants were plentiful at Chincoteague when we were there in November.

The first day we saw them in several wet places along the main rode

And then a group on the mudflat just before we reached the beach area. They were preening in the late afternoon sun - unfurling their wings.

One swam way from the group and then flew off low over the water. I like the light on the wings showing the ways the feathers spread as the bird first leaves the water.

The next day we found the birds in the same spots although I didn’t realize it at the top. Doesn’t the post this cormorant is on look the same as the post in the first picture?

Pomegranate Project

I always enjoy pomegranates this time of year. The jewel-like shape and color of the fruit seems appropriate to the season. Earlier this week I decided to try making designs with the seeds before enjoying them as a snack. I only managed to get 5 designs created, using an upside down white bowl as a platform, before I got too hungry to continue!

Two Gulls at Chincoteague

There were lots of gulls at Chincoteague. There were tracks all over the beach when we walked there the first afternoon. The wind was cold - not conducive for a long photo session so I focused on one gull that stood surveillance at the water’s edge. Maybe he was watching me - ready to fly away if I took a step closer. I used the zoom on my camera and he continued to pose for the few minutes I tolerated the cold.

The more interesting event happened the next morning. It was still cold. We noticed a gull carrying something swooping down onto a sand bank. We pulled to the side of the rode and I took a series of pictures sitting in the car with the window rolled down!  The gull had caught a crab. The crab was still trying to escape when it was first thrown to the sand bank. But the gull proceeded to eat his catch soon enough. The crab was brunch for the gull!

Chincoteague Sunset…and Sunrise

We arrived at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge at mid-afternoon and decided that we would make the effort to photograph the sunset….and then get up early enough the following morning to photography sunrise.

Here are two sunset pictures - taken about 15 minutes apart. I liked the burned in color.

In between, some birds flew to their evening roosts.

And thus the day slid to evening.

The next morning we were early enough to catch the reds of sunrise.

The lighthouse was still bright over the treetops.

The light turned toward orange,

And then a minute later - faded. A cloud bank must have blocked the sun!

We continued to the shore and saw the thin line of color just over the sea. The cloud layer above was very thick!

On the Way to Chincoteague

We made a weekend trek to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge this past weekend.  There were so many photography opportunities that I will showcase them in several posts over the next few weeks. This post will focus on the trek to get there: leaving home early, crossing Maryland’s Bay Bridge, and making a stop at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge near Cambridge, Maryland.

We started our drive by 7:30 AM - being glad it was a weekend and there would be no rush hour traffic. The morning was quite cold. Many of the leaves in our neighborhood had fallen in the past week but the pines along this road early in our drive seemed to have protected the deciduous trees growing with them. 

The Bay Bridge is less than an hour along our route. I always try to take pictures as we are driving over. There were no closures so traffic on each span was going one way. Note that the bridges are not the same.

When we got to Blackwater - it seemed like it was going to be too cold for anything to be moving. We walked to the end of short boardwalk and nearly gave up.

Then we spotted the Great Blue Heron standing like a statue. Then it started to hunt for a snack. Not that the neck looks a lot thicker in the second picture. He had been successful in his foraging!

There were ducks too. These mallards look fat - or maybe it is just fluffed feathers. I liked the curls of their tail feathers.

At the end of the wildlife drive there were lots of pines and colorful leaves. There seem to be more sweet gum trees than I remembered from previous visits. The brochure for the refuge explained that they are challenged with rising water levels. What was once marsh has become - or is becoming - open water. Some forested area has become too marshy for the trees.

The visitor center has been renovated since we were at the refuge last (in June 2013) and there is a Monarch sculpture in the garden area behind it. My husband commented that it reminded him of the way the butterflies crowd together in Mexico to keep warm!

Zooming - November 2014

The theme for the November zooming post is fall color and texture. The burst of colors - greens, reds, yellows, oranges - is the finale of the growing season. They are fading fast in our area by the last weeks of November. The leaves crackle as they dry, their color fades to brown or black as they decay to mulch.

The seeds of many plants are surrounded by fluff (milkweed, cattails, and blazing stars) that acts as a parachute for the fall breezes to carry them away from their parent toward a place they can sprout next spring.

Centennial Lake in November 2014

I made a quick stop at Centennial Lake (in Centennial Park in Howard County, Maryland) on my way to an appointment this week after our first very cold weather of the season arrived. Most of the leaves had fallen off the trees but the reflections on the lake were still dramatic. There were a few intrepid souls on the path around the lake. None of them were sitting on the benches. It was a morning to keep moving.

The boat ramp are with the stones that extend into the water is one of my favorite vantage points. I took several vantage points. The angle of light makes a difference!

There were a few trees that retained some color. I wondered if it was the type of tree or the micro-climate along that part of the lake shore since so many other trees had dropped their leaves.

Closer to ground level I noticed some colorful vegetation closer to the ground.

As I drove out - I stopped to photograph a grouping of gingkoes. Most of the trees still held about half their leaves with the ones that had fallen in yellow drifts around their base.

Mt. Pleasant Farm

The Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant has been the site for many field trips for county elementary schools this fall. With only a few more to go - I took the short walk along the kindergarten hike route before the buses arrived; it was another celebration of fall in Maryland. 

The flower pot people are always on display on a shady bench….suitably styled for the season.

Many of the trees are labeled - including this Witch Hazel

And the Saucer Magnolia.

I liked both of them for their color and the way the light was striking the leaves. Somehow the children always enjoy the discovery of the rabbit sculpture under a bush.

Many of the pines seem to have more cones near the top. Pretty soon we’ll be emulating the way the cones hang from the branches on our Christmas tree!

The buses arrived shortly after my walk and my focus shifted to hiking with children and their chaperones….and that too is a celebration of the season.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 08, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Americans' view on obesity is changing: Fewer adults see it as a personal problem of bad choices - A survey asked 50,000 US adults and 50,000 healthcare professionals whether they viewed obesity primarily as a personal problem of bad choices, a community problem of bad food and inactivity, or a medical problem. How would you have answered? For myself - I chose to think of it as a personal problem when I got close being obese and have now been back in the normal range for about 1.5 years because of the lifestyle changes I made. However - I am willing to admit that I benefited from a work environment that encouraged increasing physical activity and a nutrition course on Coursera that honed my knowledge of foods. Both of those would be in the ‘community’ realm.

A Wild Ride: 50 Years of the US Wilderness Act - Reflection on the US Wilderness Act by a Fellow at the International League of Conservation Photographers (includes some great pictures)

'Aging well' must be a global priority, experts say - I liked the very last line in this story: “…think about the benefits that an older, healthier, happier, and more productive older population can bring to society as a whole.” An interesting statistic: by 2020, for the first time in history, the number of people aged 60 years and older will outnumber children younger than 5 years.

Why paper is a necessity - From Richard Watson.

A Stunning View of Sunlit Seas on Titan - A montage of images of Saturn’s moon Titan from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #73 - Which picture do you like the best in this collection? I like the sandhill cranes (toward the end).  I was thrilled to get a picture of some sandhill cranes in Florida (below - Orlando airport's cell phone lot)

What do American babies eat? A lot depends on Mom's socioeconomic background - I was surprised that he study found that some 6-12 month olds were being fed candy, ice cream, sweet drinks and French fries. Are pediatricians and health professionals not stressing dietary needs of babies to new mothers?

A Fascinating Documentary on Crows, One of the World's Smartest Animals - One researcher calls crows “feathered apes”

Climate, emerging diseases - It is difficult to establish a direct link between climate change and evolution of pathogens…mostly because both climate change and pathogens are very complex. But there are emerging or re-emerging diseases being studied that can be statistically linked to environmental changes. 

Incredible New Artifacts Found In 2,000-Year-Old Mexican Tunnel - Even in an area that is well known from an archeological stand point…..there are new finds. This one seems spectacular.  I remember going to Teotihuacan in the mid-1960s and climbing the pyramids. Now there will be even more to see there.