Nature Diary

Viceroys

tomwhelan — Wed, 30 May 2012 04:01:05 +0000

I learned about butterflies and photography by walking a powerline easement near where I used to work. One of the things I learned over my years watching butterflies there was the cycle of flights of different species, for example, Viceroys. Every year, the first Viceroys flew at the end of May or the beginning of June, with another flight later in the summer. Amazingly, I could find them in roughly the same spots along the path at each flight, year to year. Finding them in the same spots is probably a matter of there being a limited number of good spots to watch for other Viceroys to mate with. That’s what I think, anyway – hard to explain the year-to-year coincidence otherwise.

This year I saw a decent number of viceroys – 8 in all – and two mating couples. Here’s one happy pair:

Grass drops

tomwhelan — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:33:48 +0000

I’ve got a thing about water drops. I’ve noticed before that a dew drop can accumulate at the top of a grass stalk – this time I found a pair of them:

Taken with the Canon MP-E65 lens at about 3x magnification. It’s amazing how different the world looks when you get this close…

Aspen leaves

tomwhelan — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:54:22 +0000

I love the look of fresh green leaves:

The challenge for this image was waiting for the leaves to stop shaking – it’s called quaking aspen for a reason!

Lesser celandine

tomwhelan — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 02:12:26 +0000

Some flowers from the same patch as the last post – these flowers are where the yellow came from behind the squill:

There are a wildflower, but they’re a non-native plant from Europe, where they are extremely common. A much nicer subject than the common foot high buttercup – it has shiny petals and is hard to photograph. These are just a few inches high, above a dense carpet of their leaves, the background in this photograph.

Squill and celandine

tomwhelan — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 03:40:39 +0000

A portrait of a squill flower with a buttercup (lesser celandine) in the background:

Lesser celandine is a flower I’ve been ignoring – I found it at the Arnold Arboretum next to the squill, which is just about done for the season. Unlike the one-foot-tall common buttercup, it’s low to the ground, leaves form mats, and the petals are less shiny.

A bloodroot gallery

tomwhelan — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 02:51:34 +0000

It’s white, low to the ground, one of the first wildflowers to bloom in the woods in my area, since there’s no hepatica here. It’s a flower I keep going back to. Perhaps it’s the memory of a gorgeous, densely packed bed of it I saw years ago, or the fact that it’s among the first flowers that keeps bringing me back.

Bloodroot is simple flower, but there are a number of subtle and pretty things about it. The petals are delicately lined. The stamens are yellow/orange, looks like paddles when they are fresh, and quickly disintegrate, spreading pollen across the petals. There are eight petals, but sometimes there are double or triple rows, 16 or more petals. The leaves are clasped around the stem at first. They unfold as the petals fall away.

Here are a number of views of bloodroot from the last few years, including a couple from this year.

Squill

tomwhelan — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 03:32:41 +0000

After the crocuses fade, these little blue flowers (Scilla sibirica) seem to come up everywhere in my garden:

In my yard, these flowers spread gradually. Single flowers pop up in surprising places far from the rest. They can form big clumps or form a carpet of flowers. This one is from the Arboretum in Boston, where there are big patches of squill.

Wood curves – color, or black and white?

tomwhelan — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 02:22:11 +0000

I’ve been trying different black and white conversion techniques lately. Every time I take a monochrome image, I make a note to try a black and white conversion. One method is using Nik Silver Efex Photoshop plugin; another is a combination of contrast enhancements using Tony Kuyper’s luminosity masks and a Black and White adjustment layer in Photoshop. Then I compare the B&W versions with a color one. Sometime the differences are pronounced, sometimes they’re subtle.

Here’s a conversion from the Nik plugin using a High structure adjustment:

A color image with a contrast adjustment using a luminosity mask:

And a B&W conversion of the color image that has stronger contrasts than the Nik conversion:

The darks come out more strongly in the last two, but you may not see difference depending on your monitor. Every time I look at them I change my mind about which one I like best!

Reindeer lichen

tomwhelan — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 01:51:42 +0000

A late winter image from a few weeks ago, taken while I waited for spring to come. The background is pincushion moss:

Spring is beginning early here – it’s leafing out and flowers are beginning to bloom.

Morning at Cataract Creek

tomwhelan — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:16:02 +0000

I made another visit to the Cataract Trail near Mt Tamalpais in Marin County (CA):

The other times I’ve hiked in, I’ve started at the bottom, which has the advantage of being shadowy at the beginning, so the light is softer. This time I thought I’d hike in from the top, to get in earlier in the day and avoid a road that only opens at 9AM. I forgot to factor in the two miles or so hike in, so the sun was already coming in to the creek ravine when I got to the falls. I like the look – what do you think?