Zooming – October 2023

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The optics of my camera allow me to capture images that are better than I can see with my eyes – flowers, insects, birds, cave formations and seed pods that fill the frame…driftwood isolated from the noise of other things around it….sculpture, glass, and fall gourds specially arranged….sunrises and a sunset….the beauty of a fall morning. Every picture is a memory moment – a visual that also serves as a reminder of a place and mood and relationship with the people that experienced it with me. The places were mostly close to home in southwest Missouri (art museum, meadow, caverns) but also St. Louis and along the route between home and Carrollton TX.

Ten Little Celebrations – October 2023

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Continuing deeper into fall…celebrating the seasonal changes!

Fall days – sunny and cool. A great time of year to get outdoors…perfect temperatures and blasts of color.

American White Pelicans. Seen in two places: Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge (Texas) and Sequoyah State Park (Oklahoma). It’s migration time. These are big birds that are fun to watch on the water and in the air. I always celebrate seeing them.

Apple Crisp. One of my favorite ways to use the fall apple harvest. It’s a little splurge on my diet…but well worth it.

First chili of the season. Another seasonal favorite.

Getting registered for an early winter birding festival. We signed in on the first day of registration and found that one of the sessions we wanted was already full; we picked an alternative and celebrated our itinerary when the registration process was complete. We are anticipating a wonderful week in December!

Butterflies and milkweed at Lake Springfield boathouse. Migrating monarchs and pipevine butterflies on thistles….milkweed seeds spilling out of pods…some favorite fall sightings.

Successful cleanup of my daughter’s fall yard (part 1). This is the second year I have offered to help my daughter do some fall yard cleanup. Our first work session was in October this year. I celebrated how much we got done in just few hours….we work well together! I am anticipating a second session in November.

Virginia creeper turned red. I let the Virginia Creeper grow in my front flower bed…spill over the low rock wall….and am celebrating that it has now turned red! Hurray for native plant fall colors!

Miniature pumpkin harvest. I was pleasantly surprised that my miniature pumpkin vines produced lots of pumpkins. As I harvested them, I celebrated the season…and the natural decorations for my breakfast table.

Company and fall cleaning. I had company twice during October and am celebrating their visits AND that the visits acted as an incentive to get my house cleaner and picked up going into the coming holiday season.

Fall Meadow at Lake Springfield Boathouse (1)

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We visited the meadow near the Lake Springfield (Missouri) Boathouse last week  on a sunny, but relatively cool fall morning. Near the Boathouse, I noticed some beautyberry and asters.

The large cup plant has already been cut down - the stumps of the 4-angled square stems obvious.

We noticed that the purple martin houses had been taken down; there were big mowers in the area around the boathouse as we walked toward the meadow.

A lot of meadow plants have already produced seed. The goldenrods and asters are still blooming…and a few thistles.  

The area that becomes an overflow creek during heavy rains was dry but there were some interesting plants around it:

Invasive bush honeysuckle with lots of red berries.

Seed pods of mallows.

There was only one milkweed plant I saw in the meadow…and wondered what happened to the plants I had seen earlier in the season. Perhaps they fell over, and the other plants hid them?

On the other side of the visitor center, I did find some milkweed with bursting seed ponds. The plants had fallen over but the seeds were still spilling out and floating away.

The vines in the trees were easy to see. The leaves on both poison ivy and Virginia creeper turn red in the fall! The edge of the forest is full of trees with the vines growing up the trunks and into the higher branches.

Tomorrow’s post will be about the insects we saw.

Lake Springfield Meadow – July 2023

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Earlier this month, my husband and I headed over to the Lake Springfield boathouse for some photography of the meadow.

Before we walked to the meadow, we looked around the boathouse itself. The American lotus is blooming in the shallow water near the boathouse,

The plantings of native flowers in the beds around the structure, and

A non-native, invasive rose is growing at the edge of the forest.

The Purple Martin houses are still full and there appeared to be a young one in the grass…still being fed by the adults but also beginning to fly about as well.

Summer flowers are beginning to bloom profusely in the meadow.

There are lots of insects in the meadow too; they present a little more challenge to photograph. This month I photographed bees, butterflies, and dragonflies. The dragonflies and butterflies were intentional; I waited until they were posed. Milkweed in bloom is impossible to photograph without bees; I am including the picture that had two well positioned bees – selected from many images where they weren’t. I couldn’t resist the bumble bee butt image…a zoomed picture of a flower that a bee just happened to be flying over!

As usual, the meadow is an active place and there is always something to photograph. In August, I’ll be looking for grasshoppers!

Zooming – June 2023

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So many photographic opportunities in June…close to home and in Texas. There were more biting insects around so staying on paths was all-the-more important; almost every image I took used the zoom on my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS). Enjoy the slide show!

The pictures include:

  • A sunny day visit to the Springfield (Missouri) Botanical Gardens,

  • An afternoon and then (a week later) morning visit to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge (near Sherman, TX), and

  • A morning at Josey Ranch Pocket Prairie (in Carrollton, TX).

Hagerman Wildflowers – May 2023

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The wildflowers were abundant at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in May…and the cloudy weather didn’t impact photography of them as it did for the birds. I enjoyed taking some assemblages of flowers in the roadside meadows.

Most of my images were zoomed in shots of single species – queen Anne’s lace, amaranth, coneflower, butterfly weed, milkweed….and more.

Some of the plants had insects on them too…an added attraction.

I experimented with some high key images too…the advantage of a cloudy sky.

The redbud near the visitor center is one of my favorite trees to photograph – an easy access specimen for macro photography.

I’m looking forward to seeing the changes when I visit the refuge in June. Some of the flowers will last through the summer….others will be done with their blooms for the year. Being able to visit a refuge like Hagerman every month is one of the best things about 2023 (so far)!

Zooming – September 2022

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There are 18 images in the zoom slideshow for September. Some are from around my house in Missouri. Others are from the Lake Springfield Meadow and the Springfield Botanical Gardens. One is from Carrollton, Texas. I have skewed somewhat toward macro images taken with my Smartphone but I still like to get ‘close’ from a distance with the optics of my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS). There will be plenty of opportunity for photography with my upcoming travel (2 out of the next 4 weeks) and the beginning of the seasonal change. For now – enjoy the scenes I captured in September…

Gleanings of the Week Ending July 16, 2022

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The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve: A windo into the past – A prompt for an early fall road trip? It is about 4 hours from where we live now.

Psoriasis: Study lays foundation for new treatment strategy – Hope more targeted treatment can be developed….avoiding the drugs used currently that suppress the immune system overall.

Winners of the 2022 Audubon Photography Awards Celebrate the Beauty of Our Feathered Friends – Images of birds in action.

The silent danger of gum disease – More reasons to sustain regular dental checkups….and for dentists to be vigilant.

The Milkweed Gang – Milkweed attracts quite a few insects…even if it is an island surrounded by invasive plants!

New species of giant waterlily is the largest in the world – It has been growing in Kew Gardens in 177 years and in a herbarium in Bolivia for 34 years….always assumed to be the well-known species of giant waterlily named after Queen Victoria. The leaves can grow up to 10 feet wide…and support at least 176 pounds!

Toads surprise scientists by climbing trees in UK woodlands – Even when we think we know a species well…there are still surprises!

This New Species of Carnivorous Pitcher Plant Traps Its Prey Underground – In the rainforest of Borneo at elevations of 3,600 – 4,265 feet.

Ozone Hole — New, Large, Constant Ozone Hole — Appears Over Tropics – 7x larger than then Antarctic ozone hole!

Unlocking the secrets of the ancient coastal Maya – More than a decade of interdisciplinary work increasing the understanding of how these people lived and responded to rising sea levels and changing political/economic systems. And still more to be learned.

Springfield Botanical Garden – June 2022 (1)

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So much in gardens changes between visits. The mosaics near rose garden of the Springfield Botanical Gardens are a constant although they depict aspects of the garden during the warmer part of the year.

June is still early enough in the season that the roses were full of blooms although the hot days were coming earlier in the year; hopefully the watering regime would keep them going a bit further into the summer.

The hosta garden is one of my favorite places when it is hot…very shady and plenty of plants that thrive in the dampness (sustained by mist watering) under the trees.

It was a bit of slog over to the Kickapoo Edge Prairie…but I was rewarded with a stand of milkweed in bloom near the end.

My route looped back by the Monarch play area…on the way to….

More about my walk around the garden in June tomorrow.

Posts about previous visit to the garden and Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden in April 2022

Neighborhood Walk

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It’s early fall in our neighborhood. There are a few leaves that are turning and falling. I found a pretty one at the base of our oak at the very beginning of my walk. The tree is struggling with the infection that is impacting (eventually killing) many oaks in our area and has already dropped about half its leaves. It will linger for a few more years. The one across the street has lost almost all its leaves already and I wonder if it will not survive the winter.

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As I walked toward the storm water pond, I noticed another oak that was mostly green…except for one branch of yellow leaves.

The pond was too peaceful and quite – no frogs or red-winged blackbirds making morning songs, no turtles coming out to warm up in the sunshine. There was no algae or floating water plants and I wondered if the treatment used to control that ‘problem’ killed the other life in the pond. They are not mowed as far down the slope as they did at one time, but it seems like it would be better to let the vegetation grow a little further up the slope.

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There were plants going to seed…some with candelabra type branches supporting their fluffy seeds.

There were two types of goldenrod. Do you see the out-of-focus bee at the right side of the second picture? I didn’t notice it until I got home and looked at my images on a big screen….glad I captured the image since it shows the value of these late blooming plants to pollinators.

The willow has a tall branch that is dead – lower ones that are still green with slender branches gracefully sweeping the bank and hanging over the water. There are shelf fungus growing up and down the dead trunk.

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There are a few plants still blooming. One was down in the grass and the picture I took looks like it has an arching fuzzy boa spilling from the flower! In reality the fuzzy boa is an out-of-focus grass seed stalk.

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One of the houses has several Rose of Sharon buses planted on the pond side of their fence. I liked the extra wrinkles of the purple one (not completely unfurled).

The milkweed stand at the back of the pond was a disappointment. It was still there was overgrown with invasive pear seedlings that have grown rapidly over the summer. Maybe they will mow the area later in the fall to try to control that invasion for next season although the pear will come up from roots as well as the milkweed.

Overall – a worthwhile walk on a coolish weekend morning before many other people were out in the neighborhood.

Patuxent Research Refuge – Milkweed and Goldenrod

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The milkweeds are going to seed and the goldenrods are blooming at the South Tract of Patuxent Research Refuge last week – typical fall meadow views. The milkweed seed pods have burst open and are spilling their seeds to the wind. The seeds have the possibility of starting new stands of the plant next year. The stands that are healthy now will come up from the roots already well-established next spring (i.e. no seed sprouting required).

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My favorite picture of the morning was the very first one I took – with the dew still sparkling on the fluff and the seeds still neatly emerging from the opening pod.

Often the goldenrod and milkweed are mixed in meadow areas but there are some almost pure stands of the goldenrod. It is the hero in the fall for migrating Monarchs and other nectar feeding insects. Sometimes the plant gets blamed for allergies, but it is insect pollinated, rather than wind. People with fall allergies are more likely to be feeling the impact of ragweed pollen!

Texas Butterflies

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After I shared my video of the Monarch butterfly emerging with my sisters, we started talking about the butterflies they are seeing in Texas. They are not seeing as many as they remember being around in the past….and in recent years the only times they have noticed Monarchs is in the fall during migration. One sister noticed 2 butterflies drawn to her cosmos…more than she had noticed before.  The plants are blooming profusely.

There was a Monarch that moved all around the garden. The picture shows that it is a female. The yard has plenty of nectar  for the butterfly but no milkweed for eggs/caterpillars. This time of year, a lot of plants go dormant in that part of Texas unless they are watered and milkweed usually grows in places that aren’t watered. Is this butterfly already on its way further south?

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She sent pictures of another butter asking for an ID. It’s obviously one of the swallowtails. The pictures of the upper side show clearly that it is a male pipevine swallowtail. Again – enjoying the nectar in the yard…but there are no host plants for caterpillars.

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In the not so distant past – there would have been a lot more butterflies drawn to the nectar in her garden. Butterflies – like a lot of other insects – are declining rapidly. There are a lot of reasons…mostly derived from human activity. Hopefully our actions can begin to reverse the trend…starting now. Nectar plants are prevalent in many gardens although skewing more toward native species rather than exotics would be an improvement. Beyond that, I am going to focus on host plants and not keeping my garden so tidy that I remove chrysalises/cocoons!

Yard Work

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My husband maintains the lawn part of the yard while I am away – but the bushes and flower beds are left for me to get back in control when I return. The milkweed was dominating the front flowerbeds….but there were no caterpillars (or signs that there had been caterpillars) on the plants; it was time to cut them down. There were some black eyed susans that came up through the day lily leaves beginning to bloom.

With the milkweed gone, the black eyed susans show up more. In my next round I’ll do my annual cutting of the day lily leaves to have fresh green ones growing until first frost.

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The Virginia Creeper is growing better than ever on the oak tree. I am leaving it alone this season.

I trimmed the Virginia Creeper growing into a window ledge. There were some ants underneath the leaves on the ledge….not good. I’ll monitor to keep it lower than the ledge for the rest of the season.

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The plant has suction cups that hold it to tree trunks and bricks…not as damaging as rootlets that some other vines have. I still cut the vines on the exterior of the basement because they were about to reach the siding and I did not want them to grow on or under the siding.

While I was cutting the milkweed – I noticed several things to photograph: 1) blooming mint. I have harvested it in years past but am opting to just let it grow among the day lily leaves now.

2) an insect exploring the nine-bark bush. I love the varying leaf color on the bush. It is growing well now, and I am reluctant to trim it because I like the lush and colorful new growth!

3) a zoomed images of a black-eyed susan flower.

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Our tiny holly has berries this year; they’ll start to turn red soon. I cut back the growth of the old bush (dying) behind the holly to maximize the space for the young bush.

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The ferns and grapevine are growing better than ever before under the deck. We are trying not to bother them although I worry about accidently rolling over them when I get the wheel barrow in and out.

The second morning of yard work, I took two wheelbarrows of trimmings from the chaos garden. There is one cone flower there….otherwise it is lemon balm gone wild, some blackberry canes, other invasives….leaves and sticks from the sycamore. There is still more to do in the coming weeks.

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The sycamore is already dropping its leaves…which is normal. The ones on the yard will be chewed up when we mow the yard. The ones on the stairs to the deck will be swept off and onto the yard before we mow.

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When I was taking the last load back to the brush pile at the edge of the forest, I found a red maple leave on the ground – already looking very much as all the leaves will look in upcoming months.

My goal is to work in the yard for 2 hours a week….trying to get it done first thing in the morning – when the temperature is the lowest of the day.

Short Hike at Howard County Conservancy – 1

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One of the big draws of Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant is that it is open from dawn to dusk….we always go early in the summer ahead of the heat. Last week, we were there before 8 AM when the air was still full of moisture burning off in the sunshine. The sweet bay magnolia in the rain garden near the parking lot was blooming…droplets of water on the leaves and flowers.

The milkweed plants are blooming in the meadow and we saw a Monarch butterfly. Hopefully there will be lots of caterpillars soon.

The Brood X cicadas were still around but definitely winding down. The morning was still cool enough that they weren’t flying around a lot…easier to photograph.

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The meadow was sunny…lush with growth after plenty of rain: a bunny munching on grass, blackberries ripening, and skippers fluttering.

There is some shade along the edges of the meadow…close to the stream. I liked the change in images that comes with that difference in light.

Near the end of our hike, I photographed some allium with light coming from behind. Again – enjoying the changes that light makes.

There were two ‘wow’ sights from the hike that I am saving for the next two blog posts….

Brookside Gardens – Part 2

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Continuing the images from Brookside Gardens in June…

The oak leaf hydrangea is in bloom this time of year. My daughter told me recently that the one in their yard (in Missouri) is blooming profusely and has a pleasant fragrance.

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There are lots of other things in bloom at Brookside – including some late blooming azaleas and the beginning of the milkweed bloom. The rose garden was taped off while we were there since it had been sprayed earlier that morning. I took one zoomed picture of a rose. The whole rose garden seemed to be full of flowers.

There are pyramids of art in the garden. I enjoyed the mosaics on the “El Salvador Memory” pyramid that was located near the visitor center.

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Early morning is my favorite time to walk in summer gardens and natural areas….before the heat of the day. Being outdoors makes for a good start for everything else the day brings.  

Mt. Pleasant – November 2020 (part 1)

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Our second field trip of the pandemic – birding at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant. We met the group at the Robbins Skywatch – distancing and wearing masks - to watch for hawks flying over. It was not an optimal morning with calm sunny weather. In terms of numbers we saw more vultures and crows than hawks…and the high point – for me – was a raven. I wasn’t trying to get pictures of the birds…felt lucky enough to track them with my binoculars.

I took some pictures from the vantage point of the skywatch: horse nettle fruits,

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Fall foliage across the meadow and on the other side of the Davis Branch,

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And some new houses that have been built in the past year or so (they change the feel of that area of the meadow for me…I prefer areas of the conservancy where surrounding development is not visible).

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I took a break to walk down to the Davis Branch ‘beach’ area (more about that area tomorrow). Along the way I started taking pictures of seeds spilling out of seed pods.

I walked across the meadow on the path where the chunk of quartz was taken out of the path to keep it from damaging the mower – has been just to the side of the path since. The indentation where was until a couple of years ago has almost filled in now.

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On the way back to the car I noticed that there are new doors on Montjoy Barn.

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I also walked around the other areas near where we had parked…taking in scenes from previous falls when I volunteered to hike with elementary school field trips: the old farm house,

The leaves under the gingko tree in the picnic area,

The witch hazel blooming in front of the Gudelsky Environmental Center.

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And then we were heading home after a pleasant fall morning at Mt. Pleasant.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

The sound of fall leaves. I ate lunch outdoors on our covered deck…listening to the leaves. The ones still on the trees are getting drier… and they make a different noise as they bump into each other than spring or summer leaves. They are the wind chimes of nature this time of year.

Zooming – October 2020

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Another month…a selection of zoomed pictures. The only picture of the group taken a little further afield than we’ve been since the beginning of the pandemic is the rather stern looking Great Blue Heron which was from our field trip to Conowingo Dam. There will be a few more such field trips in November as we build up our confidence to make the treks safely. Enjoy the show!

Our Neighborhood Pond – October 2020

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It was cloudy and damp when I started out at midday for a walk to the neighborhood pond. I keep telling myself that I should make the trek more frequently because there is always something of interest along the route or at the pond itself. Maybe I will do it over the next few weeks…until the weather gets too cold.

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The first surprise was a stalk of day lily buds. This is the second year that one plant has tried to bloom in the fall. If these buds get far enough along toward blooming – I’ll cut the stalk to bring them inside since otherwise the deer or a frost will get them. It would be wonderful to have the flowers indoors.

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I also noticed that not only are the mock strawberries getting some reddish leaves…they are also producing new fruits!

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The walk to the pond was full of walkways intermittently filled with leaves or pine needles. (There is a curb concealed under the pine needles!)

I got to the pond and took pictures of plants gone to seed and reflections in the water. The largest tree at the pond’s edge is a willow. Part of the tree has a lot of shelf fungus and no branches with leaves…standing deadwood. The pond was very quiet…the raucous red-winged blackbirds are gone and the frogs too cool to be calling.

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The milkweed pods in the meadow next to the pond were disappointing. It has been so wet that the even the pods that have split open are not spilling their seeds. I did notice one plant with some early instar milkweed bugs. I’ll go again after we have some dry days --- and hopefully see lots of fluffy milkweed seeds swirling away in each little breeze.

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As I started back toward home, I noticed that the oak that had some dead lower branches has been trimmed. Maybe the trim will help the tree survive. Unfortunately, it’s not the only oak in the neighborhood that has had problems in the past few years.

Overall – a good walk on a damp fall day!

Paintings of Flowers Indoors – September 2020

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Today the artists I’m featuring are from slideshows on Internet Archive that I looked at back in July and late August. It’s a treat to savor them again – and share them in a blog post. I picked out the flower pictures but there are many paintings with different subjects by all these artists. (Clink on the images below to see a larger version). The slide shows are well worth a look.

Rupert Bunny (1864 - 1947)

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

4 Caterpillars update. I found 4 Monarch caterpillars first thing in the morning. The one that was in the wheelbarrow then on a milkweed in another flowerbed may have moved to be closer to the other 3 since I didn’t see it for about 24 hours and now there are 4 on a group of milkweed near the front porch. The 2 of the 4 are now quite large. Hopefully, all of them will make their chrysalises in easy-to-see places so I can avoid disturbing them when I work in the flowerbed.

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Mini clover. We planted the mini clover 4 days ago and it’s already sprouted! (The clover is the small plants coming up between the other grass/weeds.) We’ve been watering the two areas every morning to give the seeds the best possible start.  Now there is rain in the forecast for the next few days so maybe we are about over the need to provide the extra water.

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