July 2011 – widening rings…

Farewell to July

When I opened my eyes this morning, it took me a moment to reconcile the sound.

Rain?!

That didn’t seem very likely… I sat up and let the fog of sleep drift further away.

It is rain! What the heck? It’s raining!

Not a lot, mind you… Just enough to dapple the brown earth and make the air smell moist and alive. But, here in the canyon at the tail-end of July, any rain at all is a rarity and I was grateful for it. I’m quite certain that the wildlife shared my elation as well.

The sky was overcast and lovely for much of the day, but by late afternoon when I finally got clear of the “to do” stuff on my list and went out for a walk, the big clouds had mostly retreated and were accumulating over the peaks of the San Gabriels.

I walked down to the oak woodland area that parallels the road. It was hot and humid and the bitey flies were out in force looking for a meal. (I’m not sure if we are as tasty as the main course — the local Mule Deer — but that certainly doesn’t stop them from sampling.) Fortunately, I had good company and was happy to be out despite the constant waving and swatting.

Previously, I had mentioned that our seasonal creek has completely dried up in several spots. I thought it might be interesting to illustrate this and so I searched through my photos to see what I could find. The picture on the left was taken in early February of this year. This spot along the creek forms a large, slow-moving, shallow pool that is always a favorite congregating spot for the breeding Coast Range Newts (Taricha torosa torosa). The picture to the right was photographed just last week, and as you can clearly see, the ground is little more than damp now.

Tomorrow’s post will feature a bunch of pics of the Mule Deer who can (with increasing frequency) be found resting and browsing for food in the relatively cooler, shadier areas around our cabin. In truth, I meant to share them with you today, but (like the female pictured below) I ran out of steam and decided to take it easy instead. I hope everyone else is finding ways to beat the heat and still enjoy some time outside!

Harsi / July 31, 2011 / hillsides, mammals, skies, water, weather / 2 Comments

Trials & Toyon-ations

I had planned to write something today about my recent wildlife sightings around here. I had several other small projects and “to do” items lined up for myself as well. And, I definitely — definitely! — had earmarked a chunk of the day for a walk outside. But, as John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

In my case, “life” included: an impressive number of big ants invading the bed + me asleep + a very unseemly hour of the morning.

I’ll spare you the somewhat traumatizing details and just tell you that I didn’t get any sleep after that and spent much of the day trying to ensure that it doesn’t happen again tonight. I think I’ve done as much as I can and I’m already finding ways to laugh at my early morning ordeal. (What else are you gonna’ do?!) But, as I never did get around to writing the post I had in mind, I hope no one minds seeing another one of the (mir)ror im(ages) I created yesterday… *exhausted grin*

“Toyon Bird”

Harsi / July 30, 2011 / fun stuff, lyrics, plants / 0 Comments

(mir)ror im(age)

I was thinking that I really liked this image I made of a sunset from last January…

I wondered what it might look like if I flipped it horizontally…

I decided I didn’t like that as much. But, then I thought… Maybe you need both! So, I decided to see what they would look like side-by-side…

Actually, what resulted was sort of a happy accident. I had intended on putting the two images together in a manner similar to the image I shared here with a thin black border between. I happened to place them too close together and (fortunately!) I saw this marvelous pattern and shape appear. I love when you can do something in a graphics program with your photo that manages to retain its essential nature but also adds a new dimension or element. In this case, it was already so fantastical and surreal that I thought I would go just one step further and turn the image upside down…

Now, I had originally planned at this point to tell you how excited and impressed I was by the figure that appeared to me when I stared at this last image… But then I thought it might be more fun (à la the interactive-cloud-gazing post) if I asked y’all: What do you see?

*grin*

[P.S. When I was trying to come up with an interesting name for this approach (technique?) (style?), a few of the words that I was playing around with were “mirage” and “mirror image” as both terms seemed apropos. It dawned on me that the first word was contained within the letters of the second. I thought that was nifty! Though, perhaps there’s no great surprise in this as apparently the words “mirror” and “mirage” share the same Latin root — mirare, meaning “to look at, to wonder at”.]

Harsi / July 29, 2011 / fun stuff, photography, skies / 5 Comments

A Tall Drink of Water

Now that we have truly entered the long stretch of hot and dry weather typical for this area at this time of year, the animals in the canyon can increasingly be found seeking out remaining water sources. The seasonal creek still has water in a few places, but large portions are little more than beds of rock and sand now. In addition to the water that I leave in containers behind my house, there are also many troughs provided for the horses living in the adjacent pasture. Most of the local mammals can be found (at some time of day) visiting these or other unintentional water sources around the property. Birds are also frequent visitors — drinking, bathing and even hunting insects over the water. (And, of course, the insects themselves also have a great need for moisture in these months. In addition to their own requirements, many bees and wasps also require water in order to construct their nests.)

I thought I’d share the above photo because it’s a nifty summer/fall behavior that I’ve seen the Acorn Woodpeckers engage in every year that we’ve lived here. They can often be seen in numbers of three or more squabbling over the opportunity to cling to a sprinkler head and drink the small amount of liquid that sometimes seeps out.

(NOTE: This photo was taken on July 28, 2009 — two years ago to the date!)

Harsi / July 28, 2011 / birds, weather / 2 Comments

(selective) Beachcombing

All images were taken on Vashon, WA — the first and last were photographed at Point Robinson and the middle images were photographed at Fern Cove. (If you missed it, you can read more about the photo processing technique here.)

Harsi / July 27, 2011 / travel / 4 Comments

‘Scuse me while I kiss the…

I scrolled past this photo in my archives and it got me thinking about the beautiful skies of Fall — not too much longer to wait!

This stunner is from the end of September last year.

Harsi / July 26, 2011 / lyrics, skies / 2 Comments

Saying Goodbye to Some Friends

I took a walk down to the creek this afternoon. At a certain point, I realized there was a lot more sunlight getting through the canopy than normal. I looked down and saw the newly cut stump of a tree. I continued walking and found at least two more stumps a little further on. I’m not even certain what kind of trees they were… I think they might have been Incense Cedar (Calocedrus sp.). You see, they had all been heavily burned in the major fire that ripped through the canyon in 2003. I do not believe that any of them had had any growing foliage and perhaps they were not long for this world. I honestly do not know the fine points of when and how to responsibly care for burned or damaged trees. I do know (from experience) that those trees that occur along the road are also a possible hazard in potentially falling on power lines or across the road itself. We do not own this property and I try not to presume the motivations and necessities of such actions.

All that being said… I was quite sad.

These trees were blackened and stunted, but they still held so much life as far as I am concerned. How many Gray Squirrels had I watched scamper up that one? When was it that I had photographed that interesting fungus growing at this one’s base? Remember the striking contrast of the red Poison Oak against the charcoal bark?

And just recently… Just recently, I photographed several of these trees in order to document the many bear claw marks I found. (This is the same stretch of creek as I wrote about in my recent bear post.)

This is my small homage to these once great fixtures along my regular walking path. I will miss you.

Harsi / July 25, 2011 / plants / 1 Comment

The One with The Crow & The Rain

I snapped the following series of images of this crow as it was sitting on the railing adjacent to the vehicle queue for getting onto the Seattle ferry over to Vashon Island. ** As always, click on the photo for an embiggened view. ** Just for fun, I’ve included a rough (very rough) facsimile of the accompanying dialogue between me and my husband…

“Roll your window down, hon.”
“What?!”
“Let me try and get a few shots past you, out your window.”
“We’re going to start moving any second now to get on the ferry!”
“I know, I know… so hurry up already!”

“Aren’t you a lovely bird? And posing so nicely for me too — thank you! Boy, you look wet.”
“Hey… Speaking of wet… Me and the car are getting kind of soaked over here.”
“I know… sorry! Just a few more… and then you can roll it back up, I promise.”

“Are you getting anything decent?”
“Yup! These are pretty… The muted colors of the background and the water… the rain falling… the way light is hitting its black feathers. In fact, I’m really happy with these! Thanks for putting up with me, hon.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah… So, do you think it’s just an American Crow, or is this one actually a Northwestern Crow?”
“I don’t know, I’m still trying to figure out how to tell the difference exactly. I need to check the field guide again.”

“Oh, hey… Wow! It looks like it’s dancing in this shot!”
“Dancing?!”
“Well, it’s doin’ something fancy with its feet…” *GRIN*

[NOTE: Differentiating between these two species of crow mostly involves geographic range and habitat, as well as some variation in call sounds. However, I gather that there is also a fair bit of hybridization between American and Northwestern Crows, which makes it all the more difficult to tell for certain which species you’re dealing with. I’m fairly certain that we must have seen at least a few Northwestern Crows (a new species for us) in the course of our more than week-long visit to Washington… just don’t ask me which ones they were exactly.]

Harsi / July 24, 2011 / birds, photography, travel, weather / 2 Comments

A Most Welcome Visitor

When I put together my post, “Common Ground”, I was hoping that I’d get a little positive feedback or perhaps some discussion surrounding the concept. I honestly was not expecting to inspire anyone else creatively. So, you can imagine how pleased I was when my friend Ruth e-mailed me several of her own paired photos! Viewing her unique and wonderful interpretation of the overlapping themes in natural vs. man-made structures and scenes was a real joy for me. I loved the thought of this idea evolving into a community art project of sorts. I promptly asked Ruth if she would mind my sharing some of her images on my blog. She was gracious enough to agree and I am thrilled to present them here…

[NOTE: *Click on any of the photos below to see a larger version.* Quoted captions are excerpts from Ruth’s e-mails. All of the photos in this post (except for the ant) are the property of Ruth Gravanis. If you are interested in re-posting them or using them for any other purpose, you must ask her permission first. You may contact me via this blog if you wish to get in touch with her.]

(top) “while waiting for the bus on a rainy morning on a street near my house”
(bottom) “looking across the Golden Gate, from the Presidio of SF to Marin County”

(top) “partially de-constructed aerial bus ramp in downtown SF”
(bottom) “polypody ferns on YBI [Yerba Buena Island]”

And last, but certainly not least, she sent me an image of hers to pair with one of mine from a previous blog post:

(top) “Transbay Terminal demolition, 10/25/10”
(bottom) big unidentified ant, foraging 5/27/10

I hope that Ruth will continue to send me her photo pairings as I truly do enjoy seeing them! All of her images were taken in the City and County of San Francisco. The added dimension of “place” — photos taken in geographic proximity to where one lives — makes these all the more special I think.

Of the small (but very loyal) band of friends that read my blog, many of you are also naturalists and photographers. It would be great fun if anyone else feels like joining in and trying their hand at pairing some photos of their own!

Harsi / July 23, 2011 / arthropods, not nature, photography, plants, water / 5 Comments

Some Like It (a little less) Hot

Much of the country experienced record high temperatures today. While we’ve been fluctuating between low- to mid-90s, I know it has been much hotter than that for some of you.

I found myself thinking about the temperate island we visited off the coast of Seattle at the beginning of March. Vashon’s high for today was 72 degrees. The average temperature there for this time of year is listed as 78 degrees.

I tried to imagine myself in the midst of all that cool, green loveliness. It was hard… Fortunately, I have a bevy of photos from our trip to assist me in my fantasizing. You’re welcome to join me!

Moist, overgrown and incredible! From our walk around Christensen Pond…

Christensen Pond, Vashon, Washington

Intoxicating blue and a breeze along the water’s edge at Fisher Pond…

Fisher Pond, Vashon, Washington

Is it working? Do you feel any cooler? Maybe a degree or two?

Well… I tried! *GRIN*

Harsi / July 22, 2011 / plants, travel, water, weather / 4 Comments