A Burst of Spring Flowers

The woodland bloom is getting exciting.  I went out yesterday to search for a warbler at Cornell's Arnot Forest and did not get 200 yards into the woods before the wildflowers changed the plan.  Right along the main forest road was this stately Purple Trillium- Trillium erectum- in perfect condition.

 

While the species name would imply the flower is erect, it is always nodding down.  The trick to a good image of it is to get very low - that is best done by finding plants on a steep hillside.  Seen at right is the usual approach.  In this case, I had to straddle a fallen log on a somewhat slippery slope.  It is a slow process with much care to avoid damaging other blooming plants.

At such a close distance, the lens has a shallow of depth of focus. So, I made six images stepped from closest leaf tip the to the most distant leaf. This, of course, included the purple flower's detail.  The resulting "portrait" came from aligning all six images and selecting the sharper parts of each image.  This is a revolutionary change in how to overcome the inherent limits of optics. See the result below.

I became rather driven to find Purple Trillium clinging to increasingly steep slopes.

 

Inevitably, I found the most marginal of all possibilities.

This was about 50 feet above the valley floor.  It convinced me to find other subjects.  

The beautiful Trout Lily - Erythronium americanum - were also in bloom.  They are only open when the sky is clear so, this was the opportunity I wanted.

Like the Purple Trillium, they are looking downward.  I put my camera down in the leaves and propped it up to get the image.  They are a true ephemera and will totally disappear by mid-summer.

There are other blooms to find that were easier to photograph.  Consider the Virginia Bluebells- Mertensia virginica.  It is a plant of the river woods.  Here's one of my favorite images.

It had been a full morning. As I exited the forest road, I saw an exceptional cluster of White Trillium - Trillium grandiflorum - and had to stop.  Too lazy to unload my camera again, I depended upon my iPhone. 

 

Ten blooms!   The steep bank must be rich and well watered.  

No wonder that spring is my favorite season.

Paul

Blooming Highlights

The rush of migrating birds has ended, and it's time to catch up with the highlights of the spring wildflower blooms. I find myself pulled between the elusive birds and ephemeral blooms.  Here is the best of the spring blooms.

At the entrance to Cornell Plantation's Mundy Wildflower Garden, I found Celandine Poppies and Virginia Bluebells in wonderful colors.  I had to get very low on the ground to get this view.

Nearby was one of my favorites each year, May Apple. Another chance to lie on the ground.

The Trillium grandiflorum were a bit higher and less difficult to photograph.  They are always grand.

An easily overlooked wildflower is the Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum).  Oddly, the garden geraniums we plant in our gardens are not members of the Geranium genum.   The Wild Geraniums are so prolific that the deer must not be eating them.  Hope it stays that way!

Now, all of these are fairly common, and while beautiful, they do not excite the passions like a wild orchid. These Pink Lady's Slippers were in a cluster of 185 plants that I visited for the first time this spring.

That is an extraordinary cluster of blooms.  I also like to portray the charming arrangements that the blooms sometime present.  This one is, for me, a portrait, .....perhaps of two sisters?

 

So, those are my highlights of spring.  In only a week or maybe two, the later blooming orchids will appear, and I'll get excited once again.  The one difference is that I will have to endure the mosquitoes that frequent the bogs and fens in June.

You can understand how I am torn between choosing blooms or birds on any given day.

Kind regards,

Paul

Spring Wildflowers!

My love for nature photography began with landscapes. That is never more apparent than when the emerging colors of spring destroy the muted winter colors. Recently I revisited Lick Brook for both waterfalls and spring wildflowers where I found this magical scene with the first bits of spring green in the trees.  (Yes, my feet got wet getting to this spot. It was worth it.)

At one time this spring,  I went looking for birds with a big telephoto lens and found something unexpected that needed a wider view. What to do?  Why, pull out my iPhone and take the photo.  So it was that this renegade bunch of daffodils appeared in a wooded area.

I transformed the image to match the impression it made on me using the Mobile Monet app.

Sometimes the wildflowers are just outside my door.  I have a 4-foot square garden in a sheltered corner by our sun room. The quiet corner seems to encourage early blooming like seen in this Purple Trillium.

So, I've become so intrigued with testing my ability to capture a workable image with the iPhone, that I am becoming too lazy to switch to a wide angle lens when I see an expansive image like these Virginia Bluebells. With the small size of the camera phone, I can set the camera right on the ground and see the world like a bug.  Edited again with Mobile Monet.

Virginia Bluebells seem to have a changeable personality depending on the type of light.  During the same shoot, I found this, again from a bug's perspective.

Spring also brings a rich yellow and green display to the marshy areas when the Celandine Poppy blooms. 

Saving my favorite image for last, I found this lush Trillium grandiflorum on a leafy hillside in the Mundy Wildflower Garden at Cornell Plantations on a beautiful spring morning.

Now, if I did not have a lawn to mow, I could be out there right now looking for more beautiful finds. Maybe you can take my place?

Paul Schmitt

Persistance and Luck

I'll try to be short on words right now.  It has been a long day and I have a lot of good photo results to edit.  Yesterday, I got a little smarter on the habits of the Eastern Bluebirds around the nest boxes.

Eastern Bluebird, male

So, this male has some favorite perches to watch the grass areas for insects. It just takes hours to learn which branches are the chosen ones.  I expect even better results soon.

 Began today at the Mundy Wildflower Garden on the Cornell campus.  I was thinking birds  until two very prime wildflowers caught my interest. To my delight, I met a new photographer friend, David, and we explored the area together.

Marsh Marigolds are actually in the buttercup family, but obviously someone thought they reminded them of marigolds.  Well, they got the marsh part pretty much right. They love the wet, squishy places.

I guess the Virginia Bluebells fare a little better in the name department.  They are blue, and they are found in Virginia.  Sounds better than New York Bluebells, eh?

This crazy spring weather  has been rough on some blooming plants, but it has been good to the Bluebells.  Can't recall them lasting so long or being so lush. On the negative side, I found the buds on some plants frozen into a mush.  No May Apple blooms in many cases.

Now, back to the birds.  After some unfavorable weather, a shift in the patterns has open the door for many small birds to come north, and on top of that, I just got lucky today. To be honest, we roamed the wildflower garden for at least two hours with no bird photos to show for it.  Heard them, saw them, but never got close. As we returned to the horticulture building with zero birds, we spotted activity in a flowering  apple tree. Then, I heard the piping calls of the Baltimore Orioles.  Not sure if they are eating the flowers or bugs on the flowers, but it was some sort of feast. This male put on a concert of his songs. Nice.

 

That pretty much made the efforts of the morning justified.  But, there was more, as a beautiful Northern Cardinal took a perch nearby.

The male Cardinal also showed interest in the flowering apple.

I would be fully satisfied with these results, but the apple tree also attracted a very small warbler that stayed high in the tree, nearly always hidden by branches.

I could not match the little bird's white eye ring with any warbler that I knew, and when I got home to study my bird guide, I discovered it is a Nashville Warbler, and a first for me.  (Birders get excited for firsts.) There are just so many warblers and sometimes the smallest detail is needed to separate the choices.  What a nice end to the outing.  The birding weatherman has predicted another big wave of warblers for tonight, and I am debating whether I have the energy to get up very early again.  Don't know right now.

Hope you enjoy my story and that it moves you to look outside your windows just a little tomorrow. Never know what will entertain you with a song or some bright color.

Paul



Note: I have loaded a wider set of high resolution photos for the Baltimore Oriole and Northern Cardinal on my SmugMug web galleries at:

http://pschmitt.smugmug.com/Birds/Perching-Birds/18761402_G84qx9#!i=1826082241&k=SZn9n7w