Figure 1 – Female Red-bellied woodpecker, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardem, Coral Gables, FL (c) DE Wolf 2022
As we walked into the woods at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, we heard a commotion. It was an early spring territorial battle between a pair of red-bellied woodpeckers (Picus ventre rubro) and a pair of northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis). Figure 1 shows the female, holding her ground in a warm morning light. In my experience red-bellies are skitterish. They never stay long and, if what you want is a photograph without a feeder, “a natural photograph,” hard to capture. I was delighted by the delicate dried fiddle head ferns on the tree limb to the right.
Canon T2i with EF 100-400, F/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens at 220 mm, ISO 400, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/100th sec at f/6.3 with no exposure compensation.
Figure 1 – Medinilla Magnifica, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Coral Gables, FL (c) DE Wolf 2022
Real or contrived it is time to enter the rainforest.
“Things will come out right now. We can make it so. Someone is on your side, No one is alone.”
Eric Sondheim “Into the Woods”
So I will begin today with another photograph take at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida. I am pretty sure that it is Medinilla Magnifica. At least that is what the AI program Plant Net tells me. If I am wrong please let me know. This was so perfectly laid out that I couldn’t resist it. The flower looks to me like like a miniature fruit cup.
Figure 1 – Tropical Rainforest at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Miami, FL (c) DE Wolf 2022
“Things are not always as they seem.” This has always been one of my favorite quotes from Hamlet. “Seems, madame? Nay it is. I know not seems.” It is a scream for rationalism in an irrational world, gone awry, turned topsy turvy, insane, existential.
First of all, I have been on vacation in Key Biscayne and Miami, Florida. Over the next several days I will bring many of the photographs that I took there: birds, reptiles, orchids, and luscious tropical greenery.
I’d like to begin with the image of Figure 1, which shows the rain forest at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden – now one of my favorite places on Earth, or so it seems. Look at it, so green and wonderful with the four requisite strata of tropical rain forests: emergent, canopy, understory, and forest floor. Is something missing? Yes. There are no birds, no monkeys, and the photograph tells it all. As my traveling companion pointed out there is no sound. The forest is mute. Yet it has a story to tell.
It is kind of like Disney World an artificial man-made rain forest, only the plants are real. Even the mist is human created. Things are not always as they seem. Yet the day may come when only such man-made rain forests will exist. Indeed, even this one, so lovingly and laboriously created may eventually wither in the next century as climate in Florida changes from gloriously warm to withering hot.
Right now, you literally want to caress the plants and solemnly kiss the orchids, they are all so very wonderful. As I present this series of photographs to you, it is worth noting that many of the animals and plants photographed are transplanted invasive species.
“I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said – “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
Figure 1 Dog-faced stone, Cape Hedge Beach, Rockport, MA (c) DE Wolf 2022
Way back when, I post about the Hand of God Nebula and objects that look like other objects. This is referred to as a Pareidolia. Today I wanted to share the image of Figure 1, which shows a stone on Cape Hedge Beach in Rockport, MA that looks like the face of a dog.
Of course, it may be that the similarity is a trick of light that would not be noticed if the light were different. Canine worship? A sacred altar? And I will point out that quite often there are more dogs at Cape Hedge, at least in the off-season, than people. It is so common to be greeted by some canine fellow, who seems to be saying “want to play with me? Please oh please, oh pretty-please.” It is a paradise for the dog-set, and therefore it seems quite reasonable to have a dog altar mark this most sacred of canine places.
The dogs of course are totally nonplussed by the holy stone and more likely to urinate on it than bow before it! Although they might bow wow before it! C’est la vie.
Figure 1 – Great Blue Heron at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Concord, MA (c) DE Wolf
Time to celebrate today i spotted and photographed my first Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) and what a spectacular beauty he is. With some effort I was able to get close enough to him to take the photograph of Figure 1 at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge – so wonderful. And it was almost warm out. Soon I will have to take a trip to nesting sites at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge and along Route 2. Spring is definitely here, and we can look forward to a warm season of watching these birds hunt and feed their young.
The image is just a bit grainy because of the ISO and the fact that I had to use both and extended zoom setting and a bit of digital zoom as well. But, as is always true of bird photography , sharpness is in the eyes, and that worked out pretty well in this image.
Canon T2i with EF 100 -400 mm L f/4.5-5.6 IS USM lens at 210 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority E mode, 1/4000 sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.
I have been posting a lot of sunset photographs from Cape Hedge Beach in Rockport, MA lately. Almost always the sunsets there are dramatic and now you come more and more to recognize the annual march of the sun along its ecliptic. Sunsets move more and more southward this time of year, while sunrises journey more and more northward. It is the beat of the heart of our solar system
Figure 1 – Anti-sunset April 1, 2022, Cape Hedge Beach, Rockport, MA (c) DE Wolf 2022
There is something else and that is what I like to think of as the “anti-sunset.” So often the clouds diametrically opposed to the sun are bathed in glorious pastel hues as the sun slowly sinks. I say “slowly sinks,” but i realize that I almost contradict myself. This morning I watched the sunrise over Pigeon Cove, over the Old Granite Pier, and it was anything but slow. you could feel it as if it were a race – Old Helios, Circes father, driving his solar chariot across the sky.
I took the image of Figure 1 at Cape Hedge Beach this past Friday – the anti-sunset’s pastel palette brushed on the clouds, hanging over the sea and here seen through the tall grasses.
Sharing today a portrait of my son and daughter-in-law’s dog Zadie looking with curiosity out the window in the morning light. Perhaps she is looking at the doing in the driveway or perhaps she is reflecting on her own reflection in the window. The image demanded tritone!
Yesterday was extremely cold at Great Meadows, but I intrepidly went forth and was delighted to encounter a flocking of tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor). I am not sure what this is about, migrational arrival, mating, the cold? Maybe a reader knows? I failed to get a good picture of it, but share the image of Figure 1 to document the event.
Figure 1 -Flocking tree swallow, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, March 28, 2022, (c) DE Wolf 2022
During my walk I encountered, up close and personal, this gorgeous canada goose (Branta canadensis) and decided to take a tight portrait of him, revealing flecks of grass and seed on his face and, of course, nice bokeh in the background. They can be quite aggressive, especially when protecting fledglings. But this time of year they follow the view that discretion, retreat, and exit is the better part of valor! The image is shown in Figure 2. We get so used to thinking of these birds as pests that we forget to stop and look at just how beautiful and elegant they really are.
Figure 2 – Canada goose, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2022
Figure 1 – Canon T2i with EF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens at 320 mm, ISO 1600 Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/400 sec at f/5.6 with no exposure compensation
Figure 2 – Canon T2i with EF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens at 235 mm, ISO 1600 Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/3200 sec at f/5.6 with no exposure compensation
Figure 1 Muskrat, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Concord, MA (c) DE Wolf 2022
The poor little muskrat! So torment by humans saying, “ooh it’s a rat!” In fact and despite the fact that it is a rodent, the muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus)) is much more closely related to the beaver than to the rat. It has, indeed, been referred to as a “musk beaver” rather than a “musk rat.” One encounters these elegant swimmers in the swampy ponds of North America, particularly among the cat tails, which are their major source of found.
Most wonderful is the association between the muskrat and the creation of the world in the mythology of many native American peoples. As an illustrative example, I encourage my readers to read the story of the world’s creation on the webpage of the Oneida Nation. Read it and ponder how similar, but so much more ancient it is than the Judeo-Christian story of creation. Once our world was a water world, devoid of earth. The Great Turtle agreed to have the world built upon his back, but the trouble was that there was no soil. All the creatures tried to dive to the waters bottom to bring back a little mud. The otter who was a great swimmer tried but fail. In the end it was the musk rat who succeeded and the world was created of the soil he brought back mingled with some earth that was taken from the roots of the magical Great World Tree which illuminated, much like the Tree of Wisdom, from the upper world (heaven).
I encountered the little fellow of Figure 1 this past Saturday hiding amongst his breakfast. He seemed to be enjoying the early spring sunshine and feeling quite secure posed for me.
Canon T2i with EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens at 160 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE mode 1/3200 th sec at f/6.3 with no exposure compensation.
