Figure 1 – Tufted titmouse, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

Here in New England, winter is fully set in. Although, the temperatures have been fluctuating between seasonably cold and unseasonably warm. As a result, the snow is almost all gone from the woods. There is, of course, a little pile at the end of my north-facing driveway that will probably linger until May.

I have been amusing myself photographing birds at my feeder, and today tried my luck at this little tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor ) of Figure 1. I find these titmice a bit hard to photograph. They are small and move a lot. As a result, I have yet to get the crystal-clear image that I would like. But, I very much like the pastel coloration of Figure 1 and the sharpness is reasonable.

I have been curious why they are called “titmice.” It is in fact the case that some people call them “titmice” and others call them “titmouses.” The answer to why they are called “titmice” lies in the controversy between “titmouses” and “titmice.” These birds are tits, they are the tits that scamper around like mice. So they are actually mouse tits. tits is the noun. Mouse is the adjective. Hence, they are really “titmouses,” which still seems so wrong, and I will stubbornly  continue to call them titmice. Thy will not mind; so long as I keep my feeder filled.

There are a couple of other points of arcane interest concerning titmice. First, that a prized nesting material for them is a shed snakeskin. The second is that the year’s fledging will often continue to hangout with mom and dad to help them raise the next year’s fledge – like a good and helpful older sibling.

I just love their little tufts, the blue and yellow hints in their coloration, and their beautiful little eyes. Also, I love the name.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 360 mm, ISO 1600, 1/640th dec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Blue jay, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

Figure 1 is a decent attempt at photographing the Blue jay – Cyanocitta cristata. I say a decent attempt because the jay despite its loud and gregarious bullying of other birds is, in general, pretty wary of humans, and I have found them photographically elusive. They are however quite beautiful, and I am envious of my California friends who have two species of blue jay: Steller’s jay (Cyanocitta stelleri), and the California scrub-jay (Aphelocoma californica). But anyway, I photographically caught this one with a seed held perfectly in its mouth in my backyard – again with my big lens through the windows.

I am a great lover of nature and feel blessed to be able to look out my window and see the woods. And I love it when the birds come to my bird feeder. It is fund to watch then and to occasionally photograph them. Watching birds is a joy that I share with my cat. I enjoy identifying species. She enjoys identifying an imagined lunch.

Right now the sun is setting and the snow is falling wildly. I have retreated to my computer and my blog and I am thinking about how these suburban settings are like a dividing line where humans encroach on nature, and nature fights back to regain the ground, opportunistically when it can.

Last night as I was pulling into my driveway, I realized that a very large canine face was staring back at me. There was a coyote (Canis latrans) in my backyard and he was sizing me up. I have seen this before. Who gets to run? I decided not to get out of my car to get the mail, choosing instead to retreat into the safety of my garage. Sometimes there is just too much nature! For a moment we stared each other down. For the coyote’s part, and fortunately for me, he decided that eating my Subaru was not an option. Perhaps he was an elitist and only ate Volvos. BMWs, and Mercedes, munching perhaps occasionally on a Lexus. He gave me one last arrogant glance and wandered off into the safety of the woods, I into the safety of my garage. The question of who was encroaching on whom remains open.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 200 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/2000 th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation

Figure 1 – Northern Flicker, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

It has been a while since I have taken any decent bird pictures.  So I was very happy this past week to capture this Northern Flicker – Colaptes auratus. Flickers are a type of woodpecker, and this one’s particular interest was in my suet feeder. Nothern flickers belong to the genus Colaptes, which includes twelve species of New World woodpeckers woodpeckers.  What could be better than fat, peanut butter, and seeds for a cold day’s snack? I decided to use all of what I have learned about how to get good photographs with my bird lens and actually took this one through a glass window, something that I originally thought was a big problem. But not so much, it turns out, if everything else is set correctly.

Flickers are ground woodpeckers and are often found eating on the lawn, feasting on ants and other insects. Winter is, of course, particularly difficult for birds. But for those of us snapping images from a warm room, the photograph gives us the opportunity to study the details of pattern and coloration, which would not be possible on the fly, as it were.

At some point we have to deal with the question, what kind of a woodpecker was Woody the Woodpecker? According to the Wikipedia, he was fashioned after the acorn woodpecker but also resembles the pileated woodpecker. As a child I loved those cartoons.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 100 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/8000 th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – The flowers Persephone left behind. Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

The other side to winter is, of course, the intimate landscape – the little details that, in and of themselves, are sufficient to convey the mood and sense. Here I was taken by a bit of photominimalism also a tone-on-tone. There were some twigs and little desiccated white flowers set against the snow. As in all such subjects the positioning, the composing, is everything.

Flowers speak of opulent spring and summer, snow of barren winter. This is the fundamental contrast. We spoke last week about the myth of Persephone – Persephone picking poppies. Poppies themselves suggest a dream. And here we have her story again. I remember the first time that my father told me this story. I think that we were in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, and it has always stuck with me. In a very real way this story defines the sensibility of a temperate climate. Winter can be very harsh, but here we have just a hint, a reminder, of what the resurrection of the goddess of spring will bring with her.

This is is also why poetry goes so well with photography. We are enlightened by both, and the spiritual symbolism of the most simple subject is more clearly defined. This spirituality is based in our collective and integral myth. We need it to define ourselves.

“Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form.”

Figure 1 – Winter Ice #2, Lincoln, Massachusetts on the eve of the winter solstice. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

Figure 1 is a second “winter ice” image that I took on the solstice. Because of the way snow scatters light it tends deeply towards the blue, which in turn tends to become distorted in a photograph. Yesterday’s image I prepared in black and white and then gave it a very subtle blue tone. Today I went the opposite extreme and toned in my usual sepia. So this is a sort of comparative experiment, as to which is the better way to go.

Needless-to-say, we need a quote today and I will give you one from John Tyndall, the nineteenth century Irish physicist who explained why the sky is blue and also studied the phenomena associated with water and ice. The blueness of ice connects with the blueness of the sky. This quote is not about ice itself but about the infinity of connections within the physical universe.

“Every occurrence in Nature is preceded by other occurrences which are its causes, and succeeded by others which are its effects. The human mind is not satisfied with observing and studying any natural occurrence alone, but takes pleasure in connecting every natural fact with what has gone before it, and with what is to come after it.”

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 100 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/400th sec at f/10.0 with no exposure compensation

Figure 1 – Winter ice, Lincoln, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

My “ice walk” in Lincoln, Massachusetts with my son on the solstice was very satisfying photographically. At one point I trudged off the path and through the bush to capture some winter scenes of the marsh in a state of semi-frozen. Here is the first image that I took, which I was very happy with. This is truly as it looks and even more truly why we live in New England – that and the intimate understanding that the land and seasons in Massachusetts give us of the pursuit of liberty that began on a bridge not so very far from the site, where this photograph was taken. I have stood by that bridge on the April anniversary of the battle and as the chilly wind blew in my face developed both an understanding and a true respect. There are ten rights in the Bill of Rights.

I am driven again to quote Henry David Thoreau. He and Robert Frost are the quintessential chroniclers of winter in New England.

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”

Henry David Thoreau Journals,  August 23, 1853

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 100 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/400th sec at f/10.0 with no exposure compensation

Figure 1 – Ice along the path on the eve of the winter’s solstice. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

I am looking toward spring, but there are obstacles both physical and metaphorical. The biggest one is winter, which the calendar suggests is going to hang around for a while. Figure 1 was taken on our Winter Solstice walk in Lincoln, Massachusetts. At one point the path was a solid sheet of ice that had been undermined by draining water and which had collapsed into this tangled mass of broken ice. Needless-to-say we paused to photograph it and then steered judiciously around it.

This is Thoreau country – this site is just a few miles from Walden Pond. The eagle in its gyre could easily see both. Thoreau is never far from our thoughts, especially in winter. He gives expression to the fierce independence of the Massachusetts spirit. We are the heirs of his spirit.

“Why do you flee so soon, sir, to the theaters, lecture-rooms, and museums of the city? If you will stay here awhile I will promise you strange sights. You shall walk on water; all these brooks and rivers and ponds shall be your highway. You shall see the whole earth covered a foot or more deep with purest white crystals . . . and all the trees and stubble glittering in icy armor.”

Henry David Thoreau Journals, October 18, 1859

Figure 1 – Sunset on the winter solstice, 2016. (c) AB Wolf 2017.

Happy New Year to all my friends and readers of Hati and Skoll. Thank you all for your continued support and interest!

It has become a tradition here at Hati and Skoll to speak in the New Year about two things: the tabula rasa (the blank slate) and paths. Reminded again, about world events it is hard to think this year about blank slates. There is just way too much excess baggage, just too much moral turpitude on the planet. As for paths, we continue to have them, there are a multitude of options. We can follow Michele Obama and choose the high road, you know, just as our mothers taught us. But …

Anyway, I do not mean to be so glum. I am sharing today a photograph taken on the winter solstice not by me but by my son. It shows the slippery path to light. I am one who hates the darkness of winter and it is important to me that I do not have to wait until the solstice for the light to increase at night. Here in Boston the earliest sunsets occur on December 15. Thereafter, the minutes of light are taken off in the morning. It is a quirk or vagary of celestial mechanics.

So astronomically we are on the ascendance. Let’s make that metaphoric and follow the admonition of Mark Twain to “Dream other dreams, and better,” my friends. It is ultimately in our power.

Happy New Year to you all.

David