Frontyard Waxwings

I mentioned in yesterday's post that a flock of cedar waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) was feeding on the buds and flowers of a Norway maple in my front yard.  I knew that waxwings sometimes consume flowers and buds, but this was the first time I had observed it.  I rushed back inside to get my camera.  When I got back outdoors, most of the flock had moved on to a neighbor's trees, but a few birds lingered and I was able to get the following photographs.

Vernal: A Spring Photo Project (Day 31 through Day 40)

As of yesterday (28 April 2019) I'm forty days into my Spring photography project.  My plan is to photograph something in nature every single day.  This means that I have to go outdoors every single day no matter how busy I am. Sometimes I only have ten minutes available, on other days I may spend a couple of hours.  No matter how much time I have it's always worth it.  You can check out the first three sets of images at the following links:

Day 1 through Day 10

Day 11 through Day 20

Day 21 through Day 30


Over the last ten days spring has finally begun to look like spring.  There are so many more things to photograph now - insects, birds, gardens, wildflowers, unfurling leaves, and more!  The challenge now become choosing which photograph will be used to represent each day.  Tough choices need to be made, some photographs that I really loved just didn't make the cut... Here are the next ten images that did.

Day 31 (19 April 2019) - Bud Burst

This photograph was taken at Chipp-A-Waters Park in Mt. Pleasant.  Much of the park is in the floodplain of the Chippewa River.  Boxelder (Acer negundo) is one of the common trees found in the floodplain.  It is also one of the first trees species in the area to develop leaves.  I love the pale green of this stage as well as the overall "fuzziness" of the newly forming leaves.

Day 32 (20 April 2019) - Mission Point Beach

Over the weekend of April 19th - 21st, we took a trip to Traverse City to celebrate Shara's birthday.  One of our favorite locations in the area is Lighthouse Park at the tip of the Old Mission Peninsula.  We visit this park almost every time we are in Traverse City love photographing the lighthouse and the lake.  The lake looks appealing right now, but the water is still COLD...

Day 33 (21 April 2019) - Bloodroot

This photograph was taken in our home (mostly) native pollinator garden.  Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is one of the earliest woodland wildflowers in mid-Michigan.  We have it planted along the porch on the east side of our house - it gets lots of morning sun, but it shaded by midday.  This clump started as a single plant.  Our early native bees are very successful at pollinating and then ants help disperse the seeds.  The ants consume a fleshy coating on the seed (known as an eliasome) and then discard the seed itself in their garbage heaps.

I tried several formats for this picture, but I think the square crop looks the best.  I did adjust the brightness on this image to tone down the whites a little bit.  The same adjustment allows the greens to become more prominent.

Day 34 (22 April 2019) - Sleepy bee

This photograph was taken during a walk at Mission Creek Woodland Park.  This queen common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) had only recently emerged from hibernation.  She was busy foraging for nectar on wildflowers and searching for the perfect site to establish her nesting colony.  All that work is tiring on a cool spring day.  Sometimes the best thing to do is to nap in the sun and recharge.  That's what this lady is doing in the picture, snuggling up to that downed branch and waiting for the annoying human to go away so she could sleep in peace.

Day 35 (23 April 2019) - The Boys' Club

I noticed this trio of mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) drakes cavorting together on the Chippewa River at Chipp-A-Waters Park.  Either these three drakes have not paired up with hens or their hens were sitting on nests somewhere nearby as these enjoyed some time male bonding time.  As I watched them they repeated splashed themselves with water, groomed their feathers and scratched themselves.  I took about a dozen photos of the group with this being my favorite.  I did crop this down to a widescreen (16:9) format to remove the far riverbank at the top of the picture and some open water at the bottom.

Day 36 (24 April 2019) - Gooseberry

I photographed this gooseberry plant (Ribes sp.) at the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Sylvan Solace preserve.  Without flowers or fruit I can't be exactly sure which species it is, but my guess is prickly gooseberry (Ribes cynosbati).  I like this image because of the way the backlighting shows off the hairs on the leaves and the overall simplicity of the image.  I do wish the background  had been all dark.  Again this image seemed to work best as a square crop.

Day 37 (25 April 2019) - Spring Beauty

These spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) flowers were photographed at Mission Creek Woodland Park.  From a distance the overall impression of spring beauty is that the flowers are white or pale pink.  Up close you can make out the pink or purple stripes on the petals (nectar guides) and the pink tipped stamen. 

Day 38 (26 April 2019) - Flying Dutchmen

I photographed these Dutchman's breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) flowers at Chipp-A-Waters Park.  This park has long been my favorite location for spring woodland wildflowers.  It's name comes from the shape of the flowers - they look like little pairs of pants hanging upside down from the ankles.

Day 39 (27 April 2019) - Norway Maple Flowers

Norway maples (Acer platanoides) is not native to Michigan, but it has naturalized across the state.  It is currently flowering throughout mid-Michigan.  I photographed these flowers at Mill Pond Park.  Yesterday I noticed a flock of cedar waxwings feeding on the flowers in the to Norway maples in my front yard - amazingly that picture didn't make the list.

Day 40 (28 April 2019) - Beetles are pollinators too!

Picking a photograph for yesterday was tough.  I had a photo of cedar waxwings feeding on maple flowers.  I also photographed a bronzed tiger beetle on the trail at Chipp-A-Waters Park and a closeup of a bloodroot flower.  Any of these could have been selected, but my favorite image of the day was this one of a beetle on a yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum).

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 11 through Day 20)

On March 20th, the date of the spring equinox, I started a new photography project.  The title of this project, Vernal, translates from Latin as "of, relating to, or occurring in the spring".  My plan is to photograph something in nature every day of the season through the summer solstice (June 21st).  Last year I did a similar project for summer; who knows I may keep this going through the summer months too...

If you missed my images of the first ten days of spring they can be found here, otherwise enjoy the new photographs!

Day 11 (30 March 2019) - Raindrops on Alium and Tulip

This picture was taken at ground-level in our flower gardens at home.  While the focus of our gardens in native plants (We love the pollinators!), we definitely make room for spring flowering bulbs.  I must have planted close to 400 bulbs last fall to replace and replenish those that have died out over the past several years.  This image has been cropped from the regular 3:2 format to a widescreen 16:9 format to emphasize the plants as they emerge from last year's leaf litter.  Don't rake those leaves out of the flower beds - they're free mulch!

Day 12 (31 March 2019) - Friends, Robins, Countrymen...

This American robin (Turdus migratorius) was photographed at Chipp-A-Waters park in Mt. Pleasant.  Perched upon this decaying stump, with its chest puffed out, this robin looks like an orator standing upon a stage ready to address an audience.

Day 13 (01 April 2019) - Blackbirds

  This image of birds silhouetted against backlit clouds was photographed at Forest Hill Nature Area near Alma.  Spring can be rather dreary at times and I think this photograph would work just as well to illustrate the month of November.  Forest Hill was originally acquired by the Gratiot Conservation District and has been operated as a nature center by the Gratiot-Isabella Regional Education Service District (GIRESD) since the 1990s.

Day 14 (02 April 2019) - Potential

Early spring is all about potential.  We know what spring will become, but we are stuck waiting.  Se we search for signs everywhere.  Birds newly arrived from the south.  Green grass peaking up in the lawn.  Or the buds of buds of a boxelder (Acer negundo) swelling with the potential of new leaves.

This image was photographed at Mill Pond Park in Mt. Pleasant during a foray to photograph red-winged blackbirds.  The blackbirds didn't want to cooperate, but the trees were willing.

Day 15 (03 April 2019) - Marsh Marigold 

On this day I found my first marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) plants of the year at Mission Creek Woodland Park.  Some of the ground remained frozen in the shadowy areas of the wetlands, but seeps running down to the creek create warmer microclimates.  This plant was emerging from the water in one of those seeps.  To capture this angle of the backlit leaf, I placed my camera directly on the ground next to the seep and used the digital viewfinder to compose the shot.  Normally I don't use the viewfinder, but it is a nice feature for shots like this.

Day 16 (04 April 2019) - Acorn Caps

On Thursday April 4th I had several classroom programs canceled due to a scheduling conflict.  This gave me the rare opportunity to escape into the woods for an extended time.  With my schedule opened up I drove to the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Audubon Woods Preserve to walk the trails.  I found this cluster of acorn caps hanging on a broken limb dangling from a small pine tree.  I like this image for the simple composition and the variety of textures on the caps and branch tip.  Audubon Woods is my favorite CWC preserve - I spend several days there each spring and fall conducting forestry studies with students.

Day 17 (05 April 2019) - The Ant and the Crocus

This photograph was taken in the flower garden along the south side of our house.  Every evening when we come home from work, before we step through the door, we walk around to look at what the plants in the garden are doing.  These crocuses are among the first flowers to bloom - attracting bees, flies, and ants to the pollen and nectar.

Day 18 (06 April 2019) - Up Periscope!

Those little periscope-like structures are known as sporophytes.  They are the reproductive part of a moss.  Under the right conditions, mosses will grow those sporophytes; when the capsules at the top open up their spores will be released to the mercy of the wind and rain.  Most will never grow into a new plant, but a lucky few will land in a place with just the right conditions and establish a new colony.  This picture was taken at Audubon Woods Preserve prior to a guided hike.

Day 19 (07 April 2019) - Wood Frogs

This picture of mating wood frogs (lithobates sylvaticus) was photographed at Forest Hill Nature Area.  This picture already appeared in my previous post.  To learn more about the mating habits of wood frogs click here.  I know it's only April, but this is the early front runner for my favorite image of the year,

Day 20 (08 April 2019) - Pollination Station

I photographed this small native bee on striped squill in our lawn.  Along with grape hyacinth, this small plant moves around in or flower gardens and invades our lawn.  I never know for sure where it will pop up each spring, but the early pollinators love it.  In addition to this native bee, I saw a couple European honey bees taking advantage of a warm sunny day to fuel up on squill nectar and pollen.

Wood Frogs, looking for love in 2019...

This afternoon we took a trip to the Forest Hill Nature Area.  Shara wanted to walk the trails and I wanted to find something to photograph.  We spent a lot of time at Forest Hill last summer when I was doing my Days of Summer photography project - I expect to spend many hours there again this spring as I work on another project.

Walking the trails I photographed Red-winged Blackbirds, Song Sparrows, a bird nest, cattails, and my first snake of the year (Eastern Garter Snake).  Near Forest Hill's South Woods (see map) I heard something I have been waiting for all spring, the laughing/quacking sounds of mating Wood Frogs. 

Known both as Rana sylvatica and Lithobates sylvaticus, the Wood Frog is, with the Western Chorus Frog and the Spring Peeper, one of the earliest breeding frogs in mid-Michigan.  I hear them calling every spring, but I have never had any success in photographing them during the mating season.  Normally when I near a vernal pond full of Wood Frogs, they immediately stop calling and remain silent until I leave the area. 

Today was different.

The frogs stopped calling as I neared the pond, but I could see them swimming around everywhere.  After a couple minutes of standing still, several frogs began calling again.  They continued calling even when I started to move around to get photographs.  Shara walked up to the pond and the frogs continued calling even as we talked (and laughed) about the frogs.  Several frogs even let us approach within a few feet as they were so intent on mating.   I photographed several individual frogs swimming around the pond, but the best part was photographing a couple pairs of frogs in amplexus.  Amplexus is the mating position of Wood Frogs (and many other species of frogs and toads).  Male Wood Frogs will climb onto a female's back and clasp her with his forelegs, clinging tightly until she has released all of her eggs.  Sometimes they get so excited or frantic that males will attempt to clasp onto other males.  This results in a flurry of agitated croaking and swimming.

No agitation from me, only photographs.  Enjoy!