Springfield Conservation Nature Center - December 2022
/It was a foggy morning at the Springfield Conservation Nature Center; I opted to do macro and zoomed images rather than landscape compositions…and am relatively pleased with the way they turned out. There are remnants of the native plants in the area around the nature center: berries providing splashes of color along with the subtle colors but interesting shapes of dried plant parts and seeds…
The Beautyberry near the main entrance has wrinkled berries now that there has been more wintery weather.
I took a short walk down one of the trails. Some desiccated fungus on a downed limb was close enough to the trail to photograph.
Another branch had some interesting lichen that seemed to be growing more upward that usual. I regretted that I didn’t have a better camera with me to photograph it.
The other end of the branch must have broken recently…the shape reminded me of an open mouth or cave surrounded my lichen!
I long ago had ago had this stump be cut/exposed. The bark was gone from around the edges, but the rings were still easily visible. I didn’t take the time to count them.
The patches of missing back on a standing tree (probably dead) were probably the work of something looking for insects – maybe a woodpecker?
I started taking macro pictures of tree trunks…realized that it was more interesting if there was a patch of something rather than just the bark; lichen is the most common find…a bit of green and different shape among the crinkles of bark.
As I walked on the path, the floor of the forest was covered with small plants protruding from the thick layer of leaves. I realized that these small plants were an indicator that the area was not overly browsed by deer as so many places in Maryland had been…and a good indication that the native plantings I want to add around my house will survive!
Last but not least – I took one picture looking upward through the winter tree branches. Maybe next month I will do more landscape images from around the nature center….or maybe it will be cold enough to hike down to the water and take some ice pictures!
