November 11, 2013 by Mike Powell
As I was going through some of my bird photos, I realized that a majority of them feature the male of the species. The males tend to be more loud and flashy, so I guess it’s not surprising that they draw my attention much of the time. The female often has a more delicate beauty and coloration, as is the case with this female Ring-necked duck (Aythya collaris) that I photographed recently.
I added an image of a male Ring-necked duck that I photographed the same day to allow you to make your own comparison and judgments. It may be a cliché, but it is nonetheless true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Aythya collaris, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, ducks, Kingstowne, Ring-necked duck | 5 Comments »
November 10, 2013 by Mike Powell
Do you still look at the clouds and see shapes as you did when you were a child? Sometimes the shadows and light and my imagination combine and cause me to see new things, like the leaves in this ginkgo tree that remind me of a flock of bright yellow butterflies.
Ginkgo trees are endlessly fascinating for me. Check out my earlier posting to see additional photos of my journey to a ginkgo grove a few weeks ago, including some close-up shots of ginkgo leaves and the fleshy seeds produced by the female ginkgo trees.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Butterflies, Landscape, Nature, Photography | Tagged Blandy Experimental Farm, Boyce VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, ginkgo, Ginkgo biloba, ginkgo grove, State Arboretum of Virginia | 4 Comments »
November 10, 2013 by Mike Powell
Two weeks ago I didn’t even realize that we had Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) in this area and now I can find quite a number of them on the Potomac River. It’s a little difficult to tell from the range maps in my bird guide if the cormorants are migrating through this area of if they may choose to winter here.
The more I observe these birds, the stranger they appear. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology described them this way—”The gangly Double-crested Cormorant is a prehistoric-looking, matte-black fishing bird with yellow-orange facial skin. Though they look like a combination of a goose and a loon, they are relatives of frigatebirds and boobies and are a common sight around fresh and salt water across North America.”
I am still working on getting some shots of the cormorants in the water, but as a start, here are a couple of images of a cormorant in the air. I took the first one before I knew that it was a cormorant—I have a habit of trying to capture anything in flight that is remotely in range. The second one shows a cormorant as he is taking off from the water after some bounding steps across the surface as he gained speed. The location of the light caused much of the cormorant’s body to be in the shadows, but did illuminate the details of some of its feathers.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged birds in flight, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, cormorant, Double-crested Cormorant, Phalacrocorax auritus, Potomac River | 19 Comments »
November 9, 2013 by Mike Powell
The wind was kicking up yesterday on the Potomac River, making it difficult for the ducks there, like this Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis). I watched as the small ducks got drenched repeatedly as they sought to ride the waves.
At least it wasn’t raining and the temperatures have not yet dropped below the freezing levels, even at night.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, duck, Oxyura jamaicensis, Potomac River, Ruddy Duck | 2 Comments »
November 9, 2013 by Mike Powell
I was watching some Great White Egrets (Ardea alba) yesterday at Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, a freshwater tidal wetland on the Potomac River, when something startled the birds.
The egrets and some mallard ducks took off from the water en masse in a great explosion of water. I captured some of that noise and confusion in the second photo. The photo I chose to feature shows the birds a short after the take off as they start to lift off a little and fly over a meadow-like area with tall golden grass. The light was especially beautiful on the wings of the egrets, which happily I managed to capture without blowing out the highlights as sometimes I do with these very white birds.
Click on the photos to see some of the beautiful details of the birds in greater resolution.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, birds in flight, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Dyke Marsh, Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve, egret, Great Egret, Great White Egret | 6 Comments »
November 8, 2013 by Mike Powell
Did you enjoy playing in puddles when you were a child? I remember a childhood of rubber boots and yellow slickers and days when my pant legs would be drenched from walking through puddles. Even now, I’ll occasionally kick my feet through a puddle of water and then glance quickly all around, hoping that nobody has seen me give in to my child-like impulses.
When I spotted this White-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) in a shallow puddle, I thought he was merely getting a drink of water. However, he stuck his head in the water, splashed around, and seemed to be having a good time. Perhaps he was taking a bath, or maybe he was simply enjoying himself in the cool waters. (In case you are curious about the background, the puddle had formed in a low area adjacent to a speed bump at the entrance to the parking area of my local marsh park—the yellow you can see is the safety paint of the speed bump itself.)
Initially, I was unsure that this sparrow was a White-throated, because the white patch was not really obvious and the eye stripes were not as well defined as in previous photos that I have posted of this species. The yellow coloration above the lore (the area between the eye and the bill) makes it pretty likely that this is a White-throated sparrow, though it may be the brown and tan striped variant, rather than the black and white one that I featured in a posting earlier this week.
I don’t know about you, but I feel inspired to find a puddle to play in today. Have a wonderful Friday.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Autumn, Birds, Humor, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Huntley Meadows Park, playing in a puddle, puddle, sparrow, white-throated sparrow, Zonotrichia albicollis | 7 Comments »
November 7, 2013 by Mike Powell
I felt like this Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) was modeling for me when it climbed out of the water onto a narrow slab of concrete and struck a pose. It was unusual for me to see a stationary heron out of the water—usually when I see them out of the water, they are flying. The blue waters make it look like I shot this in some exotic, tropical location, but I took this photo only a mile or so from where I live, at a small suburban pond surrounded by townhouses on one side and a well-travelled road on the other side.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Great Blue Heron, heron, Kingstowne | 12 Comments »
November 7, 2013 by Mike Powell
We’re starting to get down to the last insects of the season, and fuzzy brown caterpillars are among the few insects that I still see. Some of these are Banded Wooly Bear caterpillars (Pyrrharctia isabella) that supposedly help tell how severe the winter will be, though I confess that I can never remember how you are supposed to judge, i.e. does a wide middle section mean a short winter or a long one?
When I first took this shot, I thought the subject was a wooly bear caterpillar, but the more I look at it the less certain I feel. There seems to be a black tip on only one end of the caterpillar rather than at both ends. Despite the uncertainty about identification, I really like the shot and the way that I was able to isolate the caterpillar from the background.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Banded Wooly Bear caterpillar, caterpillar, fuzzy caterpillar, Huntley Meadows Park, Pyrrharctia isabella, Tamron 180mm macro lens, Wooly Bear caterpillar | 6 Comments »
November 6, 2013 by Mike Powell
Why was this wren perching on the nesting box just prior to entering it? It’s not nesting season, is it? Was it seeking shelter on a cool, windy day? Were there insects inside to eat?
As I noted yesterday, bird activity was low on Monday—we didn’t even have any Canada geese or ducks passing through. I initially noticed this small bird, which I think is a Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus), when it was checking out the underside of this nesting box. The box itself is pretty big and was placed there, I believe, for ducks to use. Eventually the wren perched on the edge of the entrance and peered inside and then looked all around before going inside.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Carolina Wren, Huntley Meadows Park, nesting box, Thryothorus ludovicianus, wren | 5 Comments »
November 5, 2013 by Mike Powell
It was cold and overcast yesterday and there were not many birds visible, with the notable exception of sparrows. Sparrows were as active as ever, though most of the time I could only hear them and not see them. They seem to like to rot about in the underbrush most of the time.
I was really happy when this White-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) popped up for a moment and I was able to get this image. I love the facial pattern and colors of this bird, which seems to have a goatee much like my own. (My goatee started out with salt-and-pepper color, but increasingly has become mostly salt).
When researching this bird, I learned that there is another version (morph) of this bird that has brown and tan head stripes, instead of black and white. I will have to look even more closely at my photos of the White-throated sparrow, which has become more common the past few weeks, and see if I have managed to capture any images of the tan-striped variant.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Huntley Meadows Park, sparrow, white-throated sparrow, Zonotrichia albicollis | 13 Comments »
November 4, 2013 by Mike Powell
Who knew that the man-made pond in a nearby suburban neighborhood would be a favorite spot for juvenile birds to hang out together? That’s what it looked like when I spotted an immature Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) and an immature Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) together, both with their heads turned in profile, probably checking out some cute little female goose.
Actually, I couldn’t immediately identify the cormorant, though it was obvious that it was neither a duck or a goose. The way that it swam with its long neck extended and its bill pointed in the air, however, was distinctive enough to make it easy to find in my identification guide.
I like the way that these two birds posed for me, with the cormorant perched on a narrow concrete slab to compensate for the heron’s greater height and the synchronized head positions. I have seen this young heron hanging around the pond before (it’s the same heron that I featured in the Crouching heron posting this morning), but I don’t think that I have seen a cormorant there before. Usually there are only geese and occasionally some ducks, like the small flock of Ring-necked ducks that are there right now.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Birds, Humor, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, cormorant, Double-crested Cormorant, fine feathered friends, Great Blue Heron, heron, Kingstowne, Phalacrocorax auritus | 8 Comments »
November 4, 2013 by Mike Powell
Saturday, I went out with fellow photographer Cindy Dyer to take photographs of the fall foliage and we stopped at a little suburban pond, where I managed to get this close-up shot of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) crouching at the edge of the water. If you want to see some awesome shots of the fall colors in Northern Virginia, check out Cindy’s blog—she was quicker than I was in posting her shots.
I was able to get this downward-looking angle for the image because I was on a small bridge that is part of a walking path around the pond. The heron was focused on trying to catch prey, though he didn’t seem to be having too much success. Judging from its relatively small size and inexperience fishing, I suspect that this might be a juvenile heron.
I took a number of other shots of the heron that I will probably post, including an encounter with what I think is a juvenile cormorant. Stay tuned.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, crouching, crouching heron, Great Blue Heron, heron, Kingstowne | 6 Comments »
November 3, 2013 by Mike Powell
Standing at the end of a small pond, I heard the sounds of an approaching flock of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis). I looked all around as I prepared to track them and couldn’t help noticing areas of beautiful autumn foliage.
Wouldn’t it be cool if I could capture the geese landing with the colorful leaves as a background? I put that idea in the back of my mind, remembering that it was going to be tough enough to capture decent shots of the geese without worrying about the background.
It’s a noisy crazy couple of moments when the geese come in for a landing—they come in waves and there is so much activity that it’s hard to figure out what to focus on. Usually, as I did here, I will try to concentrate on a single bird as it approaches and to keep it in focus.
I captured this image at the moment when the geese were slowing down just prior to entry into the water. My main subject is in a pretty good focus and the other geese are in interesting positions. I was surprised that I was able to get the orange background—it had been a hope, but certainly not an expectation. The result is an image that I really like, an image that combines two of the iconic elements of the autumn.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, autumn foliage, birds in flight, Branta canadensis, Canada Geese, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, geese, geese landing, Huntley Meadows Park, orange | 11 Comments »
November 2, 2013 by Mike Powell
If you germinated 600 seeds from a single ginkgo tree, how many would grow up to be male trees and how many female? Some of you may have come up with an answer already, but I am still struggling with the question. Can trees really have a gender? Apparently ginkgo trees, like holly, persimmon, and some others have a gender. Who knew?
In 1929, Dr. Orlando White at the Blandy Experimental Grove of the State Arboretum of Virginia in Boyce, Virginia decided to do an experiment and hypothesized that the sex ratio would be 1:1. Dr. White’s intellectual curiosity resulted in the Blandy Ginkgo Grove that I visited last weekend, one of the largest collections of gingkos outside of the tree’s native China. You can learn more fascinating information about ginkgos and about this grove by downloading this brochure, my source for the historical information about the grove.
I was struck by the beauty of the ginkgo leaves. Fossils of these leaves date back to 270 million years ago, meaning this plant was around with the dinosaurs. A ginkgo, which means “silver apricot” in Chinese, doesn’t form fruits, but has fleshy seeds about the size and appearance of a small apricot, seeds that you can see in some of my photos. I should warn you, though, that ginkgo seeds do not smell as nice as apricots—they smell like a cross between vomit and dog excrement.
I am including a variety of shots to give you an idea of the beauty of the ginkgo, ranging from a view of part of the entire grove down to an image of a single leaf. I have never used the gallery feature with WordPress, but decided to put the photos I selected for this posting into a gallery and see how it works out. Let me know if you have any thoughts about whether you like this approach, vice using single photos.
Blandy Ginkgo Grove
Ginkgo grove vertical
Golden ginkgo leaves with seeds
Ginkgo leaves and sky
Ginkgo leaves with seeds
Single gingko leaf (yin and yang)
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Landscape, Nature, Photography, Travel | Tagged autumn, Blandy Experimental Farm, Boyce VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, ginkgo, Ginkgo biloba, ginkgo grove, State Arboretum of Virginia | 21 Comments »
November 1, 2013 by Mike Powell
Most of the time when I try to photograph ducks in flight, I end up with shadows and muted colors. Last weekend, though, the light was right and I was able to capture a small group of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) in full color. They were pretty far away, but I like the formation that I was able to capture. There are four males and one female, and one of the males is a straggler who seems to have trouble keeping up with the group.
Click on the photo to see it in higher resolution.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Anas platyrhynchos, birds in flight, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Huntley Meadows Park, mallard ducks, mallards | 6 Comments »
November 1, 2013 by Mike Powell
Last year it seemed like I saw Downy Woodpeckers everywhere, but this year I have sighted only a few of them. I took this shot of a female Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) in mid-October during a visit to Theodore Roosevelt Island, a nature preserve in the Potomac River opposite the District of Columbia.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Downy Woodpecker, Picoides pubescens, Theodore Roosevelt Island, woodpecker | 11 Comments »
October 31, 2013 by Mike Powell
Some spiders can be creepy, but others are quite beautiful, like this one that I photographed earlier this month at my local marshland park. I am catching up a bit on posting photos from this month that I really liked and thought it might be good to post a spider image on Halloween night. I have not yet been able to identify this spider, but noted that it did not have a web and seemed to be lying in wait for prey on the long leaf of this plant. I’d welcome assistance in identifying the species of spider,
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Arachnids, Art, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Halloween, Huntley Meadows Park, spider, Tamron 180mm macro lens | 3 Comments »
October 31, 2013 by Mike Powell
On Halloween night, it somehow feels appropriate to post this photograph of a spider web that I took earlier this month. Some people find spider webs (and spiders) to be creepy, but I find them to be fascinating. I look at spider webs as a form of beautiful natural art, filled with wonderful geometric shapes and designs and always marvel at the ability of spiders to weave them.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Arachnids, Art, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Halloween, Huntley Meadows Park, spider, spider web, web | 6 Comments »
October 31, 2013 by Mike Powell
Turnabout is fair play. In one of my earlier posts entitled “Dragonflies mating on a calf” I featured Walter Sanford, a fellow photographer and blogger. Today, in a posting called “The natives are friendly.” he featured my arm and finger as I tried to charm a couple of different dragonflies to perch on my index finger.
walter sanford's photoblog
Most dragonflies are skittish. Some dragonflies are “friendly,” such as Blue Corporal dragonflies (Ladona deplanata). Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies (Sympetrum vicinum) are friendly; sometimes very friendly!
Mike Powell and I visited Huntley Meadows Park recently. We stopped to “charm” dragonflies a couple of times during our photowalk. The following gallery shows two different male Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies perching on Mike: Photos 1-2 show Mike coaxing a dragonfly onto his finger; Photos 3-4 show another dragonfly perching on Mike’s arm.
Tech Tip: Either mouse-over or tap photos to see captions.
Copyright © 2013 Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.
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Posted in Art, Dragonflies, Humor, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography | Tagged Alexandria VA, Autumn Meadowhawk dragonfly, dragonfly, dragonfly whisperer, Huntley Meadows Park, Sympetrum vicinum, Walter Sanford, whisperer | Leave a Comment »
October 31, 2013 by Mike Powell
If you are a heron, how do you get a fish down your throat and into your stomach after you have caught it? Some animals and birds of prey might tear off a bite-size piece of the fish using claws or talons. Herons don’t have that option. They have to somehow maneuver their catch within their bills until they are in a position to swallow it whole, all the time at risk of dropping their catch back into the water and losing it.
I enjoy watching Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) fish. They seem to be extremely focused, but patient as they wait for the optimal moment for a strike. This past weekend, I observed this heron in the waters of the Potomac River, just south of the city of Alexandria, Virginia. I watched and waited with my camera focused and ready until the heron struck and pulled a modest fish out of the water.
The heron made several adjustments to the fish’s position by making small movements with his head until it was in the ready position shown in the second photo. He them gave a little flip of his head, launching the fish into the air, and opened his mouth wider, as you can see in the first image. In a split-second the fish was gone and the heron was swallowing.
Every time I see a heron fishing, I am hoping that I will see him pull a really big fish out of the water, as I have seen in photos on other blogs. So far I have seen the herons catch only small fish and an occasional crayfish or frog, but I hope to be ready when a heron catches a “big one,” so that I won’t have to be the one who tells stories of “the one that got away.”
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, fishing, Great Blue Heron, heron | 18 Comments »
October 30, 2013 by Mike Powell
The first time I saw a bird that looked like this, I thought it was a sparrow of some sort. When I saw this one, last week, I knew immediately that it was a female Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus).
I have learned a lot about birds and photography this past year. Along the way I also have learned more about myself as I seek to express myself in my words and in my images.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Agelaius phoeniceus, Alexandria VA, blackbird, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Huntley Meadows Park, red-winged blackbird | 7 Comments »
October 29, 2013 by Mike Powell
I haven’t seen many migrating ducks yet at my local marsh, so I traveled to the Potomac River this weekend, because I had heard from a birder that there were numerous ducks there. There were lots of Mallards, some Northern Shovelers (I think), and this cool-looking duck with a distinctive white patch on its cheek that I could not identify initially. After I returned home, it didn’t take long to figure out that this as a Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis), a species that I had never seen before.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, duck, migration, Oxyura jamaicensis, Potomac River, Ruddy Duck | 5 Comments »
October 29, 2013 by Mike Powell
My eyes caught a flash of bright blue yesterday as I was walking through Huntley Meadows Park, my local marsh, and I pointed my telephoto lens at the tree in the distance.
As I composed this shot, I was initially a little confused by what I saw. The reddish-brown color of the breast and the fact that there were some blue feathers made me think that it was an Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis), but the bird’s body didn’t seem blue enough. After doing a little research when I got home, I realized that most of the bluebirds that I had seen previously must have been adult males—as is the case with many other birds, the female Eastern Bluebird is more subdued in color than the male.
I didn’t have a lot of time to frame this shot, so I was happy that I managed to center the bird on the dark spot in the background and to surround it with some colorful fall foliage. All of the orange color in the image really helps the blue on the wing to pop, which is not too surprising since, if I remember color theory correctly, orange and blue are complementary colors.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, autumn, bluebird, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Eastern Bluebird, fall, Huntley Meadows Park, Sialia sialis | 16 Comments »
October 28, 2013 by Mike Powell
Red-roofed barns, silos, and rolled bays of hay may seem ordinary if you live in the country, but they were exotic enough to cause a group of city-dwelling photographers to pull off to the side of the road this past weekend to photograph them.
Never having lived or worked on a farm, I have a romanticized vision of life on a farm, of living close to nature. There is something almost idyllic for me in a setting like the one in the first photo.
As for rolled bales of hay, I don’t quite understand them. A lot of the cowboy movies that I grew up with featured muscular cowboys tossing around bales of hay that looked nothing like the ones in the second and third photos. These bales look like giant Shredded Wheat biscuits that would require a huge bowl and lots of milk to soften up enough to swallow. I remember from my childhood the scratchy sensation in my throat when I was in a hurry and swallowed my Shredded Wheat cereal before it had absorbed the milk.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Architecture, Humor, Landscape, Nature, Photography | Tagged barn, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, hay bales, red-roofed barn, rolled hay bales, rural, silo, virginia | 3 Comments »
October 28, 2013 by Mike Powell
This past weekend I traveled with some friends to photograph a large grove of ginkgo trees at the Blandy Experimental Farm of the State Arboretum of Virginia in Boyce, VA. It was a beautiful day, with bright blue skies, and I took some shots that I will probably include in a more extended post, but I wanted to give you a sneak preview of the really-cooling looking leaves of the ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) tree, a tree that dates back at least 270 million years, judging from ginkgo leaf fossils that have been uncovered.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography | Tagged autumn, Blandy Experimental Farm, Boyce VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, ginkgo, Ginkgo biloba, ginkgo grove, State Arboretum of Virginia | 5 Comments »
October 27, 2013 by Mike Powell
“How many legs does a horse have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
My apologizes to Abraham Lincoln for changing the animal from a dog to a horse in a famous quote attributed to him, but that was what came to mind when I first brought up this image of a horse that appeared to have five legs. The tail is so long that it just about touches the ground and it seems to be almost as rigid as the legs.
Of course, as some of you know, I am a product of the suburbs, so I am happy that I can identify this animal as a horse. Earlier in the day I saw two bulls with horns, but when I took a closer look, one of them seemed to have udders. When we stopped to photograph a farmhouse on the drive home, I could identify sheep and cattle, then suddenly a group of emus came running onto the scene accompanied by a llama (or maybe it was an alpaca).
Is it any wonder I find identifying domestic animals confusing?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in animals, Humor, Nature, Photography | Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, farm, five-legged horse, horse, virginia | 5 Comments »
October 27, 2013 by Mike Powell
The squirrels in my neighborhood are very busy now as they scurry about getting ready for winter. This particular Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) paused several times to enjoy a leisurely snack. Rather than devour the treat on the ground, he would leap up onto this posing stand and delicately nibble away. He almost seemed to be aware that I was photographing him and periodically would change his pose to give me a different look.
I guess that I lucked into photographing a squirrel with modeling experience (and great hair).
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in animals, Humor, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Eastern Gray Squirrel, gray squirrel, Runnymeade, Sciurus carolinensis, squirrel | 11 Comments »
October 27, 2013 by Mike Powell
Despite the frost that we’ve had the last few mornings, the gorgeous Morning Glory flowers of my neighbors continue to flourish. I photographed one of the flowers yesterday afternoon—does that make it an afternoon glory?
When you look at the photo it looks like I used flash, which caused the background to go black. However, if you look carefully at the way the light falls, with some of it coming from the back, you realize I would have had to use an elaborate multi-light setup to get this kind of lighting. I took this shot in the early afternoon, with the light mostly coming from the side and back of the flower.
My fellow photographer and blogger CIndy Dyer says that the shadow in the bottom area of the white part of the flower looks like a photographer (possibly with a bald head) with a camera and long telephoto lens and she initially thought I had somehow managed to get a reflection of myself onto the flower. We may have spent too many hours yesterday out in the sun with our cameras!
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Macro Photography, Photography | Tagged Alexandria VA, backlighting, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, family Convolvulaceae, morning glory | 4 Comments »
October 26, 2013 by Mike Powell
Yesterday as I was walking on Roosevelt Island, a National Park in the Potomac River, I heard a hawk screaming loudly and realized it was pretty close to where it was.
I walked slowly and quietly toward the source of the sound and spotted this hawk almost directly above me in the trees. There were a lot of branches in the way and I had to search to find a visual tunnel to try to get an unobstructed shot of the hawk. The angle was a steep one and gave me a view of the underside of a hawk that I had never had before. In fact, I think that you can see the roof of his open mouth in the first shot.
The hawk stopped screaming for a little while and I got a shot of him with his mouth closed. It may just be the distortion caused by the steep view angle, but it seems to me that he has an awfully small beak.
I am having a little trouble identifying this hawk. At first I thought it might be a Red-Shouldered Hawk, but now I am not certain, because it doesn’t quite match any of the photos that I see on-line. I’d appreciate any help from more experienced bird watchers in figuring out which species I photographed.
After a too short period on this branch, the bird flew off this perch and disappeared from view. I’ll be keeping my eyes out for hawks and hopefully it will be easier to spot them when the leaves fall off of the trees.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, hawk, Red-Shouldered Hawk, Roosevelt Island, screaming hawk, Theodore Roosevelt Island | 9 Comments »
October 25, 2013 by Mike Powell
The bright fall colors of the trees at the pond’s edge were reflected beautifully in the water and I waited until the Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) moved into those reflections to capture this shot.
The effects of the light on the water remind me a little of some of the paintings of Monet, one of my favorite artists. Normally when I am photographing birds, I do my best to fill the frame with them, but in this case the context was actually more important to me than the apparent subject.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Birds, Landscape, Nature, Photography, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Ardea herodias, Canon 50D, Great Blue Heron, heron, Kingstowne | 6 Comments »
October 24, 2013 by Mike Powell
Migrating birds are starting to arrive in my area, including a few Ring-necked ducks (Aythya collaris) that I observed last week in a man-made pond in a nearby suburban housing area. The water in my local marsh tends to be too shallow for these diving ducks, but this pond seems to suit them pretty well.
The ducks tend to stay near the center of the pond, which makes them a little challenging to photograph. These shots were taken from a distance, but they let you see some of the beautiful details of the male Ring-necked duck, including the pattern on his bill and his beautiful golden eyes.
If I have the good luck that I had last year, I look forward to seeing and photographing another half-dozen species of ducks in the coming months.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Alexandria VA, Aythya collaris, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, diving duck, duck, Kingstowne, Ring-necked duck | 7 Comments »
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Mike Powell 