May 25, 2018

Ten Little Celebrations – May 2018

May 25, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

My celebrations in May were all about aspects of being outdoors in spring –

20180515 bioblitz snail.jpg — ***Finding a snail on a blade of grass*** at Belmont during a BioBlitz with 7th graders.

Catching the horse chestnut tree in bloom at Belmont.

Discovering a black rat snake coiled in an oak tree when I was hiking with kindergarteners and talking out what might live in the tree.

The smells of spring (and trying to figure out which plant it is).

2018 05 IMG_0733.jpg — ***Seeing an orchard oriole and Baltimore oriole*** during a birding event in Baltimore…firsts for me.

And the same was true for the kingbird.

Discovering new perspectives on common plants with a macro lens on my Smartphone

Brookside Gardens – there is something there many months of the year. This May it was dogwoods and butterflies (in the conservatory)….and the many subjects for macro photography that the gardens contain.

Warmer days --- but having time indoors with air conditioning when it is overly warm.

A rainy day at home was something to celebrate because we had been so dry earlier in the spring…and because I needed a day off from field trips and butterfly exhibit volunteering. May is probably one of the peak months for the type of volunteering I do.

May 24, 2018

Howard County Living Farm Heritage Museum

May 24, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

The Howard County Living Farm Heritage Museum was a place I’ve never been before this week – was there as a volunteer to support all day field trips for several schools.

2018 05 IMG_0801.jpg — My role was to guide the student scientists as they analyzed forest soil (our entry to the forest was marked by a cone). One of the days was more challenging when heavy rain moved it…mud everywhere! Fortunately the temperature was warm enough and the students remained enthusiastic about what they were doing; we retreated to the shed and analyzed the (very wet) soil.

Before the students arrived, I did a little photography. Plants are always a favorite…and I’m still experimenting with the clip-on macro lens for my smartphone camera.

I looked at the rust on an old plow.

There was a very large tree that looked like the trunk had been twisted. There were several kinds of lichen and moss growing on it.

As I walked around the tree, I noticed the bark had formed and eye-like pattern…like a dragon just waking up.

May 23, 2018

Baltimore Birding – part 3

May 23, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

We continued our Baltimore Birding experience with a walk around Fort McHenry the next morning. It was mostly sunny and warmer. Even with the better light and no rain – I saw more birds than I managed to photograph. I’m featuring the ones that say still long enough for me to get the camera in position. There were quite a few Great Crested Flycatchers (I remember seeing one in my back yard last year about time…posted about it here).

There were American robins in the grass.

The small birds moved around rapidly in the trees. I think this one is an orchard oriole.

I photographed mushrooms when I saw them. The mulch was support several groupings….and a sycamore stump had a collection of small shelf fungus.

There was a grackle aggressively defending a trash can at the front of the visitor center.

There were mallards about. There was a female that looked calm for the moment…the males were being very aggressive.

There was a ‘mixed breed’ duck…probably mallard and a domestic duck of some kind.

There were some sycamores along the path that did not look healthy. I wondered if salt water incursion was happening through the seawall around the fort….or maybe they are all the same age and getting old. I took a picture of one that already had its top gone; there was a knot with leaves sprouting at about eye level with ‘wrinkles’ on all sides – almost like skin.

We headed over to a marshy are beside the fort…and I managed to finally get a picture of a one kind of swallow we say: a tree swallow. We saw barn swallows on our walk as well.

Overall our Baltimore Birding experience provided a different perspective on the city. I would guess that birding in just about any city would have the same results. Maybe it is something we should do more often….although the amount of trash (particularly in the water) is always depressing.

May 22, 2018

Baltimore Birding – part 2

May 22, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing from yesterday’s post….

We continued along the Gwynn Falls/Middle Branch trail and it seemed to get darker and wetter. Here were mushrooms coming up in the grass beside the path.

My husband held the umbrella while I took a picture of a yellow warbler and

Some very wet flowers.

The cedar waxwing only showed up in silhouette.

We walked out of the trail and closed the loop back to the cars along the street. Under some bushes beside a fence – a common yellow-throat was busy in the mulch.

We got back into the cars and continued to the Middle Branch Park boathouse. We trooped over the wet grass to paved paths were full of puddles. I was glad I’d worn my boots! I saw a Baltimore Oriole and managed to photograph an orchard oriole.

The last bird of the day was a kingbird that seemed to pose for pictures – moving to show both sides.

Tomorrow I’ll post about our birding around Fort McHenry.

May 21, 2018

Baltimore Birding – part 1

May 21, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

My husband and I participated in the Baltimore Birding Weekend this past weekend. It’s a new perspective on the city for us. On Saturday morning we participated in a session that started at Swann Park and then walked several segments of the Middle Branch Trail parking convenient to trail access: in the Harbor Hospital parking lot, on Warner Street near the Horseshoe Casino, then at the boathouse at Middle Branch Park on Waterview Ave. It rained for most of the time we were out, but my husband and I stayed dry enough in boots, rain pants and windbreakers (I used an umbrella part of the time because my windbreaker was not as waterproof as I thought it was).

Because it was raining and cloudy…and I was often holding the umbrella….I didn’t get as many pictures as usual although the umbrella enabled me to get more than I would have otherwise because it kept the rain off the camera. There were a lot more birds that I saw but couldn’t photograph. The bird pictures are often good enough for id but not much else. At the first stop (Swann Park) – I managed a double-crested cormorant (way out over the water) and killdeer (on the walkway ahead of us).

The second stop (accessed from the Harbor Hospital parking lot) was cut short by the path being flooded under a bridge. We did see a mallard family (4 ducklings) head out into the water before we turned around and went back to our cars.

We parked along Warner Street near the Casino next. Our destination was the Gwynn Falls/Middle Branch trail head, but we stopped to note the bird mural on one of the buildings.

There were a lot of smaller birds in the woods which I didn’t manage to photograph but the rain let up slightly and we stood on a bridge over the water. The trash was depressing (it is everywhere but particularly in the water…some of it probably came from a long way down the Patuxent River). The black-crowned night heron seemed to take it in stride.

There was a green heron nearby as well.

But the highpoint of being on the bridge was a belted kingfisher that flew toward us, under the bridge and then settled onto a branch. I took some pictures. It had a fish but made no move to swallow it….and then it flew on.

I’ll continue our adventure in Baltimore Birding in tomorrow’s post.

May 20, 2018

May 2018 Tree Status

May 20, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

All the trees are growing well with the warmer temperatures and rain. The sycamore behind our house has lots of small green seed balls among its new leaves; last year a freeze came at the wrong time and the tree only produced one seed ball.

The tulip poplar is full of flowers as usual. Its leaves are larger than the sycamores at this point. Later in the season the sycamore leaves will be the largest.

The maple had so many seeds early in the month that they made the tree look brownish…but then the were blown off the tree and the maple looks like is normal summer self.

The sweet gums are starting new seed balls as well. They look like spikey globes among the leaves.

2018 05 IMG_0648.jpg — But the celebration of tree blooms this month is the horse chestnut. The tree I photographed is at the end of the drive up to the manor house. The top fell out of the tree several years ago but the part that Is left is blooming profusely. I stopped one day after I finished hiking and leaned out the open window of my car to take some pictures of the flowers.

May 18, 2018

2018 Belmong BioBlitz – part 2

May 18, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Continuing from yesterday….there was a web of very small spiders just off the path. They were all moving rapidly although it wasn’t clear where they going!

20180514_bioblitz spider web.jpg — Another benefit of the rain was the increased visibility of spider webs in the grass. Sometimes we could even see the spider hiding in the ‘funnel’ of the web.

20180514_bioblitz star of bethlehem.jpg — These small white flowers were found down by the pond. They aren’t native – probably planted sometime during Belmont’s long history - but they are propagating themselves at this point.

20180515 bioblitz lichen.jpg — The lichen and moss seemed to have richer colors because of the dampness all three days of this year’s BioBlitz.

The group also documented a stand of locust trees – native but invasive; the stand was probably started by fill dirt that included the seeds.

When we started the last day, we thought it might start to rain at any time --- and were thrilled when we go about 1.5 hours of good observations – tadpoles, small insects, trees…and ropey roots under one of the big trees along the road. We headed back to the Carriage House at lunch time; it started to sprinkle as we got there.

The 2018 Belmont BioBlitz in a wrap!

May 17, 2018

2018 Belmont BioBlitz – part 1

May 17, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I’ve been volunteering for the Howard County Conservancy’s Belmont BioBlitz field trips since they started in the fall of 2014. We had a 3-day BioBlitz this week with students coming from 2 schools. On the first morning the day started out foggy and stayed cloudy. While we were waiting for the buses to arrive with the students, I took some pictures.

The horse chestnut tree was blooming although the blooms were past their prime and some had fallen to the ground already. I took a picture of one with the macro lens on the cell phone.

All the vegetation was covered in water droplets. Even grass seeds look like little works of art with the droplets.

The buses came up the tree lined drive. There are more gaps in the tree line now that the ashes have been cut down.

We headed back to our assigned ‘zone’ in the woods – finding white pines along the way to document and then a box turtle and violets gone to seed on the forest floor.

Stay tuned for more BioBlitz finds in tomorrow’s post.

May 16, 2018

Macro photography before hiking

May 16, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Last week I was at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm for several field trips (kindergarteners and second graders). Before the field trips, I walked around the grounds and experimented with some more macro photography with my smartphone – using the same set up as I did at Brookside Gardens earlier (results from Brookside here).

It is sometimes surprising how different something looks with the macro lens. The textures along with the small structures I wouldn’t see otherwise are what makes it so appealing to walk around taking pictures with the macro lens. My favorite in this group is the baby pear.

The highpoint of the hikes with the school groups happened during the kindergarten field trip. I had walked up to the front of the farm house with my first group of the day. We were talking about what might live in the big oak tree near the house. They answered squirrels and birds right away. I turned around to look at the tree – and noticed a black coil in a depression of the trunk about at the eye level of children! The sun was shining on it like a spotlight. I turned back to the children and told them that black rat snakes live in trees too – and there was one right on the trunk of tree (and I was glad we were not standing any closer than we were). The two parent chaperones took a step back. The children just watched as the snake started moving and crawled under the loose bark of the tree. What a fabulous drama to start a field trip!

May 14, 2018

Blue Morpho Butterflies

May 14, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

One of the most popular butterflies to photograph in Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit is the blue morpho. They flutter around within the conservatory. They feed on the rotten fruit.

The underside of their wings seems drab at first (and it is drab compared to the other side of the wing) but with magnification the pattern and colors are quite interesting. The palpi (the bristly structures that are between the eyes) have an orange stripe although the palpi seem to be easily broken off and there is orange along the outer edge of the wing. The eye spots are at least 3 colors.

2018 05 IMG_0552.jpg — They seem to like to look to the outside through the windows of the conservatory. Their wings are sometimes so battered that one can see the blue color where part of wing has broken away.

They sometimes like to rest on the floor – always a dangerous place for butterflies with people not always looking where they step. Most of the time they are resting with their wings closed.

Then – the serendipity event happens – the blue morpho opens its wings and stays where it is long enough to be photographed! The color is made my physical means rather than pigment…and changes with the incidence of light. Do you see that sometimes the blue looks pink? This is the first time I was able to capture an image of the changeable color of the blue morpho.

May 11, 2018

Brookside Wings and Wine

May 11, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Earlier this week we attended an evening event at Brookside Gardens that included wine tasting and appetizers in the non-butterfly end of the conservatory building….then watching the butterflies respond to the sun sinking to the horizon.

2018 05 IMG_0563.jpg — When we first entered, the conservatory seemed calmer. The zebra longwings – and other butterflies – were beginning to find a roosting place in the fichus tree.

Others were on the walls or ceiling of the conservatory. I’m sure there were many that found a place in the foliage where I didn’t notice them.

There were two flowers on the passionflower vine that is the food plant for a couple of the longwing butterflies; there were no butterflies around it.

Just before sunset, the owl butterflies became more active – many dances through the air. I was waiting for the male cecropia moth that has emerged from its cocoon last Sunday to fly from where it had been hiding in the fichus tree all day. But it stayed where it was. These larger moths do not eat as adults so maybe there was no pheromone in the air of a female cecropia moth…and he didn’t feel the need to move! I contented myself with a zoomed image of it through the foliage.

May 10, 2018

Clearwing Butterfly

May 10, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Some butterflies do not have scales…or have very few of them. There are a few specimens in Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit and I’m always thrilled to see them. I rarely spot them on my own and most of the time I’m busy with my volunteer job as a ‘flight attendant’ so I can’t take pictures. Recently I was walking around the exhibit – not volunteering – and I had my camera and a tripod. There was a school group visiting the exhibit and they’d spotted a clearwing!

The butterfly was focused on breakfast of nectar from some white flowers (the proboscis was not rolled up between flowers….the insect was hungry!) so was staying put long enough for pictures.

The ribs that provide the structure for the wings are more obvious when the wing is clear. In the case of this butterfly they are a metallic copper color. Sometime that color is reflected in the thin membrane that is the wing.

There do appear to be a few scales on this time of clearwing – on the upper edge of the wing…some white and copper color.

Seeing a clearwing is one of the things that makes a walk in the exhibit special.

May 09, 2018

Macro Photography with a Smartphone

May 09, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Before my second shift at Brookside Garden’s Wings of Fancy exhibit, I spent a few minutes doing some macrophotography with my Smartphone. I ordered a clip-on macro lens from Amazon last fall to use to photograph macroinvertebrates but haven’t done a lot of other photography with it until now.

2018 05 IMG_0321.jpg — Brookside Gardens is a great place to experiment. There is so much in bloom right now including the buckeye near the conservatory. The flower has a very odd shape through the macro lens (it looks like it has Mickey Mouse ears!). Even the tips of evergreen shrubs become something unexpected.

The center of the dogwood bloom is a riot of shapes. I’m going to photograph them again next time I go to see how it changes as the seeds start to develop.

Dandelion seed puffs are recognizable.

Just about any flowers are good subjects for macrophotography.

I ran out of time in the garden. My shift was beginning. I got one last picture just before the first visitors came into the exhibit – a spicebush butterfly egg on spicebush leaf. It looks like a very tiny pearl.

May 08, 2018

Blooming Pathways

May 08, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

2018 05 IMG_0412.jpg — During the same walk where we saw tulips near the end of their time in the Brookside Gardens, We noticed a lot of other spring finery along the pathways.

I always look at the ginkgo tree near the conservatory; the leaves are unfurling, and the mail flowers are abundant. Multiple leaves come out from a single bud, so they look like clumps early in the season. As the leaves get larger the clumps overlap and are not as obvious.

The azaleas are beginning to bloom. Bushes peak at different times. Some were still just buds last week. The flowers that are a mix of white and deep pink are probably my favorites.

There was a peony near the path…. lovely from every angle.

Dogwoods are blooming too. The tree is one of my favorites. We had a dogwood in our yard when we first moved to the east coast 35 years ago; that’s when I really learned about the tree…observing it throughout the year. The trees in our area now survived the disease that wiped out many of the trees about 10 years ago….and they are blooming robustly this year.

So - the blooms will fade, and their will be even more abundant greens – all shades…deepening into the richness of summer.

May 07, 2018

Last Day for Tulips

May 07, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Last week my husband and I walked around Brookside Gardens enjoying the tulips. Some of the early bloomers were past prime enough that the volunteer gardeners were taking the bulbs up from the beds. I will have to find out next time we go to the garden what replaces tulips.

Some were widely open, and I enjoyed the curls and graceful curves of the waxy petals. My favorite tulips are the ones that are mostly yellow…tipped with orange. The colors remind me of sunrise and sunset.

There were some hybrid tulips up near the visitor center that were catching the mid-morning sunlight. They had a stronger scent and I wondered if the original plants were more heavily scented that the hybrids that we plant now. Tulips have gone through extreme breeding; perhaps bloom shape, color and longevity are more important than the smell.

I enjoy them all as a fleeting vision of spring. We’re on to the next round of blooms.

May 04, 2018

Blemont’s Nature Place Space

May 04, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I have been volunteering with the Howard Country Conservancy’s preschool programs at Belmont recently. The weather was a little cool for the first few weeks…but it’s warming up – a lot – this week.

2018 05 IMG_0315.jpg — The station I fill for most of the programs is about trees. We talk about trees growing from seeds and look at ones from trees around us like sycamore (pictured below), sweet gum, tulip poplar, and maple.

A new addition that the children enjoyed this week is a nature play space. There are still some features that will be added, but the preschoolers were excited to jump from stone to stone and to climb up onto the big log….all in the middle of the meadow where it was just warm enough for cabbage white butterflies to be moving about.

The joys of being outdoors in the springtime!

May 02, 2018

Wings of Fancy – 1st shift

May 02, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I had my first shift for this season’s Wings of Fancy shift at Brookside Gardens earlier this week. The exhibit is opening an hour earlier this year to take advantage of the morning temperatures. Visitors will appreciate that during the summer. Like last year – I took a short walk around the gardens before heading into the conservatory. The gardens are lush even with the variability of rain and temperatures so far this spring.

The azaleas are blooming but I decided to walk through the are where the tulips are blooming….lots of color on a spring morning. I walked fast because it was chilly at 8:30 AM (in the 40s and breezy).

I was in the conservatory waiting for the first visitors and decided to take a few pictures. I was surprise what I was able to do in 10-15 minutes! My theme was heads – eyes, antennae, proboscis, and papillae. I’m sure they’ll be many other butterfly pictures this season (the exhibit runs until September 16), but I’m pleased with my first batch. Hopefully a reflection of the happy place the exhibit creates comes through too!

April 26, 2018

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2018

April 26, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

April has gone by very quickly…full of company and travel and the beginning of the spring volunteering blitz.

Six of the 10 little celebrations were experiences outdoors – typical celebrations of springtime everywhere:

Blue birds and tree swallows were making their nests I the boxes at Mt. Pleasant in Maryland.
There were ducklings at Josey Ranch Lake in Carrollton, Texas.
An eared grebe at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge near Sherman, Texas.
Macroinvertebrates in the Middle Patuxent close to home.
Spicebush in the forest behind my house and at Belmont Manor and Historic Park (both in Maryland).
Deciduous Magnolias blooming at Brookside Gardens. Maryland got a freeze at the wrong time in 2017 and most of the blooms turned brown from the cold just as they were opening. It was a treat to see them again this year.

I celebrated the end of two long driving days between Maryland and Texas. Both were blustery and more traffic than expected. It felt good to be done!

My new iPad is something I celebrate every time I create another Zentangle with it! I a pleasantly surprised with how easy I made the transition from pen and paper tiles to digital.

I thoroughly enjoyed a meal at a Brazilian steakhouse – this time managing to savor the flavors and not overeating. I even topped off the meal with dessert!

Finally – the Watershed Summit where the high schools of the county presented their report cards to the county government for their steams and school yards – based on data they collected last fall. Each of the 13 high schools had 2 presenters. They all were so poised and organized. It was a double celebration: the environmental findings trending positive in most cases and the quality of the students in attendance. Both bode well for the future.

April 25, 2018

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in Spring

April 25, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

2018 04 IMG_0095.jpg — I visited Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge earlier this week. The day was too cold and too windy….but was the only one that fit it the schedule. I remembered to take pictures of the metal work near the visitor center.

2018 04 IMG_0106.jpg — In the garden near the front of the visitor center, I didn’t see any butterflies…but there were dried blooms from last season left on the trumpet vine growing on the arbor and a clump of bluebonnets (we’d seen larger patches as we drove to the refuge along the highway).

We decided to use our car and a moving blind and protection from the wind….making our way slowly around the wildlife drive of the refuge. There were not many birds but enough to make some photography attempts. The most unusual was a Eared Grebe in breeding plumage. Someone in the visitor center had commented about seeing a pair but we only saw one.

There were some American avocets a little too far away for a good picture on a cloudy day. They can be identified with the picture I took….and there is a Great Egret in the foreground.

There were also Snowy Egrets (black bill and legs, yellow feet).

Very far out in the water on snags were American White Pelicans and Double Crested Cormorants.

The Greater Yellowlegs was closer and intent on finding some lunch.

The Great Blue Herons were numerous and seemed to all have the blue topknot of mature birds.

We saw one turtle positioned for maximum sun (warmth) but there were probably more.

There were still some Northern Shovelers on the water; most of them have left for their breeding grounds in the north. A pair of Blue Winged Teals were hiding in the plants beside the road as we were leaving; they are close to their breeding grounds based on the allaboutbirds map…so might have just been making a last stop over.

I took a few shots of wild flowers as we drove out of refuge….just rolled down the window and used the zoom!

Not bad for a cold, cloudy day!

Posts from my visit in November 2017: part 1, part 2.

April 24, 2018

Carrollton Texas Yard

April 24, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

It’s a good time of year for gardens in Texas --- the weather has not gotten too hot. I like plantings around base of trees. They’ll go into the summer too.