Stove-Top Studio

A Naturalist pays attention to light.  Not always in the same way as a photographer, but similar.  The above photo was made on my kitchen stove.  The rock with holes made in the ocean was collected by my wife at Bowling Ball Beach near Pt. Arena.  She collected the little sprig off a plant near the library.  I found the location on top of our stove perfect for simulating an expensive studio.

Disease Can Be Beautiful

The Big Leaf Maples in Boyle Ravine (in Quincy, CA) have a bit of a viral infection.  Forgot to get their flu shots, I guess.  But I found these particular patterns beautiful.  Click on the photo for more detail in the patches of virus.

Unhinged? Yet another distraction.

   I'm seeing a lot of activity around the house of a sort I didn't notice toward the end of summer.  A lot of it must be winter preparations.  Here's a spider set up that has taken into account the frequent openings and closings of the door into our garage.  I wonder if spiders ever make mistakes and locate in places where they get squished?  We'll be mindful of protecting this one until she decides where to settle for winter, if in fact she lives through the winter.
   The spider we photographed yesterday evening has eaten her web and built a new one.  For now, near mid-day, she's hiding in a dark corner off the web (Should I say "off line?") perhaps waiting for her crepuscular meals to arrive.

Stages: Another Distraction

As I try to get back to reviewing photos from my hikes earlier in the week, Nature keeps surprising me.  The Cascara Buckthorn, also known as Cascara Sagrada, and formerly known as Coffee Berry (which is now the name of a closely-related species), is scientifically known as Rhamnus purshiana.
Its leaves are changing color, and the leaves on any given tree don't change at the same rate of speed.  Off my back deck, while investigating the sunrise, I noticed the stages - red, yellow, red - on a single bush and decided to pick one of each for a photo.  Then I noticed that at every stage the backside of the leaf was a paler rendition of that color.  That prompted me to pick an additional sample of each stage and create the above arrangement for you, my reader/viewer.  This was accomplished by placing them on plain white copy paper on my dining room table, cropping out the wood of the table that was showing around the edges, and not doing any other manipulation (AKA editing).  In other words, no fancy equipment, no editing tricks.  Just let Nature tell the story. Later, I might need to do a watercolor pencil version of this arrangement for my nature journal.  Depends on how many other distractions I encounter today.  You see, the spider might come back.  In predictable fashion, she consumed her yesterday's web and should build another one today.  But it might not be in the same place.  She might want to avoid photographers.

A Five Minute Distraction

 I'm still choosing from photos I took the first part of the week on great hikes to Spanish Peak, Butterfly Valley, Keddie Cascades, and Mt. Hough.  Took a break to run to the store, but was stopped in my tracks by a beautiful Orb Weaver occupying a web above my front deck.  Sunset was under way, so my son and I took turns grabbing shots of the spider using different combinations of automatic and manual features of my camera.  One could say it was poor lighting, but I'm pleased with the variety of results, some showing details of the spider, and others showing interesting backgrounds and composition.

 In the process, we eventually disturbed the spider so she pulled in her legs which made for another interesting composition.

 My son Ryan got this last one as the sunset became more intense and the spider was just beginning to unfold her legs again.  But, we had to continue with our errand.

 It was killing me to have to complete this errand quickly and I was driving down Main Street watching the sunset in my rear view mirror.  But, when we got to Safeway, it was still a brilliant sky, so I got a few nice shots as I stepped out of the car...

 ...including one of the crescent moon.

Hopefully, tomorrow I'll catch up with posting photos of this week's hiking adventures.
Meanwhile, you can see some of these by going to www.plumascounty.org and clicking on the Awesome Autumn link.  Scroll downward and you'll see my photos from three local trails plus lots of other photos of fall colors by other Quincy photographers.

My Driveway, the Way Back

 Yesterday's post included photos taken on the way down my hilly driveway.  Today I'm showing some items I saw on the way back up the hill.  At the foot of the hill there's a great crop of Snowberry. This hardy shrub grows up to well over the height of any Plumas County mountains and, to me, is one of the more attractive features of the forest underbrush.

 The leaves on the California Black Oak in my immediate neighborhood aren't looking so good - with a few colorful exceptions.  I think the dry winter and summer took a toll.  However, as is typical of deciduous oaks, when they experience a stressful season, they produce an even better crop of acorns.  You might call it "the audacity of hope."
Here's one of the more colorful leaves I found on the ground.  In most areas, the oak leaves turn a rusty orange, but in a few places, such as the vicinity of Oakland Camp, you can find some bright red ones.

 A leaf that always impresses me, especially when lit from behind, is a relative of our Buckbrush, Deerbrush, etc., and is variously called Cascara Buckthorn and Cascara Sagrada, among other names. Its closest relative nearby, also in the genus Rhamnus, is the Coffeeberry.

 Birds and trees both leave things behind.  I found this Steller's Jay feather and Black Oak acorn next to each other and found the arrangement attractive.  In the lower right, there a small oak leaf, still green.  For some fun detective work, click on this photo for a close-up view and see how many other species you can find in the photo.

 Upon returning to my yard I was greeted by the bent over birch tree whose days are numbered.  When the first snow arrives, I'll need to decide whether or not to give it one more winter's reprieve.

My Driveway

 Last year we got some snow on October 5, so ever since that day I've had this feeling of anticipation.  The cloud cover keeps looking like something's going to happen, then the clouds disappear.  No rain or snow yet.  But the feeling is still there.  I took a stroll down my driveway to photograph things that I found beautiful while imagining them being covered up with the white stuff any day now.  The last Daisy in my front yard was still hostin g what might be the last bug of this type until next year.

 Of my two remaining birch trees, the one that's been bent over and buried by snow blowers gets its fall colors several weeks before the other one that still stands straight and tall.  I think this year we'll need to cut this one down before it ends up on the roof of the garage.  I'll miss the foliage and the patterns of holes drilled by the Red-breasted Sapsucker.  He hasn't visited recently, perhaps having that same feeling of anticipating winter.

 For several days I thought the Oak Treehoppers were gone for the season, but they appeared again on another branch, several of the nymphs having undergone their last molt and are now young adults with red and white longitudinal stripes.  Click on this one for a close up of these beautiful insects.  Better yet, visit Main Street Artists Gallery and buy one of my note cards with a photo of these critters on the front.

 Our homestead is shaded by tall Douglas-fir, White Fir, and Sugar Pines.  In fact, we are so thoroughly shaded that our little hill is known variously as The Cold Spot and Pneumonia Gulch.
Here's a branch tip of Douglas-fir whose needles grow from all the way around the branch and whose lower branches droop, more or less like a Weeping Willow.

 Here's the unmistakable Douglas-fir cone, the female flower, with its cute three-pronged bracts between the scales.

 The White Fir needles grow out from the sides of the branch resulting in a flat, fern-like appearance.  Also, each needles has a twist at its base.  You might want to click on the photo to see this detail.

 The White Fir cones are usually near the top of the tree and they poit upward like candles on a traditional (dangerous) Christmas tree, while the Douglas-fir cones hang downward and may be found anywhere on the tree including the lower branches.

All these photos were taken as I walked down the right-hand side of my driveway.  The next post will include photos taken from the other side on my way back up to the house.