Vernal: A Spring Photo Project (Day 71 through Day 80)

Here come more photographs from my spring photography project.  To see the previous set of photos click this link.

Day 71 (29 May 2019) - Green Frog 

This image of a male green frog (Lithobates clamitans) was taken in Mt. Pleasant at Chipp-A-Waters Park.  Earlier in the spring I shared a photograph of an American toad taken in the same pond - both species breed in this pond, but at different times.  The fact that this is a male frog can be determined by the size of its tympanum (the circle behind its eye).  Female green frogs will have a tympanum the same size as their eye while the tympanum of a male frog is larger than the eye.  These frogs are often heard before they are seen as they announce their presence with a loud PLUNK! sounding like someone plucking a single out-of-tune guitar string.  This photograph has been cropped to a widescreen (16:9) format to eliminate some distracting elements at the top of the image.

Day 72 (30 May 2019) - Wild Geranium 

I selected this image of wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) because of color.  I like how the pink of the flowers contrasts with the varying shades of green from the geranium itself and surrounding plants.  This photograph was taken at the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Sylvan Solace Preserve.  Wild Geranium has long been one of my favorite wildflowers to photograph.

Day 73 (31 May 2019) - Mayapple 

This photograph was taken at Mill Pond Park in Mt. Pleasant.  Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) produces a single large while flower beneath as pair of large umbrella-like leaves.  From above its almost impossible to see the flowers, but from below...  This image was taken by holding the camera at ground level and using the moveable digital viewer to compose the image.

Day 74 (01 June 2019) - White-tailed Fawn 

June 1st was National Trails Day.  I was scheduled to lead hikes at four CWC preserves, but the weather was horrible almost the entire day.  We dodged thunderstorms and rain all morning with even heavier rain due early afternoon.   Everyone bailed on the hike scheduled for 1:00 except me and Shara.  Despite the rain we went for a short hike at Hall's Lake Natural Area.  I kept my camera tucked inside my raincoat for most of the hike, but I did bring it out when we spotted this white-tailed deer fawn.  Despite the rain, the hike was worth it for this picture.

Day 75 (02 June 2019) - Portrait of an Iris

In the last set of photographs I shared an image of a Siberian iris photographed in our home flower garden.  This iris image comes from our gardens too, but this is a bearded iris.  I deliberately shot this image to focus on the iris' beard.

Day 76 (03 June 2019) - Monarch Egg 

On June 3rd I decided to stop at Forest Hill Nature Area on the way home.  Large parts of the property were mowed down last fall and then (apparently) sprayed with herbicide this spring.  I can only assume the intent is to replant these areas with native seed sometime this year.  Right now walking through these areas is rather depressing.

However, I did notice that the herbicide did not kill all of the common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).  On a whim I decided to search the milkweed plants for a monarch butterfly egg.  I found this one on the second plant I searched.  This image has been cropped down to about 30% of the original size and has been the brightness of the image has been adjusted.


Day 77 (04 June 2019) - Impressions of grass @ icd office

The photograph for Day 77 was taken at the Isabella Conservation District Office.  The wind was constantly creating waves in the grassy field behind the office.  I decided to work with the wind and create an Impressionist photograph of the scene.  The image above was shot at 1/6 second at f/32 to capture the blur of the grass as the wind moved it around.  This image reminds me a bit of some of the landscapes in Frederick Remington's later paintings that were heavily influenced by Impressionism.  Of this set of ten photographs, this is my favorite image.

Day 78 (05 June 2019) - Dead Man's Fingers

A trip to Mission Creek Woodland Park yielded this photograph of the appropriately-named Dead Man's Fingers fungus poking out of the ground.  I like this image more for the subject than I do for the composition.

Day 79 (06 June 2019) - Common Whitetail

I love photographing dragonflies... when they will sit still for more than a few seconds. 

This female common whitetail (Plathemis lydia) perched on a blade of grass a few inches off the ground at Chipp-A-Waters Park in Mt. Pleasant.  She sat still as I approached to within about 4 feet and stayed there long enough for me to snap several dozen photos from more than one angle.  This picture has been cropped from a horizontal to a vertical image.

Day 80 (07 June 2019) - Raindrops on Spiderwort leaf @ Saginaw Chippewa academy 

The final image of this set was taken at 7:30 in the morning at the Saginaw Chippewa Academy's native pollinator garden.  The garden has reached its early summer glory with hordes of coreopsis, penstemon, Canada anemone, and spiderwort bursting into bloom.  On this morning the star of the show as not the flowers but rather the thousands of water droplets left by an overnight rain shower.  My favorite image of the day was of this single large droplet poised on the end of a spiderwort leaf.  A couple of smaller drops sit further back along the leaf and droplets in the background refract circular globes of light.  If you look closely at the central water drop you can see an inverted image of the background plants and sky.

Trash and art

A trip to Mission Creek Woodland Park on 03 January 2018 resulted in several photos that I shared in the posts Red Oak in Winter and Northern White Cedar - An important winter food source for White-tailed Deer.

One of the features of this park is a sledding hill.  This hill is partially natural and partially man-made.  The sledding hill is actually the highest point within the city limits of Mt. Pleasant.  After snowstorms this park is heavily used by families, teens, and college students.  The hill was empty the day I visited, but as I walked past I saw something that I couldn't resist photographing.


Siting next to a full trash can was a loose pile of broken plastic sleds covered in a dusting of light snow.  It was obvious that someone had tried to clean up the sledding hill, but lacked room in the trash can for these sled fragments.  I love the abstract look of these colorful pieces against the pure white background of the snow.

A walk in the park (20 December 2017)

Tuesday was my last classroom program before schools went on break for the holidays.  With that freedom of schedule, I managed to get outdoors yesterday (20 December) for a short visit to Mill Pond Park. 

Here are some of the photos that came from that trip.

This small creek remains flowing through a swamp.

Shallow roots and waterlogged soils mean fallen trees.

 

Air bubbles captured in ice in a puddle in the woods

Fertile fronds of Sensitive Fern poke up through the snow.

Oak and maple leaves

Cattails, cattails, and more cattails!

Sedges and leaves frozen in the ice

Rushes and frozen pancakes of ice

These patterns in the ice remind me of waves in Japanese woodblock prints, fabrics, and pottery.  

Trail Camera Pictures (29 May - 14 June 2017)

Yesterday I retrieved memory cards from my trail cameras.  Here are pictures from one of the two cameras.

As always, there were dozens of pictures of squirrels on this camera.

Black phase Grey Squirrel

Fox Squirrel

There were also many White-tailed Deer of all ages and sizes.

One morning a Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) showed up.  Frustratingly, it was too close to the camera so only its ears and the top of its head showed up in the picture!

Red Fox (just the ears are visible at the bottom of the picture)

A pair of fawns showed up on camera several times, both with their mother and on their own.  I assume the mother was just off camera when the fawns appeared on their own.

White-tailed doe and fawns

White-tailed fawns with no doe in sight

In addition to fawns, bucks showed up on a couple of occasions.  At this point their antlers are just developing.  One of the bucks (last year's fawn) had just little buttons, but the second buck (shown below) has antlers that are already beginning to fork.

White-tailed buck licking its hoof

The lighting in some of these photos is pretty incredible, especially in the early morning and evening when it slants in at a fairly low angle, lighting up the more open background and leaving much of the middle-ground and foreground in shade.  This combination of light and shadow adding depth to an image is know as chiaroscuro.  In Italian chiaro means "light" and scuro means "dark". 

Portrait of a Fox Squirrel - this image demonstrates the principle of chiaroscuro.

I did have one new species appear on the camera during this time period - a Woodchuck (Marmota monax) showed up on two consecutive days.

A Woodchuck crosses from right to left

A woodchuck perched on a log at the center of the frame

My favorite photos this time are this series of six pictures of one a fawn (one of a pair).  I really like the chiaroscuro effect of these pictures - it adds a feeling of drama as the fawn advances from the dark toward the light.

Art in Nature - Cinnamon Fern

This photo of a Cinnamon Fern (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum) is officially in the running as my favorite photo of the year.  I took this picture in the swamp at Mission Creek Woodland Park and I just really like how it looks, especially the interlocking leaves on the left, the red fertile frond running through the center of the image and the diagonal lines of the stems.

A Quick Thank You

I would like to offer thanks to the Chippewa Valley Audubon Club.

Last night at the club's monthly meeting, members voted to contribute $350 to support the 2015 Bird Day Celebration at the Ziibiwing Center.  This money will pay half of the appearance costs for speakers at the event.  This is the second year that the club has made a donation to cover speaker fees.

Our main presentation will be by Rebecca Lessard from Wings of Wonder.  Wings of Wonder is a bird rehabilitation center located in Empire, MI.  Rebecca gave a presentation on raptors at last year's Bird Celebration and was so popular that we ask her back again this year.

Here is a picture of Rebecca and Doolin the Turkey Vulture at last year's event.

The other person that we are pleased to invite to the program this year is Amelia Hansen.  Amelia is the artist who did the artwork for the 2015 International Migratory Bird Day poster.  Amelia is from Kalamazoo, MI and I was very excited to have here come to our Bird Day Celebration.  Amelia will be giving a short talk and signing poster during the event.

Here is her poster design - I love that almost all of the species can be found in Michigan during some part of the year.  We will be giving out free full size copies of this poster at Ziibiwing during Bird Day.

Again, thank you to the Chippewa Valley Audubon Club for helping sponsor this event.  As soon as an event flier becomes available I will post it here.

A Trillium Art Project

Earlier this week, my wife asked me to help her come up with an art project for her second grade classroom.  I thought they should do something with wildflowers.  I figured a Large-flowered rillium would be easy to make so she told me to design it.

Here is what I came up with.  Feel free to steal this design.

Here it is colored in.

And cut out and assembled.  If printed on an 8 1/2 by 11 piece off paper, the finished flower is about life-size.