Vernal: A Spring Photo Project (Day 61 through Day 70)

To this point I've shared two months worth of spring photographs.  As of today (June 21st) spring has reached its end, but I have a months worth of photographs still to share.  Here are the photos from day 61 through day 70.  To see the previous set of images follow this link.

Day 61 (19 May 2019) - Plum flowers

We have a plum tree right outside our back door.  It rarely produces much fruit, but every spring it is absolutely covered with blossoms.  I photographed these flowers after a light rain covered everything with water and softened the light.

Day 62 (20 May 2019) - Audubon Woods Creek

Another rainy day.  This image was taken in a light drizzle at the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Audubon Woods Preserve.  The CWC owns 23 separate properties, but Audubon Woods is my favorite because of the mature trees.  The center of the preserve can often feel ten degrees cooler than the edge.  The water trickling over these rocks helps add moisture to the air cooling it even further.  Even the color of the woods feels cool as the mist in the air diffuses the light making everything glow green as the sunlight penetrates the forest canopy.

Day 63 (21 May 2019) - Dandelions 

Spring wouldn't be spring without dandelions.  Homeowners may not love them, but the bees and other pollinators do.  Some people are taking notice - the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture has adopted the policy of not mowing until the dandelions have gone to seed.  I photographed this dandelion bloom in the lawn at the Isabella Conservation District office.

Day 64 (22 May 2019) - Forest Ecology Studies 

Most of the programs that I do are in the classroom out of necessity, but every year I take students from Winn Elementary out to Audubon Woods to explore forestry and forest ecology.  In this photograph the students are measuring the distance from a stake (representing the center a 0.1 acre plot) to a tree in their study plot.  If the tree is within 37 feet of the stake (the radius of a 0.1 acre plot), they will then get an azimuth to the tree, measure the diameter of the tree, and record all of this date on a map of their plot.  I keep copies of all this date in the hope that it can be used to record changes in the forest over time.

Day 65 (23 May 2019) - Look up...

May 23rd was another day of forest ecology studies at Audubon Woods.  I think actually took more photographs of students on this day than I did on the 22nd, but my favorite photo of the day was taken when the students had gone back to school for lunch.  Looking up, I spotted this combination of blue sky, white clouds, dark branches, and yellow-green leaves.  With the sun lighting up the edge of a cloud formation I couldn't resist this photograph.

Day 66 (24 May 2019) - Honey Locust Thorn 

This photograph was taken right outside my back door.  We have a large honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos) growing only a few feet from the house.  This tree provides lots of shade in the summer and a home for many species of birds and insects (not to mention squirrels).  The most interesting thing about the tree is the large thorns that grow from a few branches.  The honey locust originally developed these thorns as defense against ice age mammals - now they are just a reminder of a time when elephants walked the tundra and forests of North America.

Day 67 (25 May 2019) - Fern Frond 

Another photograph from home.  This fern covered with a layer of fine spider webs was photographed in the garden on the side of the house.  This image has been cropped to a square from its original format.

Day 68 (26 May 2019) - Home, Sweet Home

On May 26th we drove about forty-five minutes from home to visit my parents near Laingsburg, MI.  At one point I took a few minutes to walk around their property looking for something to photograph.  As I walked past this nesting box in a wooded area, a wren popped its head out of the box.  It's not grand architecture, but it's good enough for a wren.  If you look close you can see the wren's toes gripping the entrance hole.  The bird looked at me for a few seconds and then flew off into the underbrush.

Day 69 (27 May 2019) - Iris

When we moved into our house eight years ago there was already a patch of irises planted on the south side of the house.  I think these are Siberian iris, but am not certain.  I love the nectar guides on each large landing pad of a petal directing pollinators toward the nectar (and pollen).  The large serrated leaves in the background belong to cut-leaved coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata).

Day 70 (28 May 2019) - Wild Columbine 

My final image from this set of photos was taken at the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Williams-Blackburn Preserve.  Wild Columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis) is one of my favorite late-spring wildflowers.  It's very photogenic when the flowers are fully mature (like this one), but I often miss out on finding them so it's always exciting to find a perfect bloom.  One really interesting thing to me about these flowers is how hairy they are.  Look close and you can see that the petals, stem, and leaves are all covered with minute hairs.  I like being able to peer in and see that level of detail.

Vernal: A Spring Photo Project (Day 51 through Day 60)

I've fallen way behind on sharing the images from my spring photography project.  Here are my photos from Day 51 (09 May) through Day 60 (18 May).  If you haven't been following along, my goal is to photograph something outdoors in nature every single day this spring.

Day 51 (09 May 2019) - Tulips

I love tulips.  They are the only non-native flower that I regularly add to our home garden.  Last fall we planted nearly three hundred tulip bulbs all red, orange, and yellow.  I love the pop of color that they add to spring.

Day 52 (10 May 2019) - Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a birder.  I do not chase birds, but this spring the birds seemed to find me everywhere I went.  This blue-gray gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea) was photographed at Mission Creek Woodland Park as it foraged on low branches of an eastern hemlock tree.  A second after I captured this image the bird flew off.

Day 53 (11 May 2019) - World Migratory Bird Celebration

So this photograph was taken indoors.  It's the only image of this entire photography project to be taken inside a building.  (I also took one indoor image during my Summer 2018 photography project.)  This picture shows my friend Rebecca Lessard with Pearl the red-tailed hawk at the World Migratory Bird Day Celebration at the Ziibiwing Center in Mt. Pleasant.  Rebecca is the founder and executive director of Wings of Wonder, a raptor rehabilitation center located near Empire, MI.  She has been the presenter at the Ziibiwing Center WMB Celebration several times.  I think this is the best image that I have ever taken of Rebecca - she is a blur of motion when presenting and it's almost impossible to photograph her well in low light.

Day 54 (12 May 2019) - Jack-in-the-pulpit

Forest Hill Natura Area is not particularly rich in spring woodland wildflowers, but I did manage to find several jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) plants in the South Woods.  I love all the shades of green in this image.  This photo was taken right at ground level using the LCD live viewer to compose the shot - I like this feature as it means I no longer have to lay on the ground to shoot images from this angle.

Day 55 (13 May 2019) - Northern Parula Warbler

Another bird that found me.  This male Northern Parula (Setophaga americana) landed on a branch right at eye level during a walk through Mill Pond Park.  Normally these birds are found high in the canopy, but they will be found lower in the forest during migration.  Although as I said before, I am not a birder, it's hard not to admire a bird as beautiful as this one.

Day 56 (14 May 2019) - Large-flowered Trillium

The Chippewa Watershed Conservancy has recently been gifted a new property along the Chippewa River east of Mt. Pleasant.  This property consists of three acres of riverbank and will eventually be developed as a preserve with a canoe landing.  On May 14th a small group visited the property to conduct a biological survey.  I identified approximately forty species of herbaceous plants including this large-flowered trillium (Trillium grandiflorum).  This image has be deliberately underexposed so that the highlight didn't completely wash out.  I like that you can see all the little grains of pollen both on the stamens and on the white petals surrounding the stamens.

Day 57 (15 May 2019) - Waxing Gibbous Moon

I have really grown to enjoy photographing the moon.  Fortunately, the sky in Alma is dark enough that I can do it right from my driveway any time the notion strikes me.  I recently purchased a new (better) tripod head that holds long lenses in place much better than what I was previously using, making this kind of photography easier.  This image of a waxing gibbous moon has been cropped to a 16:9 widescreen format for no other reason than I like how it looks.

Day 58 (16 May 2019) - Common Blue Violet

Another image photographed at home.  Common blue violets (Viola sororia) are slowly trying to take over both as a groundcover is our flower gardens and as the dominant plant in parts of our lawn.  The seeds of this flower are eagerly collected by ants.  The ants eat a fleshy coating known as an eliasome and discard the seeds in their garbage middens where they sprout easily.  I like the details such as the hairs of the flower's beard and the dark veins on the petals.

Day 59 (17 May 2019) - Environmental Education Day

For each of the past ten years the Isabella Conservation District has hosted an environmental education day for third grade classrooms in the county.  This year over 550 students and 100 adults attended.  One of the many highlights is a live display of Michigan reptiles and amphibians.  I love how the students in this image are interacting calmly and with curiosity toward an eastern garter snake.

Day 60 (18 May 2019) - Bleeding Hearts

Another photograph from our home flower gardens.  While tulips are my favorite garden flower, Shara loves bleeding hearts.  She is still upset about the bleeding heart plants that we left behind when we moved more than eight years ago.  (I will admit that the bleeding hearts that we planted in Alma have not yet grown to the magnificence of the plants that we left behind.)  One of the first photographs that I ever took with my first digital SLR camera was of a bleeding heart flower in that garden.  I cropped this image to a 16:9 widescreen format to focus solely on the flowers and remove some of the distracting foliage of other plants.

Vernal: A Spring Photo Project (Day 11 through Day 20)

On March 20th, the date of the spring equinox, I started a new photography project.  The title of this project, Vernal, translates from Latin as "of, relating to, or occurring in the spring".  My plan is to photograph something in nature every day of the season through the summer solstice (June 21st).  Last year I did a similar project for summer; who knows I may keep this going through the summer months too...

If you missed my images of the first ten days of spring they can be found here, otherwise enjoy the new photographs!

Day 11 (30 March 2019) - Raindrops on Alium and Tulip

This picture was taken at ground-level in our flower gardens at home.  While the focus of our gardens in native plants (We love the pollinators!), we definitely make room for spring flowering bulbs.  I must have planted close to 400 bulbs last fall to replace and replenish those that have died out over the past several years.  This image has been cropped from the regular 3:2 format to a widescreen 16:9 format to emphasize the plants as they emerge from last year's leaf litter.  Don't rake those leaves out of the flower beds - they're free mulch!

Day 12 (31 March 2019) - Friends, Robins, Countrymen...

This American robin (Turdus migratorius) was photographed at Chipp-A-Waters park in Mt. Pleasant.  Perched upon this decaying stump, with its chest puffed out, this robin looks like an orator standing upon a stage ready to address an audience.

Day 13 (01 April 2019) - Blackbirds

  This image of birds silhouetted against backlit clouds was photographed at Forest Hill Nature Area near Alma.  Spring can be rather dreary at times and I think this photograph would work just as well to illustrate the month of November.  Forest Hill was originally acquired by the Gratiot Conservation District and has been operated as a nature center by the Gratiot-Isabella Regional Education Service District (GIRESD) since the 1990s.

Day 14 (02 April 2019) - Potential

Early spring is all about potential.  We know what spring will become, but we are stuck waiting.  Se we search for signs everywhere.  Birds newly arrived from the south.  Green grass peaking up in the lawn.  Or the buds of buds of a boxelder (Acer negundo) swelling with the potential of new leaves.

This image was photographed at Mill Pond Park in Mt. Pleasant during a foray to photograph red-winged blackbirds.  The blackbirds didn't want to cooperate, but the trees were willing.

Day 15 (03 April 2019) - Marsh Marigold 

On this day I found my first marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) plants of the year at Mission Creek Woodland Park.  Some of the ground remained frozen in the shadowy areas of the wetlands, but seeps running down to the creek create warmer microclimates.  This plant was emerging from the water in one of those seeps.  To capture this angle of the backlit leaf, I placed my camera directly on the ground next to the seep and used the digital viewfinder to compose the shot.  Normally I don't use the viewfinder, but it is a nice feature for shots like this.

Day 16 (04 April 2019) - Acorn Caps

On Thursday April 4th I had several classroom programs canceled due to a scheduling conflict.  This gave me the rare opportunity to escape into the woods for an extended time.  With my schedule opened up I drove to the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Audubon Woods Preserve to walk the trails.  I found this cluster of acorn caps hanging on a broken limb dangling from a small pine tree.  I like this image for the simple composition and the variety of textures on the caps and branch tip.  Audubon Woods is my favorite CWC preserve - I spend several days there each spring and fall conducting forestry studies with students.

Day 17 (05 April 2019) - The Ant and the Crocus

This photograph was taken in the flower garden along the south side of our house.  Every evening when we come home from work, before we step through the door, we walk around to look at what the plants in the garden are doing.  These crocuses are among the first flowers to bloom - attracting bees, flies, and ants to the pollen and nectar.

Day 18 (06 April 2019) - Up Periscope!

Those little periscope-like structures are known as sporophytes.  They are the reproductive part of a moss.  Under the right conditions, mosses will grow those sporophytes; when the capsules at the top open up their spores will be released to the mercy of the wind and rain.  Most will never grow into a new plant, but a lucky few will land in a place with just the right conditions and establish a new colony.  This picture was taken at Audubon Woods Preserve prior to a guided hike.

Day 19 (07 April 2019) - Wood Frogs

This picture of mating wood frogs (lithobates sylvaticus) was photographed at Forest Hill Nature Area.  This picture already appeared in my previous post.  To learn more about the mating habits of wood frogs click here.  I know it's only April, but this is the early front runner for my favorite image of the year,

Day 20 (08 April 2019) - Pollination Station

I photographed this small native bee on striped squill in our lawn.  Along with grape hyacinth, this small plant moves around in or flower gardens and invades our lawn.  I never know for sure where it will pop up each spring, but the early pollinators love it.  In addition to this native bee, I saw a couple European honey bees taking advantage of a warm sunny day to fuel up on squill nectar and pollen.

Of scattering abroad...

This morning I had a little bit of time free after giving a program at Fancher Elementary.  I hadn't been out in the woods for a few days do I decided to head to Chipp-A-Waters Park and walk the trails.  I didn't have plan, I just wanted to get outdoors and take a few pictures.  Almost immediately I noticed a Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) with a few seeds still hanging to its dried out pods and nearby was Bitter Dock (Rumex obtusifolius) with its flattened seeds.  When I a bit further I noticed the fluffy seeds of a Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) and a Boxelder's (Acer negundo) winged samara.  At that point I had an idea - how many different fruits, seeds, or nuts could I find?

#1 - Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)

#2 - Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa)

#3 - Bitter Dock (Rumex obtusifolius)

#4 - Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis)

#5 - Boxelder (Acer negundo)

#6 Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota)

#7 - Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora)

#8 - Buckthorn (Rhamnus sp.)

#9 - Common Burdock (Arctium minus)

#10 - Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)

#11 - Honeysuckle (Lonicera sp.)

#12 - Aster (Symphyotrichum sp.)

#13 - Eastern Poison Ivy (Toxicodendrom radicans)

#14 Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides)

#15 - Orange-fruited Horse-Gentian (Triosteum aurantiacum)

#16 - Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis)

#17 - Japanese Barberry (Berberis thunbergii)

#18 - American Bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia)

#19 - Black Locust (Robina pseudoacacia)

I spent barely thirty minutes in the park.  My first photograph was taken at 10:46AM and my final photograph was at 11:16AM.  Of the nineteen species that I photographed, seven are not native to Michigan.  Of those seven, five are considered invasive species.  To say that Chipp-A-Waters Park has an invasive species problem would be an understatement.  Birds readily consume the fruit of Buckthorn, Honeysuckle, Multiflora Rose, and Japanese Barberry helping the species spread further.  Eventually, if nothing is done to stop their spread the wooded areas at Chipp-A-Waters Park will be completely overgrown with these species and many of the native species found there now will be choked out.

Is the situation hopeless?  No, of course not.  However it will take planning and effort to reduce and control the invasive species and encourage the native species found there.  

The Days of Summer - Day Twenty-four through Day Thirty

This part four of my Days of Summer photography project.  Sometimes I get so busy with work and everything else in life that I forget to take time to get out in nature.  So I've given myself a photography project that requires me to get outdoors every single day.  Starting with the Summer Solstice (21 June 2018) and ending on the Fall Equinox (22 September 2018), I will get outdoors every single day to take photos.  One picture from each day will be shared here.  To see last week's installment click here.

I hope you enjoy looking at this photos as much as I enjoy taking them.


Day 24 (14 July 2018) - Queen Anne's Sunset

This image of the sun setting behind a Queen Anne's Lace or Wild Carrot (Daucus carota) bloom was photographed at Forest Hill Nature Area.  This has become my go-to location for photography for this project.  Forest Hill is located less than fifteen minutes from home.  If I didn't get anywhere else during the day, I can always find time to run to Forest Hill for a short photo visit.

Day 25 (15 July 2018) - Square-stemmed Monkeyflower

On Sunday July 15th I spent the afternoon at Chipp-A-Waters Park in Mt Pleasant for the second annual Chippewa River Water Festival.  The Isabella Conservation District had a booth at the festival and I was helping pass out conservation swag and literature.  I was also scheduled to lead three nature hikes through the park during the afternoon.  During one of the scheduled times, I had no takers so I went by myself with just my camera as a companion.  This Square-stemmed Monkeyflower (Mimulus ringens) was growing on a point bar along the edge of the Chippewa River.  There were probably thirty of these plants total - I normally find less than ten a year.

Day 26 (16 July 2018) - Wheatfields and Stormclouds

This picture was taken near the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Sylvan Solace Preserve wet of Mt. Pleasant.  Clouds are always a good photo subject.  So are fields of ripening wheat.  This location had both.  This is my second photo of a wheat field, but I think this image is more about the clouds than the wheat.   I also liked that I could get a picture without trees on the horizon.  (There are a couple on the far left of the picture, but they don't detract from the open horizon feel.)  About ninety minutes after this picture rainstorms moved into the area.

Day 27 (17 July 2018) - Waxing Crescent Moon

This photo of a waxing crescent moon was taken from my backyard at 10:25PM.  This picture has been cropped from the original to a square image.  I like the sharp lies of the crater edges where the sunlit side of the moon meets the half in shadow. 

Day 28 (18 July 2018) - Twelve-spotted Skimmer

Some days it's hard to pick a favorite photo to share.  This was not one of those days.  This male Twelve-spotted Skimmer (Libellula pulchella) was taken at Forest Hill.  When I spied it perched on this grass, back-lit by the setting sun, I knew it was a "winner".  This image has been cropped from a horizontal to a vertical format.

Day 29 (19 July 2018) - Cedar Waxwing

I spent nearly thirty minutes at Mill Pond Park watching Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) flying over the Chippewa River to snag insects out of the air.  Occasionally one would land on a tree limb about twenty feet in front of me.  This is one of about seventy-five picture of fur different Waxwings.  This image has been cropped considerably with about 1/3 of the picture removed from the left and 1/3 removed from the bottom.

Day 30 (20 July 2018) - A Hole in the Clouds

The final image of the week was another one from Forest Hill Nature Area.  I spent an hour photographing the setting sun, the moon, clouds, and a sun dog.  As we were preparing to leave I spied this patch of light peeking through a dark cloud.