Taughannock Falls- Seeing It in Six Images

In the Algonquin language,  Taughannock  means in the trees. The gorge is still surrounded by huge trees.  It is the tallest free-falling waterfall east of the Mississippi River. Those 215 feet have been most impressive to me in deep winter when it is covered with heavy ice, and growling with a deep-throated voice. The walk up from the bottom of the falls is a popular winter outing for many.

I realized I had not explored Taughannock in summer for over ten years.  So, today I took the challenge to create a fresh view of the falls in six images.  I first stopped at the overlook perched high on the edge of the gorge's north wall.  The September morning was foggy with a few wisps still in the tree tops.

The majority of visitors travel the 3/4 mile trail with few pauses to even look at the minor waterfall near the parking lot.  I find it has a lot of attractive smaller drops across its width.  Looking at right of center, I find a section with five different steps from top to bottom. In winter, much of the flow is hidden under large ice formations.

Even farther to the right edge, there is a set of three steps created by the layers of sedimentary rock.

I spent over half an hour just finding interesting patterns of falling water. So, these are my first three images, and I am still nearly 3/4 mile from the big drop. Time to work up stream.

From the first falls, the gorge closes on the creek. The fog began to disperse, revealing blue sky and painting the north wall with warm light.  It's a pretty spot and easy to walk into the stream bed.

I like this view for what it tells you about the steep north wall of the gorge and the gentle steps where the stream drops a few feet to the next level. Somewhere on the vertical wall up there is a peregrine falcon nest. (I saw it this summer with great difficulty.  It's very distant and the falcon's coloration blends in with the gray rocks.)

On to the falls.  The first photo that I offered is all you need to understand Taughannock's height.  I chose to concentrate on it's power. After a free fall of 215 feet, the water is moving so fast that it is a blur even at 1/250 second shutter speed.   The spray coats the rock walls for many times the width of the cascade.

Now, I am down to image number six. Between this falls and the first one I presented, the stream works down over several layers of relatively flat stone.  The surface has gentle ripples and puddles that create hundreds of small reflective "ponds". On a still day, these produce a patch work of images from the canyon walls. Seen below are islands of blue sedimentary rock in a sea of golden tree leaves on the distant slopes.   I find them entertaining to explore.

These are my six from today.  Allow me one more image from December, 2013 that reveals why winter is still my favorite.

And, yes, it was really cold.  I am thinking maybe I can find another Seeing It in Six in October, if  there are come good autumn colors.

Hope you find this enjoyable.

Paul Schmitt

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

As I Wander in Autumn

 

Going out with a specific goal doesn't always work for me.  On Tuesday, I headed out with a specific goal and very limited equipment.  I'll save that for last.  It was more typical on Wednesday when I just headed in a general direction with a map of back roads to keep me off the popular pathways. First, I found a roadside pond I'd seen last spring with the idea to get permission from the owner to enter.  (I was thinking ducks; did not get an okay.)  This time, I was happy to stay roadside.  

I like the scene.  The red sumac pulls my eye into the blue and yellow.  The reflections double up on the subject matter.  I've got to try again to get permission.  Maybe a photo will soften their heart.

I backtracked a little to head up a single track road into state land.  Soon, I just had to stop in the middle of the narrow road to capture the way the narrow gravel road welcomed me.  The star burst was a bonus.

It only got better about 200 yards farther up the road. I named this image a Golden Maple Framing the Field.

Something in the fore really excites me.  It tells me where I am taking in the view.   Do you see how the distant hill's trees don't have to be in sharp focus for you to enjoy the experience?

This road was making me take notes for next fall.  Another bend and I pulled over again.  Fallen leaves draped over big round glacial boulders were on the edge of the field. Some trees along the left and right sides framed a beautiful orange maple.

 

 

Those three images in less than a mile made it seem so easy to find landscapes in the fall. Maybe I got picky. It was a few miles before I saw an abandoned house that is no long home to anyone.  It seemed better in monochrome.

I turned to go back to the car, and faced a maple matriarch.  The house had so captured my attention that it did not register at first.  It appears that this tree was left, maybe for shade, when all the rest of the woods was clear cut.

This wandering was going well. There was one more country road on my list because it has a tree lined pond.  The drought has lowered the pond to mostly mud and pond scum. Oh well, maybe next year will be okay.  Have you ever noticed how a road or a wood's path looks so different when you reverse direction.  As I left this pond, I saw right in front of me another road to be remembered.  Imagine driving home to this view daily.  This farm family sees it in all four seasons.  Imagine it in snow.

So, this was a pretty good wander.  The day before I took a pre-planned visit to a nearby nature preserve.  I was hiking the trail days before and something about this fallen tree caught my attention.   The tree is very rotten, and when it fell, it left a narrow slot open all the way through the trunk.  I was thinking how this resembled the stone arches seen in Utah's Zion National Park. This was not a photo for a cell phone camera, so some forethought was necessary.  I would need to get really close.

 

So, Tuesday morning I assembled what I needed, including an oddball tripod that allows me to hang the camera upside down nearly touching the ground.  Here is the setup.

My controls are underneath and reversed, but I can see with the articulated display screen what the lens is displaying. To complicate things, the amount of light inside the  tree is much lower than the distant woodland, so I made more than one image and blended them together.

I call this Plymouth Arch in recognition of the like-named Plymouth Woods Preserve.  I am not done with this though. I want to go back on a rainy day when the leaves are vibrant and the light is subdued. It will be a different result.

 

I am thinking this is actually my most satisfying image of the month.

 

Thanks for your interest.

 

Paul Schmitt  

Visual Impressions- Cornell Arboretum's Herb Garden

In summer, the Cornell Arboretum offers among the richest array of blooms in the Finger Lakes.  And, in the height of summer, the Herb Garden adjacent to the Nevin Visitor Center is a sure winner.  On two recent visits, I did some portraiture of some beautiful flowering plants.  Join me for a little explore.

Before I even reached the Herb Garden, the bioswale captured my interest. There is a new installation by Jenny Pickford.  I am looking forward to exploring the many ways this presents itself through the seasons and in different lighting.  Visualize it with red maple trees in autumn.

Double Allium

Behind the sculpture in the bioswale, I found some of richest Purple Cone Flowers I can recall ever seeing. 

Purple Cone Flowers

Understandably, I needed to remind myself that the light was excellent, and that I had to get to the Herb Garden while the sun stayed low.  What did I find? 

First on my route was dew-laden Borage.  It has s a tiny blue flower, and offers a pleasant fragrance to boot.

Borage

Sharing the raised flower bed with the Borage were some Corn Poppies which often have a white band on the rim of each petal.

Red and Blue Companions

While the Borage has its share of  bees, the Corn Poppies much offer a richer harvest for the bees. 

Feasting on a Corn Poppy

There are also larger Opium Poppies in the Herb Garden.  The bees find them equally attractive.

Opium Poppy in Among the Lilies

For my friends on the staff at the Cornell Arboretum, thank you for your dedication and creativity.  The same goes to the volunteers who add so much help.  For my fellow photographers in the Finger Lakes, don't pass this up.  It is one of the few arboretums that is open for photography in the beautiful early morning light.  For the rest of my friends, now you know one more reason I love living here.

Paul Schmitt

Following an Osprey Nest

Ospreys have made a dramatic return to the Finger Lakes where the fishing can be very good. They are a graceful bird that is fun to watch.

A favorite nest site is the top of an electric pole.   If the pole has double crossbars, Osprey can erect a pretty stable structure.  Last fall I was on a bicycle trip with friends along a local river with no thought to birding; I looked off the elevated road to find an Osprey nest in the field below.  The road's elevation put me right at eye level to a nest. Usually nests are too high to see into. I made a note in my calendar and went back in early March.  There was a lone male Osprey beginning to rebuild the nest with new sticks.

Through March, I returned to see if he had found a mate.  He would call "Pee-Pee-Pee-Pee-Pee" with added excitement if the passing bird was another Osprey.  He got no takers.  By April, I wondered if he lacked charisma and I checked less often. Returning on May 14, I spied a female in the nest.  Finally!

On May 26, I could finally see a tiny head in the nest of sticks. Below you can see the female deep in the nest just after the male brought in a small fish.  The chick's head is the little dark object at the female's bill.  How many chicks?  I could finally see a head with my binoculars.  This is getting interesting.

The pair's duties are pretty well divided.  She is on the nest nearly always, and he is fishing for the next meal or perched nearby on guard.   As I watched the nest, I wondered what would happen to the remains in the nest.  It was answered maybe fifteen minutes later when the male returned (without another catch), and within a few minutes carried the rest of the bullhead away.  They've got the details figured out.

 Two weeks later, the chicks were considerably larger.  And, I could see three.  Beautiful!

You may wonder how I can be so sure of which is male or female.  See below the two adults on the nest.  The female is always larger, and the size difference is pretty substantial. 

Observation tells me that the female runs the show.  When the chicks are hungry, and the male is perched nearby, she rather emphatically tells him to get fishing.  Yesterday, when he flew over the  nest with no catch, her calls were almost to the alarm volume.  His duty is catching a fish.

In the photo above, the male had just brought in a fish and she is  inspecting it.  (Note the chick just in front of her legs.)  She moved it to the right side of the nest.  That seems to be her feeding station.  Seen below, the male quickly leaves to resume his fishing.

Now it is time to feed the chicks.  It seemed to follow a pecking order, with the dominate chicks always getting fed first.  The third chick seemed to rarely get much.

Occasionally, the female does fly away.  Twice, it has been to return in only a few minutes with fresh nest material.  Yesterday, she returned with what looked like dead corn shucks.

I wish I could close with images of the young Ospreys testing their wings and taking a first flight, but my calendar commitments suggest I will miss those moments unless their timing goes a bit slow.  I wish them a successful first flight.  Hopefully they will survive the year to begin their own nesting.  I'll never tire of capturing an Osprey in flight.

Thinking Back for Two Months

The pace has been so fast, that I have fallen behind on sharing images. So, I've looked back over May and June to find those images that recall special days.  My first close encounter with a Marsh Wren in the Montezuma wetlands in May came as a surprise. He landed in an odd perch and stared at me with defiance.

Closer to home at the Newtown Battlefield Reservation this Hooded Warbler, like the Wren above, chose a nice spot to sing for me. I can regularly find one of them along a particular trail.

For a third year, a pair of Sandhill Cranes was spotted in a marsh near Watkins Glen. Would they be nesting this year?  The quest to answer that landed me on sight for some colorful mornings.

I found the cranes on several different days in June in the tall grass, so any chicks would be hidden. Then, on one day as I approached my parking spot to explore for the cranes, they were standing out in a corn field in plain view.  Dropping into a drainage ditch for concealment, I got very close; it was obvious that they did not have chicks this year.  Mixed with  disappointment was the interesting display that one crane made.

In addition to the larger animals, there is a much smaller world that can be interesting.  This black ant was feeding on the nectar in the blooms of my rhubarb plants.

A good part of June was directed at the Bluebird Trail Farms, which was the subject of an earlier message.  Surely a favorite of the grassland natives was the Eastern Meadowlark.  It is a very strong singer for its size.

I have created a new gallery on my website devoted to grassland flyers - birds and a few butterflies. See it at:  http://pschmitt.smugmug.com/Grassland-Flyers/

In late June and early July, some of my attention moves to orchids and other beautiful flowering native plants. Arguably, the most exciting are the Showy Lady's Slippers. This cluster of blooms was photographed with my smartphone.

Most exciting was this pair that provided the two orthogonal views in one instant.

Back at the Newtown Battlefield Reservation, a White-breasted Nuthatch found a spider nest under some peeling bark of a White Birch, and I captured the moment when it pulled out the spider.

The American Goldfinch is a seed eater, so it nests later when the grasses are going to seed. This male is in fine colors as July begins.

In the meadows and grasslands, the birds' young are fledging, and one is more successful finding colored butterflies like this Fritillary.

Saving one of the best subjects for last, we come to the Canada Lily.  It's hard to find, because the over-abundant Whitetail Deer find it tasty.  I was introduced to a pocket of them isolated between a big river and a railroad yard in an urban location. No deer get there. Arriving in early morning, I spotted the first plants next to the river.

Some of the plants had profuse blooms. It was very striking. This is just two plants.

One distinctive feature of the Canada Lily is the "freckles" on the petals.

So, there is a view into why my last two months have passed so quickly.

Paul