Mid-October Road Trip

We made a fall foliage road trip last weekend from our home between Washington DC and Baltimore MD to State College Pennsylvania. We headed out on I 70 to western Maryland and then I99 to State College. Our first rest stop was in Maryland – the South Mountain Welcome Center with a rock façade (maybe from a local source?) and the morning sun showing off a little change in the leave color.

The next rest stop was the Pennsylvania Welcome Center (still on I70). That had big sunflowers in various stages of development. It was easy to see how the seeds look as they begin to mature.

Two of the flowers I photographed had bugs in them (I discovered when I looked at them on the big screen of my monitor. This one looks like and assassin bug

And then was is a milkweed bug.

Just after we left the welcome center – we started to see more color. It wasn’t the peak of fall foliage colors…but a beginning.

There was also fog hanging in the valleys…with a clear sky above.

The drive to State College was a good start to our fall road trip. I’ll post more about it tomorrow.

Zooming – September 2016

I already did a zooming post earlier this month focused totally on insects --- but there have been so many other good shots that I couldn’t resist another for this month with more than insects in the mix. I am getting a new camera soon so this might be the last set of images with the 30x in optics and digital up to 120x. Let’s start with some plants: crabapples against a clear blue sky. Most of the leaves have already fallen from the tree but I looked around to find some fruit with a leaf nearby.

A flower with its petals still in tubes. Soon they would flatten into more normal looking petals.

A cloud of pink flowers.

Lots of pollen.

Milkweed seeds on the verge of blowing away.

The long central stalk of the hibiscus flower.

And a mushroom that was greenish underneath.

Back to some animals…..this chipmunk had very full cheek pouches. It was probably collecting food to be stored away for winter.

A skipper sunning itself among the dew drops on a large flower.

A bee so focused on the flower that it doesn’t notice my son-in-law’s camera trying to get a close shot (upper left corner). I prefer using the zoom!

A molting bird…maybe a grackle?

A dragonfly.

Sunflowers

Last summer the sunflowers I planted in pots on my deck did not do so well but I’ve had more success this summer. Yesterday I went out to photograph them. Even the buds look good with the fuzzy edges of sepals.

Then there is the unfurling of the petals.

They expand and the flower follows the track of the sun. This is the stage when the butterflies visit the flower.

The flower ages.

Even the back of the flower is complex.

Then the petals fade. This one looked like a flower person with yellow orange hair and a green cap!

The petals fall away…and soon the goldfinches come for the seed.

I have enjoyed doing flower photography from my deck because it is easy to use the camera’s zoom for detail and achieve a blurry green or brown background too.