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While working part time in Boulder, Colorado, I would often visit Rocky Mountain National Park. It was only an hour drive away, and I got to see the park during all four seasons. On this morning, a springtime storm was brewing.
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The Jack-in-the-Pulpits are true native plants growing in my backyard. I did not plant them; they were just here. Mostly hidden in the back shaded sections. The green flowers provide camouflage making them easy to miss. You don’t want to mistake the stem with three leaves which I did at one time thinking they were Poison Ivy. Before having the back frog pond expanded a couple of years ago, I successfully transplanted a number of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants into soft pot containers that are blooming this year in my front yard.
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Two Canada Geese parents with six gooselings swimming in the pond at the local Sourland Mountain Preserve. I used to stop by the preserve on a regular basis to see and photograph the birds, frogs, turtles, butterflies, and flowers. There are several hikes out from the pond that go into the woods, or you can follow the natural gas line right-of-way path up the “mountains”. A mountain in New Jersey isn’t that high.
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Six-Years Ago Today. Backyard Springtime Nature in New Jersey.
During my afternoon backyard walkabout, I saw an American Robin with a large grub in its mouth. I think the nest is in the nearby Ceder tree. The Fuji camera does emphasize the Robin’s bright orange breast colors.
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While driving into Yosemite National Park for a photography workshop with Michael Mariant I noticed something red off in the woods. I stopped to retrieve it if it was some trash but instead found these strange red objects growing out of the ground. When I showed the images that I took to Michael, he told me that they were Snow Plant (Sarcodes sanguinea) flowers. The Snow Plants don’t have any chlorophyll and derive their nutrition from fungi living under the soil near conifer trees.
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I take the cactus in for the winter and rarely see them blossom. I was about to move them outside when I noticed one of the small barrel cacti had small flowers. I couldn’t get the level of detail I wanted with a single macro image. Instead, I made a composite of 24 focus stacked images using a Nikon Df camera and 105 mm f/2.8 VR macro lens (ISO 100, 105 mm, f/4, 1/125 sec) and SB-910 flash (EV -2). The images were processed using Helicon Focus: [Method B (depth map, R = 8, S = 4)].
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One night while on a cross-country road trip I stopped at a motel in Green River, Utah. In the lobby, I saw a brochure for the Crystal Geyser. The desk attendant said it was easy to get to, just a few miles outside of the city accessible via a dirt road on Bureau of Land Management land. The cold geyser is near an abandoned Air Force missile testing facility and is right next to the Green River. I got there just in time for the sun to set but didn’t see the geyser erupt. The brochure did say the eruptions were irregular.
The next morning before driving to Cedar City, I made another stop at the Crystal Geyser. This time I was fortunate to arrive in time to see the geyser erupt. The geyser is unique in that the water is cold and powered by carbon dioxide — not heat. The geyser is the result of drilling for gas (petroleum) many years ago. When the location was under Air Force control as part of a missile test range, the geyser was off-limits for visits. The eruptions are irregular, and you need to be lucky or very patient to see an eruption happen.
In this image there is someone meditating while the eruption occurred. The water coming out of the geyser rises over 20 feet in the air — and unlike Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, the water from Crystal Geyser is cold to the touch. The water is mineral rich, and deposits building the crystalline Travertine terrace as the water flows to the river. I’ve visited the site several times since 2009. The eruptions are not as regular and not as strong. The last time I visited, mineral rich water was still flowing out of the hole.
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In the late afternoon, I watched two young rabbits playing and chasing each other in the backyard. They only came out into the open away from the hedge row just before dusk. I set up a tripod with a camera and a long lens on my deck and started taking pictures. All of a sudden one of the rabbits jumped straight up as I captured this image. I didn’t know a rabbit could jump straight up so high. While hovering the rabbit is looking right at me. For years, I have been unsuccessful trying to capture an image like this again. I still have rabbits in the yard despite a healthy red fox. So maybe this straight up jumping behavior is part of their escape behavior.
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Although I was looking for birds to photograph, I was attracted by the backlit glow of the leaf while on a late afternoon backyard walkabout.
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While on an afternoon walkabout in my backyard I came upon a small fawn with spots trying to hide behind some weeds. Its mother apparently considered my backyard a safe daycare center. A decade earlier, a fawn was left at my doorstep (20100514). I haven’t seen any fawns yet this year. The deer fence is doing a good job of keeping the deer out and away from the fruit trees and wildflower meadow. The deer continue to patrol the fence looking for a way in.
Backlit Backyard Brown Booby Cactus California Capoeria Costa Rica Crystal Geyser Dogwood Fawn Florida Flowers Focus Stacked France Gibraltar Gibraltar Monkey Gone to See America 2009 Green River Guatemala Helicon Focus Landscape Little Planet Macro Maple Leaf Monochrome Morocco MV Explorer New Jersey Parc de Bercy Paris Rabbit Rain Forest Red Poppy Semester at Sea Spain Spring Spring 2010 Enrichment Voyage Spring 2011 Enrichment Voyage Spring 2013 Enrichment Voyage Spring 2014 Enrichment Voyage Springtime St. Petersburg UNE Utah Yosemite National Park
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