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.

Spring Landscapes

Continuing with my blog marathon - five blogs in five days, here is day 2 - spring landscapes.

I tried to combine some large wild flower displays with the landscapes the blooms are found in.   Let's start out with the largest display of wild flowers I know of - the beautiful Virginia bluebell display.

For almost as far as the eye can see, some areas along Furnace Run present a carpet of bluebells. 

From the Poland Woods city park in Poland Ohio, this display of sessile trillium completely surrounded this old tree.  

From Poland Woods park again, the underappreciated skunk cabbage.   This display is after the flower has bloomed and the huge elephant ear leaves help the plant absorb nutrients to last them the remainder of the year.  

A mini landscape showcasing the environment where the Ohio State wild flower (white trillium) flourish - Wordens Ledges in Cleveland Metro Parks Hinckley Reservation.

A nice wider landscape style view of an impressive number of trout lily in the Hinckley Reservation of the Cleveland Metro Parks.

Another impressive display of Virginia bluebells can be found at the Hemlock Creek Picnic area of the Cleveland Metro Parks.

Now to take you to a different type of landscape - the beautiful Brecksville Marsh in the Cleveland Metro Parks.

I'll leave you with a beautiful sunrise from Indigo Lake in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

So those are some of the landscapes I've captured over the last few moths. 

For tomorrow, day three we'll look at some of the insects that have shared some time with me over the last few months. 

Five blogs in five days

Hi again,

I'm ashamed to realize it has been 3 months since I shared a blog with you.   Please forgive me. 

As a reward for your patience, how about we get caught up with five blogs in five days?    I'll get you caught up on some of my photography adventures this spring and early summer with a blog posting each day for the next five days. 

Let's revisit the spring wild flowers from April.

One of my favorite spring wild flowers are the beautiful trout lily.    This display was captured in the Rocky River Reservation of the Cleveland Metro Parks.

Keeping with the trout lily images, here is one from Hinckley Reservation of the Cleveland Metro Parks.

Here is the state wild flower of Ohio - the white trillium.   This one from Brecksville Reservation of the Cleveland Metro Parks.

Another white blossom from the Brecksville Reservation - this one is the delicate rue anemone.

Part of the daffodil family, the fragrant jonquils are a annual spring treat both to the eyes and the nose.

One of the more exotic looking spring blossoms is blue cohosh.   These blooms are from the Furnace Run area of the Summit Metro Park.

This early bloom is the exotic looking Dutchman Breeches down in the Brandywine Gorge of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

We'll conclude the blog with an under appreciated wild flower - the marsh marigold from the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Tomorrow we'll examine some of the landscapes I've captured over the last few months. 

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.

 

 

Exploring a new place - and revisiting

Some of you may recall an early July 2013 blog I made:

Jerry Jelinek Web Blog - Exploring a New Place

Well here is a good reason to revisit places many times in the year and year after year.   I revsited Springfield Bog to get a feel for its summer dress.   Boy was it impressive.

The huge meadow really has its most gorgeous display right now.   Acres upon acres of wild flowers.

As you can see, the area is the same, but the look and feel is completely different. Different plants come and go in the year and without revisiting, you would never seen the impressive changes. 

You can see all of my Springfield Bog images at my photography web site:
Jerry Jelinek Photography

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.