Jun 012014
 

Today was, without doubt, the most difficult day I have experienced in my photo-odyssey thus far.  A couple of pulled muscles and tendons in my left leg required me to drive to Piney Woods Church Road yesterday, hobbling my way along only half the distance of the road.  Today, the leg had worsened considerably, to the point that I could put practically no weight onto it at all.  For a few minutes, I actually considered the prospect of abandoning the enterprise.  Just getting from my office to the back door of the house was a frustration; getting across the yard and driveway to the car took several minutes.  I arrived at the car, lifted my leg by the sock top to place it in the car (it is too weak to lift without support), and realized I had forgotten my car key.  Fortunately, the cell phone was in the car, so I was able to call my wife in the house (easily the shortest-distance call I have ever made) and ask her to bring it to me.  I abandoned all thought of getting out of the car and attempting a brief roadside hobble; I settled instead for taking photographs out the open window of the Prius.  Fortunately, a neighbor provided a ready-made subject for the camera — a new horse fence along the roadway, completed just this past week.  Here’s hoping I will be back up to at least a few minutes of groundwork by tomorrow afternoon.

 

New Fence

 

 

 

May 272014
 

Red clover (Trifolium pratense) may be a widespread European immigrant, but I am confident it is of noble stock.  It is a flower worthy of kings and queens, now gracing pastures and lawns across North America.  This photograph was taken along Rico Road, on my way to Piney Woods Church Road this morning.

 

Red Clover

May 272014
 

Today I stopped to photograph a fairly ubiquitous yellow flower, very dandelion-like but much taller, with a slender green stem.  The flower is almost certainly Two-flowered Cynthia (Krigia biflora), a wildflower in the Aster family native to most of the Eastern US and north into Canada.  The flower head is quite lovely when viewed-close up — not as similar in form to a dandelion as I had assumed at first glance.

 

Two-flowered Cynthia

May 252014
 

I love photographing orb spiders.  Perhaps it is because they are not easy to spook.  Tunnel web spiders dash off into their tunnels at the slightest shadow or provocation.  And flying insects seem to know when your camera is in focus, choosing that moment to take off.  Perhaps, too, it is because orbweavers are so beautiful.  Here is a pair of them.  The top is an orchard orbweaver (Leucage venusta), which I have photographed before, but this time as seen from above (or more precisely, from underneath, looking up at its top surface).  The second is, at the moment, a mystery — one that I am hoping my friends at BugGuide on Facebook will be able to solve.  It may be a Hentz orbweaver (Neoscona crucifera), but then again, it may not.

 

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May 192014
 

On my walk late this afternoon, I was startled and delighted to discover that the Saturniid moth whose cocoon I photographed earlier this year had chosen this very day to emerge.  It was a female tulip-tree silkmoth (Callosamia angulifera).  What a beautiful creature, and how fortunate I was to be passing by — and to notice this moth — at the time of her emergence.

As an addendum, I discovered the next day that I was mistaken — it was a different moth from the one in the cocoon!  The cocoon remains intact as of 23 May, and I continue to await the emergence of yet another moth.

 

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May 152014
 

Oh, what a magnificent morning!  The air temperature was about sixty degrees, and the cool breeze was delightful.  The sky was still overcast, and I felt a bit of mist against my skin as I made my way to Piney Woods Church Road.  Evidence of the long overnight rainstorm were everywhere.  To celebrate Day 135, I have chosen this macro of a single drop of water, containing an inverted roadside landscape, suspended from a horizontal plant stem.

 

Meadow, Inverted

 

May 122014
 

On a warm and humid mid-afternoon, I roamed Piney Woods Church Road, in search of new discoveries and possible images.  Near Rico Road, I found an circular  web with this jewel of a spider waiting patiently for her prey.  She is a female orchard orbweaver (Leucage venusta), a relatively common orb spider of the Eastern forest, notable for a prominent orange-red horseshoe on the underside of her abdomen.

 

Orchard Orbweaver

May 112014
 

On a Sunday morning in May, I encountered a spider’s web bejeweled with water droplets along the edge of a cattle pasture along Piney Woods Church Road.  The experience inspired a series of half a dozen images of all the suspended drops of water along the spider’s silken threads:  field rosaries.

 

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