The Days of Summer - Day Seventy-three through Day Seventy-nine

For many people, Labor Day Weekend marked the unofficial end of summer.  I say we still have two full weeks remaining!  Here is installment eleven of The Days of Summer, my summer photography project.  If you've been following along, you've already seen parts one through ten.  If you just stumbled upon this blog for the first time...  Welcome!  You can get caught up on previous parts of the project starting here.  I started this project on the Summer Solstice (June 21st) and am photographing every day until the Fall Equinox (September 22nd).  So far I have taken more than ten thousand photos this summer, but I have only shared seventy-two images to date (one image to represent each day of my summer).

Here are the images for Day 73 through Day 79.  Enjoy!

Day 73 (01 September) - Native bee on Rudbeckia laciniata

This image of a small native bee (less than 1/4 inch long) on a Cut-leaved Coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata) was photographed late in the day in our home pollinator garden.  This image was cropped to a square to focus on the bee and flower and eliminate some of the background.

Day 74 (02 September) - Golden fields 

This photograph was taken at my go to site for photography this summer, Forest Hill Nature Area.  Goldenrods are now in full bloom.  I like several things about this image.  First the colors - golden flowers, green leaves, dark green trees, and the blue of the sky.  I also like the lines of this image - the curve of the plants in the meadow mirrored by the treeline and the radiating clouds.  Finally I like the pattern of the clouds themselves.

Day 75 (03 September) - The beginning of the end of summer

Labor Day may not be the official end of summer, but it seemed as if a switch flipped on September 1st.  Many plants that were in bloom stopped and their leaves began to change from green to yellow or brown.  This image of a Riverbank Grape (Vitis riparia) and Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum sp.) was another image taken at Forest Hill Nature Area.

 Day 76 (04 September) - A feast of thistles

This image of a male American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) was taken at Chipp-A-Waters Park.  American Goldfinches feed almost exclusively on seeds and thistles are one of their favorite sources of food.  Goldfinches have been my nemesis bird this summer.  I have not been able to get near enough to photograph one this summer.  Until now.  I started photographing this bird from about thirty feet and slowly walked up on it (never moving my camera from my eye) until I was only about five feet away.  It was fun to watch him tossing clumps of thistledown into the air as he foraged for seeds.  The hardest part was choosing which photo I liked best.

Day 77 (05 September) - In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines

This is another image from Chipp-A-Waters Park.  I photographed this Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) in a pine plantation near the west edge of the park.  This image is all about light and shadow.

Day 78 (06 September) - Tag!  You're it!

Our first Monarch of 2018 has emerged from its chrysalis.  It was tagged and released into our home native pollinator garden.  As most of them do when released, it promptly flew up into a tree and perched out of sight and out of reach.

Day 79 (07 September) - Dewdrops

This morning we woke up to a world soaked with dew/fog/rain or some combination of the three.  After dropping Shara off at work, but before heading to the office, I stopped at Mill Pond Park with the hope of getting a few good images.  This picture of dewdrops on an orbweaver web was my favorite.  I did adjust both the light and color on this image - dropping down the light and bringing up the color to help the dewdrops pop out from the background.

Searching for color in the winter woods

Yesterday morning I drove into Mt. Pleasant to spend a little bit of time wandering through the swamps at Mission Creek Woodland Park.  While I enjoy swamps any time of year, winter is the easiest time to travel through them in mid-Michigan.  Much of the surface water in the swamp is frozen this time of year and if you tread carefully you can walk across places where you would normally be in mud up to your knees.  I will admit to a few ill-advised steps that broke through thin ice and a few more that were made in areas with no ice present.  Mud... it happens.

Any time spent outdoors is good time.

Most of the time a walk through the woods in winter is about seeing the small details.

Leaves and stems melting through ice left by a recent storm

Fog droplets on a young American Beech tree

Color can be hard to find.  Sometimes it is subtle...

Turkey Tail fungus on a stump

Sometimes it is jarring when seen against all the drabs colors of the snow and sky.

Moss on a fallen log

Did you notice spider webs on the moss in the picture above?  There were hundred of webs strewn everywhere throughout the swamp.  A closer look revealed the architects...

The brightest color to be found throughout the swamp was the green of sedge tussocks.  Some of the tussocks were surrounded by open water (and last year's leaves); other tussocks were surrounded by ice and snow.

Sedge tussock and Red Oak leaves

Sedge tussocks surrounded by ice

The recent spate of warm weather has caused much of the snow and ice to melt away.  The trees both slow it down by blocking some of the rays of the sun, and speed it up by warming at the base because of the sun.

Snow melts quickly at the base of trees

Some meltwater is pooling in low areas, filling what will become seasonal ponds later in the year.  Other water is flowing away to lower areas.  As the water flows it cuts down through the ice.

Water flowing over the ice

A channel curves around tussocks and through the ice

Eventually, much of the water will flow either over the ground or through the soil to Mission Creek and from there to the Chippewa River.

Mission Creek

Someday this curve of the creek will cut completely through that bank and create an oxbow

Some of the my favorite finds of the day were the smallest.  Many of the trees in the swamp are covered with various types of lichens.  Some are easy to see from the ground.  Others are found higher in the trees.  When a tree falls, it brings those lichens down to a level where they are easy to see.

My favorite image of the day though was taken as I left the park.  Both sides of Crawford Road (also known as Harris St.) are lined with woods that arch over the roadway.  Even on sunny days this section of road is dark.  Yesterday, the warm temperatures and melting snows caused dense fog throughout the area.  It creates a really cool moody feeling to any woodland scene.

Crawford Road (Harris Street) near Mission Creek Park

Arachnophobes beware!

Last week while waiting for a group of students at Mill Pond Park, I noticed a large web strung between several late summer wildflowers.  Looking a little bit closer, I found this beauty...

She is a female Shamrock Orb Weaver (Araneus trifolium).  This species can be found across most of the United States and Canada.  Females of this species are quite large.  Her abdomen probably measured 1 to 1.25 inches across.

Unfortunately, she won't live much longer.  This species only lives for a single year.  Females lay eggs in the fall.  The eggs hatch the following spring.  The young spiders grow to adulthood during the summer.  They reproduce and then die when the temperature drops below freezing. 

Nature Walks for National Trails Day

Saturday was National Trails Day.  To celebrate the event, I led two walks for the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy (CWC).  The morning walk was held at the Sylvan Solace Preserve.  A dedicated group of five nature lovers spent almost 2.5 hours exploring the preserve's trails.  One of the highlights was seeing a White-tailed Deer fawn - unfortunately no one got pictures of it.

In the afternoon, our travels took us to the Audubon Woods Preserve.  The same group of five was joined by three more walkers.  At Audubon Woods we explored a new section trail that I had not walked before.  A highlight of this walk was CWC Executive Director Stan Lilley using an electronic call to lure in a Scarlet Tanager that we could hear calling from the trees - the bird eventually ended up in the tree directly over Stan's head where everyone (but Stan) was able to get a good look at it.

Here a few of my photos from the two walks.

Sylvan Solace Preserve

Common Blackberry flowers

On Webs...

I was looking through photographs this morning search for a topic about which to write when I came across this photograph of a dew-covered web.

I have been thinking a lot lately about webs.  A spider's web is a collection of silky protein fibers produced by glands on the spider's body.  These fibers are spun by the spider into strands of silk of different diameters and strengths.  For their size, these fibers are among the strongest substances on the earth.  Some strands provide the infrastructure of the web, binding it in place with its surrounding.  Other fibers connect these strands together, enabling the spider to travel across its web or transmitting vibrations when a strand of the web is disturbed.  Still more fibers are covered with sticky secretions that ensnare the spider's prey. 

A spider's web only works because it is a collection of these varying types of silk, remove one type of silk and the web collapses.  It is no longer able to function.  Given time, a spider will construct a new web.  Over its lifetime, a spider may possibly construct dozens of similar webs, but each costs considerable energy to construct.  Often as the spider nears the end of its life cycle, the webs become more haphazard and less well constructed.  The spider lacks the energy that it had in its youth and the bonds that it creates are weaker.

But spider webs are not the only webs that exist in nature.  The webs that I have been thinking about are those that connect one species to another in a habitat and those that connect species to their environment  (soil, water, sunlight, etc.).  On July 27th, 1869 famed naturalist and conservationist John Muir (1838 - 1914) wrote in his journal, "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe." 

These works are mostly true.  The bonds that Muir wrote about definitely exist, but they can be broken.  Many of the cords only exist now as memories, having been severed long ago. 

Given enough time nature develops new cords.  It weaves a new web, but the new web is different.  Some strands are missing and new ones may appear in new places.  The web is not necessarily better or worse. It is different.