I’ve never done one but since year in review posts seem to be becoming more popular, I thought I’d give it a try. The hardest part seems to be choosing which photo to show for each month. I struggled with trying to decide at times, so some months have two. I’ll start with a reader favorite from last January; this shot of vole tracks on the snow seemed to draw a lot of comments.
Another reader favorite from last January and a favorite of mine as well was this shot of red elderberry buds (Sambucus racemosa.) I remember wondering why the bud scales were opening so early in the year since they’re there to protect the bud. We must have had a warm spell, but I remember it being very cold.
There was no warmth in February, as this photo of the Ashuelot River in Swanzey shows. We had below zero F cold for long periods throughout the month and the river froze from bank to bank. That’s very rare in this spot and when it happens you know it has been cold.
Despite of the cold of February in March the skunk cabbages (Symplocarpus foetidus) appeared right on schedule, signaling the start of the growing season. Through a process called thermogenesis in which plants create their own heat, skunk cabbage can raise the temperature above the surrounding air temperature. This means it can melt its way through ice and snow, which is exactly what it had done before I took this photo. Skunk cabbage is in the arum family.
In April the tiny female flowers of our native hazelnuts (Corylus americana) appear and I’m always pleased to see them. I measured the buds with calipers once and found that they were about the same diameter as a strand of spaghetti, so you really have to look closely to find the flowers.
In May the beautiful downy angel wing-like leaves of American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) begin to appear. Seeing them just after they’ve opened is one of the great delights of a walk in the forest in spring, in my opinion. Beech is the tree that taught me how leaves open in the spring. I won’t bother explaining it here but it’s a fascinating process.
Since mayflowers, also known as trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens,) were one of my grandmother’s favorites I had to include them here. They are also one of the most searched for flowers on this blog. I’m anxious to smell their heavenly scent again already, and it’s only January.
In June I stopped to take a photo of the red sandspurry (Spergularia rubra) that I’d been ignoring for so long. These are easily among the smallest flowers I’ve ever tried to photograph, but also among the most beautiful. Though they’re considered an invasive weed from Europe I don’t see how something so tiny can be considered a pest. They are small enough so about all I can see is their color when I view them in person, so I was surprised by their delicate beauty when I saw them in a photo. I’ll be watching for them again this year.
July is when our roadside meadows really start to attract attention. There are beautiful scenes like this one virtually everywhere you look. For me these scenes are always bitter sweet because though they are beautiful and bring me great joy, they also mark the quick passing of summer.
In August I saw this little yellow legged tail wagger at a local pond. I didn’t know its name but luckily readers did. It’s a cute little juvenile spotted sandpiper, which is not something I expect to see on the shore of a pond in New Hampshire. It must have been used to seeing people because it went about searching the shore and let me take as many photos as I wished.
August was also when my daughter pointed me to this violet coral fungus (Clavaria zollingeri,) easily the most beautiful coral fungus that I’ve ever seen. It grew in a part of the woods with difficult lighting and I had to try many times to get a photo that I felt accurately reproduced its color. I plan to go back in August of this year and see if it will grow in the same spot again. Stumbling across rare beauty like this is what gets my motor running and that’s why I’m out there every day. You can lose yourself in something so beautiful and I highly recommend doing so as often as possible.
According to reader comments this aging purple cort mushroom (Cortinarius iodeoides) was the hit of the September 12th post. This mushroom starts life shiny and purple and then develops white and yellow streaks as it ages. Its shine when young comes from a very bitter slime that covers it. Only slugs don’t mind the bitterness apparently, because squirrels and chipmunks never seem to touch it.
In October all that was left blooming were a few of our various native asters and goldenrods. The temperature was getting cool enough to slow down the bumblebees, sometimes to the point of their not moving at all. It’s hard to imagine anything more perfect in nature than a bee sleeping in a flower.
This was my favorite shot in October, mostly because the fallen leaves remind me of shuffling through them as a schoolboy. And I’ll never forget that smell. If only I could describe it.
But leaves are always more beautiful on the tree, as this November photo of Willard Pond in Antrim shows. The oaks and beeches were more colorful than I’ve ever seen them and I could only stand in awe after I entered the forest. It was total immersion in one of the most beautiful forests I’ve ever been in.
Then strangely, on Friday November 6th, all the leaves fell from nearly every oak in one great rush. People said they had never seen anything like it. I got word from Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine, saying the same thing happened in those states on the exact same day. It will be interesting to see what the oaks do this year. I can’t find a single word about the strange phenomenon on the news or in any publication, or online, so I can’t tell you what science has to say about it. The post I did on Willard Pond generated more comments than any other ever has on this blog.
It was also in November when Yoda the porcupine slowly waddled his way across a Walpole meadow and sat at my feet. I wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted but I wondered if maybe he just wished to have his photo taken. After all, I could tell that he had just seen his stylist by his perfectly groomed hair. I was happy to oblige and this is one of the photos taken that day. He was just too cute to not include here.
This one I’m sure most of you remember since it just appeared in the December 9th post. That was when I decided to do an entire post with nothing but photos that I had taken with my phone, and this was the winner, according to you. It’s a simple snapshot of some water plants that I saw in Half Moon Pond in Hancock one foggy morning, and it showed me that you don’t need to go out and spend thousands of dollars on camera equipment to be a nature photographer. Or a nature blogger.
So you don’t think that I just click the shutter and get a perfect photo each time, I’ve included this little gem. The oddest thing about it is, I don’t know how or where it was taken. It just appeared on the camera’s memory card so I must have clicked the shutter without realizing it. It illustrates why for every photo that appears on this blog there are many, many more that don’t.
Perhaps you need to look back before you can move ahead. ~Alan Brennert
Thanks for stopping in. As always, I hope readers will be able to get out and experience some of the beauty and serenity that nature has to offer in the New Year.
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Thanks very much.
A beautiful way to bring in the New Year, a great post and the best to you with your writing and photography in the New Year. Life coming from the cold snows of winter…you bring hope 🙂 From what I see, you’re off to a great start to the New Year, cheers to a great 2016.
Thanks very much. I can’t wait to see examples of your amazing photographs in 2016 either! Happy New Year!
Such a colorful, interesting combination of subjects!
Thanks!
Allen, thank you for this wonderful review of 2015. It helps me to remember that spring will be here before we know it!
I enjoyed your comments about each photo, and agree that Willard Pond is one of the most beautiful places around.
You’re welcome and thank you Paula. Spring is right around the corner-we’re already chipping away at January and before we know it March will be here.
I’m anxious to visit Willard pond in the spring. I saw what I think might have been a Dicentra growing on a boulder. It might have been Dutchman’s breeches, which I’ve never seen in this area.
Dutchman’s Breeches – well that’s exciting! Not sure if I told you, but to help winter go by faster, I joined the Fitness Hiking Group at Beaver Brook Association. We hike every Monday and Friday (9am-11am) on trails around Hollis. It started in September and goes through April. It’s very different from hiking alone (usually 20 of us and we go 5-6 miles in 2 hours), but I like the social aspect. Here are some of us on the first day we met https://www.facebook.com/229681095494/photos/a.315589765494.337656.229681095494/10156288361075495/?type=3&theater
That’s interesting, I’m sitting here writing a post about Beaver Brook, but it’s the one in Keene.
I think, after going 5-6 miles in 2 hours you’d find hiking with me pretty boring. I’m lucky if I go a mile in two hours because I keep stopping to look at things!
A mile or two an hour is usually the way I hike when I’m by myself, especially if I have my camera! Happy New Year, by the way.
The same to you!
You make wonderful photos.
So I would think that the best “year in review” would just be photos with the month/day noted below them with a link to that page where you first showed that photo.
You have a lot to say, and I appreciate your word-smithing. But maybe the “Year in Review” would be better spent as just photos and links to the original posts.
My 2 cents worth (which today, given the International exchange value of the dollar, is probably not really worth that much … 🙂 )
Thank you for your input; I always welcome constructive criticism that will improve this blog.
Yours is an interesting suggestion and I might try it next year, but I wonder if most people would have the time or desire to read through so many posts. 12 posts in one day would be a lot of reading and I think most people would just skip it.
It was not my intent or plan to suggest that those who read a “year in review” post should follow links to all twelve months in review: only that they can follow links to months that “interest” them. 🙂
Sorry, I misunderstood.
Lovely. I’m looking forward to your posts for 2016.
Thank you. I’m sure nature will be beautiful, as always.
A pleasure as always to view your discoveries, so brilliantly displayed and described. Thank You
You’re welcome and thank you Grampy. I’m glad you liked them!
Love seeing your review. Funny how many of these I remember, when you consider how many photos each of us must see in a year’s time.
Happy New Year.
Thank you Judy. I know what you mean. I must see thousands each year but there are many that I remember on various blogs too.
Happy New Year to you and your family!
Your photos documented a lot of beautiful things in the past year. May 2016 be equally beautiful!
Thank you Montucky. That’s what I’m hoping for all of us!
This is a wonderful retrospective of your year. I remembered all the photos you have chosen and enjoyed marvelling at them all over again. May you have another successful year and find many more treasures to share with us.
Thank you Clare. That’s what I’m hoping to be able to do!
LOVED seeing your year of top photos in review – such a pleasure, thank you!
You’re welcome, and thank you Eliza. I’m thinking I should do one of these every year. I never really gave it a thought before, but now wish I had. It was fun!
Even your duds look artistic. A good year for your readers, thank you.
You’re welcome, and thank you. I wish I knew what the subject of the dud was and where I was when I took it.
I have a lot like it in my portfolio.
Me too! Far too many, in fact.
I always enjoy your posts, you find so many beautiful and unusual things on your walks.
Thank you Emily. Anyone can find what I do. It’s just a matter of teaching yourself to walk slower and be a little more observant.
Your images are really spectacular; it was a really great year wasn’t it.
Thank you Charlie. Yes, it was a great year. There’s no reason this one can’t be even better though.
What a great way to look at the past year, with the comings and goings of the buds and blooms around you. Love that last one — a nice abstract!
Thanks Sue. That last one was an accident, but it has some color in it.
A great retrospective. I particularly like images of the leaves beginning to unfurl. Happy new year, and thanks for the great blog.
You’re welcome and thank you Cynthia. I love watching various leaves unfurl but I think beech are the most beautiful of them all.
Happy New Year to you as well!
Great choices. I love your fungi photos. They are nearly unbelievable.
Thanks very much. The violet coral fungus was almost unbelievable! I hope I’ll see it again this year.
A great year in review and like others before, I think you picked our favorite shots. Willard Pond is such a gem for kayakers and hikers.
Thanks Martha. I’ll definitely be visiting Willard Pond more often!
A terrific look back at what a great year you had! Lots of wonderful memories here, but I think that my favorite is the red sandspurry, I’ve never seen them, and in your photo, they are one of the most beautiful flowers that I’ve ever seen despite their small size. Of course another favorite is the coral fungus, I’d love to see that for myself also.
I’m looking forward to another year of your blogging, to see what you find, and the information that you share with the rest of us.
Thanks Jerry! The red sandspurry is a beautiful little thing. I find them in the sand along the edges of roads and parking lots, growing in very small clumps. Usually there are many clumps in one spot so that makes them a little easier to see.
And that coral fungus was amazing. I had seen photos of them in my mushroom books but I never thought I’d see one in person. I was so glad that my daughter found it!
I hope 2016 turns out to be a super year in finding those hidden secrets of nature for both of us. I’m looking forward to seeing what you find!
Wonderful pictures and thank you for that last one. I tend to assume everyone else takes perfect photos all the time and I’m the only one plowing through tons of junk to find the good ones.
Thank you Sara. No, I’ve learned from reading blogs that we all have plenty of rejects!
A beautiful selection, I’ve enjoyed sharing our adventures in nature over the past year! The violet coral fungus is stunning.
Thank you. I agree, that coral fungus was so beautiful I had a hard time walking away from it. You just don’t see things like that every day. Here’s hoping for a photogenic 2016!
Beautiful, including the last “gem.” Happy New Year! And thanks for all of your posts. I love learning with you.
Thank you! I’m glad to have you come along!
Your photos and comments made me wish there were more months in the year! M 🙂
Thanks very much. I’ll have to do one of these every year, I guess.
You posted some wonderful images, Allen, that serve to remind us of all the beauty and perspectives that you have shared with us this past year. I love the porcupine and violet coral fungus, but somehow the November foliage shot is my favorite. It captures a sense of the New England of my childhood memories.
Thanks Mike. That forest was the most colorful that I’ve ever seen in all the time I’ve lived here. It was just so beautiful that I could hardly believe I was in it. I’m glad you like it and glad it brought you some happy memories.
A wonderful year in review with many of my favorite images from 2015. May 2016 be filled with many woodland wonders and surprises.
Thank you Laura. I’m hoping for the same!
Great post and some lovely photos. I especially like that coral fungus. In fact I liked it first time round too. My phone is often full of pictures like the last one. I guess I press the shutter by accident when I’m walking. Occasionally my foot is even in amomgst the blurred image somewhere.
Thank you. That coral fungus really was something. How I wish I could see things like it every day!
Yes, I know what you mean. I have plenty of shots with my feet in them too.
It was a great pleasure to look through the pictures you had chosen for 2015. That porcupine is just so cute and the violet coral fungus so colourful they take my breath away. I look forward to many more such treats in 2016.
Thanks very much Susan. I can’t wait to see what nature shows us in the coming year!