The woods of November

Last Friday (18 November), I took some time to walk around at Chipp-A-Waters Park and take a few photographs.  Most of the leaves are gone from the trees, but there is still plenty to see if you look closely.  Here are a few of the highlights.

Chippewa River in November

Common Milkweed seed

Fleabane flowers (last flowers of the year?)

American Beech woods

Beech leaves

 

Beech trunks

Lichen on a Beech stump

White Oak leaves

American Beech trunk

 

Mallard drake

Honeysuckle berries

O Canada!

Just a couple of photographs today.  Last night I was working on a long blog post when my internet browser crashed.  Despite saving everything multiple times, the entire post was lost.  Gone. Missing.  Disappeared into the ether.

Oh well.  It's a beautiful morning.  Hundreds of Canada Geese are flying overhead this morning in long vees,

in isolated pairs,

and small groups of twenty or less.

Right now all of the local ponds and lakes are free of ice and the geese are able to forage on spilled grain in harvested fields.  Colder weather is coming and as some of the smaller ponds will begin to skim over with ice, many of the geese will head south to warmer climates.

2016 Deer Season

White-tailed Deer - photo from 2005

Today is opening day for the 2016 Michigan Firearms Deer Season.  I wish all hunters a safe and successful season!

Full Moon

The full moon last night was absolutely beautiful. 

Full moon (13 November 2016)

I took about two dozen photographs over the course of 15 minutes, trying out different apertures (the size of the opening in the lens) on my camera.  For the photo geeks, this picture was show with a Canon EOS 60D camera and a Canon 100-400mm lens (at 400mm).  The cameras was set at f/25 and the length of the shot was 3/10th second.  It was then cropped down to this size.

I rarely take pictures of the moon.  Until recently, I did not have a camera lens really capable of taking good images of it.  My best efforts in the past have been okay, but lacked a lot of detail.

To me the best part of this picture is being able to see all of the impact craters on the moon's surface.  The craters are named after famous astronomers throughout history.  For instance the large crater Tycho in the bottom right quarter is named after the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546 - 1601)

Some major craters of the moon

"Leaf" us alone...

Last Thursday (03 NOV), I spent another day in the woods with 4th grade students from Vowles Elementary as they learned to identify trees and calculate diameter.  While walking around assisting the students I took lots of pictures (as usual).  This was my favorite one of the bunch.

Vowles Elementary students pose for the camera

Early morning milkweed seeds

No photographer ever said "A photo of dew-covered milkweed seeds?  No thanks, I've already got enough photos of that."

More Food Chain Madness!

Yesterday, I talked about food chains and the different levels that organisms occupy in them.  Today I thought I would share a drawing that I made to illustrate the concepts.  This was drawing was done in a Fifth Grade classroom and projected on the SMART Board as I drew it.  Students always seem amazed (and amused) when I draw things - especially little touches like grumpy mushrooms and happy sunflowers.  No one said that learning can't be both serious and fun...