Zooming – August 2016

Like last month – I selected images this month where I used the zoom on my camera past the 30x that the lenses do. The digital zoom goes to 120x. I’m often surprised by what I am able to ‘see’ via the camera.

For example – the green eye of this Cabbage White Butterfly on blooming mint. It misses being a great picture because of the errant piece of grass and the other mint plants in the foreground…but it works for identification. Speed is important when trying to photograph anything that can move (like insects) so I opt to get some kind of picture rather than a perfect one!

Black eyed susans from early in August. These three seemed to go together – further back in the garden so zooming was the only way to photograph them without stepping on other flowers. I like the curly petals of the one in the foreground.

Early in August the trees looked like we were going to have an early fall. This is a zoomed shot of the tulip poplar from my office window – across our backyard. Now most of the leaves that were yellow have fallen and there don’t seem to be many new ones – yet.

The sycamore keeps getting new leaves all through the season while the other leaves keep getting larger and larger. This is a new leaf that I took from my office window. I like the blurred background behind the leaf that comes with the lens focusing on the leaf.

Sometimes I like to use the zoom to get my shadow out of the picture. This is a mature seed pod on a sweet bay magnolia (at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm).

In the Honors Garden at Mt. Pleasant Farm, the algae mat at the edge of the water feature was attractive to bees.

It also was a good place to look for small plants. I like the red edges of these small leaves. I was able to stand comfortably on the walkway to take my pictures rather than leaning over the small pond.

Birds are easier to photograph if I can stand further away. This male goldfinch was tearing a zinna flower growing on my deck apart with a vengeance.

Sometimes the flowers themselves are my topic. I liked the curves of the petals and the black background in this zoomed image.

The butterfly has not clue I was even around. Using the zoom on the camera is a great way to see insects better than you can with just your eyes.

What about this fly on a milkweed leaf? I was surprised by the red eyes.

 Took two pictures of an insect pollinating a chicory flower. The color on the head and thorax seemed to glitter in the sunlight! But the pictures are not quite good enough to key out what it is.

That’s enough….I may have gone overboard for the zooming post this month but I had so many images to choose from!

Black Eye Susans in the Morning

Yesterday I realized the days were getting shorter because it was really dark when I got up about 5:30. I was keen to do some morning photography by the time the sun came up and decided to try the patch of Black Eyed Susans in the front of the house. The first one I zoomed in on looked like its petals had been eaten by something. Are deer that adept?

I liked the curves and folding of the petals just beginning to expand from this bud.

The lemon light of morning makes the color of the flowers look like a deeper yellow than the mid-day light will show. The petals also do not all keep to the same plane from the central core of the flower.

The tips of the petals are not all rounded – and that gives the flowers more variety…and a sense of movement.

I couldn’t resist the curlicue of these petals!

Nature Photography with Mt. Pleasant Summer Camp

The day after I volunteered at Belmont – I was at the other Howard County Conservancy location - Mt. Pleasant – for the same activity. The situation was easier because I had more assistants and the day was not quite as hot. It was harder because there were 15+ more campers (3 groups instead of 2). I started out with a short loop hike before the first group – just to check out what might be interesting topics. I focused on a stand of milkweed after I noticed a smallish Monarch caterpillar. It was the only one I saw on any of the plants but one is better than none!

There were very active red milkweed beetles – mating and foraging.

There were aphids too.

I took fewer pictures with the campers since the groups all had 15 children. The two youngest groups needed a lot of attention. With the oldest group – ages 9-12 – more of the campers had some experience with cameras and were more independent taking pictures so I took some pictures of my own. My favorites were of ripening blackberries,

Horse nettle (with thorns visible…and obviously a plant that is buzz pollinated),

Milkweed bugs on butterfly week (the orange of the bugs matches the flowers quite well!),

Spice bush swallowtails on cone flowers,

Tiger swallowtails on cone flowers (the ones with blue are females, without blue are males),

And my favorite image – a black eyed susan flower just opening amid a lot of greenery.

Deck Garden Challenges – July 2016

Through June and into July, it rained frequently enough for the pots on the deck to not need other attention. The day lilies bloomed profusely earlier in the month with almost no effort on my part. Give them a reasonably deep pot and they do great.

But then the rains stopped. Everything started to wilt and I pulled the house attached to the spigot down below up to the deck to make watering easier. Now that the temperatures are getting into the high 80s or 90s in our area of Maryland, I water every morning while the deck is still in the shade and the temperatures are still in the 70s. I empty and refill the bird bath every morning too (a way to make sure I am not breeding mosquitoes!).

The day lilies are about done for the season. I’m going to use every pot and large container I have around to transplant day lily bulbs from the flower beds where the deer at the flowers before they could bloom. There are both yellow and red day lilies that should bloom on the deck next summer if I manage to dig the right bulbs!

I’m transferring attention to plants that the birds and butterflies will like now or when they go to seed in the fall. I’ve already had gold finches checking the zinnias; the flowers have not quite got to seed yet so this bird was out of luck.

The black eyed susans will be popular for their seeds too. I planted some sunflowers but they don’t even have buds yet.

I haven’t harvested any mint yet this year and I’m not sure that I will. I love the smell of the plants when I am watering.

The Flowerbed in Front of our House

It has been so rainy that I haven’t been able to do much work in the flower beds around our house. In the front, the growth is luxuriant. The chives seem to be growing faster than I can harvest them to add to salads. Yesterday I added a handful of chopped chives (flowers and all) to pureed hardboiled egg and hummus. I spread it in a pita and used the leftover as a ‘dip’ for celery sticks and carrot chips. Yum!

All around the chives, the day lilies are everywhere and the deer have not bothered them like they have in the past few years (eating the leaves down to the ground as fast as they grew). Hopefully with all the other food this spring, the deer will leave the lilies along. Comin up next to the downspout from the gutter are two milkweed plants. They are weeds – but I’m going to let them grow and hope that some monarch butterflies visit our garden to lay their eggs.

Do you see the tulip poplar seedling? That is something I need to pull before it gets any bigger. The daylilies and Black Eyed Susans will stay.

And then there are the irises – just beginning to bloom. Some of the buds look like they got waterlogged or too cold and are not developing further. But the plants that are blooming are gorgeous as usual. I like them even more because the largest grouping of irises is visible from the skinny windows that frame our front door.

On the other side of the front – there is another milkweed growing in a bed that is being overrun by grass. Some focused pulling needs to happen all around it and the young nine-bark bush we planted a year ago.

The front of the house looks very green – and will look even better as soon as I am home on a sunny day and spend the time to do a bit of clean up and out in the front flowerbed!