The seasons are changing rapidly on the Massachusetts North Shore, and you find yourself trying to rein in the metamorphosis – not yet ready to give up the days of summer without a fight. The cool air, the fog, and insistent clouds are all signs that we will soon be enveloped by the glories of fall. I say “glories” because fall truly is the bellweather season of New England.

Just a couple of weeks ago TC and I had gone to Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester: she to swim and I to walk. We went at the golden hours six to eight. Named “golden” not just because of the sunset but because one doesn’t have to pay the usurious parking fee! Unfortunately on that evening there were ambulances, police, and rescue boats in the harbor. I suspect there was a missing swimmer, and this weighed heavily on our minds.

As the sun set, thunder clouds moved in, huge monstrous clouds. Ultimately, it was the first serious rain that we have seen all summer. It was the kind of storm that we used to see in NYC, when I was a child. These are the storms of the New England coast painted by Winslow Homer, or classical and allegorical storms like that painted by Pierre-Auguste Cot (1880), which always seem to include gossamer clad wood nymphs – go figure! I have never seen a wood nymph, gossamer clad or oterwise. Anyway, Figure 1 is an image that I took just before the deluge and chaos. I watched the storm across Pigeon Cove in Rockport, where the lightening seemed to strike the same point multiple times, chasing away the cliche that lightening never strikes the same place twice!

A few months back, TC and I were celebrating our anniversary at a seaside restaurant. I saw a bird on the dock that I had never seen before. It was a Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). Since then, I have been looking for others and I was rewarded with this shot last week at the Great meadows National Wildlife Refuge of this fellow in Figure 1 among the lotuses – ever watchful and and motionless. Once you see something, you never forget it and see it again. And I cannot over express the sublime subtle beauty of these wild places.

Canon T2i with 100-400 mm f/4.5 to 5.6 L USM IS lens at 330 mm, Aperture Priority AE Mode, ISO 1600, 1/3200 sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation

And hunting for bullfrogs are the great egrets (Ardea alba). Figure 1 shows one with a companion stalking the lush field of lotuses. They were so very striking in the purity of their whiteness, set against the deep green of the lotus pads and the now fading lotus flowers. I love trying to capture something of the habitat of the birds and animals that I photograph.

Canon T2i with 100-400 f/4.6-5.5 L IS USM lens at 350 mm ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/2500 sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.

At the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge the summer drought has been rather severe! The great marsh is reduced to dampness and the little stream that cuts across it. The water birds are congregating unnaturally. There are clusters of egrets and herons. TC spotted a pair of glossy ibises the other evening. She also saw a great blue heron catch and attempt to gobble down a rather large northern water snake. The event ended in regurgitation!

At the other end of the food chain, the frogs are clustered into what pools remain. In Figure1 an American Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) stares out at me pleafully. “It is not easy being green!”

BUT… One is certainly reminded nostalgically of Mark Twain’s “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” “You never see a frog so modest and straightforward as he was, for all he was so gifted.“

It has been a hot and very dry summer, at this point a major drought for the Northeast. I have been taking a lot of photographs and not writing. Time to share some of these. Figure 1 is an image of a beautiful monarch butterfly., shown here dining on the nectar of its favorite flower, the swamp milkweed. Soon these butterflies will begin their migration from the north and central US and southern Canada to Florida and Mexico, a distance of thousands of miles. Last month the monarchs were officially declared endangered. it has been estimated, sadly, that their population has dropped between 20% and 90%. What greater symbol of summer than these majestic, long distance fliers? For my generation they represent all the trappings of an idyllic summer. For the next generation they may become a rare sight, a symbol of what was once and is no more.

Canon T2i with EF 100-400 mm f 4.5-5.6 US ISM lens at 180 mm, Aperture ISO 1600 Priority AE Mode 1/640 th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation

Last week while on the Massachusetts North Shore we took a trip up to Plum Island and Newburyport – always favorite places. One of the cool attractions is the Purple Martins. Modernistic nesting boxes are located by the main parking lot and there is always a cadre of bird photographers there. I of course, had to join them! It is difficult shooting. But I was particularly happy with this shot of a martin turning in midair. You can anthropomorphize and make out the strain in his face. I can tell you everything that is wrong with this photograph but love it just the same.

Figure 1 – Canon T2i withEF 100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens at 190 mm ISO 1600 Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/4000 th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation and pattern metering. (c) DE Wolf 2022

TC and I have returned from Rockport, MA content in our week and happy to be back at work! I am also happy with many of the photographs that I took on the trip and have a few more to share. It is always important to be both a photographer and a participant – not to hide behind the camera.

I’d like to share today, an image that I tool from Bearskin Neck looking out at monstrous, perhaps threatening, clouds on the horizon. I love the glory and I love the pastels!

The Mexican holiday “Day of the Dead” or “Día de los Muertos“is famous for macabre brightly decorated skull figures. The one in a store window in Figure 1 is called La Calavera Catrina, which refers to José Guadalupe Posada’s depiction of a “fine” lady in fancy hat and clothing of the early 20th century. Significantly, the holiday is meant to revere and honor the departed.

The dead are in a sense all around us, in their own nether world, or is it we in ours. They are not quite in site, only felt, buried in reflections and memories of a now fully written story. I usually hate the reflection in storefront windows that destroy and distort the photograph. But here, symbolically it was exactly what I wanted

I am spending a very relaxing week on the Massachusetts North Shore with TC and my camera and like every photo-fool I am snapping photographs of every beautiful flower that I see. Todays, Figure 1, is a macrophotograph of a Sempervivum tectorum, a so-called “hen and chicken” that I found in a flower box on Bearskin Neck in Rockport, MA. This is one of my favorites a kind of antediluvian delight. This one was madly blowing in the ocean breeze and I kept maneuvering to quiet it down with my hand as a shield.