Macro Photography – March 2024

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Sometimes I get in the mood for macro photography. It has happened several times this month.

The first was at my mother’s funeral. I was thinking about the bouquet of daffodils/narcissus that her neighbor cut from their old yard (with the new owner’s permission) and decided to take some macro views of the flowers while we were waiting for the service to begin. I thought about all the joy my mother experienced with her garden…with the flowers growing there and the ones she cut to bring inside. And that she transmitted that joy to her daughters.

The second round of macro photography was when I trimmed some low branches from one of my pine trees and decided to take a closer look at one of the branches.

Pine cones are so sturdy….they are hard on my lawn mower…but there is a fragile aspect to them too. At close range they are wrinkled and folded and etched.

The bark on a small stem shows where needles once grew and the expansion of the stem making brown islands in gray green.nce.

The bud at the end of stem looks reddish surrounded by green needles. Once again – I realize how much color there is that is unnoticed until we take a closer look.

The last macro photograph is one my daughter sent via text when she visited the Memphis Botanic Garden recently. She knows how much I enjoy finding fiddleheads….and evidently had caught the macro photography bug too. These were interesting because of the felt-like covering that must have protected them until they started to unfurl.

Zooming – September 2023

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The beauty of the early morning in Texas - Hagerman and Josey Ranch and my parents’ yard….the wildness of Shaw Nature Reserve (near St. Louis MO) in the early afternoon…the joys of nature in my neighborhood (Nixa MO). These are the locations where my selections of zoomed images for September were made. The month was very much between summer and fall – starting hot and getting a bit cooler as the month progressed, still very green but the occasional beginning of fall color. Enjoy the September slideshow!

Shaw Nature Reserve (1)

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My daughter and I made our first visit to the Shaw Nature Reserve last week. I had ordered some native plants to be picked up during the Fall Wildflower Market. We arrived shortly after noon, before the market started, which gave us ample time for a short hike in the Whitmire Wildflower Garden and along the Bush Creek Trail. After checking in at the visitor center (using my Friends of the Springfield (MO) Botanical Gardens for entrance) and getting a token to open the gate to the reserve’s Pinetum Loop Road, we drove all the way around the loop. We stopped to walk out to the Crecent Knoll Overlook. Thistles were one plant that was blooming.

The vegetation was thick with a variety of plants. We stayed on the trails to avoid picking up ticks and sticky seeds! I used my optical zoom to photograph some spheres on the back of a leaf. Galls?

After completing the loop, we parked near the northern trailhead for the Brush Creek Trail. A tree had been cut into sections near the trail (probably after it had fallen on the trail. The saw marks make it difficult to count the rings.

Some of the areas are limestone glades where the plants don’t grow as densely. I noted a very weathered piece of limestone.

The only insect I photographed intentionally was a grasshopper that was not much over an inch long. I was pleased that I managed to focus on it! Will it mature enough to lay eggs before winter?

There was a sculpture among some of the fall wildflowers!

There was an area that had a lot of new-growth ferns. I enjoy photographing fiddleheads. It always seems miraculous that they start out so tightly packed…and unfurl into large fronds!

The persimmons were not ripe yet…but I was thrilled to recognize the bark and fruit (with the sign to confirm the id).

There were several kinds of fungus we saw on the hike as well. Lichen (yes there is algae there too, but I am lumping it with the fungus,

Shelf fungus,

And 2 kinds of mushrooms. The first reminded me of vanilla wafers.

There were 2 groups of the second kind. They were very close to the trail and it looked like someone had kicked the parts of the clump closest to the trail (why do people do that?). These reminded me of small crepes!

Stay tuned for more from our hike at Shaw Nature Reserve in tomorrow’s post.

St. Louis Jewel Box

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The Jewel Box is a 1930s vintage greenhouse in St. Louis’ Forest Park. There was a major renovation in 2002 so the building is in excellent condition. The plants are primarily around the edges of the interior leaving space for weddings and other events. Our visit was on a Monday morning – the only other people we saw were people outside working on the water lily pond and the flowerbeds around it.

From the outside, the Jewel Box has the glass walls stairstep up to a flat roof. The framing of the glass panels has a blue patina. There are trees and grassy areas on the sides of the building…the water lily pond in the front.

Inside there were glass panels that divided the entrance area from the larger open area.

The fiddleheads of tree ferns always get my attention. The interior space was appealing – full of light…lush plants around the edges.

Getting to the Jewel Box required a short walk. There is no parking area close so we parked on Macklind Dr. and followed the sidewalk past a naturalized pond,

A nearby magnolia blooming profusely,

And plantings, including a columbine, in a shady mulched area.

Then we came to the lily pond in front of the Jewel Box. It was an opportunity to photograph them in the morning sun.

We took a different route back to the car after seeing the Jewel Box: past the Colonial Daughter Fountain

Then over to the Korean War Memorial that includes a sundial. We puzzled over the flag on the far left…realized later in the day that it was the St. Louis flag!

The short visit was well worth it – for the architecture, water lilies, learning about a part of Forest Park!

Marcus Bayou and Johnson Beach (Pensacola FL)

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Marcus Bayou is a boardwalk over a water reclamation facility. We were there in the afternoon – enjoyed a forest walk without worrying about mud or tree roots! We heard many forest birds but did not see any long enough to photograph. The height of the boardwalk made for excellent views of shallow water…full of leaves and vegetation…reflections. The water appeared to be the color of weak tea.

The pine needles were long and there were both green and brown ones on the boardwalk – along with other debris. The boardwalk surface was rough….maybe stained pine.

There were quite a few ferns…a few fiddleheads. My camera’s zoom helped me get reasonable images of them from the boardwalk.

The next morning we visited another part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore – Johnson Beach. We waited a little too late for a lot of bird activity…only saw a Great Blue Heron

And some Laughing Gulls at the beach.

It was windy and I opted to photograph the various plants on the dunes that help hold the sand. There are wavey grass-like plants and others that hunker down and must sometimes get partially buried. The round glossy leaves barely above the sand were my favorites.

The roads in the National Seashore have areas of shallow water and accumulating sand – piles to the side where plows have scraped the sand just as they do after snowstorms in the north! We learned that the standing water happens after rainstorms…and dissipates quickly. That was true. There was a lot of rain the first night we were in Pensacola…and water on the road to Fort Pickens the next morning. We could see that there was a lot less water when we went to Fort Pickens the second time.

Carrollton Yard – March 2023 (1)

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The next few months, until the heat of summer becomes oppressive, should be the prettiest months of year in Carrollton, TX yards… including my parents’ yard. There were so many things to see when I was there in late March, that I am writing about them in two posts (today and tomorrow).

Seeds from a neighbor’s tree were all shades of green to brown….blowing over the back yard (will any of them sprout?).

The usual early spring flowers were up. My mother cut some of them to bring indoors; the garden still held plenty more.

The fiddleheads in the front flowerbed were healthy looking. They survived the prolonged period of 100 degree + days last summer better than the blue rug juniper ground cover (more than half of it died). Being in the shade most of the time must have helped although some of last year’s fronds looked burnt in August.

I was surprised to see several clumps of mushrooms around the base of one of the old mulberry trees. The tree itself was leafing out…so it’s unclear why that grassy area was so hospitable for mushrooms. I took the opportunity to do some macro photography….of course.

I enjoyed two servings of edamame pods and composted the empty pods afterward in one of the flowerbeds. It is surprising how much happened to them in 2-3 days! I’ll check them again in late April!

Longwood Gardens – Fiddleheads

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I always look for fiddleheads on the tree ferns in the Longwood Gardens conservatory. The visit a few weeks ago was no exception. Somehow the tight coils of the fiddleheads are more awe inspiring than the fully developed fronds! Some are fuzzier than others! They often start out as a wad of coils and then unfurl enough to be coils within coils…then single coils along the main rib. If I ever have access to a fern with fiddleheads for a longer time, I would like to capture a time series of images - the unfurling of a fiddlehead.

Zooming – May 2020

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I was in Texas for more than a month; all the zoomed pictures for May 2020 are from Carrollton TX (either at my parents’ house or nearby). The usual subjects – plants and birds dominate but there is an occasional squirrel or insect….and the big claw picking up branches after the trees were trimmed. It was good to finally be able to see my family again after more than year – be in place other than my house. Wherever I am, there always seems to be something to observe and photograph. Enjoy the slideshow!

Carrollton TX Yard – Fiddleheads

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The ferns that flourish in the front flower bed of my parents’ house always surprise me. I think of the area being too dry in most places for ferns. They come back every year in the flower bed on the north (slightly west) flower bed where it is shady, and the sprinkler system keeps it wet enough. It is early in the growing season so there are fiddleheads among the fronds….and those are what I wanted to photograph.

I like the tight spiral at the tip…the expansion if the fronds from the base upward and the interesting coils that sometimes emerge as part of the frond unfurling. Fiddleheads are something I search out every spring. I missed my usual places in Maryland….so these are a welcome substitute and very convenient just outside the front door of my parents’ house!

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/26/2020 – Through the Window

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Registering for virtual events. Just as I was beginning to miss birding festivals and the annual Master Naturalist training day – offerings of virtual alternatives appeared in my inbox! The registration was minimal, and I don’t have to be anxious about what the pandemic situation will be in late May and June. They are both on my calendar!

Surveying the yard. (Happened on the 25th…but I didn’t have time to write about it then). The weather was dry and in the 60s – a good day to get out and do some yard work. I used the electric hedge trimmers and worked on the bushes in front of the house for about an hour….and then walked around for some nature photography: there are 2 iris buds! Once they start opening, I plan to cut the stem to enjoy inside…avoid the trauma of having the deer eat them.

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There was also a small weed blooming in the flower bed…which I left.

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There are so many tulip poplar seeds flying around – inevitably, some of them produce seedlings. Repeated mowing handles the ones in the yard but the ones in the flowerbeds must be pulled. They make awesome specimens for the tree module of pre-school field trips…which are not happening this year; they make the point very well about how much of the tree is underground! These ‘baby trees’ went back to the brush pile after I photographed them.

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Some reddish clover like plants are growing in the grass and moss on the shady hillside to the north of our house.

Near the steps down from our deck – some evidence of a bird’s demise. I hope it wasn’t the phoebe that was a frequent morning visitor to our sycamore.

Under the deck, the Christmas fern is full of fiddleheads – new spring growth.

I did an ‘intimate landscape’ picture of moss (dead and alive) and violet leaves.

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The photography was a great finale for my yard work.

Watching a crew take down a dead pine tree in our neighbor’s yard. The tree was obviously ailing last summer and the few needles still on its branches were dry and brown. It’s good to have is down before it fell during wet and windy weather…maybe smashing into a house or fence or storage shed.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

And now for the monthly ‘through the office window’ post…I was at home for the whole month so there were a lot of photographs taken through my office window to choose from. Birds were the primary subjects: Carolina chickadee, brown-headed cowbird, dark-eyed junco, Carolina wren, common grackle, cardinal, American goldfinch, house sparrow, red-belled woodpecker, eastern phoebe, mourning dove, house finch, rose-breasted grosbeak, downy woodpecker, and chipping sparrow.

The red maple’s samaras ripened over the course of the month. Click on the middle picture below to ID the bird munching on the seeds.

And there was one sunset picture in the mix. Overall - it was a good month for photographs through the window!

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Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/20/2020 – Walk in the Forest

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

The unique activity for yesterday was a very pleasant walk in the forest behind our house all the way down to the river (a winding path of at least 1/3 mile down…and then back up the same way.

We entered the forest at the back of our yard on a path made by deer between a black walnut – just beginning to leaf out - and a large tuple poplar. There were many violets on both sides of the narrow path. I had tucked my pants into my socks to make a barrier to ticks.

The forest floor seemed to be covered with garlic mustard (invasive) with a few spring beauties where it wasn’t so dense. A large tree had fallen recently with dirt still clinging to the roots. The red maple in our yard keeps me from seeing the area from my office window.

There were several dogwoods just beginning to bloom.

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We joined a trail used by horses from a nearby stable…wider than the deer trail. Spice bush is the most prevalent understory tree.

Flowers were blooming, there were sounds of moving water, and a few bugs were around too. We heard two different woodpecker sounds.

There were several different kinds of ferns. I always like to photograph fiddleheads!

And then the small stream we had been following joined the river. It was quite different from the last time we had been there more than a decade ago. Two trees had fallen recently (one still had green leaves on it). The trunks spanned the river. The trees had made what had been a riverside path into a cliff. There were some alternative places down to the water level but not in the immediate vicinity. We took a few pictures of flowers and headed back up the hill.

Along the way, I noticed that there was a stand of hemlock that appeared to be healthy – no wooly adelgid. The hemlocks that we had been able to see from our house when we first moved to the area 25 years ago died years ago.

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I also stopped for every jack-in-the-pulpit I noticed on the hike uphill. There didn’t seem to be as many of them as there should be. Probably the overgrowth of invasives like garlic mustard makes it harder for them to propagate.

We got back to our yard and I took a picture of the samaras on our red maple…closer to being ripe.

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I saw what I thought was a spider web in the grass but when I took a closer look, I realized it was dandelion seeds! My husband probably mowed it yesterday….dispersing the seeds.

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I’m glad we took advantage of the great weather since rainy days are forecast….but we’ll take more hikes into the forest as the weather warms. I’ll use insect repellent next time since there were a few flying/biting insects even at the relatively pleasant 60 degrees. It’s great to have a forest to hike into from our own back yard!

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

Longwood Gardens – Part II

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My favorite plants to photograph in the Longwood Gardens Conservatory are orchids, fiddleheads, and hibiscus.

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The only time I used my clip-on macro lens for my phone was to attempt to capture some very tiny orchids. This was good practice for photographing native orchids which are very small in our part of North America.

Then I noticed the different kinds of slipper orchids. They are probably my favorites. There was a couple in the room with us that had been growing orchids for years and they told me that the slippers are often the easiest ones to grow…good to know if I ever get the yen to grow orchids. They warned me that the hobby can be addictive.

Another bit of orchid-lore from them: some orchids have a butterfly mark in their center!

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Fiddleheads are always fascinating to look at closely. They are always spirals – sometimes spirals within spirals - that will eventually unfurl into the fronds of ferns. Often there is a fuzz covering the spirals that will be green – maybe shiny – when they are totally unfurled. The fuzz in white

Or brown (tree ferns). I am always surprised at how large the primitive plants can be – realized that earlier in earth’s history, ferns were the ‘big trees.’

There were some that were unfurled enough that the ‘fidddle’ was more of a ball of green.

I managed to see and photography several that were the spirals within spirals. Maybe these are ideas for a Zentangle tile!

Finally – hibiscus. I like their huge petals, the blends of color, the gentle curves, and the complex centers.

Tomorrow – I’ll post about the Longwood water lilies.

Brookside Gardens Model Trains (continued)

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The Brookside Gardens G-scale model trains exhibit’s last day is January 1. I’ve been volunteering as a conservatory docent since just after Thanksgiving – posting about my earlier shifts back on December 12. The shifts since then have been just as enjoyable at the first 4. Each one is a little different and I try to take a few pictures to document the differences.

The 5th shift was on a very cold afternoon with light sleet falling. Visitors to the exhibit were light so I had plenty of time to take some plant pictures in the other half of the conservatory and

The Ferris wheel and merry-go-round in the trolley track layout.

On the center track, Thomas and James were pulling trains. Emily was on a side track. The hard part of the shift was getting home; the roads had been treated and were not slippery…it was rush hour traffic. It took me more than double the normal time to get home. Aargh!

The 6th sift had my favorite engine of the season: one that smoked! The very coordinated volunteer from the train club that owned the train could use an eye dropper to add more oil to the smokestack (to make the smoke) while the train was moving!

Before the 7th shift, it took a series of ‘new leaves/fronds’ picture in the conservatory…and pink flowers to add some color.

Inside the exhibit – there was a Santa pumper added and Thomas was pulling a train. Both are favorites of the children,

The 8th shift was cold but I quickly took a picture of a dried hydrangea flower. I like the ‘lace’ of the weathering petals.

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Indoors there were poinsettias and orchids.

A Christmas train was the highlight of the exhibit for that shift.

I also noticed the hopscotch that is part of the Brookside Gardens trolley for the first time.

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The 9th shift included a festive train with lots of figures – including the Beetles –

And a more serious looking freight train.

I have one more shift to go – on the very last day of the exhibit!

San Antonio Botanical Garden – Part 1

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We took advantage of having a morning in San Antonio, Texas before our late afternoon flight home to walk around the San Antonio Botanical Garden. The first thing we noticed is that the garden is still being actively developed with some areas barricaded either for updating or new building. We headed to the conservatories forest. These are very different structures than the glass houses of the 1800s/early 1900s. They rise from concrete peers – high shards into the sky surrounding a courtyard. The climate in San Antonio is mild enough that even the courtyard looked lush and green at the beginning of winter!

There were sculptures in the gardens within the conservatories and the courtyard. My favorite was the ‘owl.’

The conservatories were divided by climate types: desert,

Primitive plants like cycads (l loved the color of the fresh cones)

And Screw pines (I saw the mature fruit in Hawaii and got a better look at the Phipps Conservatory, but this is the first time I saw the fruit at this stage of development).

I can’t resist the unfurling of ferns

Or the tropical flowering plants and trees.

And that was just the first part of our walk around the San Antonio Botanical Garden. There’ll be another post about the place tomorrow.

Zooming – November 2017

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In October, most pictures were plants…this month there is a mix but 10 of the 16 are birds! It was hard to not give up and just go with all birds since there were so many in my trek through Texas. Still – I like variety. The locations of the last 6 in the series below will have detailed posts in the next week or so. Enjoy the slide show.