Day 340: Pinned

 Backyard Nature, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 062014
 

Some days, I take my pilgrimage along Piney Woods Church Road slowly, savoring every bit of the roadscape as I make my way to Hutcheson Ferry Road and back to Rico Road again.  Other days, like this one, with dark gray skies and drizzle already getting underway, the experience was, I confess, much more tactical.  As I slowly walked down the road, camera in hand, I suddenly saw exactly what called me to photograph it — a single leaf that had fallen and was pinned by a bundle of loblolly pine needles to a bare branch of a shrub.  It was well above my head, and photographing it involved some guesswork since I could barely see the image on the viewscreen.  Once I had the image I sought, though, I felt a sense of contentment — I had found what I needed for the day.  Under even more leaden skies than before, I set off across a neighbor’s horse pasture for home.

 

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Day 339: LeafPoems

 Backyard Nature, Geometry and Nature, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 052014
 

The more leaves I see on my walk this time of year, the more I appreciate their rich diversity.  Each December leaf is a survivor of the growing season, carrying the scars of its journey from spring through autumn.  It is those very scars that give each leaf its individual beauty and spark our capacity for wonder and delight.  Like the Dirt Road Pilgrim who photographs them, these leaves, too, are pilgrims across time.  They are also holy relics:  doorways into the sacredness at the heart of nature.

 

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The Two Sides of Larinia Directa

 Backyard Nature, Natural History, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 032014
 

For the past few days, every time I have walked down Piney Woods Church Road, I have encountered orb spiders dutifully tending their webs.  I never see the same web or spider twice — each time, I discover a different one somewhere along the roadside.  All of them, though, are clearly the same spider species:  Larinia directa.  Today, for the first time, I was able to photograph a spider in her web from both sides, top and bottom.  It is an accomplishment about which I am quite proud, though mostly it was the luck of finding a spider whose web allowed fairly easy approach from both directions — from the roadside and from the roadside slope, looking back toward the road bed.

 

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Day 337: Eastern Gray Squirrel Encounter

 Backyard Nature, Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 032014
 

For all the insects and spiders I see on my walks, not to mention cows and horses, animals rarely appear in my photographs.  Bird close-ups require either incredible good luck or great patience, coupled with high-quality lenses with long focal lengths and large price tags.  For all that I am fond of herps — frogs and toads, turtles, snakes, lizards — I don’t think a single one has appeared in nearly a year’s worth of images.  Even the Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), probably the most commonly-seen mammal along the road, has only made one appearance here.  On this mild December afternoon, though, I encountered a squirrel hard at work rooting around in the leaves just beyond the horse pasture fence.  Usually, by the time I see a squirrel it is beating a hasty retreat across the grass and up a tree.  This time, though, I managed somehow to remain unnoticed while the squirrel spent several minutes poking around in the grass, occasionally uttering a low clucking sound.  I got as near as I could, fearful that I would be betrayed by a thick layer of crisp and crunchy leaves.  Finally, the squirrel followed a scent (or maybe just an inclination) up into a drainage pipe across the road, whose entrance was practically under my feet.  Before he (or she) disappeared, I took quite a few photos despite having only a mid-focal-length lens; these two are my favorites.

 

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Day 336: Moments of Light

 Backyard Nature, Golden Hour, Native Plants, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 022014
 

What a glorious afternoon it was along Piney Woods Church Road!  A few clouds appeared in otherwise blue skies, and the temperature soared into the mid-70s.  I had a busy day filled with errands, but took a few minutes to explore the light along the road, transfiguring leaves into pages of illuminated manuscripts.  The relics of nature’s grace are all around me, in such stunning forms as white oak and greenbrier leaves infused with sunlight.

 

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Day 335: December Spider

 Backyard Nature, Geometry and Nature, Golden Hour, Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 012014
 

It was a balmy day along Piney Woods Church Road, with temperatures nudging into the upper 60s.  I searched for the same spider I had seen yesterday, but found another one — much larger than the first — instead.  This lovely orbweaver rested calmly at the center of her (most likely a she) web, not even fazed when I brought my camera lens close.  This is her underside; efforts to photograph her top side were largely foiled by the locations of nearby loblolly pines.  I saw lots of other small insects darting about, so clearly a food source was readily available.  Still, I was surprised to see spiders active after our hard frost of a week or so ago, when nighttime temperatures plunged into the lower 20s.

I have since learned that this spider is Larinia directa, a species common to the lower South. It is not mentioned in my guide to Spiders of the Carolinas, suggesting that it is not common there.  I am not surprised by this, given that the spider is still active so late in the autumn.

 

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Day 334: Pin Cherry and Guest

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Nov 302014
 

I find leaves endlessly captivating this time of year along Piney Woods Church Road.  And endlessly available, too.  So their images keep turning up here on this blog. It hasn’t rained in quite a few days, so water droplets are out of the question.  And insects and other invertebrates have largely gone into hiding these past several weeks.  I was surprised to find a lone orb spider a couple of centimeters across on its web this afternoon, but it scurried away before I could capture a good photograph.  Still, as a bit of diversion from all the leaves, I add it to my post as well, converted to black and white with a dark blue filter.

 

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Day 332: Lingering Light

 Golden Hour, Native Plants, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Nov 282014
 

After many hours of online work, I set out down Piney Woods Church Road in search of something new to photograph. I repeated to myself again and again that I would not photograph any more leaves.  I have photographed dozens of them, and it was time for something different.  In the late-afternoon light, I photographed threads of spiderweb on hoary mountainmint and strands of horse hair on a barbed wire fence. But at the end of the day, it is these two images of illuminated autumn leaves that I find most compelling, as they catch a bit of the lingering light of a late autumn evening.

 

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