Mt. Pleasant in July 2017 – Part I

I took several walks around parts of Howard Country Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm last week while I was preparing for photography sessions with summer campers. There was a lot to see and I’m doing two blog posts about the enjoyable walks taken over 3 days. One morning I walked down through the meadow where I saw lots of butterflies but the ones that thrilled me the most were the monarchs. There haven’t been any in my neighborhood this year so it was something to see that there were still a few in our part of Maryland.

There were wild flowers too – which I couldn’t resist photographing.

When I got down to the Davis Branch, I watched a mud dauber wasp making a small ball of sediment to add to his nest

And I noticed that there were more larger cobbles on the ‘beach’ that before the heavy rains of last summer.

I walked over to the area where some stream restoration work was done last spring and found more dragonflies that I’d ever seen in the area. They all seemed to be the same kind but they seemed to be everywhere I turned.

There was a flock of goldfinches using the riffles constructed during the stream restored as a bird bath! Hopefully there will be some new paths that provide some better views of this part of the stream after the stream restoration is stabilized; I didn’t want to wade through the tall grass and risk ticks (Lyme disease).

On the way back up the hill, I paused to photograph the maple tree within a tree. It’s a favorite spot to share with elementary school hiking groups.

Just as I got to the top of the hill, there was a horse nettle flower that had managed to not get mowed by growing very low…and after I got home I noticed a bug was in the picture too.

Zooming – July 2017

I limited myself to 10 zoomed images this month – and it was quite a challenge to choose the 10! Now that I am looking at them, I realize they reflect the places and sites I’ve enjoyed the most this July. 4 of the 10 are butterflies from Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit. I have enjoyed photographing them (when I am not on Flight Attendant duty) and appreciate the increased optical zoom of the camera I have now.

There are also some plants from the boardwalk between the Brookside Conservatories and the Nature Center: a horse nettle flower and a fiddlehead fern. Zooming allows me to stand on the boardwalk rather than contorting myself into a lower position and leaning off the boardwalk to get close to the plant.

I enjoyed another walk around Kenilworth Gardens this July. Somehow dragonflies and water lilies always draw my attention.

Finally – a walk in my neighborhood had its own photography opportunities. There was a leaf that fell on the sidewalk…tilted a little to show its changing color. And in a tree near the pond, there was a spider wrapping up a large catch in its web.

Volunteering at Wings of Fancy at Brookside Gardens II-IV

I now have a total of 4 shifts volunteering at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy. I allow about 30 minutes before my 4 hour shift begins to walk around the gardens using my phone to take pictures. (I’m too busy during the shift itself to take any pictures at all.) I’ve never visited Brookside as frequently….and there is still something new to notice each time I am there. Before my second shift, I photographed the conservatory (note the door for staff and volunteers in front of the red car…almost surrounded by foliage),

A view through the tall deer fence into the Brookside Nature Center area,

A cat bird that was close enough to photograph with the phone, and

A cluster for flowers (yellow and pink surrounded by green).

The highpoints of the day included a group of 66 pre-schoolers at the butterfly exhibit. I was at the caterpillar station (which is before the entrance to the conservatory where the butterflies are flying about) when they came through with their chaperones (2 children per chaperone). I showed them the cecropia moth caterpillars (very large), told them to look at the butterflies with their eyes – not to touch, and sent them on to see the butterflies inside the conservatory. Later when I was at the exit station, a very confused butterfly was laying eggs on one of the metal stanchions that designates where to line up for the exit; there were quite a few elementary aged children (and some grandparents) that were there to see the drama too.

Before my third sift, it was sprinkling, but I walked a short distance out the pedestrian gate to take a picture of the plantings and sign at the gate of the gardens.

Then I walked down the gravel path of the anniversary grove (just inside the gate) and found some odd white blobs on a bald cypress. When I got home I did some research and discovered they are made by the Cypress Twig Gall Midge. It will kill the twig but the tree survives.

The highpoints of the day included: a wandering cecropia moth that was determined to leave the branch of black cherry leaves to make a cocoon (the caterpillar was put into a case with a branch where it made its cocoon) and seeing some tiny parasitoid wasps that had emerged from a chrysalis (rather than a butterfly). The containment precautions that are taken with the exhibit are not just for butterflies! Exotic parasitoids could be bad for our local environment too.

Before my fourth shift, I found some developing cones on a bald cypress (to compare with the Cypress Twig Gall that I saw the previous shift (and decided to check the galls each time I go to Brookside…see how they develop), and

Took several zoomed pictures of flowers that look ‘painterly.’

The highlights of the day included a group of Garden Bloggers and a fellow volunteer with Howard Country Conservancy visiting the exhibit with her family.

I’ve grouped the best of the rest of my pictures into themes: benches (aligned with a hedge, covered with lichen and crowded by flowers, and a butterfly bench in the shade.

Of course, there were flowers (and the seed pod of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit hiding under its leaves).

Insects (a bee in a hollyhock, a tiger swallowtail on a cone flower, a dragon fly on a bench, and a gold striped dragonfly…I wished from my better camera for that last one).

Pathways (to the azaleas, new boards in the walk between the Conservatory and the Nature Center, and gravel to the anniversary grove).

On the rainy morning, I got a picture of the metal butterflies without the blinding glare of the sun and savored the water collecting on leaves.

Previous post about Wing of Fancy Volunteering is here.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in June 2017 – Insects

We made our first visit of the year to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens yesterday. There are so many things I noticed in the gardens that I am doing multiple posts: insects, birds, waterlilies, magnolias, lotus, and turtles. There are three types of insects I’ll highlight: bees, butterflies, and dragonflies. The bumblebee I photographed was on a buttonbush. Most of the plants are not in bloom yet so the few lowers were very popular. I noticed that there was only one bee per flower! The pickerel weeds were in full bloom and they were attracting bees as well.

I photographed a tiger swallowtail on the pickerel weed. There were not very many butterflies around the garden yet. Perhaps there will be more as the summer progresses.

The main insect my husband and it try to photograph at the gardens is dragonflies. They seemed to be a lot of them flying around but not as many were sitting long enough to photography. I managed to get at 6 different kinds: greenish area around wing attachment with brownish ‘dash’ near tip of otherwise clear wings,

Could be a different perspective on the same kind…or not (the wing attachment area does not look green and the clear part of the wings has an amber tinge),

Brownish red coloring and smaller than the previous dragonflies,

Fuzzy at wing attachment and black markings across the wings (clear tips of wing) – maybe Common Whitetail male,

Brown body and black markings across the wings (dark tips of wings) – maybe a Common Whitetail female, and

Clear wings outlined in black around the tip.

I’m sure we’ll go to the gardens again this summer. I wonder if I’ll see the same or different dragonflies.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 10, 2017

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.

Is air pollution getting worse or better? – Overall, air quality has improved…but we’ve also learned more about the harm air pollution causes…and there is still a lot more that needs to be done both is improving air quality and understanding aspects that are the most problematic.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #89 and #90 – Two groups of bird pictures. Which ones are your favorites? The first group includes the mating display of the great egret. My favorites in the second group are two of birds in flight: a wood duck and a peacock.

Artist uses fire and smoke to create incredible paintings of birds – More birds....images made with fire, soot and acrylics.

Lavau Celtic Prince: 2,500-year-old royal tomb starts to reveal its secrets – A tomb in eastern France…I liked the pictures of the artifacts as they emerged during excavation.

Insects color our world – Beautiful images….and some tips on actions that can help insects in our environment.

The Kid’s Guide to How the Internet Works – When my daughter was in elementary school 20 years ago, they were beginning to teach children about how the internet works and internet safety. Now it seems like this instruction is even more needed – critical to our children’s wellbeing.

Did children build the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna? – An article about the excavation of a cemetery of children, teenagers, and young adults. Based on the analysis of the skeletons, many have traumatic injuries and degenerative conditions caused by frequent heavy labor.

The US Lags Behind in Meteorology – Europe has forged ahead at a time when the US has cut computing power, research budgets and the National Weather Service. The American weather models are increasingly being discounted for forecasts more than 3 days out.

Antarctica is turning green – Antarctica is warming at a faster rate than the global average…about 0.5 degrees Celsius each decade for the past 60 years. Instead of white, there is more and more green!

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens – A photo guide to common damselflies and dragonflies – A two page quick reference. My husband and I will use it later this month and in July when we visit Kenilworth – attempting to photograph dragonflies.