Big Picture, Little Picture

Summer has been so beautiful here.   Temperatures have been perfect, some gorgeous calm, foggy mornings and occasional storms to keep the water coming.

My days usually begin by either chasing wild flowers or dragons in the meadows, or finding that iconic summer landscape.  

A few weeks ago I found myself in a nearby gorge trying to find some sunrays in the foggy gorge.  After waiting for about an hour, I was about to call it quits, without seeing any dramatic light.  Nature rewarding my patience with a spectacular light show for the next 30 minutes.   It was fun to chase the light in the gorge and try to find some compositions for the camera. 

For the last several weeks, I've been out most mornings trying to find some beautiful dew covered dragon flies. 

Along with find the dewy dragons, I've captured some beautiful summer blooms and a dewy butterfly and praying mantis.

Favorite Images from 2013

A good photography friend of mine from France (Kristel Schneider) recently published a fun blog from her photography efforts in 2013 entitled:

12 Favorite Photos of 2013

 

Her photo work is very beautiful and inspirational for myself.   Well worth looking at her work and visiting her web site :

Visions and Nature - Photography by Kristel Schneider

Inspired from Kristel's beautiful images, I decided to put my favorites from 2013 for others to see.   Some of these I have posted in my blog and some you may not have seen.

So here are my favorites from 2013.

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Landscapes

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wildlife 

 

 

 

 

 

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  Macro

 

 

 

 

 

 

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For those who have been counting, that is twelve images.   Well I just couldn't stop at 12, and we just had the year 2013 come to a close, so I thought it would be appropriate to have a BONUS 13th image.   This happens to be maybe my favorite landscape that I photographed in 2013:

 

 

 

 

Wishing all of you a joyous, prosperous and loving 2014!!!!   Cheers to nature and more images to share.

 

 

Summer Insects

It has been a slow start for insects this summer, but finally the insects are getting mature and easier to find and photograph.

Getting out on a dewy morning, with my wader boots and camera, is like therapy for me.   Slowly walking and looking is part of the true joy of this time of year.   I can lose myself for hours as the meadows start coming to life each morning.

The first image was a newly emerging black swallowtail that I found last week at the Brecksville Prairie.  One of the most beautiful places in Northern Ohio during the months of July and August.   The small restoration prairie is easy to get to and just a real treasure to explore.

From the Brecksville Reservation, here is a maturing katydid enjoying a morning meal of pollen from a swamp rose mallow wild flower.

The black eyed susan wild flowers are a favorite of many insects.   Here are two bush katydid nymphs enjoying the morning a few weeks ago.

A fun capture was finding this crab spider perched in the center of a black eyed susan.  Not very good camouflage, but a fun image to capture.

Recently I had been lamenting my sparse finds of butterflys and dragon flys, but over the last week, it has been a bonanza of these flying jewels.

Pearl crescent (pictured above)have been very visible and make for wonderful summer insect photography.

The eastern tailed blue butterfly is another small flier that I have seen abundantly lately.

Here is the large common green darner all nice and dewy.  It made a very co-operative subject on a cold morning.

Finally was my favorite find of the week - my first praying mantis of the season.   This one was very photogenic and seemed to enjoy the attention from the camera.

Summer Wings

As summer comes upon us, the number of flying insects increases dramatically.    I'm fascinated with these winged insects.   When I can find them in nice photographic circumstances, I enjoy capturing them in all of there beauty.  

The first image is a crane fly.   There are numerous species of crane flys and I'm not certain of the exact species, but all crane flys have a lot of beauty in there wings and bodies.

Next up is my favorite dragon fly - the calico pennant.  Both the males and females have such beautiful patterns and the mature male (pictured above) has the most beautiful gold and crimson coloring. 

The close cousin of the dragon fly is the damsel fly.   I'm really poor at identifying individual species in damsel flys.  They have so many closely related identification markings that I give up and start lumping all of them together as just damsel flys.  

Last image is a newly emerged prince baskettail dragon fly.   As they mature, they have some really beautiful colors.  Hopefully I'll get to share one of those with you later this summer. 

Summer Dragons

Female Twelve Spotted Skimmer on Spiderwort

Over the last week, I've been fortunate enough to share some wonderful mornings with one of my favorite subjects - dragon flies.

Mature Male Twelve Spotted Skimmer

These two twelve spotted skimmers were really a nice find.   I had never gotten nice images of them in past years.   Finding both the male and female in a few days of each other makes the early excursions exciting.

Mature Male Calico Pennant

My favorite dragon fly is the calico pennant.  They are very tolerant of photographers and have some of the most beautiful patterns on there wings.  The males turn a beautiful deep red when they are mature and ready to hit the dragon fly 'dating scene'.

When I head out in the mornings, it is a real treat to find these flying jewels amongst the grasses.  Hope I can continue to find some of these to share over the summer months.

Harbinger of Summer

Calico Pennant Emerging

Summer is here.  No June 20th didn't arrive early, by to me when the beautiful calico pennant dragon emerges, summer is here.    These beautiful dragons are a personal favorite.   When they first emerge, they can emerge in mass.  That has been the case over the last several days.   Starting last Sunday, and continuing through the week, each evening, nymphs climb out of there watery homes onto blades of grass, dead twigs, or in the above picture an old sori from a sensitive fern from last year.

It is really special to get to the lake shore where I know these emerge and see literally dragon upon dragon on the grasses near the lake shore.    The picture above shows the warming up dragon along with its exuvia.  The exuvia is the outer 'skin' the nymph had while it was an aquatic insect.

To showcase the beauty of the dragon, I took the liberty of having the dragon perch on some very un-natural plants - like a dames rocket.

It would be highly unusual to find a dragon on such a perch as it was emerging.   The plant doesn't grown in the water and the nymph would never crawl up a blossom such as this.   But even with it being a more forced setting, it sure is pretty to see a beautiful dragon on the blossom.

Common Baskettail on Sensitive Fern

Another dragon that emerges at the same time as the calico pennant is the common baskettail.   Here you see the new dragon fly, along with its exuvia on the underside of a sensitive fern.   Being a large dragon fly, you can find some very interesting perches that these dragons find suitable for transforming from an aquatic creature into the flying jewels we know so well.

I'll continue to hunt for dragons during the summer, but there isn't the excitement later in the summer compared to the first big week of dragon fly emergence.

Dragons in the Spring

Indigo Lake Sunrise - May 4th

When I mention to people that an alarm clock is the best tool a nature photographer has, they look at me kind of skeptical.  I will submit the above image as evidence.

Taken this morning at Indigo Lake in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  

Then as my photography friend Jeff and I were heading back to the parking lot, Jeff spotted the first dragon fly of the season.   YEAH!!!!    Nothing can help enhance a beautiful sunrise as much as finding your first dragon fly on the season.

Springtime Darner

Aptly named the springtime darner.   This early emerging dragon fly lived upto to its name this morning.  Always exciting to find a fresh dragon fly.  The first of the season is always special.

Then as I was leaving for the morning, I spotted this very zen like pattern on reed grasses in the lake.

You can view all of my favorite images from this morning at my web site:
Indigo Lake - May 4th Morning