Vernal: A Spring Photo Project (Day 41 - Day 50)

It has been nearly a month since I shared anything on this blog.  I've have been photographing every single day for my Vernal photo project, but I have suffered from both a lack of time (and often a lack of motivation) to write.  It's been so long since I have written that my mom has started to yell at me...

Here you go, Mom.

Day 41 (29 April 2019) - Rise up

The fiddlehead of ferns emerging from the ground are one of my favorite spring photography subjects.  I have been taking pictures of them since I before I purchase my first "real" camera.  Between film and digital I probably have hundreds of images like this in my archives, but I continue to take more.  Why?  Because it screams "SPRING" and after a winter devoid of color - anything green is more than welcome.  This photograph was taken at Mill Pond Park in Mt. Pleasant.

Day 42 (30 April 2019) - Raindrops on Tulips

Most of the plants in our garden are native to Michigan with one major exception - tulips and other spring bulbs.  I can't get enough tulips.  Every few years I plant a couple hundred in the garden on the south side of the house.  In addition to the tulips, we have several other spring flowering bulbs: alliums, grape hyacinth (which spread like crazy on its own), crocuses, and striped squill. But the tulips are the star of the show - my favorites are these variegated ones that have petals that fade from red in the center through orange to yellow on the edges.  This photograph of tulips covered with raindrops was underexposed a little bit to deepen the colors of the petals and the image has been cropped around the edges.

Day 43 (01 May 2019) - May Day Raindrops

Rain was a common theme for the beginning of May.  I took this image of raindrops hitting a pool of water on land owned by Shepherd Public Schools near the south end of Shepherd.

Day 44 (02 May 2019) - Dutchman's Breeches

Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) is perhaps my favorite spring wildflower (after skunk cabbage).  I photographed this stem of dutchman's breeches flowers at Chipp-A-Waters Park.  For many years I knew of only one patch of this flower in Mt. Pleasant, but in recent years it has both expanded at Chipp-A-Waters Park and begun to grow at another location along the river.  I chose this photograph because of the way the raindrops have beaded up on the flowers and stem.

Day 45 (03 May 2019) - Mayapples

What would the month of may be without mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum)?  I love how these plants pop up out of the ground  and unfurl like small umbrellas over the course of several days.  This photograph was taken at the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Audubon Woods Preserve.  This species spreads both by seed and clonally by spreading roots.  Audubon Woods is home to several large colonies Mayapple.  I imaging that if you were to look at the genetic makeup of any single colony you would find that the majority of the plants share the exact same DNA.


Day 46 (04 May 2019) - Grape hyacinth

This is the fifth day in a row that my photograph featured raindrops.  When we moved into our house eight years ago there was already a flower bed planted on the south side of the house.  One of the plants present was grape hyacinth.  Over time the as we have added other species of plants the hyacinth has "migrated".  Now many of the plants appear in the lawn.  I don't really mind.  They add a lot of color and when mowed the leaves look similar to the grass.  In this image I like the contrast between the vibrant green, deep dark purple, and the glowing raindrops.  Although there is no focal point thimage just works for me.

Day 47 (05 May 2019) - White Trout Lily

If I want to see white trout lily (Erythronium albidum) in Mt. Pleasant I have to search a certain patch of woods.  Many years I search without finding a single bloom.  I once went five years between sightings.  It isn't that the plants are not there, but rather that they take so long to bloom.  Their corms (bulbs) need to store up enough sugars to produce a bloom.  In non-flowering years, the plant produces a single speckled leaf.  It can take up to seven (or maybe more) years for a plant to store enough sugar.  This year I was able find a few flowers in bloom.  I like all the detail on the pistil and stamen in this image.  You can also see specks of pollen on the petals.  This image is worth clicking on to enlarge the details.

Day 48 (06 May 2019) - Love is in the air...

I thought I missed American toad (Anaxyrus americanus) breeding season this year.  I heard them calling at Chipp-A-Waters Park during the last week of April.  Then nothing more as the period of cold rainy weather hit mid-Michigan.  Thus I was actually kind of surprised when I heard them calling again.  There is a small wetland near the the canoe landing at the park.  Around the edge of this wetland could be seen several dozen toads calling periodically from the shallows.  This individual let me sit about five feet away as I waited for it to call again.  I like this image because not only can you see the fully inflated throat sac, but you can also see the ripples in the water cause by its calling.

Day 49 (07 May 2019) - Hide-and-seek

For me 2019 has bee the year of the wood duck.  It seems like every time I walked into the woods in April or early May I would see at least one pair.  On May 7th, while walking a trail at Mill Pond Park in Mt. Pleasant, I passed a small seasonal wetland.  Something caught my eye.  This wood duck drake was doing his best to "hide" perched atop this downed log, but his camouflage scheme left something to be desired.

Day 50 (08 May 2019) - A view of the sky

My final image of this set was taken at Chipp-A-Waters Park.  We spend so much time looking down, sometimes it's just nice to look up and take in the sky over our heads.  I like how the trees frame this opening, the bright green of their newly emerging leaves, an the varying shades of blue sky.

Vernal: A Spring Photo Project (Day 21 through Day 30)

I'm writing this on April 22nd, more than a month into my spring photography project.  We have finally turned the corner and spring is really here, but you wouldn't know it from a couple of the photos in this set.

The goal of this project is to get outdoors every single day and document what is happening throughout the entire season.  Some days I take hundreds of photographs and on other days I may take less than a dozen.  Regardless of how many images I take each day, they have been pared down to a single photo to represent each day.

Enjoy the most recent set of images!

Day 21 (09 April 2019) - Oh, Canada!

This photograph was taken at Forest Hill Nature Area.  A pair of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) are nesting atop a muskrat lodge on the north side of the property.  Sometimes they will sit silently as you pass by, but other times they make a big ruckus (as seen in this picture).  I like how this image captures the gander (the male goose) in mid "Honk". This photo has been cropped from a horizontal to a vertical format.  I think the simplicity makes it a stronger image.

Day 22 (10 April 2019) - Ramping up to spring...

One of the earliest plants in the local woods is the Wild Leek (Alium tricoccum).  Also known as "ramps"  the leaves of this species emerge from the forest floor before most of the other wildflowers, but it won't flower until summer.  By that point the leaves will have all dried up for the year.  Considered by many a choice wild edible, over-harvesting has reduced the population of this plant in many areas.  I photographed these plants at Chipp-A-Waters Park in Mt. Pleasant - please not that harvesting is not allowed in any park in Mt. Pleasant.


Day 23 (11 April 2019) - Bloodroot Leaves

We have a small patch of Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) in our native pollinator garden.  The plants here often emerge a week or more before the same species in Mt. Pleasant.  Our Bloodroot is already blooming and I have yet to find a single plant in Mt. Pleasant.

Day 24 (12 April 2019) - Birch Grove

This photo has taken late in the day at Forest Hill Nature Area.  I like the minimalist look of the bare trunks of birch against the darker trees in the forest behind.  Although this photo could just as well represent late fall, it was my favorite image of the day so it became part of this collection.

Day 25 (13 April 2019) - Brown-headed Cowbirds

April 25th found me back at Forest Hill for the third time in five days.  My favorite picture of the day was this trio of Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater) perched on a grape vine covered thicket of dogwood.  The top bird and the bird to the right are both females; the male is on the left.  I tried several different crops of this image to remove the twig on the right, but ultimately decided that the original looked best.  I like the repetition of the birds' forms and the warm tones created by the afternoon light.

Day 26 (14 April 2019) - White-throated Sparrow and a Brief Return to Winter

Winter gave us one last blast on April 14th.  We only received about two inches of snow in Alma, but areas north and west of Mt. Pleasant ended up with six to nine inches!  I hadn't filled the birdfeeders in a couple of weeks, but the snow brought the birds back, including this White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis).  I photographed this bird perched on a gate in our back yard.  If you look closely you can see snow falling in the background.

Day 27 (15 April 2019) - Wood Duck Pair

I photographed this pair of Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa) at Chipp-A-Waters Park in Mt. Pleasant.  This is one of three pairs that I saw in the oxbow pond at the back of the park.  This was the only pair that I was able to get a photograph of.  The colorful male is on the left and the more drab female on the right.  This image has been cropped to a widescreen (16:9) format.

Day 28 (16 April 2019) - Skunk Cabbage

I have frequently said on this blog that Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is my favorite wildflower.  I can't resist photographing it each and every spring, especially once its leaves begin to emerge.  I think my eyes just crave green after a long winter lacking the color.   I love how the color "pops" against the rich browns of last autumn's leaves.  This photo was taken at Mission Creek Woodland Park during a light rain.  This might be my favorite weather to photograph in, the rain and even light just enhances the colors of everything in the woods. 

Day 29 (17 April 2019) - Dutchman's Breeches Buds

This image was taken at Chipp-A-Waters Park in Mt. Pleasant.  I couldn't find a single wildflower in bloom last week, but these Duchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) are almost there.  When these flowers are mature, they will look like little pairs of pantaloons pinned up by their ankles to dry.  There is a large patch of these flowers at Chipp-A-Waters Park - follow the trail to toward the back of the park and look for an interpretive sign highlighting wildflowers.  The plants are right there near the sign along with close to a dozen other species of spring ephemerals.

Day 30 (18 April 2019) - Nesting Dove

The final photo in the set was taken from our front porch.  Every year we have an American Robin (Turdus migratorius) nest on one of our roof brackets.  Every year we have a Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) use one of the old robin nests as the base for its own nest.  Normally the robin is the first to nest, but this year the dove decided to get the jump on things and got the first pick of nesting locations.  This picture has been cropped to a square format.

Vernal: A Spring Photo Project (Day One through Day Ten)

Last summer I decided to do a photography project that took the entire season to complete.  Beginning on the Summer Equinox, I photographed something every day through the Fall Solstice.  In all I recorded over 10,000 photographs, but only ninety-four of them counted - one for each day of summer.  It's a new season and here is my next photography project.  Vernal means "of, relating to, or occurring in the spring". 


Day 1 (20 March 2019) - Skunk Cabbage

This image of Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) was photographed in a cedar swamp at Mission Creek Woodland Park in Mt. Pleasant.  Skunk Cabbage is my favorite wildflower.  It's the first flower to bloom each spring, often flowering while there is still ice and snow on the ground.  This species generates enough metabolic heat that it will sometimes melt its way through the ice. 

Day 2 (21 March 2019) - Woodland Mallard

The combination of spring rains and melting snow and ice caused the Chippewa River to overflow its banks in Mid-March.  A week later parts of the floodplain remained under water, especially at Chipp-A-Waters Park in Mt. Pleasant.  This Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) drake would not normally be found in the woods, but was taking advantage of the flood to forage in an old river channel.


Day 3 (22 March 2019) - Maple Buds

This image of swollen buds on a Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) was taken from my front yard in Alma.  Silver and Red Maples are among the first local tree species to bud each spring.  I chose this image for the simplicity of the limbs and buds silhouetted against the blue sky.


Day 4 (23 March 2019) -  Awake

On March 23rd I led a hike at the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Sylvan Solace Preserve.  The goal of the hike was to search for early signs of spring.  Other than a group photograph I didn't ake any images during the hike, but I did take several pictures of an active mound ant (Formica sp.) nest before the hike began.  There are a number of these mounds at Sylvan Solace Preserve, but only those in direct sunlight had warmed enough for the ants to be active.

Day 5 (24 March 2019) - Willow Catkins

This image of willow catkins (flowers) was taken at Mill Pond Park in Mt. Pleasant.  I went to the park with the goal of photographing Red-winged Blackbirds in the large cattail marsh.  I never did get a blackbird image that I was happy with, but did photograph several Black-capped Chickadees as they foraged among the cattails.  But the image that said "SPRING!" was this one.  I like how everything in this image is fuzzy - the catkins, the budscales, the branch itself, and the cattail seeds that have affixed themselves to the willow.


Day 6 (25 March 2019) - Floodplain Geese

March 25th found me back at Chipp-A-Waters Park.  This pair of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) was photographed along the edge of the oxbow pond located near the back of the park.  An oxbow is a section of river meander that has been cut off from the main flow of the river as it has changed course over time.  This oxbow holds water year round, but is only connected to the main river a few weeks each year as the river tops its current banks.  This image has been cropped to a widescreen (16:9) format to remove some of the clutter at the top and bottom.


Day 7 (26 March 2019) - Deep in Thought

This picture of  a Red-winged Blackbird was taken in the cattail marsh at Mill Pond Park.  I removed the left 1/3 of this picture to crop to a square - this helps emphasize space on the right of the picture, giving more "space" for the bird to gaze into.   The result is that bird appears to be thinking intently or waiting for something to appear.  The blurring in the picture is due to shooting through cattails. 

Day 8 (27 March 2019) - Woodland Robin

For many people the first sign of spring is the appearance of the first American Robin (Turdus migratorius).  While some robins remain in mid-Michigan throughout the year, the numbers do increase when spring nears.  This photo was taken at Forest Hill Nature Area.

Day 9 (28 March 2019) - Western Chorus Frog

This picture was taken in a shrub swamp/season wetland near the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways.  I stopped at the Ziibiwing Center in hopes that that there may be bluebirds checking out the nest boxes.  Instead I rolled down my windows to the sound of Western Chorus Frogs (Pseudacris triseriata).   Fortunately I had my neoprene boots in the back of my truck.  I could hear dozens of frogs calling as I approached the wetland.  In typical frog fashion, they all went silent as soon as they say me.  After about ten minutes of standing silently, several nearby frogs started calling again.  They are difficult to spot - the one in the picture is about as big as my thumb from the tip to the first knuckle.  I hope that as the weather warms back up this week I will be able to return and get a few more pictures.  I need to remember to take my binoculars this time - maybe they will make it easier to spot the frogs!

Day 10 (29 March 2019) - Sunburst

The final image was taken in the Canopy Walk at the Whiting Forest in Midland, MI.   We went to Midland to visit the Butterflies in Bloom exhibit at Dow Gardens.  Unbeknownst to us, you have to reserve a time slot to enter the exhibit - this is a new policy this year!  We didn't want to wait two hours to get in so we decided to check out the Canopy Walk instead.  This is a new feature of Whiting Forest (which is part of Dow Gardens), completed in 2018.  During peak times, you also need to reserve a time to go on the canopy walk but we were able to walk right up. 

Random photos with the same name

Here is a seemingly random collection of thirteen photos from the past five years.  The only thing these pictures have in common is their name IMG_0225.  Why?  Because its February 25th or if you prefer 02/25.  To see a similar random collection of photos here is a post celebrating IMG_0115 from January 15th of 2018.

The best thing about these photos is that they were all taken in locations open to the public - public gardens, nature preserves, local parks, state parks, national lakeshores, national monuments, and national parks.

Dow Gardens, Midland, Michigan (August 2018)

North Higgins Lake State Park, Michigan (July 2018)

Bundy Hill Preserve, near Remus, Michigan (June 2018)

Chipp-A-Waters Park, Mt. Pleasant, MI (November 2017)

Teddy Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota (July 2017)

Devil's Tower National Monument, Wyoming (July 2017)

Hall's Lake Natural Area, near Remus, Michigan (October 2016)

Tahquamenon Falls State Park, Michigan (October 2015)

Lake Michigan seen from Lake Bluff Bird Sanctuary, Manistee, Michigan (September 2015)

Peterson Natural Area, Stanwood, Michigan (August 2015)

The Garden Door, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin (July 2015)

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan (September 2014)

Ludington, Michigan (August 2018)

The Days of Summer - Day One through Day Ninety-four

I said that I would eventually be compiling my Days of Summer photographs into a single slideshow.  Well here it is, in an approximately 9 minutes 30 seconds long video.  I am not super happy with how the image quality looks on the video, but until I can edit it in another format it will stand as is.

Enjoy!

The Days of Summer - Day Eighty-seven through Day Ninety-four

This is the final installment of my Days of Summer photography project.  I began the summer with the plan to photograph something in nature every single day and share one image from each day on this site.  The first image taken on June 21st showed trees lit by the sunrise of the Summer Solstice.  Starting with that first image I have photographed outdoors for 94 consecutive days.  I've photographed the sun and the moon, insects, birds, wildflowers, trees, and more.  I've shared photos from local parks, nature preserves, a national monument, and my own yard.  At times it has been a challenge to pick a single photo to represent each day.  Some days it was a challenge just to take a photograph. 

I think that I had become stagnant in my photography over the past few years and this project gave me a new challenge to embrace.  I do know that if I had to pick my top twenty-five photographs, several of them would come from this project.

Here are the final eight images from the project.  If you would like to see the other pictures, you can start with this link to the previous set of images.

Day 87 (15 September) - Turkey Vulture

This image was take at Forest Hill Nature Area.  A deer had been struck and killed by a car in the road on the east side of the property.  This carcass attracted several Turkey Vultures.  MY hope was to get images of one or more birds feeding on the deer, but the vultures took off when I approached.  I did manage to get several pictures of them on trees and utility poles near the carcass, but this image of one in flight was my favorite picture of the day.

Day 88 (16 September) - Give me some sugar, little honey bee...

This picture was taken in the native pollinator garden at our home in Alma.  The goldenrods and New England Aster are attracting hundreds of bees at a time, including this worker honeybee.  This image has been cropped from a horizontal to a vertical format.

If you recognize the title of this picture comes from a Tom Petty song, good for you!  If you don't, click here to learn more about one of my favorite albums.


Day 89 (17 September) - Waxing gibbous moon

This image of the moon was taken from our driveway in Alma.  The word waxing in the title means that the moon is getting larger.  The word gibbous means that more than fifty percent of the face of the moon is visible.  in other words, the moon has passed the "first quarter" phase and is nearing its "full moon" phase.

This image has been cropped as a square.  This picture is best viewed at full size to see all possible details.

Day 90 (18 September) - Milkweed seeds

I took this photograph in the field next to the Conservation District Office.  I like the contrast between the bright green of the grass, the white fluff of the milkweed, and the brown seeds.

Day 91 (19 September) - Late summer creek

This picture was taken at Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Alyce J. Peterson Natural Area near Big Rapids.  This small creek flows through the property before emptying into the nearby Muskegon River.  I was visiting Peterson Natural Area to complete an annual monitoring visit for the CWC.  During this visit I walked through the entire property and crossed this creek several times.  Most of the preserve is old field habitat, but part of the land along the creek is shaded by mature hardwood trees.

Day 92 (20 September) - Late summer colors

This picture is all about color and light.  I photographed these flowers in the native pollinator garden on the south side of our house.  If you look just above the center of the image there is Monarch butterfly.  This is one of more than sixty that we raised from caterpillars.

Day 93 (21 September) - Sunset and soybeans

This is my favorite photo of the week.  It was taken in Clinton County between DeWitt and St. Johns.  I hadn't taken a photograph all day and lucked out with a beautiful sunset as we were returning home from dinner in Lansing.  As the sunset started we pulled off the highway and began searching for a backroad with good views of the horizon.  I love how the setting sun lights up all the soybeans in the foreground and the clouds in the sky.


Day 94 (22 September) - Equinox bees

This is the final picture of the summer and again it comes from our native pollinator garden.  As summer ends our garden is more alive than at any other time of the year.  Three species of goldenrod light up the garden with approximately one million tiny flowers (maybe a slight exaggeration). New England Aster adds thousands of purple and yellow flowers of its own.  These flowers are drawing hundreds of honeybees and bumble bees that buzz from the time the sun warms them enough to fly until dark.

That's it.  One photograph for each day of the summer.  I hope you have enjoyed the journey as much as I have.  Someday soon I plan to create a slideshow of all the images and share it here in one post.