Some Winter Trees

Sometimes trees get a lot harder to identify in the winter but there are some easy ones to notice on winter hikes or drives. Here are my favorites from the area of Maryland where I live.

Holly. There is a holly growing as an understory tree in the forest behind our house. Whether they are in a forest or used as landscaping around houses – their red berries and bright green leaves are a spot of color in the winter landscape. The branches are used in greenery arrangements and garland at Christmas….but watch out for the prickles on the leaf edges.

Sycamore. After the leaves fall, the white inner bark of the sycamores is very striking. They grow quite large along the rivers and streams in our area.

River Birch. Most of the ones I’ve seen have been used as part of a landscape. Their peely bark is full of color in the winter landscape.

White or Paper Birch. The high contrast (black and white) of the bark makes these trees easy to spot.

Bald Cypress. This one not common in our area. We are little too far north. But is survives as a landscape tree. The knees give it away!

Southern Magnolia. The leaves on these trees say green all during the winter: waxy green on top and velvety brown underneath. You made find seed pods on the ground.

Sweet Gum. Sometimes it is easy to identify a tree by what is on the ground. Most Sweet Gum trees are so prolific that there are lots of gum balls around the tree all winter long.

Downy Woodpecker

We had a woodpecker visit our bird feeder and seed bowl recently. I took pictures then used them to make the identification.

It turns out that Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers look very similar. I looked at many pictures but finally found a side by side comparison that pointed toward the identification of the bird as a Downy Woodpecker:

• It was smaller than a robin
• The beak was short
• There was quite a bit a white in the wing

It must have been a male to because it had a nice red patch on the back of its head.

I was very glad to see the bird after I found the woodpecker feathers a few weeks ago.

Nature Photography through a Window

My office window provides a great vantage point of our back yard and I’ve cleaned it so that sometimes I can get good pictures just steps way from where I write this blog. The deer wonder through

And the squirrels are active in the yard.

They climb up the sycamore or the steps to get to the deck if I have seed in a bowl in addition to the squirrel-proof feeder. It is surprising how fast they discover the seed in the bowl!

But I enjoy trying to capture images of birds. There have been some successes this past month. The dove sat for a very long time on the roof of our covered deck that is visible from my window. It was cold day but that was a sunny spot.

The cardinal sometimes shares the seed bowl with others…and sometimes chases them away but he doesn’t stay long so the others get their share.

The female cardinal seems to need water more often than seed!

The titmice come as a pair.

The blue jays sometimes come from water but they often move so fast that there is not time to even get the camera turned on. This one sat for a few more seconds than usual!

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 28, 2015

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.

Plastic by the Numbers in the Atlantic Ocean – Samples taken during the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers show that microplastics are very common. There were 0 samples without any plastic! On a personal level, I’m reading labels on face washes and toothpastes now and not buying any that have microbeads.

6 Common Activities that Harm Wildlife – One of the six is ‘microbeads’ so another spur to action. The other activities are also thought provoking: sunscreen, feeding bread to birds, bleached products, removing weeds, and plastic bags. Most of them I had heard about before…sunscreen only recently.

Are superbugs deadlier near where you live? – They are everywhere…some places worse than others. Often they are indicators of use (and misuse) of antibiotics.

An easy pill to swallow – Research into a mechanism to deliver mucoadhesive patches via pill through the digestive tract to the small intestine. There is potential that this could change delivery of protein based therapies (insulin, growth hormone, antibodies, and vaccines) from a injections to a pill.

A Flight of Birds – 14 unusual birds…portraits from the Photo Ark project (one of the 14 is a California Condor)

800-Year-Old Ancient Extinct Squash Uncovered during Archeological Dig on Menominee Indian Reservation – I’d like to see this one in my grocery store!

Shenandoah National Park Counting on Beetles to Slow Invasive Insect – The wooly adelgid is killing the hemlocks in Shenandoah (and in our area of Maryland too). Shenandoah is importing a beetle from Japan (where the wooly adelgid came from). Evidently the beetle has already been used successfully in other parks, including Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

1,700-Year-Old Roman Mosaic Discovered During City Sewer Construction Project – Found in Israel by workers upgrading the sewer system.  It was the floor of a large room in a villa during the Roman period.

Pictures: Great Smoky Mountains National Park  and Pictures: Rocky Mountain National Park and Explore the Power of Parks – From National Geographic…lots of great pictures, of course.

Obesity: A Complex Disorder – Graphic from The Scientist with a link at the bottom for the full article. The more we learn about obesity, the more complex it seems to become.

Sunrise

There are two things that make sunrise pictures easier at my house by November: the sunrise is late enough that I am normally already up and ready for the day by the time it happens and the leaves are off the trees so our front porch makes a reasonable vantage point. These pictures were taken about a week ago. It was a very cold morning and I appreciated that I could observe through a window until the color was just right….and then step outside for a few seconds. These pictures were taken about a minute apart. The color shift from pink to orange very quickly!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations – November 2015

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. Here are my top 10 for November 2015.

Like October several celebrations involved the volunteering I do with the Howard County Conservancy. There were several types of volunteering this month and it was a grand finale to the season for me:

Fall hikes for 2^nd graders. This is the last season for the soil hike for 2^nd graders because of curriculum changes. I celebrated every hike that I did because the hike is such a favorite with the children and they participate so enthusiastically – getting their hands dirty learning about soil.

Belmont Colonial Holiday Celebration. The event is the beginning of the season for me and it gets me in the mood to decorate…to cook…to enjoy the people I am with.

Mailing Party. The ‘party’ to stuff envelopes with the annual accomplishments and request donations for the Howard County Conservancy is a ‘once a year’ volunteer event. We all are work madly for 3+ hours…but there is a lot of laughter and sharing of stories while we work. This time we took a break for a delicious Italian food lunch and then got back to work to finish everything. I celebrated the comradery and good food and getting it done!

I celebrated two ‘close to home places’ in November too:

Conowingo. Seeing a Bald Eagle is always a celebration. They have made quite a comeback in the 30 years we’ve been on the east coast. I remember vividly the first time I saw one in the wild – at Blackwater Wildlife Refuge on the eastern shore of Maryland…in 1990. Now we go to Conowingo and consistently see many of them fishing in the river there.

Brookside Gardens Conservatory. There is something special about every visit to Brookside. This time the highlight was seeing how they clean the glass top of the conservatory! I celebrate that we have a place like Brookside Gardens in our area.

And there were things at home that were good too:

A cold autumn day at home. Sometimes after being out and about almost every day – I celebrate a day at home. This month it came on a very cold day and I celebrated that I could stay indoors! There will be many more cold days soon but in November they are still ‘new.’

Wind blowing the leaves off the lawn. I had to rake quite a few of the leaves on our lawn but some of them were carried by the wind into the forest where they will decompose and nourish the forest. Hurray for the raking effect of the wind!

And 3 more celebrations to round out the 10 for November:

The Martian. I celebrated a going to a theater…and seeing a good movie!

No cavities. I had a dental checkup this month and I thought for sure I had a cavity on one of my front teeth…but it was only a stain! They polished the stain off….and I celebrated all the way home.

Getting things done on my list. Sometimes I move items from one day to next….then I have a day that everything gets done…and I celebrate that discipline comes to the fore!

Holiday Decorations at Belmont – 2015

The Howard County Conservancy hosted their second annual Colonial Holiday Celebration at Belmont last weekend. I volunteered to help with set up and registration – just as I did last year. There was enough time during the set up to photograph some of the beautiful decorations.

Here is the front door – with wreath hanging from the knocker and urns full of Osage orange seed balls. We put small sacks with LED lights on the stairs before it got dark. Those stairs look like they seen a lot of traffic over the years!

The registration table was just inside the front door and we had homemade ornaments to commemorate the event on the tree just beyond (and for sale). I was part of the team that had the adventure creating them!

I loved the old style decorations like strings of popcorn and read ribbon.

The dried hydrangea with magnolia leaves on one of the mantles was very attractive. The color remaining in the hydrangea flowers are very subtle…..and they provide a contrasting texture the magnolia leaves’ velvety brown and shiny green.

I like the ribbons draped from the chandelier with cranberries as ‘weights.’ This was the decoration remembered from last year and I was glad to see it again.

Now for a slide show of some of the other decorations. The decorators focused on natural materials rather than glitz of modern decorations. Pomegranates, cranberries, nadina, holly, bittersweet, clove studded oranges, and apples for the reds and oranges…boxwood, pine and cedar and magnolia for the greens….gum balls, dried vines, pine cones, turkey feathers, antlers, and acorns for browns…hydrangea for the light green, pink and blue. Wow – it’s quite a collection!

Conowingo Dam – November 2015

We are planning day trips to Conowingo Dam (Maryland) this winter to attempt photography of the Bald Eagles that feed there from the fish in the outflow from the dam when electricity is being generated. We went in last May and saw more Bald Eagles than I had ever seen in one place before (my post from May is here) and it wasn’t even the peak season for the Bald Eagles being there! Now it is getting to the peak time so we are planning to make the trek once a month – on a time when the roads are not slippery. It’s about an hour from our house so a comfortable day trip (and we’ll bundle up and take something hot to drink).

The parking area below the dam already held some cars when we got there at mid –morning last week. And the photographers were lined up along the fence. The number of big lenses was impressive. There was a lot of water coming from the dam and we saw eagles immediately on the rocks

And perched on the electrical tower.

Periodically we’d spot an eagle flying over the water – and catching a fish.

This one caught a large fish and took it to one of the equipment towers. There were black vultures and an immature eagle that gathered there to eye the fish. Eventually – the eagle with the fish flew away with it. Who wants to eat with that kind of audience?

Sometimes the fish is small…sometimes large.

Next time I hope to position myself to improve the background for the photographs…and to go on a brighter day so that the wing movements will not be a blurry. I may also pay more attention to the black vultures next time we go. I only saw one Great Blue Heron on this trip (last May we saw more); they are frequently photogenic if they are not too far away.

On this particular trip – I enjoyed the remnants of fall color next to the parking lot (turning my back to where the eagles were).

I also noticed a feather. I wonder whether it was from a Bald Eagle or a Black Vulture.

There is a Facebook page for the Conowingo Bald Eagles Community for more information.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 21, 2015

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.

Poland's Mysterious "Crooked Forest" Populated with 400 Bent Pine Trees – Trees are remarkably resilient. Whatever caused these trees to be bent near the base…and then continue growing upright…they are survivors!

Why do we still not know what’s inside the pyramids? – I usually notice stories about Ancient Egypt that come in on my newsfeeds but my awareness is even higher right now because of the Ancient Egypt course I am taking on Coursera.

6 Homemade Vegan Sauces and Condiments that are better than Store-bought – I’m trying the recipe for peanut sauce after I finish the store bought bottle I have in my refrigerator!

The digital revolution in higher education has already happened. No one noticed. – Another dimension of higher education not mentioned in this thoughtful piece is the continuing education that many post-career individuals seek. I recently looked at face to face classes offered in my area of Maryland and decided that the selection available from Coursera and other online providers was much greater (and the price was right too). Another case where the digital revolution in higher education has already happened.

Photography in the National Parks: Your Armchair Guide to Big Bend National Park – Part 2  - A continuation of an article I included in my October 31 gleanings….good info for planning a trip there.

Tangy and Tasty Fresh Cranberry Recipes – My ‘new’ recipe to try for Thanksgiving is the Cranberry-Carrot cake. I am not going to put icing on it….eat it more like muffins for Thanksgiving Day brunch. Don't forget Cranberry Orange Relish either! Wegmans recipe is here.

Move Over, Turkey: Meet the World’s Other Bald, Be-wattled Birds – Thinking of turkey this week….here are some other birds that have similar heads. They all look odd to me!

Field Drain Tile and the “Re-Eutrophication” of Lake Erie – Why the algal blooms have worsened in recent years after improving for the prior 15 years.

Elegant Greenhouse Photos Mimic the Ethereality of Oil Paintings – Hmm…the textured glass reminded me of a shower door. This might turn into a winter photography experiment!

Incan Mummy Genome Sequenced – The mitochondrial DNA analysis was the first completed and placed the boy in a very small subgroup – only 4 other known individuals. Other genetic analyses of the 500 year old mummy of a 7-year-old boy are ongoing.

November at the Brookside Gardens Conservatory – Part 2

The Brookside Gardens Conservatory offered a number of opportunities for thematic photography when we walked around its paths earlier this week. Yesterday I posted about the mums and the reds/oranges that I missed in those flowers but found in others. Today the themes are focused on light and curves. There was a leaf that seemed to glow in a spotlight. I’m not sure which magnification I like the best. The higher magnification almost looks like it is on fire!

The corner of the conservatory seemed crowded but there was one plant that found a way to shine in the jumble.

And what about this ‘light at the end of tunnel!

Shifting to curves….the variegated crotons were crowded together – I like the curves of their leaves and the veins too.

The cycads are all curves….from the fibrous centers to the stubby arms of the trunk.

The fiddleheads are nestled in center of this large fern…their wavy curves still tightly coiled.

The bromeliad is orderly curves…except for the green one in the foreground that seems to be going in a different direction!

Succulents are stuffed curves. This one has a little point at the end of each leaf (or is it a stem). Look at the orientation of those points toward the center of the plant. They could be a model for aliens conversing.

Papyrus – river rocks – ripples of water…lots of curves.

November at the Brookside Gardens Conservatory - Part 1

Last week when we went to see the mum display in the Brookside Gardens Conservatory, the conservatory was closed because they were cleaning off the white coating on the glass roof. Yesterday – we discovered that they had already closed the south conservatory to set up for the miniature train exhibit that will be there after Thanksgiving until just after the beginning of 2017. The north conservatory was open and there were lots of mums.

The main colors were pink and yellow. I noticed the different petal shapes: think with splits at the end that curled in different directions,

Shallow scoops forming a tight ball,

Deeper scoops forming a flower with more space and deeper color in the center,

And huge round balls of petals that never seems to unfurl completely (these I associate with football mums that were popular when I was in high school).

As we walked outside – there was a pot of mums in the bright sunlight that might have come from the south conservatory. Hopefully the weather will be mild enough for them to complete their bloom cycle outdoors.

I was surprised there were not more colors of mums this year. I missed the oranges and reds so couldn’t resist taking pictures of other flowers in the conservatory to fill the color void.

 

 

Even the trimming one of the conservatory gardeners was making included red!

Woodpecker Feathers

Last week I saw a lot of birds one morning at our feeder (juncos, cardinals, nuthatches, chickadees, titmice), flitting between the trees in our yard (blue jays and robins) and back in the forest there were two kinds of woodpeckers: pileated and red-bellied. I next day I saw the red bellied woodpecker again and then it seemed like there were very few birds around at all for a few days. When I was working the yard yesterday – I found a pile of feathers. There must have been a predator in the area…probably some kind of hawk.

The pile was back in the pile of leaves I’ve creating at the edge of the forest. There were long feathers and fuzzy bits of down. The black and white pattern looked like a woodpecker and was probably the red-bellied woodpecker since a pileated woodpecker are mostly black rather than the black and white pattern.

I picked up some of the feathers to photograph. They were a little damaged so probably had been on the ground for a few days.

Yesterday, I noticed more birds at our feeder again. Maybe the predator has moved on.

Intimate Landscapes – November 2015

This is the second month for my Intimate Landscapes series (after reading Eliot Porter’s Intimate Landscapes book (available online here)) featuring images from the month that are: smaller scale but not macro, multiple species, and artsy.

A dance of colorful leaves on green grass. Tulip poplar and maple leaf shapes are easily spotted.

Sturdy fronds of a fern among, mostly brown, leaves. Maple and tulip poplar leaves again…maybe some beach and oak too.

The zinnias died back at the first of the mornings in the 30s but the sunflower continues to be green…and blooming among the dried stalks of everything else.

The onion seed pods had lost most of their seeds – rattled way by the wind. The trunk of the sycamore and its huge leaves provide no shelter for the wind.

Zooming – November 2015

The ‘zooming’ collages for this month all about views of fall:

• Colored leaves
• Mushrooms and puffballs
• Seed pods
• Geese over the treetops
• Ferns and moss surrounded by died leaves

Enjoy the slide show!

Our Tulip Poplar

Our tulip poplar grows at the back of our yard – at the edge of the forest between a pine and a maple. Its leaves began to turn yellow relatively early in the fall but some of the leaves stay on the tree until the very end of the season. The first picture in this series was taken on October 10^th; the tulip poplar already had yellow leaves while the maple was almost totally green.

By October 24^th, the poplar had yellow and brown leaves and some were beginning to fall to the ground. The maple was red at the branch tips and had not dropped many leaves at all.

By October 27^th, the poplar a thinned a bit.

And by November 7^th, both the maple and the tulip poplar had lost all their leaves!

We moved into our house about this time of year over 20 years ago and the flying yellow leaves from the tulip poplar are the ones I associate the most with fall at this house. The trees are the tallest in the forest behind our house so they are impossible to ignore. The shape of the leaves is easy to recognize. Those leaves deteriorate rapidly from yellow to brown to mulch.

The seed pods last longer. They stay on the tree and release their seeds throughout the winter and into the next spring.

The tulip poplar was not a tree I ever saw growing up in Texas. When we moved to the east coast – to Virginia and then Maryland – they were one of the first trees that I noticed….and I like having one in my backyard so that I can see it every day.

Our Sycamore

We have a sycamore tree behind our house. It planted itself near the base of the stairs down to the lawn and I have simply let it grow…trimming off the lower branches so that it would not get in the way when we mow the grass. It will eventually provide shade for the three stories of the house on the west side; it’s tall enough now to shade the first two stories. This week I noticed how thick the fallen leaves were.

Sycamore leaves take a lot longer to degrade than maple or tulip polar – the other trees that drop leaves into our back yard – and they are much larger too. They keep growing from the time they unfold in the spring to the time they fall. They are often bigger than a dinner plate! They have to be raked or they will smother the grass. I got started on it this past weekend but it is quite a job.

The leaves sometimes fall when they are still a bit green…or mottled yellow and brown…or like cracked leather. I liked the color of the mottled leaf still on the tree with the sun shining through it. This is about as pretty as the sycamore leaves get in the fall.

The tree has bark that peels away and leaves the top part of the tree white. It is an easy tree to recognize in the winter

Last year our tree had one seed ball (that I saw); it is showing is maturity this year with many seed balls.

Our Maple

I took pictures of our  maple (actually it is our neighbor's but close enough to the property boundary that we rake about half the leaves) as it changed this year. On October 10th it was still mostly green.

By the 24th it was red at the tips of the branches.

Three days later – on the 27th – it was red all over.

On the afternoon of Halloween a lot of leaves had fallen and the sun shining through the remaining leaves caught my eye.

Yesterday – almost all the leaves had fallen and it was obvious that our neighbor’s yard crew had blown the fallen leaves and left exposed dirt. I am going to rake the leaves that are covering grass but leave the ones that are on dirt. Next spring I’ll need to consider what we can do for the area under the maple that has lost its grass as the tree has gotten larger. The roots of the tree are so dense that I don’t know that even shade loving plants will survive…but that is a project for next spring.

For now I’ll savor the last few leaves on the tree and the smell of leaf tea as I rake way the leaves from the grass and into the forest.

Big Fall at Mt. Pleasant

This past week has been the peak for falling leaves at the Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm. On Monday it was breezy and leaves were flying. On Wednesday, I decided it was sunny and a good day to photograph the trees that still had some leaves. Today I am posting this before I make my trek there…and anticipating that there will be fewer leaves left on the trees.

It was relatively calm and the leaves were drifting down. This maple has a thick carpet of leaves that has fallen recently

Since the carpet still had a lot of color.

The sunshine and clear sky made the color seem all the more brilliant although the foliage was thinning.

Even the gingko has started dropping its leaves.

But in almost every direction there were some trees that had already lost their leaves – like the maple in the rain garden that was so brilliantly red just last week. I always think of the brilliant leaf colors as the last hurrah of the season before everything is hunkered down for winter.

Hydrangea Flowers

After I took the picture of the one flower on our hydrangea bush last weekend – just about the only part not eaten by the overpopulation of deer in our area – I looked around the house at the hydrangea flowers I had cut in previous years from the same bush. They tend to dry and retain their shape…and sometimes some color too.

The oldest ones are probably over 5 years old. They have visible cat hair and dust they’ve collected from the air as they stood in their vase on top of the book case. There is still some color (originally pink) in the tips of some of the petals.

Some of the petals curved so that the veins became more visible.

Last year I cut some more and they have more of the pink color remaining although some parts turned a deeper brown.

The purple/pink flower is from earlier this summer. The color deepened as they dried.

I’m trying to decide if I want to risk putting them all in one vase. They are fragile enough that they might crumble completely. The color variation and shapes of the dried flowers appeals to me.

Fall at Centennial Park

I missed the peak of fall foliage at Centennial Park. In mid-October there was still a lot of green (see post here). This past weekend, some of the trees had already lost quite a lot of their leaves…although there was still plenty of color. When we first got there on Saturday morning, the sun was in the treetops and there was a mist rising from the lake because of the temperature differential between the water and the air (it was a cold morning).

There were a few clouds in the sky and contrails across the sky.

I walked around a little to look around and let the sun come more. I noticed: dew on fallen leaves. This one is a tulip poplar.

Drifts of leaves in the parking lot. Many of the red ones were from a nearby maple.

The view straight up to the sky shows both color and that some trees are already in winter form.

Flocks of Canadian Geese took off from the lake – circling over the trees and into the brighter sunlight.

And finally the sun came all the way down the trees on the opposite shore.

The Great Blue Heron that had made a ruckus when we first arrived had retained his perch in the colorful trees there.