Sunsets

Eight hours of sunlight just is not enough for one day. Winter would be great if we got at least twelve hours a day, but if that were the case, we wouldn't have winter at all, would we? For my morning commute, I head due east, and since my route is in the middle of mall-land, I've got plenty of wide open views of the sunrise. Up until yesterday, I had been leaving work about 4:00 or so, to get home with a little light to enjoy while not working. Yesterday I drove home as the sun was setting, and the 15 minutes it took me to drive four miles was fairly spectacular.

I ran into the house and grabbed the camera.

Tonight, although not quite as spectacular as yesterday evening, also made for a nice drive home. I had a bit more time to grab the camera and tripod, run down to the woods, and snap a few more photos.

All in all, views like these are what make winters here in Columbus bearable.

Tom

Maine Megapost

Megan and I are back in Ohio. Our transportation via Budget, Skybus, and Fastrack went smoothly and we welcomed the "warm" 45 degree air that had descended upon Columbus.

A few more reflections and images from the trip, including one of Maine's ever so unique parades, The South Paris/Norway Merchant's Association Christmas Parade. I've only seen two parades in Maine, but they were both fantastic compared to what I am used to. For some reason, the people of Maine show a flare of creativity and imagination that just doesn't exist in Stow, Ohio, where I suffered through countless fourth of July parades peppered with politicians, boy scouts, and of course the obligatory Shriners driving around in weird vehicles. These guys showed up in Maine this past Saturday, this time in little krazy cop cars and even a mini-monster truck. It was ridiculously cold during the parade as well, but nobody except me seemed to notice or care, they were just happy to view the parade.















After the parade we both needed some fuel for the fire, so we stopped in with Megan's friend Kelsey and her Norm at the smiling moose. Nice little bahh where you drink beeeaa (that's bar and beer for us Ohioans!), and they made a killer lasagna as well. This was the second fine eatery that we had frequented in as many days, both named after some large furry creature that lives in Maine.

A busy day indeed, because I'm just getting started. On our way back to the house, I asked Megan, who was driving our Focus again, if she could go past her house about a mile and take a look at the Crooked River. Cold, clear, and running much higher than this summer, I was a bit disappointed that river was well shaded and not very photogenic. A few snaps and I was back in the warm car.

Unlike the river, the pond was spectacularly lit, the sky was blue, and a few clouds made photography around the pond an amazing experience. Unfortunately, in my haste to see the pond from every angle, I didn't execute from the best views, and I got a few decent shots that would have been great if I had just spent a little more time with my composition! When Megan and I first arrived in Maine, temperatures were hovering above freezing, so the bog around the edges of the pond was wet and soggy. Cold air had moved in for Friday and Saturday, freezing the bog and creating a thin skim of ice around the edge of the pond.














The sun set behind some thin but hazy clouds, and my attention turned to the hairy woodpecker that caught my attention over my shoulder, back towards the treeline at the edge of the bog. A female, this bird started at the bottom of an old, bleached out pine snag, and headed upwards pecking along the way. Not very good pictures, but perhaps my best opportunity to photograph this woodpecker species.



Have you ever seen the Maine State License plate? Are you thinking a red lobster? Nope, that was the old plate. The current plate has a sprig of white pine needles and a black-capped chickadee. I grew up with black-capped chickadees in northeastern Ohio where they live. But somewhere between Akron and Columbus, the black capped chickadees are replaced by the Carolina Chickadee. A smaller bird, I had always wondered how I would be able to tell the two apart if a black-capped showed up at my bird feeder here in Columbus. After watching black-caps for three days, I think I have it down. In my opinion, the black capped is a much more handsome bird. It is larger, its colors are more bold, and the ones at Megan's parents house are much more tame then our Carolina chickadees here. Our city birds might be extra wary-they are battle tested city birds. I've got to really hide to photograph Carolina's, but the black caps would let me get four to five feet from the feeder and they would still come down, pluck a few sunflower seeds, let me fire a flash at them, at still come back over and over again.









Two other bird species visited Megan's parents feeders--the red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatch. No northern cardinals, not tufted titmice, and no song sparrows, typical feeder birds in my neighborhood, were around in Maine.



Although we have red squirrels in Ohio, they are dirt common in the mixed pine forests of Maine. They are incredibly acrobatic, and had no problem hanging on to a white pine, reaching out and grabbing the bird feeder, and then scooping out a few sunflower seeds. There are also gray squirrels at Little Pond.







Ok, so its about 4:30, and its getting dark. Time to head in to take a nap so that I would be ready for Megan's ten year high school reunion! Although she decided about 5:30 that she wasn't going to go because she was so nervous, we ended up going and she had a great time! Luckily, we weren't there for too long before we had to leave so that we could wake up early and leave the house about 5:30 to catch our flight down in Portsmouth New Hampshire. All in all, a great trip to Maine.

Tom

Maine

Even though Otisfield and the Oxford Hills region of Maine is pretty far isolated from everything, it is only about a forty minute drive or so to the nearest big box shopping area. Megan and I couldn't miss out on the after Thanksgiving shopping bonanza. I picked up a new four gigabyte compact flash card from Staples, and after which, we headed over to Kohl's for some more bounty. We struck out there however, and they didn't have what we were looking for. Oh Well. For lunch, we headed down to Portland, Maine's largest city, to meet up with her friend Katrina and her husband Nick. We ate at a great little brew pub, I think it was called The Great Lost Bear, or something similar I had a haddock open faced sandwhich. Maine is fantastic for getting fresh seafood. Haddock, clams, native shrimp, mussells, its all here. As a seafood lover, I'm in heaven.

Megan and her friend Katrina at Portland's Great Lost Bear

Megan and I wanted to explore the city of Portland a bit, so we headed down to the old port area. What a cool place. Definitely the highlight of the trip so far. We can see why our friends Brian and Rita raved about it when they came up to Maine for our wedding about a year ago. We'd never been down to the area, but there are plenty of old dockside warehouses that have been converted into offices and chic storefronts and restaurants.

Typical historical brick building in downtown Portland.

Especially cool was the U.S. Customs house, whose gray exterior stuck out from all the other brick and granite buildings. The old brick armory, which looked like a medieval castle, had been turned into a posh Regency hotel. All in all, a great little place to shop, eat, and drink. The brick sidewalks and cobblestone streets were packed. After shopping, we drove around the seaside perimeter of the city, taking a few pictures of low tide along the way. Portland is a fantastic place to visit at any time of year. From Columbus, you can hop aboard a Skybus flight to Portsmouth New Hampshire, rent a car, and be in Portland in about an hour.

Too cold for whale watching today! It was only twenty degrees or so.

As far as seafood goes, lobster is king throughout coastal Maine.

Although we didn't get much snow this trip, there were constant reminders of how much snow can fall in this region, like this gigantic plow just sitting and waiting in a parking lot.

After our downtown shopping adventure was over, we drove around the perimeter of the peninsula. This shot is to the northwest and looks out across Casco Bay.

A full moon was rising and followed us on our way up to the Oxford Hills.

Megan at the wheel of our rental Ford Focus, courtesy of Budget rental cars. We didn't get the free upgrade this time!

On the way back home, I decided to do some experimental photography since Megan was driving and I was fairly bored. Some of the results:





And finally, we got home. There was just enough light to capture a few photos of the pond, and the moonlight lent itself perfectly to night time photography of Megan's parents log home in the woods. What a place to live!

What I like about this photo is that you can see a few bright stars at the top left portion of the photo. This image shows the very last bits of daylight at little pond. This photo was shot at 5:46 p.m., a good hour after sunset. Both of these night shots are thirty second exposures taken with the camera on a tripod.

Tom

Maine

Megan and I arrived Wednesday evening in Portsmouth New Hampshire, our Skybus flight touching down in a light fog. We picked up our rental car, and headed up I-95 to Portland, onto Gray, and then finally to Maine Rt. 26 which would take us up into the Oxford Hills. Of course, when we got to the Oxford Hills, we were greeted with this funny wet white stuff covering the ground. Plenty of snow here!



Here is Megan's parent's driveway, looking OUT towards the street. Yep, they are fairly isolated, and it is pin drop quiet in the woods here. Little pond is pretty far north, north enough to have a nice mixture of pines and hardwoods. There are no less than seven species of conifers to be found on the property, and American beech, red maple, and paper birch are quite common.



The bog and pond, the namesake of Little Pond, were quite eerie yesterday! We started out with clouds and rain, but as the day grew older and warmer, fog set in. I could barely see the pines on the other side of the bog through the misty fog.



What better activity in Maine on Thanksgiving than a hike with the dogs? Dublin and Murphy, the resident chocolate labs of the property, are a bit rambunctious. Here are Megan and here Dad on a walk. I guess its gun season here in Maine, so blaze orange was the thematic color of the day.

And what better way to round out a Maine thanksgiving with a nice goose taken on the pond that morning? Ok...not really. But it sounds good, doesn't it? No goose, but here is Glenn carving the turkey.



All in all, a nice thanksgiving, and I want to put out a shout out to all my family back in Ohio. Lets see your pictures!

Tom

I'm off to Maine

Megan and I will be heading to visit her parents and brother tomorrow for Thanksgiving. They live in the Oxford Hills region of Maine, in a town called Otisfield. I'm looking forward to seeing the north woods again. Their property is covered with balsam fir, and although I don't think there will be any snow when we get there, I'm hoping the "odoriferousness" of the north woods gets me into the holiday spirit. Hopefully I can post a few short things while I'm there.

Back home in Columbus, I have started feeding birds. I put out a "No-No" black oil sunflower feeder (purchased at The Andersons), and the chickadees, nuthatches, titmice, downy woodpeckers and house sparrows needed only two days to find the bounty of black oiled sunflower seeds which it holds. So far, it is somewhat squirrel proof. I watched a gray squirrel easily remove one or two seeds at a time, and they've also learned to shake seeds out so they can eat them on the ground. Oh well. Nothing is perfect, but the feeder is about four feet outside of my window, giving me some nice photo opportunities.



Megan and I decided to beat the crowd last Friday night to the Columbus Zoo wildlights extravaganza. Especially cool was this pair of Indian star tortoises that were anything but bashful, the manatees, and the hammerhead sharks in the world of the seas building.

Goldfinches Enjoying the Water

For those of you that know Columbus, the stream that these goldfinches are bathing in runs just to the north of Graceland Shopping Center. I'm not sure if I would drink the water, but they seemed to be loving it. The final picture shows where the stream meets up with the Olentangy River.

 

 

 

 

Tom

Honeysuckle

I'm keeping an eye on the Amur honeysuckle throughout Kenney Park here in north Columbus. Birds eat the fruit. No doubt about it. I've seen and photographed northern cardinals and Canada geese throwing down the berries, and this robin and cedar waxwing were feasting this past Monday.



Tom

Waterfowl

This past weekend Megan and I went to Blendon Woods Metropark on the northeast side of Columbus for a quick look at waterfowl. I think these birds are really interesting, and it is fascinating that plenty birds travel through Ohio each fall and spring and can be readily seen on the larger water bodies across central Ohio.

At Blendon woods, Megan and I noted this group of gadwall, which was a new bird for me.

 

We also saw, to my novice eye, what looks like a pied-billed grebe. This individual was floating solo on Thoreau Lake.

 

Columbus has quite a few spots that are known for rafts of migrating waterfowl. If you live in the area, Blendon woods is fantastic since the birds are usually quite close to the observation area and the park has two of those gigantic metal encased spotting scopes for all to use. Hoover reservoir is another hotspot, just up the way from Blendon. To know where to go when, visit the Ohio Birds Listserve for daily bird reports from across Ohio.

Tom

Fall Color- It is not too late

Veteran's Day. Both of my grandfather's were a part of World War II, but to me, the whole idea of myself fighting in a war is a bit distant and something that I consider to be of the most minute possibility. I suppose it was quite different back in the late 1930's when my grandfathers were teenagers. Veterans day, for me, is a day off work to take pictures and naturalize.

It isn't too late to see fall foliage, and to photograph it. I thought it was. This morning at about 10:30 I strapped on my telephoto lens hoping to catch a few birds with the camera. The sky opened up a bit and very nice light poured around me in Kenney Park. The warm air didn't hurt either.

First up we have the forest floor. Right now, in Kenney Park, it is covered with the leaves of silver maple. The leaves of first year garlic mustard plants, a horribly non-native invasive plant, can readily be seen at this time of year. The leaves look a bit like violets, but their venation and the scalloping around the edges of the leaves set them apart.






The leaves of trees are not the only things that show bright colors. I noticed this tangle of grapevines, Vitis riparia, hanging down above the Olentangy River.










Silver maples line the banks of the river, and they are the last trees in Kenney Park to transform into their fall colors.











Fairly large silver maples line the river. The corridor of trees that lines a river is critical. The trees prevent erosion, provide detritus and nutrients to the stream in the form of leaves, and shade the stream, keeping the water cool during the warm summer.










While mostly yellow, these silver maple leaves were washed with red.

Maple leaves everywhere.....
















































Fall offers a time to explore see things in a different way. I hadn't come across any oak trees until this morning in Kenney Park. This stunning red oak, Quercus rubra is steps of the path and I have walked by it hundreds of times.

Two new tree species for the park in one day? Sure enough, as I stopped to see the red oak, I noticed this small bitternut hickory tree. Which hickory could this be? A quick look at the buds, those yellow things at the end of the twig, gave it away. Carya cordiformis, or bitternut hickory.

Tom

Irruption- The Red-breasted Nuthatch

I've been looking for a red-breasted nuthatch ever since Jim McCormac said he had seen a few at our ODNR offices here in Columbus about a month ago. I struck out at work, but did manage to finally see and photograph this tiny little nuthatch at Blendon Woods Metropark yesterday. Supposedly, these birds "irrupt" out of the north woods when pine cone seed production is low, and, this year is one such year. I haven't heard anything about seed production in the north country, but there have been plenty of reports of these birds across Ohio.

At Blendon, this individual was staking out the feeder in the Walden Wildlife Refuge near Thoreau Lake (a small reservoir, technically.



These birds are very handsome. The black and white head, reddish brown belly, and the slate blue back make quite a color combination.



My camera has a three shots per second burst mode. It is fantastic for taking photos of birds. Now if I only had that 300 mm F/4 Canon lens...this photo would be all that sharper (while I'm dreaming, it would be even more sharp with the 300 f/2.8!)

Dedication

I'm glad to see that someone recognized what a very unique place Kenney Park is:

Birds in the Backyard

This afternoon, just before the Cleveland Browns Game,I popped outside to see what I could do with the birds in our backyard. Our neighbors have several feeding stations that mostly attract non-native song sparrows. However, during the winter, mixed flocks of Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, juncos, and white throated sparrows feed here as well. Today I watched as the titmice and chickadees darted to the feeder, stop at a box elder tree in my house, and then fly back to the brushy cover of our abandoned alley and neighbor's overgrown backyard. Wow, are they quick! The titmice will stick around a perch for about ten or twenty seconds, but the chickadees alight for only three seconds or less before they bolt away. My first efforts:




With a little patience and the three frames per second capture rate of my camera, I was able to get some of my first fairly decent bird photos. All in all, I took about 70 shots that probably represented only about 30 seconds of actual time.

The Carolina chickadee. This is the smallest bird that frequents my neighborhood.



The tufted titmouse. My neighbors, who feed the birds but don't know there names, make up their own. On Friday, my neighbor Jackie stopped me in the front yard and asked me "what is that little bird that looks like a reject bluejay?" Hmmmm...Well, off the top of my head, I wasn't sure what she was talking about. I ran inside and fetched my Sibley guide, leafed through, showed her the white breasted nuthatch, and she said, nope, thats not it. I kept browsing, as we stood in my front yard, and reached the tufted titmouse page. Immediately, she stopped me, and said, "Yep, that's it! That is the reject blue jay." So how about that common name? As I stood in the backyard today, propped up against the white painted concrete wall of my neighbor's garage, the reject blue jay landed in our flowering crab apple tree. This bird saw me, but was patient, and seemed intent on finding food.




Tom

Downy Woodpecker

I had the pleasure and fortune of watching a male downy woodpecker search for food amongst the branches of a downed Ohio buckeye tree on Friday. I filled my two gigabyte memory card with shots of this bird! All the right condiditions were there. It was sunny, he was in the light, but boy did he move. Here you can see him winding up and then "going in for the kill" and stabbing the wooden stem. Notice the dust shake off the branch, and see how he closes his eyes on impact. Pretty cool.

 

 

 

 

Tom