The Cormorant, the Dragonfly, and the Bee: June 2019

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Spring Color

Summer has arrived, yet some of my recent spring flower photos haven't been blogged. This post begins to rectify that.

Below I present some favorites.
As is my usual custom, photos are taken with natural light, hand held, most with my 60mm (120mm equivalent) Olympus macro lens, unless otherwise stated.

Enjoy!

This first shot was taken with my 12-40mm lens at 40mm. Taken in the morning after some rain the night before.

After the Rain

Here I'm experimenting with using my telephoto lens for shots of nearby flowers. This focal length is 258mm (516mm equivalent). To take this I have to stand at least three feet away or more due to the minimum focus distance requirement of this lens.

Blue Jester

Another shot with my telephoto at 240mm (480mm equivalent):

Bleeding Heart Arch

The rest of the photos are taken with my 60mm macro. This lens proves itself time and again to be my favorite for all close flora and fauna.

Yellow Licks

Top Down Fun

Sunlit Yellow Repro Center

Simple Elegance

While this may look like a specimen on a slide, it is actually a shot taken at extremely close range of lungwort (pulmonaria) just beginning to bloom. The item pictured is roughly one quarter inch across. I've learned that the odd name "lungwort" comes from the leaves of this plant (not shown), which appear similar to lungs.

New Life Forming

Six-sided Symmetry

Look at the natural checkerboard petals on this guinea-hen plant:

Checkerboard

Here's a crop of the above photo to get a closer view of the anthers carrying pollen on the stamens.

Pollen at Checkerboard Center

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Visiting Finch

Our friend, Lisa, gave us a "thistle sock" bird feeder. We never had one before. We filled it with thistle seed and hung it on a tree in our back yard and waited and waited. It is supposed to attract finches but none ever came. In fact, it just hung there idly for weeks and weeks. Finally, we decided, after a squirrel or the wind knocked it to the ground, it was time to either give up or try another location. Deb moved it to our cherry tree in the front yard. There was still no activity for the longest time, then one day, amazingly, finches showed up. I tried to take some photos of them through the window, but the results were not satisfactory. Then the finches disappeared for several more days. Finally, they returned. This time I was able to capture a few photos with my telephoto lens from just outside the front door, after tiptoeing outside as quietly as possible.

Finches are quite small birds, and ours seem very timid; at least from my experience they disappear quickly the moment they detect a human even some twenty feet away.

You can see the growing cherries, orange (not yet red), in the background of both of these photos. Though cherries are popular among many other larger bird visitors such as blue jays and robins, these small finches prefer thistle seed.

Bashful Goldfinch

Food Inspection

Sunday, June 23, 2019

Rock Garden

Gretchen, the president of the Ashland Garden Club, invited Deb to create a raised rock garden as a special demonstration event for members. Deb installed it yesterday at members' Hilary and Peter's place. This was attended by members and friends. Except for the focal point holly, most of the plants are succulents. Deb has experience with drought tolerant rock gardens, both at our home, and at one of the Ashland traffic islands (near Shaw's on 126), where she created another raised rock garden six foot across atop the existing concrete triangle last year.

Deb's creativity, experience, and perseverance were on display as she created the new garden in two hours plus. Some of the rocks were "native", having previously been residing across the street in the woods or in the backyard. The Ashland DPW supported this event by letting the homeowners collect rocks from the DPW junk piles. Under Deb's direction, observers stepped in to assist as the garden formed before our very eyes.

The rock garden was a complete success as you can see from the photos below. Audience members cheered and clapped at the finish.

Not to be forgotten, I want to also give a shout out to the host residents, Hilary and Peter, who were very accommodating. Peter introduced many of us to Pimm's, a cordial drink served mixed with ginger ale, apparently often served at Ascot, or so we were told; delicious and refreshing on a warm summer day!

Preparation

Onlookers

Placing Rocks

Finding Humor

At Times, You Can Get Two Plants from One

Sharing a Lesson

Group Effort

Showing Where

Rock Please

Using Cocoa Husks to Support Plants in Pockets

A Welcome Visitor

Let's Discuss

Leaning In

Floating Signature

Into the Wild

Succulence

Succulents

Wet Rock

Rock on a Cliff

Abundance

Deb took this next photo on her cell phone after she decided to stop for the day. She thinks it will be completed after a layer of smaller rocks are added on top of the exposed dirt to help with erosion issues.

Complete Rock Garden

Friday, June 21, 2019

2019 Boston Marathon

As we are lucky to live near the path of the Boston Marathon, it was my pleasure to be able to get a closeup look at the participants as they raced by from my vantage point roughly five miles in. Most of the runners (and wheelchair participants) are still in pretty good spirits and still feeling very energetic at this stage, as they've still got some 21 miles to go to complete the race.

This year's event threatened to be a washout with all the potential rain forecasted, but it stopped raining more or less just as the racers got going. You can see the puddles and rain spray in some of the photos.

The racers are started in groups (stages) depending on ability, gender, and assistant device (wheelchairs with no gears and "hand-cycles" with gears).

These first two photos show two of the wheelchair racers. At 1/1000 of a second exposure, the frozen mid-air water droplets from the wet wheels make a nice backdrop to the hard-driving efforts of this participant.

Motion Spray

Pure Drive

This entrant is hand cranking with all the power she can muster. The hand-crank vehicles were pretty much all unique custom-built machines.

Feel the Burn

Certain young spectators, while they did enjoy watching the race, found other activities also fun. Some intersections had emergency vehicles at the ready. The firemen who ran this fire engine invited a few young visitors to sit briefly in the cockpit.

Future Fireman

On the far right of this photo is Worknesh Degefa of Ethiopia. She is going to win the women's race. I didn't know which of these front runners, if any, might win as they zoomed by.

Future Winner Degefa Speeds By

The future men's winner is Lawrence Chorono of Kenya. Here he is early in the race running in the lead pack. Amusingly, I happened to catch him passing a tissue to the runner on his right, likely a close acquaintance based on their similar clothing design. Turns out, that runner, Wesley Korir, is a Kenyan elected Member of Parliament for Cherangany Constituency and he won the Boston Marathon in 2012!

Future Winner Cherono Begins Tissue Hand-Off

Completion of the tissue pass, along with smiles to have helped a friend!

Future Winner Cherono Completes Tissue Hand-Off With a Smile

Tattoos, Sunglasses, and Beard

Pure focus on the job at hand. His concentration is frozen in time; this is taken at 1/800th of a second as he passed directly across from me:

Portrait of a Runner

It's always nice to see smiles:

"That's Fine Track Club" Gets a Good Laugh

Determined Runner

Levitated Feet

I'm always impressed by the sheer numbers of runners who participate:

Enthusiastic Running Crowd

Runners and spectators make contact with high fives:

High Five

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Auto Show 2019

Here it is June of 2019, so I figure it's time to catch up on this blog. I attended the 2019 auto show in Boston back in January, and since the prior blog post is about the 2018 show, might as well follow it up with some photos from the 2019 show.

In addition to "regular" cars, naturally the auto show had some "specialty" cars, including some McLaren racing cars and Rolls Royces.