Sorghastrum nutans

Indian Grass!

It's not quite from today, but close- from Friday, again, taken on the Delaware Wildlife Area.

21 Months and Counting

Weston at 21+ Months plus little creative Photoshop work.

It's hard not to say that Weston looks like me- we both share a dark complexion and brown eyes, while Megan's eyes are hazel and her skin quite fair.  But when I look at this picture of Weston that I took last weekend- I can't stopped being reminded of Megan. Weston's mouth, his nose, it's all hers.  It's hard to believe that in about two and a half months, we'll be welcoming another human being into the world.

Tom

Mallard, Belted Kingfisher

I have been remiss to capture any photographs of Delaware County the past two workdays, so this evening, I'm posting two images that I captured on Sunday afternoon, just before I photographed the great blue heron.  This drake mallard was doing its best to swim upstream through a riffle on the opposite bank, while this female belted kingfisher was perched high above the river, ready to dive for a fish.

Ohio and the rest of the east is experiencing frigid temperatures.  A few years ago at this time, I was still able to photograph autumn meadowhawks, but now everything is absolutely frigid- we're headed for a low of 14 tonight. Stay warm!

Tom

Great Blue Heron

Yesterday afternoon I returned to my old stomping grounds- Kenney Park. I went there looking for deer, but didn't find any. This great blue heron made the short trip down High Street worth my time.

Tom

It's a Mast Year

Red Oak Acorns, November 2010,  Munroe Falls, Ohio

Not long after the start of this year's deer bow season in Ohio, which opened September 25, I started reading reports that Ohio was experiencing a "mast year".   For some reason(s) that are not entirely understood, some years, most every oak tree in a forest will produce a bumper crop of acorns, far more than normal. During a mast year event, the woods can just be littered with acorns.

But why is this event called a "mast year"?  A little searching through online dictionaries and I found the answer- this usage of the word "mast" most likely derives from an old English word that meant food.  So a mast year is when the woods is full of food, and in the case of this year's deer season, full of food for deer.  And that brings me back to the deer season.  The number of deer harvested during the early archery season was down- a fact attributed by many to the deer staying put in the woods and feasting on the bumper crop of acorns, instead  running out into fields and farmland to search for leftover corn and soybeans.  I'm not sure if I buy this argument, but I recently visited my parents house and experienced this "mast" event first hand.

"Mast"

 They're lucky enough to have a nice red oak in their backyard.  When I was growing up, I remember finding a few acorns underneath this tree- maybe five or six per year.  The gray squirrels got all the other ones. So I was absolutely shocked to see the pile that had formed at the base of this tree.  Granted- my dad had raked the acorns off the lawn and moved them all closer together, but what a bonanza of acorns.

Why does this happen?  The prevailing theory seems to go like this: In one year, if you flood the woods with many more acorns than the squirrels, deer, and other wildlife can eat, than there is an actual chance of getting some of those extra acorns to germinate and eventually become trees.  By in large though, from my brief research this morning, there is much that needs to be learned about this phenomenon.

My hand with "mast"

This morning I asked this question-  Is it just Ohio's oaks that are experiencing a mast year?  After a quick search for "mast year" at the newspaper article search topix.net, I found stories from Florida to Connecticut and New York to Chicago.  I can't make the argument that the phenomenon is happening across the eastern U.S.  Perhaps every year there are places that experience local mast events. Still, I was surprised to see so many articles.  Maybe something unusual is going on, or quite possibly, it could just be a coincidence.  Needless to say, my interest is definitely piqued- I'm starting to see a whole PhD dissertation developing in my brain.....

My question to you is- are you having a "mast year" in your neck of the woods?

Tom

Morning Sky

A simple image of this morning's sky with the sun trying to clear the low clouds in the east.  Have a great weekend.

-Tom

Welcome Winter

Do you know why I know it is winter?  Upon arriving at work this morning all our door locks were frozen!  We eventually got in- but not before I was seriously regretting leaving my gloves at home.  There's something about the first subzero temperatures that surprises me each winter, and this morning was no different.  I thought I didn't need gloves- and I was wrong.

Although my morning and evening commutes were draped with clouds, central Ohio was treated to a quite nice mid-day sunshine event.  As winter drags on, sunny scenes like this one will decrease as we plunge into the gray abyss that is winter here in Ohio.  It's hard to believe that this field will be warm and full of soybeans in only six months or so.

Tom

Nature in Manhattan

It isn't too difficult to capture a traditional nature photograph in Manhattan.  When I need a little dose of nature, I head to the northern section of Central Park.  There are quite a few forested areas, with giant native trees- These areas are mostly fenced and signs are posted letting park visitors know that these are natural areas.  While walking along "The Ravine" which eventually leads to this waterfall, I saw a Cooper's hawk, tufted titmice and chickadees, and a flock of about 20 white-throated sparrows.  Not bad for an island where most people live in tiny brick, concrete, and steel boxes stacked on top of each other.

Tom

West End Avenue & 96th Street

There's no place like Thanksgiving in New York City- and that's where Megan, Weston and I headed this past holiday weekend.  This was just a very quick trip- but there's nothing like spending a few days in Manhattan to make one appreciate the relative calm of a "little big" city like Columbus.

Tom

Cattails

Today in Delaware County, the stand of cattails that rim the pond behind our office caught my eye.  There isn't much more fun a kid can have than ripping into a cattail- I remember getting covered in the white fluff more than a few times  The fluff is a combination of tiny seeds and small silk like fibers that enable the seed to be spread by wind and water.  And they sure do get around- it's hard to find any semi-permanent bodies of water that don't have cattails rimming the edges.

In Ohio, we have three types of cattails.  The increasingly rare broad-leaf cattail is our native species.  There's also the narrow-leaved cattail, originally thought to be native to the Atlantic coast but now believed to have come to us from Europe.  And last but not least- there's a super aggressive form that appears to be a hybrid between the two species. Wherever you see a massive stand of nothing but cattails, it's most likely the hybrid.

And speaking of the east coast-  we'll be off for a few days for the long holiday weekend- Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Tom

Tattered Wings of an Autumn Meadowhawk

The tattered wings of an autumn meadowhawk, photographed today on the Delaware Widlife area. 

Over the past months, I have struggled to give direction to this blog.  The best blogs are focused and updated frequently, and those two qualities have been sorely missing here.  To get me back into the blogging mood, during the work week, I'm going to present one image each evening that represents a simple nature observation I made earlier in the day.  I expect that my 30 mile drive north into the farm country of central Ohio should give me plenty of material for this venture.

During today's lunch break, I encountered this tattered, autumn meadowhawk that has survived several significant frosts.   With snow in the forecast for the end of the week, this insect is not long for this world, but our 60 degree temperatures gave me something to be thankful for- the opportunity to photograph a dragonfly in late November.

Tom

Ready for Winter

All the leaves are down from our backyard bur oak- finally. We've spent the last four Sunday afternoons blowing, raking, and hauling leaves.

Tom

Back to Yellowstone

If you've been following me for a while, you'll remember my trip to Yellowstone this past June.  After I came back, I started a new job, so I didn't have much time to really pour through the images from our three night camping adventure.  I'm off from work today, so this morning I took a second look at the images from America's megafauna capital.

A series of images of this bison scratching its head caught my eye, and I started to work on this particular shot in Adobe Camera Raw. After playing around with several different ways of cropping the image, I saw a little black speck perched upon the dead log.

Ah ha!  A brown-headed cowbird hiding out right next to a bison.  How cool is that?  If you've studied birding or ecology in north America, one of the biggest stories told in the field is the eastward migration of the cowbirds as America's forests were cleared. Adapted to range with the bison of the American plains, the cowbirds didn't have time to raise a nest full of young, so they somehow learned to lay their eggs in other birds nests.  Quite an interesting strategy for sure.  But as we opened up the forests, they started laying eggs in the nests of species that hadn't learned to recognize the cowbird eggs, and, to make  a long story short, we've got plenty of cowbirds around these days.

So although I've seen cowbirds here in Ohio a thousand times, seeing them in the open plains of Yellowstone National Park, sitting right next to a bison, leads me to respect this species just a little more.  They didn't clear the forests of the east- we did!

Slough Creek Valley, Yellowstone National Park, frequented by hundreds, if not thousands, of Bison.

Backyard Mystery

This is what I found in our backyard underneath our giant bur oak this evening.  What can take down a crow in a suburban-within-the-beltway backyard in Worthington, Ohio?  Could a Cooper's hawk really take a crow?  Perhaps a great horned owl?  No carcass in sight- just two wings, some scattered feathers, and a smidgen of intestine.

Tom

Fall in Maine

In early October, Megan, Weston and I traveled to Little Pond Maine.  I'm not going to blog extensively about that trip, but I did want to share images of this beautiful state.  I can't think of any other place that I would rather be in early October.

Tom

White-throated Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow, Zonotrichia albicollis 

 

 

I'm not sure when I first learned about white-throated sparrows.  It was sometime when I was in college- I remembering seeing one on the grounds of a motor inn in Bar Harbor, Maine sometime after I had purchased the Peterson's Birding By Ear C.D.s  I learned the song of this sparrow before I had knowingly seen the bird.  The whistling "Oh Sam Peabody Peabody" or "Oh Sweet Canada Canada Canada", whichever you prefer, is easy to learn and hard to forget.  So when I saw one singing for the first time from atop a planted blue spruce, I knew exactly what I was looking at.

I've gone on to see many white-throated sparrows both in Ohio and Maine, where I captured this image in early October.  Also residents of the northern coniferous forests like the Pine Siskin, these birds are regular common winter visitors here in central Ohio.  I've been encountering flocks of a dozen or so birds on my daily lunch break walk around the Delaware Wildlife area.  I encounter them most often in thickets and edge habitats.  It's neat to think that there is a chance, all be it minuscule, that I might encounter the same bird in Ohio that I may have photographed during the summer in the woods of Maine.

Tom

Pine Siskin

Hello nature lovers- I'm back in the game, at least temporarily.  After a six week break from my computer, I finally got it back up and running again.  I've been photographing things along the way, like this Pine Siskin that was hanging out at Deer Haven Preserve on Saturday.  I've never photographed this species, so I was lucky to get this one perfect pose.  If you aren't familiar with pine siskins, they're a type of finch that often migrates southward from coniferous forests further north.  The species  occasionally "irrupts" in large numbers when the food supply is low in the boreal forests.  This one was feeding with a flock of 20 plus goldfinches feeding on nyger and sunflower seed- if I wasn't tipped off by naturalist Kim at Deer Haven, I probably would have never noticed it.

Tom

Let's Catch Up

Sometime you just need a break, and that is exactly what I've had the past few weeks when my #1 computer, the command center of my digital photography workflow, ceased to work.  I have been taking photos, but at a much slower pace than before the computer breakdown.  And if you remember my post on Car Fever- I have somewhat solved that problem.  This past weekend Megan and I purchased a 2009 Subaru Outback.  It's a great car and I love it, but now it is time to sell my  supercharged 2003 Toyota Corolla S.  If you know anyone close to Columbus that is looking for a sporty car with great gas mileage, please shoot me an e-mail.

And there are more updates to our lives.  Weston is now 19 months old, and every day he seems to need more attention.  It's great, it's fantastic- I love how he is aging and becoming more interactive with us- it just means that there is less time to do other things. Like blogging and taking photographs of nature.  What am I doing more?  Playing the piano and the electric guitar at Weston's request- he loves music.

Congratulations go out to Megan, who has a new position as a full time assistant professor of nursing at the largest university in SW Ohio (think bears...think cats...think the Ohio River).  Fortunately for us, she'll be working exclusively in said university's online nursing program, meaning she can do almost all of the work here at our home in Worthington.  She will travel to the afformentioned university only a few times a quarter.  She has found it incredibly rewarding to be able to take care of our son and hold a full time faculty position at a major university.  I'm mega-proud of Megan!

And finally, perhaps the biggest news of all.  If everything goes OK (I'm extra cautious, being the husband of a women's reproductive health professional), we'll be adding one more member to our family come March.  We just had our twenty week ultrasound and everything looks good.  This pregnancy has been different for both Megan and I- we can only imagine just how different this child will be from Weston.  Like Weston, we chose to find out the baby's gender at its birth. We are still working on potential names- picking two great names this time is much more challenging- yes, I think we've even scrapped the girl name that we had picked last time.
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All in all, I have enjoyed a little break from the Blogosphere, the Twitterverse, and Facebook.  Once I get my computer back up and running, you'll see more of us, but for now, I'm enjoying this little break.  I'll be back, refreshed and rejuvenated before you know it.

Tom

Car Fever

Yes, this is a particularly off-topic post, but behind every great naturalist, there is a great vehicle. We've all seen Jim McCormac's sweet VW Jetta TDI, or Jim Bissell's subaru outback, or Rick Gardner's Hyundai Elantra, right?

The car I drive now, and have since May of 2004, is decidedly unfit for a naturalist.  It's a 2003 Toyota Corolla- which sounds plain and boring, until I let you know what has been done to it.  The previous owner had the dealer install a supercharger, making it quick as lighting.  They lowered the car two inches and put on the 16-inch double spoke wheels that came standard on the early 2000's Celica.  The bottom line?  It's a sweet car, and it's been amazingly fun to drive all of these years, but it no longer meets my needs.

First of all, I'm a dad now.  Fatherhood was quite possibly the farthest thing from my mind when I purchased the 'yota when I was a young bachelor in a new, big city (although maybe that's how things work, if you catch my drift).  Fast forward six and half years, and I've got a 19 month old dragging me into the living room as soon as I get home from work, wanting me to play the electric guitar.  Although I'd love to cruise around the city with the little guy in his car seat, the Corolla is too low to be safe for little kids.

Second of all- The car is undrivable when we have more than a few inches of snow.  Winters in Columbus are hit and miss.  That means that the cities here don't invest enough in snow plow equiptment to really take care of things when a big snow event does happen (although I must say the comparatively rich suburbs are great with snow plowing).  I'd say we have a "bad" winter every other year, and when we do, the city shuts down for a few days after we get 6 or more inches of snow.  When that happens, I'm not going anywhere in my Corolla.  Normally that had been OK-  I would just take Megan's car to work.  But now Megan has a new job where she might have to drive to the University of Cincinnati now and then.  She needs her car, and I can't rely on it any more.

Thirdly-   I don't have a five mile, one way commute anymore- I have a 30 mile one-way commute.  My car won't cut it in winter.

So I'm looking for a new ultimate naturalist vehicle.  I have test driven four crossover SUV type vehicles.  On paper the Honda Element would be fantastic, except that I just can't get over it's boxy profile, and the drive of the CR-V was too plain for me.   I have fallen in love with the looks of the 2010 Chevy Equinox, but it feels like a bigger car than it really is. When I test drove it today, I was reminded of my Grandpa's 1995 Oldsmobile 88.  Both General Motors products are great cars, comfortable with a smooth ride, but fun doesn't really factor into the equation with either.  We also tried the Toyota RAV-4, a great car despite the recall- I just don't like how the back door swings open and to the side rather than up.

So what vehicle do I keep thinking about?  What car did I like driving the most?  Quite simply, it's the Subaru Forester. It's understated elegance coupled with a just a little bit of quirk, including a huge panoramic windshield make it quite appealing.  It just might be the ultimate naturalist vehicle that I'm after.

Tom

Computer Update

As most of you know, this past week I had a major computer crash and my hard drives became un-bootable.  I've been shut down since then.

Well, not entirely- I'm actually writing this post from the problem computer.  But the computer isn't running Windows- It's using an Ubuntu Linux OS straight from a CD.  I must say, it's sort of cool using a computer without any hard drives- It reminds me of my Apple IIe days back in the late 80's and early 90's.  Put in your program on a disk, and it runs just perfectly.

With the help of my friend James, we were able to determine that both of my hard drives are actually completely fine, and I will be able to recover any data that I had previously lost.  In fact, it's already been recovered on a brand new tiny little 750 GB external hard drive I picked up at Microcenter yesterday.

That being said, my digital photography workflow is currently non-existant.  I haven't picked up my camera since all this happened, and to be perfectly honest, I've enjoyed my time away from the gear.  Nature photography had definitely turned into a second job (without pay) for me, and the break from being constantly behind a lens feels like a much needed vacation.

Tom