Tag Archives for nature

Scene while walking – January 30, 2013

I get to see a lot of wildlife while I’m walking. There are some wetlands on a ranch that I walk near – the road is above the ranch so I’m looking down. The pond attracts a lot of ducks – in summer it’s covered in algae and in winter part or all of it freezes over.

 

IMG_2707If you look closely (you may want to click to enlarge the photo) you can see that part of the pond is frozen and the ducks are walking on the ice there! A very entertaining scene, indeed.

 

Scene while walking – January 28, 2013

First, let me be fully honest. The date is the publication date of the post and not (at least generally) the date the photo was taken. Let’s face it – I’m usually going to be out walking later and then I may put together a post for the next day. Or I may even be using a picture I took while walking quite a while ago (it’s possible!)…

What I will guarantee is that I took the photos and I did so while I was out for a walk and I probably saw a lot more stuff during that walk than I took pictures of. So I hope you’re going walking too, and taking time to enjoy all that you see.

This particular day I was walking and saw smoke and flame. Wildfire is a constant threat here, though generally not as much during winter. When I saw flames through the trees that seemed to extend quite a way I called 911 to report it. It was then I was told it was a planned burn to dispose of debris and was coordinated with our local fire officials. I expressed concern because there was a LOT of fire and only one person I could see actually tending things (and one small looking water truck). The operator took my information and I figured that would be it. Shortly after that, my phone rang. It was the fire chief calling to tell me what precautions were in place and that the fire department was regularly checking on the area.

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Click to see the large image and you can spot the guy tending the fires (this will give a sense of scale) – this was perhaps 1/3 of the total area that had fires burning.

I love that I live somewhere that I get a personal call to help me be certain my neighbors are safe. (and it was all fine in the end)

It certainly made for an interesting walk that day!

Fossileaved

I take a lot of walks around my neighborhood. I’m very familiar with the sidewalks – and I have a personal favorite. I’m sure that sounds odd, but it’s true. Clearly this particular sidewalk concrete was poured in the autumn, and then a lot of leaves fell. Instead of erasing the evidence, the impressions are still there. Finally one day I took my camera with me so I could take photos of the fossil-leaves with the newly fallen leaves. I hope you enjoy them.

 

Periodic Frog October 20, 2012

Having very few frog sightings lately. Today I did see Uptown Frog, albeit very briefly. He also saw me and quickly dove underwater. This made me decide it was time for another archive photo for a periodic frog. This is Cave Frog, with his beloved plant pot. It’s an earlier photo before I got a bit better at this, but I love how his little hands are hanging on to the edge of the pot. Cute!

Mists on the Columbia River

Each morning I try to get to my office an hour early so I can take a nice long walk before I officially start the day. I find it quite soothing. I started doing this during the summer and so now, as the days grow shorter and colder, it’s more of a challenge. But it’s still a great start to my day so even though now it is dark when I rise and when I leave the house, it’s worth the effort. I’m fortunate to have my office near the Columbia River, and there is a nice walking trail that I am on nearly every day. As the start of the days have grown colder, I noticed the mists rising off the river.

Now of course I don’t carry the fancy camera while I’m walking before work, so I’m stuck with taking pictures with my phone. On this walk I saw pheasants (when they flushed I nearly had a heart attack), quail (in *trees* which is weird because they generally seem to forget they can fly and just scurry everywhere), ducks, geese, seagulls, and bunnies. It was a lovely (chilly) morning.

The mists rising up are what I imagine Scotland looks like all the time. Which is silly, because I’ve been to Scotland and it didn’t look like this. It was snowing.

Nonetheless, I’m delighted that this is a poor quality photograph. It looks like a nice watercolor to me. I hope you enjoy it.

Blue Dragonfly on deck

Though this does not compete (in my mind) with the blue dragonfly I captured on the iris plant stalk, it’s still a great close-up. They like to hang out on the corner of our small pier over the stream and (I presume) hunt the bugs that fly under and around the bridge. This is totally fine by me. Again, taken with my phone so not as detailed as it could have been.

Gold Dragonfly

Yesterday’s photo reminded me I have a number of good photos of dragonflies I have not yet shared (though I meant to – just got distracted by frogs, you see. Perfectly understandable.). I captured this beauty while I was spending the day outside smoking pork and doing my Christmas shopping. He was polite enough to pose for a long while. This was important because again I was using my phone as camera.

Dragonfly on Water Hyacinth

I am 99% certain my mother took this photo last summer. I know it wasn’t this summer because we didn’t put in water hyacinth this year. They are a lovely flower – but they bloom for about a day and that is it. Plus, they are annuals where I live. But I admit, the dragonflies did enjoy posing on top of them! Of course, this one isn’t in bloom. Below is a photo of one fully bloomed – which you have to have good timing to get since they only last a day. Apologies for the blur; I believe this was with my phone and the lens was probably not so clean. Or, you can assume I used a nice filter for this effect.