Figure 1 – Growling surface Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. Boxing Day, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2021

Apologies to all my readers for being AWOL and Happy New Year from Hati and Skoll Gallery. I have not been posting, but I have definitely be photographing and have quite a backlog built-up. It has been a strange, sad, and terrible year and I want to wish all my readers health and happiness for 2021.  

I’d like to start the New Year off with these images that I took on a cold, bright, and blowing Boxing Day at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge at Plum Island Massachusetts. The surf was active and growling. Plum Island in winter is such a magical time and place!

Boxing Day represents a timestamp in the journey of our lives and there is nothing more symbolic of the cycles of time, geologic time eclipsing human, than the unrelenting motion of waves. Here with the camera you watch them come in and anticipate just when they will break churn up the sea and blast forth sprays of foam.

Oh, and on a personal note, the vitriolic politics on Facebook got to me some time in October. So I no longer post images or anything there. They can still be found here, obviously, and on Instagram, my last social media account. I don’t miss it!

Figure 2- Growling surface Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. Boxing Day, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2021

Figure 1 – Canon T2I with EF70-200mm F/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 800,  Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/4000 sec at   f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 2 – Canon T2I with EF70-200mm F/4L USM lens at 98 mm, ISO 800,  Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/3200 sec at   f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

Figure 1 – Path through the autumn woods, Punkatasset Woods, Concord, MA (c)DE Wolf 2020

I found this morning that I never completed this blog from October. It was from a trip through Punkatasset Woods in Concord, MA. And at this point it is a reminder of the glorious places where we have been. The path begs the question and when covered in autumn leaves is too mystic to ignore. October is the magic time in the Northern woods and now we transition in Burts, fits, and starts into the Winter. Snow it must be said is the most magical of winter’s transformations.

Figure 1 – Clouds over the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Well, there is no denying that winter and December are upon us. Perhaps, we may soon see the glorious light of spring. My son pointed out to me that the clouds of winter in New England are distinctive. And yes that is true. A clear example were the looming clouds over Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, in Concord, MA the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It afforded a wonderful opportunity to shoot in black and white and develop in tritone. The effect is Figure 1, which very much captured the moment, reflected of course, in Shakespeare’s Richard III. 

“Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.”

Figure 1 – Bittersweet, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Social distancing has kept us outside wandering and photographing in nature. As a result, we have been witnessing the glory of the changing seasons even if it is the metamorphosis that takes us from glorious autumn into brooding winter. And what a winter it is to brood in. I am way behind in posting images, and today thought I would share this especially bleak scene from Great Meadows Wildlife Refuge in Concord, MA taken on Thanksgiving Saturday. The bittersweet is perhaps a symbol of the season itself and reminds me of the M. Night Shyamalan movie ” The Village” and the “bad color.”

Figure 1- After the first snow, Habitat Conservation Land and Wildlife Refuge, Belmont, MA, 10/31/20. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Friday was an October surprise snow storm – both the first snow and the first significant snow! In this area we got four to five inches. It was glorious: fall leaves not yet gone and wet snow turning everything magical. Before it melted on Saturday, we went on two walks. The first was to the Habitat Conservation Land and Wildlife Sanctuary in Belmont. MA. The second was to the Rock Meadow Conservation land, also in Belmont, MA. It was truly a photographer’s paradise. Figure 1 from Habitat defines the scene – a leaf strewn path into the forest, snow clinging to everything. It was a curious moment, when the one season slipped away and the other came upon us suddenly. If you view winter as the nadir then the day was truly the precipice of the abyss.

Figure 1 – The unremembered path, Punkatasset Woods, Concord, MA, October 17, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

OK, so as promised, a couple of more images of the glories of New England fall foliage. Both of these were taken a couple of weeks back at the Punkatasset Conservation Land in Concord, MA. Both were taken with my iPhone XS, having made the decision that there was specula value in opening my eyes this year and just looking!

Figure 2 – In the forest, Punkatasset Woods, Concord MA, October 17, 2020.(c) DE Wolf 2020.

Figure 1 – Tree roots (Thanotopsis), Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, October 24, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

Peak foliage is finished here in Massachusetts, and as we build up to Election Day, we have moved into the dreary days of November. So I think it worth a few more fall foliage images.

Figure 1, from this past Saturday, was taken at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge and shows some tree roots piercing the ground and covered in autumn leaves. There is something intrinsically magical and mythical about tree roots above the surface. Are these Tolkein’s Ents? Are we seeing a connection with an unknown world? Is it perhaps the underworld of the dead? And certainly there is something profound about trees gaining nourishment from the decay of last summer’s leaves – a continuous circle of decay and renewal.

Figure 1 – Peace in the forest, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Sudbury, Ma. October 11, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

It is that wonderful time in New England, that is called November – a photographer’s paradise. One almost feels guilty about the ease of spectacular color and the complexity of decay and resurrection imagery. This past Saturday was actually pretty warm. It got up to 75 deg. F and we went to the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. So I offer up Figure 1 as the quintessential fall foliage scene. But the warmth brought out all the turtles to sit on logs and soak in the last of summer’s rays before burrowing in the mud for a nice long winter’s hibernation. Such are the cycles of life in the temperate zone forest.

Canon T2i with EF 70-200 mm/F4 L USM lens at 70 mm. ISO 800, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/640th sec at f/8.0 with no exposure compensation. 

Figure 1 – Sanderling lunch, Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, Plum Island, Newburyport, MA. Sept. 26, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

We have been enjoying several trips up to the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island in Newburyport, MA. Now that is a truly wonderful place. And now the autumn glories have begun! The Saturday before last I was furiously photographing the Sanerlings, Calidris alba. They always offer fun and challenging photographs and as always the key to bird photograph is getting the eyes in focus. I am getting better at using my big birding lens.

The fellows of Figure 1 were feeding on a patch of flotsam, and, in truth, I didn’t even see that one of them had made off with a tasty lunch, ceviche perhaps. I am not quite sure what it is, probably some part of a starfish, but it does make for a cool photograph. As always in the surf line, the reflections mirror the birds beautifully.

Canon T2i with EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 IS USM lens at 260 mm, ISO 800 mm, Aperture priority AE Mode 1/4000th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.