Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for April, 2020

Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

Posted in Butterflies, Insects, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on April 7, 2020| 18 Comments »

What do you call a group of butterflies? I have always been fascinated by the collective nouns that we use in English for groups of creatures. I was delighted to learn that one of the collective nouns used for butterflies is a kaleidoscope.

“A kaleidoscope of butterflies” seems to be the perfect descriptor for this group of beautiful Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies (Papilio glaucus) that I spotted yesterday. They appeared to be engaged in a behavior known as “puddling,” during which the butterflies, most often the males, gather minerals and other nutrients from the soil or other organic material.

 

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Almost full moon

Posted in Art, moon, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , on April 7, 2020| 18 Comments »

Did you look up at the moon last night? I think that technically the full moon is tonight, but the moon was bright and spectacular around 8:30 in the evening when I took two steps out of my house and captured this image from my front landing.

I have been particularly pensive this week, a Holy Week that is unlike any other that I have experienced. It is a time when we commemorate suffering and sacrifice done on our behalf out of love. There is a lot of that same suffering and sacrifice taking place  all around us right now as collectively we try to deal with this virus. The challenges seem immense, but I felt reassurance when I looked up at that almost full moon last night and thought of some verses from the Psalms (Psalm 8: 3-4 (NIV)).

“When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?”

Stay safe and healthy, all of you.

full moon

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Joyful expectation

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Inspiration, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on April 6, 2020| 18 Comments »

What are your feelings about the future? For me, they are like this tulip bud, full of the promise of new life and beauty that is yet to come. The challenge for us all is to be patient and wait with joyful expectation.

As with all of my other recent tulip shots, I photographed this bud in the garden of my neighbor and friend Cindy Dyer. Thanks, Cindy.

tulip bud

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

Read Full Post »

First dragonflies of the season

Posted in Dragonflies, dragonfly, Insects, Nature, Photography, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2020| 18 Comments »

Last Friday I photographed my first dragonflies of the spring, a male Common Green Darner (Anax junius) and a female Ashy Clubtail (Phanogomphus lividus). The Common Green Darner is probably a migratory dragonfly that is just passing through as it heads north—we do have local-born members of this species, but it is too early for them to have emerged.

The Ashy Clubtail, which was actually the first dragonfly that I photographed, almost certainly emerged locally. When a dragonfly emerges, its wings are really shiny and the wings of this Ashy Clubtail were definitely sparkling in the sunlight. According to the local flight calendar, the Ashy Clubtail is one of the earliest dragonflies in our area to emerge, but I have never seen one this early before.

As you can see, I captured the images of both of these dragonflies when they were perched flat on the ground. There were dry leaves all around, which made a stealthy approach almost impossible and focusing on the dragonfly was a bit of a challenge.

Common Green Darner

Ashy Clubtail

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Bee with green eyes

Posted in Bees, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on April 5, 2020| 22 Comments »

Did you know that some bees have green speckled eyes? I was really startled by the brightness of this bee’s eyes as I was taking its photo last Monday while exploring in Prince William County, Virginia. Some research on-line revealed that this is a male Eastern Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa virginica).

I was pretty sure that I had never before seen a bee like this, but I was wrong. As I was preparing this posting, I discovered that I had seen a similar bee in October 2012 and published a posting entitled “Green-eyed Eastern Carpenter bee.” Wow. It’s been a long time between sightings, so maybe I can be forgiven for having forgotten about the previous time, though at my age I can simply claim that I had a “senior moment.” Ages has its privileges.

Eastern Carpenter Bee

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Natural triangles

Posted in abstract, Art, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2020| 8 Comments »

Beauty is everywhere, including in the abstract patterns of nature. Last week my eyes were drawn to the interplay of light and shadows in the leaves of some iris plants that have not yet bloomed in the garden of my neighbor Cindy Dyer. I love the series of triangles and straight lines in the resulting image and there is something soothing and peaceful about the various shades of green.

When I posted this image in Facebook, my pastor noted that these leaves reminded her of the palms that we would normally be waving in a procession to begin the celebration of Palm Sunday. In a few hours we will be celebrating in a different way, via Zoom teleconferencing software, but we have been asked to gather some branches or colorful pieces of cloth to wave in front of our cameras as we say, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.” This pandemic has changed some of the outward aspects of our worship, but we continue on.

Whether you are Christian or not, my prayer is that this Sunday finds you feeling thankfulness in the midst of this crisis for what you still have and not merely lamenting that which you have lost. I also pray that you are filled with the joyful hope that we will eventually make it through this difficult time. If there is one thing we have certainly learned, it is that we are truly all in this together.

leaves

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Orchard spider in April

Posted in Arachnids, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, spring, tagged , , , , , , on April 4, 2020| 8 Comments »

This week I did a pair of postings in a single day that I called “beauty and the beast” that was so well received that I thought I would do it again. Earlier this morning I did the “beauty” part with a shot of some crabapple blossoms in my front yard. For the “beast” part, I decided to feature this shot of a little orchard spider (Leucauge venusta) in the garden of my neighbor, fellow photographer and blogger Cindy Dyer. The spider was hanging in the midst of a group of irises that have not yet bloomed and I was happy to be able to be able to frame the shot so you have a sense of the spider’s environment.

As always, I offer my apologies to those who are creeped out by spiders, and recommend that you check out the crabapple posting if you have not seen it yet. As for me, I find spiders to be always fascinating and often beautiful.

orchard orbweaver spider

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Crabapple in my front yard

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , on April 4, 2020| 27 Comments »

Beauty is everywhere. Thursday afternoon as I walked out of my suburban townhouse, I glanced at the crabapple tree in my front yard, now covered with blossoms. Realizing how beautiful it is, I captured this simple image.

You don’t always have to go to distant locations to find beauty—you can often find it in your back yard or, in my case, in your front yard.

crabapple

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

Read Full Post »

Open tulips

Posted in Art, Flowers, Macro Photography, Nature, spring, tagged , , , , , , on April 3, 2020| 13 Comments »

The two-colored tulips in the garden of my neighbor and friend Cindy Dyer were open yesterday and they are awesome. The first macro shot makes the tulip look almost like a little pinwheel. The second shot gives you a greater sense of the colors and patterns in these beautiful tulips—the delicate feathering of the red on the yellow petals is simply breathtaking.

tulip

tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Fiddlehead

Posted in abstract, Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , on April 3, 2020| 14 Comments »

Nature is full of wonderful shapes, like the spiral of this curled-up fern—at this stage it is know as a fiddlehead—that I spotted on Monday while exploring in Prince William County. A few days afterwards, Gary Bolstad published a photo of a fiddlehead in New Zealand in his blog krikitarts.wordpress.com. Gary is an amazing photographer and you should really check out his wonderful blog.

In replying to a comment I made about his posting, Gary explained that “The Māori name for a fiddlehead is Koru, and the spiral shape is an essential part of their culture and probably the most common shape used in the design of their carved greenstone (jade) jewelry. It can represent creation, perpetual movement, return to a point of origin, equilibrium/harmony in life, and new life.”

I think we could all use more equilibrium and harmony in our lives during these unsettling times.

fiddlehead

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

Read Full Post »

Grape hyacinth

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on April 2, 2020| 28 Comments »

Beauty is everywhere. A few minutes ago I walked over to the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer and captured this modest image of a little grape hyacinth (g. Muscari). I just love that vibrant violet color.
So often, taking photos is a multi-hour endeavor for me. Normally I pack my gear and head off to remote locations and walk and walk, watching and waiting for opportunities to arise. It definitely is not normal now, so I am relearning the joy of taking photos in small doses, a few minutes here and a few minutes there. Perhaps I won’t capture stunning action shots, but I am convinced that the words with which I began this posting are true—beauty is everywhere.
grape hyacinth
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Sunrise impressions

Posted in Art, Landscape, Nature, Photography, spring, sunrise, tagged , , , , , on April 2, 2020| 31 Comments »

The sun had just risen when I arrived last Thursday morning at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. How, I wondered could I possibly capture my impressions of those wonderful moments as the new day was dawning?

I hastened to capture an image while the sun was still low on the horizon and grabbed the first photo below while standing at the edge of the parking lot. There was a soft mist lingering over the fields and in my second shot, I worked to capture the stillness and serenity that I was feeling.

When I finally arrived at the shore, the sky and the water seemed to be almost the same color with a narrow, darker strip of land separating the too. I immediately thought of the moody, minimalist landscape shots that Michael Scandling regularly features in AMAGA Photography Blog. Michael likes to coax each pixel into submission and I confess that I did not work on my final image as much as he would have, but it is a kind of homage to his wonderful work.

So there you have it, three distinctive images that together give you a sense of what I was seeing and feeling in the early morning hours, a time of day that is perfect for introspection and reflection.

sunrise at Occoquan Bay

sunrise at Occoquan Bay

sunrise at Occoquan Bay

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

Read Full Post »

Broken tulips

Posted in abstract, Art, Flowers, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on April 1, 2020| 27 Comments »

From a distance, I noticed yesterday that some yellow tulips were getting ready to bloom in the garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. Cindy deliberately chooses colorful, photogenic flowers for her garden, so I love visiting it frequently. As I got close, I noted the spectacular two-color patterns of these tulips. When I sent a photo to Cindy, she informed me that they are known as “broken tulips.”

Perhaps she told me some time in the past what “broken tulips” are, but I rushed to Google to find out why they are considered to be “broken.” This term refers to the dramatic color-breaking of these flowers, an effect highly sought after during the 17th-century Dutch “tulip mania,” according to Wikipedia. Historically, these changes are caused by a virus infects the tulip bulb and causes the cultivar to “break” its lock on a single color, resulting in intricate bars, stripes, streaks, featherings or flame-like effects of different colors on the petals.

Unfortunately, the virus weakens the bulbs and as a result some famous color-broken varieties no long exist. Today’s “broken tulips” are no longer caused by a viral infection, but are stable variants produced through breeding. Cindy noted to me that her tulips have been going strong for at least five years.

I was feeling creative yesterday when I took these photos and tried a lot of different angles and settings to get some unusual looks. I decided mainly to feature the areas with the different colors and deliberately shot with a shallow depth of field that causes the edges that are away from the center to be soft and out of focus. I think it worked out pretty well.

I decided to post these images today as a counterbalance to the photograph of a wolf spider that I posted earlier, a kind of “beauty and the beast” set of postings. I am guessing that almost everyone will like at least one of the two postings.

broken tulip

broken tulip

broken tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

Read Full Post »

Wolf spider

Posted in Arachnids, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spiders, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , on April 1, 2020| 19 Comments »

Whenever I have my macro lens on my camera, I tend to scan small areas very carefully, looking for variations of color and patterns or signs of movement. The colorful markings permitted me to spot the tiny cricket frog that I featured in yesterday’s posting. Not far from the frog’s habitat, it was movement that allowed me to spot this cool-looking wolf spider (Tigrosa georgicola) on Monday. The spider was slowly crawling through some leaf litter and I was able to grab this shot when it paused for a second in an open area.

I believe that this is the first wolf spider that I have ever photographed. Fortunately I was able to get help in identifying it in a Facebook group devoted to spider identification. I know that some people are totally creeped out by spiders, while others are fascinated by them. I apologize to those in the former group, but hope that exposure to these spiders through my photos will help you appreciate their beauty—they truly are amazing creatures.

If you are at all interested in or curious about wolf spiders (and there are a lot of different species), you should check out Pete Hillman’s blog that just yesterday featured a photo of a wolf spider basking in the sun. Those who really like spiders will love a posting that Pete did earlier in the month entitled Not One For The Squeamish that shows a female wolf spider with a group of little spiderlings on her back—be sure to double-click on that image.

 

wolf spider

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts