Solar Eclipse – Part 1

/

We traveled from our home near Springfield MO to Poplar Bluff MO for the solar eclipse on April 8th. There was a flurry of activity on the day before the event to finalize our destination; the weather forecast was the key driver for us to choose Poplar Bluff (along with Whitely Park being a good location that was not included as part of the event planning by the city).

We left our house at 5:30 AM to pick up our daughter and son-in-law before heading east; it wasn’t long before sunrise. I took some pictures of it through the windshield of the car (my husband did all the driving).

We did not encounter any heavy traffic during our morning drive…got to the park 2 hours before the first contact…plenty of time for set up and looking around the park. We set up on an asphalt parking lot that never completely filled up so we spilled over onto the two spaces on either side of where we were parked next to a fenced soccer field.

I walked around to look at a few low growing plants…

And trees that were just beginning to leaf out. I realized that the trees did no have enough foliage to make projected crescent patterns onto the ground as happened when we were in Loup City, Nebraska for the August 2017 solar eclipse.

On the ground – I noted roots of a sycamore, seed pods of sweet gums (from last year and green ones from this year) and a clump of green (probably a weed) surrounded by brown thatch.

There were birds about:

Two purple martin houses that were beginning to be populated. One had a pair of house sparrows too; I wondered how long it would take for the purple martins to evict them.

A starling in the grass – keeping an eye on the sky.

And a group of robins in a tree without leaves but lots of twigs that made it hard to get a good image.

I took most of my eclipse pictures with my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HX) on a tripod with a solar filter taped to the camera body to cover the lens until totality). I had eclipse glasses that I wore to look at the sun with my eyes and put over the camera on my iPhone to take one picture. I’ll post my eclipse pictures on Sunday along with some my husband took…stay tuned for that.

Lake Springfield Meadow – July 2023

/

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!

Missouri Botanical Garden – June 2023 (2)

/

There are aspects of the Missouri Botanical Garden that are not plants….but are part of the garden experience.

There are benches at handy intervals; it always seemed easy to find one in the shade! Maybe I will make a project of photographing more of the benches during some future visit.

The ceiling in the Sachs Museum is worth the few steps inside…check out whatever is being exhibited there too.

There is a statue of Henry Shaw, founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden near his mausoleum. He set out to create a major and lasting institution more than 150 years ago. He died in 1889 and the garden has continued to thrive in all the directions he initiated…has expanded in ways he could not have imagined. My first experience with the garden was via their Botanicus site where the Missouri Botanical Garden has been digitizing botanical books and making them available since 1995; I found the site in 2009 and have been browsing their books (mostly via the Internet Archive interface). Visiting the garden is something I have wanted to do for a long time.

The Japanese Rock Garden areas around the water feature have smooth curves created with a rake…and there are Japanese lanterns too. A Great Blue Heron flew to a large rock in the center of the water feature and began to preen; the Canada goose in the background is doing the same.

In the Chinese Garden there are mosaics made with small stones as well as the traditional lions at the entrance.

I liked the bench around a tree. It reminded me of the one at Longwood Gardens when my daughter was young; we used it as a resting place where she could easily get up to run into the mists when the big fountains came on (it was a warm day); and then it was gone as part of the fountain renovation. I savored that memory sitting on this bench half the country away from Longwood (near Philadelphia).

There are small sculptures of wildlife too: wood ducks in the forest, butterflies in the butterfly garden….

Geese and racoons as part of fountains.

A purple martin house looked almost full.

One of the green areas had a ‘Mowbot’ to keep it trimmed.

At the end – I took pictures of the floor in the visitor center…familiar leaf shapes: horse chestnut, tulip poplar, sweet gum.

Looking back, it was a good ‘first visit’ – but I already want to go again!

Lake Springfield Boathouse Meadow

/

The two Purple Martin houses near the Lake Springfield Boathouse are very active; there are always birds visible from the balconies. The houses are in the mowed area close to the boathouse and parking area – convenient for the birds to swoop over the meadow or out over the lake. It is very challenging to get the eyes visible with the dark coloring of the feathers!

A little further along the path and across from the meadow...there are periodic bluebird houses. One of the houses was being used by a tree swallow…another by an Eastern Bluebird that was still supplementing the nest inside.

The multiflora roses were blooming under the trees….a non-native plant that was promoted years ago, but is now generally viewed as invasive.

The meadow was mostly green….with a few plants beginning to flower The milkweed was up but not yet blooming.

I was glad I had by bridge camera with its optical zoom to photograph some insects. There were a few butterflies, but I didn’t manage to photograph any of them; they seemed to be moving about in a frenzy.

Many of the places where water makes it way down to the lake have scoured banks…the water trickling through the bottom of a ditch except right after a rain when the banks are eroded making ditch deeper/wider. There was one that was different with lots of vegetation on the banks – not eroded at all. I wondered if it was a new route for the water.

My phone and Bluetooth remote shutter control were used for some macro shots.

I was glad the boathouse had a small store since I had forgotten my water bottle. The day had started humid and a little cool, but the sun was out and the temperature rose pretty fast – an excellent morning to observe the meadow (glad we didn’t wait for the afternoon).

South Cape May Meadows – Part 1

/

After dinner on the first full day of the Cape May Spring (birding) Festival, we headed over to South Cape May Meadows, 200 acres near Cape May Point that is owned by The Nature Conservancy. There are two Purple Martin houses near the entrance; I photographed the birds and the ‘green roof’ of the nearby shed while we waited for our group to accumulate.

There were active Black Skimmers on the wetlands. It will take some practice (and more magnification) to truly capture the action. The Canada goose provides a good comparison for size in this sequence.

I caught a portrait of a skimmer that was momentarily still a little later

2019 05 IMG_8042.jpg

And a shimmer showing off its wings as the light was fading.

Tomorrow’s post will continue the sights from our late-in-the-day visit to South Cape May Meadows.