This is my entry for this weeks “Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge – Weather.”The Thunderstorm shown is in North Dakota.
Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category
Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge-Weather/
Posted: January 10, 2015 in Black & White, Nature, North Dakota, Photography, PlacesTags: Black and White Photo, Great Plains, North Dakota, thunderstorm
North Dakota
Posted: November 20, 2014 in Black & White, Landscape Photography, Landscapes, Nature, Nature Photography, North Dakota, Photography, Places, Snow, Weather, WinterTags: black & white photography, cattle, cold, fields, horse, Landscape photography, Minot North Dakota, North Dakota, photo composition, photography, Wind, wind chill, Winter
I was recently in North Dakota visiting my father-in-law who lives in Minot. The major winter chill has hit there just as hard as it has hit most of the rest of the country although the area has avoided much of the heavy snow. The cold (temperatures often in the low single digits) has been only part of the story in the area. The wind has persistently been over 25 miles per hour with gusts between 30-50 miles per hour. The resulting wind chill has often resulted in temperatures in the teens and twenties below zero degrees Fahrenheit.
My first photo is of a horse as it tries to get some food from a frozen field. It isn’t snowing heavily, but the snow is blowing around causing near white out conditions.
In this photo, the wind has died down for a bit. I simply liked the composition.
After the harvest (in what appeared to be a relatively rare corn field), the cattle go through the field to eat what they can find. Again, there was not much snow, but it was bitterly cold with the wind chill.
Finally, some rays of hope — the forecast indicates warmer weather within the next week.
Eye-to-Eye with the local birds (or the benefits of a bird blind)
Posted: October 25, 2014 in Birds, Nature, Nature Photography, PhotographyTags: bird blind, birds, Blue jay, Blue jays, closeup photos of birds, Downy Woodpecker, Female Cardinal, Goldfinch, Male Cardinal, Woodpecker, Woodpeckers
I recently spent a bit of time sitting in a reasonably comfortable bird blind that one of the members of my local photo club constructed. It is a great way to get closeup photos of birds in the area and is an excellent resource.
Here are a few of my photos from my time in the bird blind. At the bottom of this post are two birds that I can’t identify (other than that one is some type of woodpecker). I’d appreciate any information anyone can provide about these “mystery” birds.
Blue jay
I don’t know if these are immature Blue jays but they don’t have the full-blown distinctive crest you typically associate with a Blue jay (the bird in the second photo may be developing that crest).
Male Downy Woodpecker (in the second photo it is getting a grub out of a tree branch)
Female Downy Woodpecker
Male Cardinal
Female Cardinal
Goldfinch
Mystery Woodpecker
Mystery Bird 2
The Turtles of Warner Park
Posted: October 23, 2014 in Madison, Nature, Nature Photography, Photography, Warner Park, Warner Park, WisconsinTags: nature, Nature Photography, painted turtles, ponds, turtles, Warner Park
Madison’s Warner Park is less than 2 miles (3 km) from my home. It is a multi-use urban park that features a small baseball stadium, soccer fields, picnic areas, large parking lots, as well as a pond, semi-natural fields and wooded areas.
The pond attracts quite a bit of wildlife. While I typically have photographed birds in and around the pond, I recently decided to spend some time watching the turtles that live in the pond. All of the turtles that I saw were painted turtles. Painted turtles are the most widespread species of turtle in North American For good or ill because the pond at Warner Park is an urban multi-use park, it is subject to an oversupply of nutrients resulting in substantial algae blooms. The pictures that follow show the turtles in the pond. Since I am not a wildlife biologist, While the pond looked pretty bad, the turtles seemed to be in pretty good shape. I imagine they were trying to peacefully sun themselves, but they spent a fair amount of their time jockeying for position on the two major logs in the area of the pond I was watching.
Ladybug
Posted: October 6, 2014 in Macro Photography, Nature, Nature Photography, Photography, Photos Taken Within 100 Meters of HomeTags: ladybug, Ladybugs, Nature Photography
Road Construction vs. The Monarch Butterfly (it turns out the Monarch doesn’t seem to care much)
Posted: September 22, 2014 in Butterflies, Maple Bluff, Nature, Nature Photography, Photography, Photos Taken Within 100 Meters of Home, WisconsinTags: butterfly, clouds of dust, macro photography, Maple Bluff, monarch, monarch butterflies, nature, Nature Photography, ongoing construction, photography, Photos Taken Within 100 Meters of Our House
Although we normally have large numbers of monarch butterflies coming through our area starting in mid- to late-August last year we had very few. I was concerned that we might have even fewer given the loud noise and clouds of dust that have been one of the primary features of Maple Bluff during all of the ongoing construction. Wrongo (no need to check your dictionary, it is a made up word meaning I was totally wrong). There are many more monarchs than there were last year and while I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of them during the heaviest phases of construction, it may well be that they were there while I was paying attention to the construction activities. Here are a few shots of recent monarch activity.
As I was writing this it dawned on me that the flowers had not been quite so bright this year and perhaps a coating of dust had something to do with that (at least between rains).
Dust or not, the monarchs’ appetites remain good.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette (Maple Tree)
Posted: August 17, 2014 in Black & White, Nature, Nature Photography, Photography, Photos Taken Within 100 Meters of HomeTags: black & white, black & white photography, maple tree, Silhouette
This silhouette is of the maple tree in our backyard.