Macro Photography in our Maryland Yard – May 2022

/

I made a last macro photography foray around our yard in Maryland --- enjoying the fullness of spring. I started with the usual moss and lichen on the trees in front.

In the front flower beds, the nine-bark bush was in bloom and the pyracantha that I thought had died several years ago has come back from the roots/is blooming.

In the chaos garden, the irises are thriving along with Virginia creeper. Under the deck, there is a fiddlehead of a Christmas fern unfurling.

I decided to not move the dried flowers from daughter’s birth over 30 years ago. They are now in a hollow of the brush pile since I have already cleaned out the compost bin. They have more color in the macro views than I expected!

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/26/2020 – Through the Window

/

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Registering for virtual events. Just as I was beginning to miss birding festivals and the annual Master Naturalist training day – offerings of virtual alternatives appeared in my inbox! The registration was minimal, and I don’t have to be anxious about what the pandemic situation will be in late May and June. They are both on my calendar!

Surveying the yard. (Happened on the 25th…but I didn’t have time to write about it then). The weather was dry and in the 60s – a good day to get out and do some yard work. I used the electric hedge trimmers and worked on the bushes in front of the house for about an hour….and then walked around for some nature photography: there are 2 iris buds! Once they start opening, I plan to cut the stem to enjoy inside…avoid the trauma of having the deer eat them.

20200425_140513.jpg

There was also a small weed blooming in the flower bed…which I left.

20200425_142530(0).jpg

There are so many tulip poplar seeds flying around – inevitably, some of them produce seedlings. Repeated mowing handles the ones in the yard but the ones in the flowerbeds must be pulled. They make awesome specimens for the tree module of pre-school field trips…which are not happening this year; they make the point very well about how much of the tree is underground! These ‘baby trees’ went back to the brush pile after I photographed them.

20200425_142541.jpg
20200425_144040(0).jpg

Some reddish clover like plants are growing in the grass and moss on the shady hillside to the north of our house.

Near the steps down from our deck – some evidence of a bird’s demise. I hope it wasn’t the phoebe that was a frequent morning visitor to our sycamore.

Under the deck, the Christmas fern is full of fiddleheads – new spring growth.

I did an ‘intimate landscape’ picture of moss (dead and alive) and violet leaves.

20200425_144524.jpg

The photography was a great finale for my yard work.

Watching a crew take down a dead pine tree in our neighbor’s yard. The tree was obviously ailing last summer and the few needles still on its branches were dry and brown. It’s good to have is down before it fell during wet and windy weather…maybe smashing into a house or fence or storage shed.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

And now for the monthly ‘through the office window’ post…I was at home for the whole month so there were a lot of photographs taken through my office window to choose from. Birds were the primary subjects: Carolina chickadee, brown-headed cowbird, dark-eyed junco, Carolina wren, common grackle, cardinal, American goldfinch, house sparrow, red-belled woodpecker, eastern phoebe, mourning dove, house finch, rose-breasted grosbeak, downy woodpecker, and chipping sparrow.

The red maple’s samaras ripened over the course of the month. Click on the middle picture below to ID the bird munching on the seeds.

And there was one sunset picture in the mix. Overall - it was a good month for photographs through the window!

sunset 2020 04 IMG_8672 (8).jpg

Hike at Mt Pleasant

/
IMG_7211.jpg

A couple of weeks ago – I went on a hike with fellow volunteers at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant. We hiked on some of newer trails that avoid the muddy areas that had developed on some of the older trails in recent years. We headed down toward Hodge Podge Lodge. The stream nearby was frozen, but the Christmas ferns still provided a bit of greenery along the banks. It’s easy to see the stream with so much of the undergrowth in winter mode.

IMG_7219.jpg

Some old logs always seem to have new shelf fungus.

IMG_7221.jpg
IMG_7222.jpg

The new trail passed a stand of large black cherry trees – with beautiful bark.

As we walked through an area planted with native trees in the past few years – we spotted some egg cases of mantises.

I always enjoy photographing seed pods too. The dogbane pod (to the right) must have popped open recently….the puff od seeds to be carried away on the next breezy day. The Queen Anne’s Lace seeds have already been distributed.

IMG_7245.jpg

There are some non-native grasses that probably started out as ornamentals in someone’s yard….and the seeds somehow got to the meadow.

Finally, we came to the area that I wanted to check for skunk cabbage. I noticed the frost on the plants along the stream.

IMG_7247.jpg

And then we saw the skunk cabbage. We’ve had some warm days and then it was in 20 and 30s again. The plants have overcome much of that; they can generate some heat with their chemical processes and draw themselves down into the muck when it gets cold.

But the big new things for me on the hike was skunk cabbage seeds! Most of the time the seeds are down in the muck, but we found some on the surface looking like some odd deer poop at first glance. I’m glad the stand of skunk cabbage is producing seeds…probably expanding.

Another good thing about the hike on a cold day is that the boggy places were frozen. We could hear the crackles of ice in the grass under our feet….and we didn’t come back with muddy boots! We looped around to an older portion of the trail and I saw the 2 logs that crossed the stream have now  rotted enough to clearly not be good ‘bridges.’

IMG_7268.jpg

As we made our way closer to the Nature Center, we talked about a stand of paw paws that are popular at least one week of the summer camp (for their fruits). I noticed some ferns that had dried in interesting shapes.

There was also a picked apart seed pod (maybe sycamore?) on a bed of oak leaves….a last picture before checking out the witch hazel before we went inside to get warm.

IMG_7280.jpg

Middle Patuxent River at MPEA

/

Earlier this month I was in the Middle Patuxent River twice (with two different high schools) at the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area (MPEA). We got there by 7:15 AM to be ready for the buses with students to arrive at 8. We parked near the South Wind Circle trailhead and hiked through the forest to the edge of the river. Then came the tricky part - climbing over the big rocks to get down into the river and on the side with enough cobbles to hold the field gear for water assessment. The towels in the second picture mark the route over the rocks. Sitting down on the highest rock turned out to the be safest way to start the crossing.

20191002_075819.jpg

I took a few pictures of the quiet down in the stream after equipment was set up and before the students arrived. The river is very low this year but still picturesque.

Once the students arrive, there is a flurry of activity with boots and macroinvertebrate finds/identification and chemical tests of the water. The students spend 2 hours in the river then hike back up the hill. Then we have a break before more buses arrive with more students from the same school. During that break, I always take the path up hill across the river from the path where we arrived some privacy. The path is covered with fall leaves and there are many Christmas ferns along the border.

There is even time for a snack…and then we have another 2 hours of focused activity. At the end we pack up everything and the students help us carry all the gear up the hill before they get on the buses to go back to school.

Moving the Compost Bin

/

Last week we had some warm days and I moved my compost bin. It is so hard to turn the whole bin of material adequately, that it’s better to just move the bin periodically and get a good mix of the materials (and take the ‘finished’ compost out for other distribution). The stakes that I’d used to hold the cylinder of rigid plastic up were leaning toward the center too. I decided to move the bin just a few feet away on a bare patch of dirt – still under the red maple.

I got side tracked looking at the haze of yellow in the forest: spice bush in bloom.

IMG_3912.jpg

And the baby ferns in the mossy area under the deck.

IMG_3919.jpg

And a shell that had collected some water (probably need to turn it over so it doesn’t become a mosquito nursery).

IMG_3936.jpg

And some robin nests (neat enough to be from this year) on the deck support beams.

I pulled the stakes out from inside the bin - then lifted the plastic and repositioned it. I put the stakes back in using some branches from the brush pile to cross brace too. Then the material that still needed to decompose was moved with a pitchfork to the newly placed bin. Lesson learned: pine needles and egg shells take longer to decompose than kitchen scrapes and shredded leaves/paper!

IMG_3926.jpg

I found something that had sprouted in the compost as I spread the compost from the bottom of the bin around under the red maple in front of the brush pile. Maybe a beet top from last fall’s harvest?

IMG_3928.jpg

In the Middle Patuxent at MPEA

/
20181026_071438.jpg

It was a cold morning last week when I headed out at dawn to help set up for another Middle Patuxent stream assessment – this time at the Middle Patuxent Environmental Area which is upstream from the other Middle Patuxent field trips I had done this fall. It was a field trip that had been canceled previously because of high water (see the post about hike I made that day).

The day was cloudy but dry. I enjoyed the hike down to the river.

The water was low enough that we could walk across near one of the riffles without jumping from rock to rock. I was wearing two pairs of socks to fill out my boots and keep my feet warm. My table got macroinvertebrate identification (after we captured them) was set up on a gravel island in the middle of the river. The other two were on the bank further downstream.

20181026_104804.jpg

Mayfly larvae were the more numerous critters we found – all sizes. There were numerous good photos taken with the macro lens by the students.

But the highlights of the day were two larger critters. The crayfish was large enough that it had to be in the plastic bin while the hellgrammite fit into the ice cube tray. Photos of these did not require the macro lens!

The group of 60 students managed reasonably well in the cold; it might have been a little warmer at the river level when we were dry. I realized as I walked back up the path afterwards that I was cold but for the two hours I was in the river – I was warm enough and overwhelmingly focused on the experience with the students.

Ferns under the Deck

/
20181003_100337(0).jpg

Our deck is over a story off the ground and it always in deep shade. I planted some Christmas fern a few years ago and it is almost overwhelmed with the splash from between the decking above. I think this is the first place I will put compost (as mulch) when it is ‘done’.

I thought he shade would be ideal for the fern and that it would propagate itself. But the muddy mess is not good for anything growing there unless I can find a way to improve the situation. Having mulch instead of mud should be an improvement.

IMG_4685.jpg

On the other end of the space under the deck there is some moss growing and maybe some little ferns. I’m not sure. I’ll spread some around them when I disperse my compost. The deer don’t seem to be bothering them so far.