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 – June 2017

I use the zoom on my camera for multiple reasons and I was thinking about that when I selected the pictures from this month’s accumulation. I use the zoom to photography birds and animals that would fly or run away if I got closer. Squirrels fit into that category. This one was exploring the area under the pines in our back yard; I was in my office on the second floor of the house.

The optical zoom on my camera has improved with each new camera over the past few years until now I notice things in the images that are too small to notice with my eyes. Note the hole in the beak of the catbird. It’s a nare (nostril) which leads to nasal cavities in the birds skull.

I also see the changes as birds react to their environment. Take a look at two ‘looks’ of the green heron that is frequenting the pond in our neighborhood.

Sometimes I use the camera almost like binoculars. These structures were in the distance from where I was hiking.

Other times I use the optical zoom to achieve macro-like images….and avoid creating a shadow on my subject (by getting close to it). This day lily petal is a good example.

Other times I can’t get close because the subject is too high or there is a physical barrier. This maple is surrounded by a flower and ground cover bed….and I didn’t want to step on any carefully maintained vegetation.

I tend to use the zoom (both optical than continuing into the digital) frequently and its one of the reasons I use my camera rather than cell phone when I want better images.

Our Yard – June 2017

There were a lot of rainy days in May and June – so far – has been relatively cool here in Maryland. The plants seem to be thrilled. I’ve already trimmed the bush beside our garage and it already needs to be trimmed again. My husband parks his car on that side of the garage and is keen for me to do the job ASAP.

The milkweed in the front flowerbed looks great – and there don’t appear to be any more caterpillars on it. Pooh!

I might cut down the plants toward the front of the bed so that the ‘predator’ lights will be more visible to the deer. So far the gizmo has kept them from eating the day lily buds.

The trees are still getting a lot of new leaves. The new maple leaves start out tinged with red.

The tulip poplar leaves are miniature (somewhat streamlined) versions of the larger leaves. Most of the flowers are fading now and the seed mods are forming.

Our oak tree is trimmed up so high (it’s close to the street and the country trimmed it high enough that fire trucks would not be damaged if they needed to come down our street) that I decided to take a picture of a leave that had fallen. The tree has grown a lot since we moved into our house 20 years ago and I like the shade it provides to the front of the house on summer mornings.

Zooming – May 2017

I used the zoom on my camera so much in May that almost every picture was a candidate for this post. I picked some images that were no previously included in posts for the slide show below:

• A fly perched on a tiny yellow flower covered in water droplets
• New leaves at the tips of the maple branch – and a fly that I didn’t see until I looked at the picture on a big screen
• A butterfly head and shoulders…the zoom is enough that the individual yellow scales show in the darker part of the wing.
• New leaves on the sycamore. The size variation of sycamore leaves is very large: small fingernail to dinner plate.
• A resting butterfly
• Peonies: flower and bud
• An insect that looks like dried leaves
• A monarch caterpillar
• A butterfly – again the individual scales can be detected as ‘powder’ over the darker markings
• A chipping sparrow making a mess at the feeder
• A butterfly wing collage

Enjoy!

Photographs through my Office Window – April 2017

There has been a lot of activity through my office window this month. The squirrels are feasting on the tender samaras in the maple – early in the month

And then a couple of weeks later when the leaves are unfurling.

The squirrels have a pathway around our yard via trees and fence…rarely on the ground.

The robins are around but don’t seem as numerous as previous years.

We now have two kinds of sparrows: chipping sparrows and

White throated sparrows (with the dash of yellow above their eye).

The blue jays are still frequent visitors to the bird bath.

I haven’t seen a lot of grackles but there was one that visited our yard long enough for a picture.

We have a pair of cardinals again this year – probably nesting nearby.

Mourning doves like the birdbath and the roof line of our covered deck. This one seemed to want its picture taken!

Preserving Spring

When I used twigs to show pre-schoolers about how the tree buds and seeds looked during the spring…it occurred to me that it would be good to have those items to show for more than just the early spring. I decided to enclose some of them in clear contact paper. Maybe the plastic would seal off enough air to keep the plant material from deteriorating…and it would not require the heat of a laminator. The red maple samaras were my first experiment. The seed part of the wings bulge a bit, causing a little bubble. As I looked more closely after I’d finished encasing them front and back with the contact paper, I realize there are still remnants of the flower (red) where the seed is connected to the small stem.

My next attempt was with sycamore leaves that had unfurled from the branch I put in water after I cut it when it has enlarged buds.  I got several sizes of leaves from the buds that split open and have leaves unfurling now (see my previous post about from a few days ago).  The smallest ones are the size of a finger nail. The clear contact paper on both sides makes it possible to view both sides of the little leaves and to notice that one is still curled – not quite unfurled from how it was packaged in the bud.

I had some sycamore leaves from last summer that I had pressed in a book. I used the contact paper with them too. They are very dry and fragile at this point but the contact paper may stabilize them. The leaves are the size of my hand or larger. One of the them had lots of holes in it….so would be good to reinforce that trees are food and home for other creatures.

Next time I am a volunteer naturalist talking about trees….I’ll see if they survive!

Zooming – March 2017

I decided against creating collages this month for the zoomed images and tried to pick images I had not used elsewhere. Early in the month there is a little winter weather and I used the camera to create some zoomed images through my office window: snow on maple blossoms and

The top of our bird feeder.

Then it was onto some warmer March days: new leaves on a rose bush trimmed last fall,

Dutch iris in a garden in Texas, and

A cat surveying the neighborhood from the top of a gate (also in Texas).

A few days later – there were lots to zoom items at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh: a slipper orchid,

A Chihuly bowl, and

The inside of a tulip.

The following day there were the birds at the National Aviary: an ibis,

Flamingo feet,

A hornbill (with feathers that look like very long eyelashes and a lot of cracks and scars on the bill), and

The complex features of an Andean condor.

Back in Maryland – the bark of a persimmon tree and

The delicate petals of a daffodil that survived snow and ice a few days prior to this picture.

Phipps Conservatory – Pittsburgh

It was very cold the day we visited the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens last week. I only went outside once…drawn by the red branches of a Japanese maple…and then quickly went back inside to enjoy the lush plantings that bask in the glass house warmth even in winter.

As usual – I was drawn to closer looks at cactus spines.

There were a lot of people working on garden decorations for the spring exhibit that will debut this week. Some were made of plants or plant materials…all were set among beds that develop over the months of the exhibit. I think my favorite was the rabbit with a dried hydrangea flower for a tail. The three bears with a hobbit like house were in the same area.

Fiddle head ferns are another classic draw for me to photograph.

The orchids were in a room with glass figures (long, slender…as alien looking as the orchids themselves). Slipper orchids are always my favorites.

I finally understand how ‘screw pines’ got their name. The way the leaves come off the trunk really is just like a screw. When I saw one in Hawaii, I was more interested in the fruit….didn’t even look closely at the trunk.

I’ve grouped the ‘best of the rest’ in these last collages. There were so many great plants to photograph…and the conservatory was not very crowded the afternoon we were there. I want to go again already!

Signs of Spring? – Part 2

The first part of this post was posted last week after a walk around our yard…on a warm afternoon. I posted the series of American Robin images first…now for the rest of what I saw --- There were some milkweed pods in the litter of one of our flower beds (yes – I let some plants go to seed there); there is the first milkweed bug of the season too!

I saw a bee investigating something in the leaf litter too. The day was so warm that the insects probably thought it was spring already.

The crocuses are come up through the leaf mulch left in the flower bed. I’m going to plant some out in the yard next fall since I like the look of the flowers in the lawns of Belmont.

 The miniature daffodils are blooming too.

There some of the larger and taller ones that are still green leaves and buds. When the leaves first emerge, they sometimes have kinks that straighten out before they start blooming.

The red maple is blooming. This time of year is it easy to tell the difference between this tree and other maples. All the others look dull compared to this red.

There is a tree in the forest behind our house that has lost its top and there are woodpecker holes around the wound in the part that remains.

There is a holly that has sprouted under a downspout – not a good place for a holly so I will have to pull it next time I put on my gardening gloves.

Part 1 was posted last Friday.