Trying Out the New Camera

You might have read in the last post that I have bought a new camera. I had a couple of quick photos I took with it that I added to that post but I always like to put a camera through its paces and see what it can do before I start using it for day-to-day blogging, and that’s what this post is about. I was happy to see what it can do with window frost in microscope mode. This is one of the best shots of frost I’ve ever taken. I love seeing things like this that are right there in plain sight but are rarely seen. How something so flat can look so 3 dimensional I don’t know, but it was beautiful.

These frost crystals were on the mirror of a truck. I’ve never seen them grow curved like this. The detail was so fine It was as if they had been etched into the glass.

To think that something so beautiful could live on the mirror of a truck. It’s a good example of why I always try to be aware of my surroundings and look closely at whatever is near. You never know what you might see. Life life has put beauty in our path at every turn but if we don’t see it, we have only ourselves to blame. Because this was a mirror you can see the reflection of the camera lens behind the crystals in some of these shots. It’s a bit distracting but there wasn’t any way to hide or camouflage it.

Here was another curvy frost crystal on a mirror. They’re very beautiful but also delicate; one warm breath or a ray of sunlight and you’ve lost your subject.

This shot is of sunlight coming through a frozen jelly fungus, which is always a hard shot. I should have tried for better depth of field. If you ask it to, this camera will use photo stacking to improve depth of field, and I’ve heard that it is amazing. I’m going to have to try it.

This small icicle was full of bubbles and it was also smaller in diameter than a pencil. This camera really excels at macro photography and since that’s what I bought it for, that was what I was most interested in.

This is the midrib of a feather.

Here was the seedhead of a purple coneflower. Birds, I’d guess finches, had been eating the seeds and revealed the beautiful spirals hidden inside.

I saw a cocoon of some sort on an old door where I work. It was cottony and full of holes, and as big around as my finger and maybe an inch and a half long. I saw what looked like tiny flies on it. If you know what insect made it, I’d like to know.

Whatever they were they were too small to get a good shot of, even in microscope mode. I don’t know if they came from this cocoon or were just stuck in its wooliness. In any event they were no longer alive.

I’ve been trying to get this shot looking down a beech leaf off and on since last fall and the new camera pulled it off with ease, though the depth of field could have been better.

The last Olympus camera I had, the Stylus TG-870, wasn’t worth much when it came to landscapes, at least in my opinion, so I wanted to test its zoom capabilities. This oak leaf frozen in the ice was shot at full zoom in auto mode. I thought the camera did a fair job of it.

This shot of dry rot on a standing dead tree was shot in microscope mode from about 4 inches away. I was surprised because I thought you had to be closer to the subject to use microscope mode. This camera hs two macro modes and three microscope modes and you can get as close as 1 cm. The missing piece of wood was about as big as an average postage stamp and for microscope mode that’s huge, so I probably didn’t need to use it.

I found a tree full of lichens. This is where I would need microscope mode again.

My first choice was a beautiful star rosette lichen (Physcia stellaris.) It was maybe three quarters of an inch across. It was cold at about 20 degrees F. and this lichen was in the shade. Now that I see the photo it looks like there was frost on the apothecia.

I think this was the Eastern speckled shield lichen (Punctelia bolliana.) According to what I’ve read it grows on the bark of deciduous trees, has a bluish gray body with large brown apothecia, and has brown to black dots (pycnidia) on the surface of the body. I think this one checks all of those boxes.

I would call this color bright red but the Eastern speckled shield lichen’s description says the apothecia should be brown, and my color finding software sees rosy brown, so I can’t argue. What you see here averages about .08 to .12 inches across. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to get this close to a lichen and I don’t know of a DSLR lens that could.

This shot of a smoky eye boulder lichen is another example of what microscope mode will do. I never knew this lichen’s apothecia sat on top of the body (thallus) in that way. I’m going to have a lot of fun using this camera but I should take a little more time and use a tripod. I also want to try stacking in microscope mode. It will stack as many as 7 shots together for amazing depth of field.

These are the bracts that the flower petals come out of on a witch hazel. They are tiny little cups that I could barely see, but the camera found them. I hope to see petals on the spring blooming witch hazels soon.

This camera’s lens is an F 2.0, which is considered a “fast” lens. That means it has good light gathering capabilities due to a larger aperture, so I tested it one recent early morning at this stream. I’ve had to lighten the photo just a bit but at full zoom in what was barely dawn, it did fairly well for a point and shoot camera that is smaller than a 3 X 5 card. All in all so far, I’m really happy with it and I think I’m going to have a lot of fun with it. The fact that it will do landscapes is a pleasant surprise. In case you missed it in the last post, the camera is an Olympus TG-6. It is a field camera that many scientists use in the field because it is so tough. It is water, dust and shock resistant, heat and cold resistant, and it takes incredible photos, either on land or under water. If you’re interested in macro photography this is a relatively inexpensive camera that will take you anywhere you’d care to go.

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. ~Dorothea Lange

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Things I’ve Seen

Ice storm are two words that can strike fear into the most stouthearted New Englander and last week we had one. Forecasts were for major ice buildup; as much as a half inch of ice on trees and wires. Since it only takes a quarter inch to bring branches down on power lines widespread power outages were forecast. Thankfully the forecasts were wrong, and though we did have an ice storm it wasn’t nearly as bad as people feared.

Of course all anyone could think about was the ice storm of 2008, when millions went without power for weeks in some cases. If you weren’t lucky enough to have a generator you went to a warming shelter and wondered what would become of your home with no heat in January. When water pipes freeze and burst things can seem pretty grim, and memories of going through an ice storm or knowing someone who did are what causes the immediate anxiety when those two words are spoken.

All is quiet while we wait to see what the storm will bring. All that can be heard outside is the steady patter of rain, which freezes on contact. That and the occasional loud crack of a tree branch falling.

Freezing rain happens when warm air sits above cold air. Precipitation falls as rain in the warm layer but freezes on contact with anything in the colder layer at ground level. The accumulating ice weighs everything down; even the goldenrod seen here couldn’t bear it.

Sometimes snow will fall after the ice, weighing tree branches down even more. That is what happened this time so it really is surprising that there weren’t more power outages.

But eventually the sun comes out again as it must, and as the ice melts it falls with strange crinkling, tinkling sounds. But for a brief time before it melts the sun shines on it, and it is like being in a world made of billions of tiny prisms, all shining light of every color of the rainbow in all directions, and it is truly a beautiful sight that many are thankful to have seen no matter how terrible the storm. I’ll never forget driving through the aftermath of the 2008 ice storm. Though trees and wires were down everywhere I went it was easily one of the top 5 most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I wish I could show you more photos of the aftermath of this storm but it wasn’t to be.

This is the view looking out of a vehicle’s icy windshield. Turn on the heat and let it warm up, because no amount of scraping will get this kind of ice off.

Ripples in the snow looked just like ripples in the sand on a lake bottom but these ripples speak of wind, not waves.

Pressure cracks appeared in the new, thin ice of Half Moon Pond in Hancock. There are many names for cracks in ice but in a lake or pond they’re all caused by stress of some kind. These might have been wet cracks, where the cracks are wide enough to have water showing between them.

They might also have been wave break cracks, caused by waves cracking the ice sheet into fairly large pieces. If you walked out there you might have found that you were standing on a large piece of ice which wasn’t attached to anything. The thing I can’t show you here are the sounds that ice makes. Very eerie sounds can sometimes be heard coming off the pond in winter. Some sound like humming, some like booming, some like cracking, but most are indescribable.

This puddle ice had very clear lens like areas in it. This isn’t something I see a lot of and I don’t know what causes it. I do know that the whiter the ice the more oxygen was in it when it formed. Doing this blog has made me learn an awful lot about ice that I wouldn’t have cared enough to even question before.

Many birds, including robins and cedar waxwings, love crab apples so you would think they would be gobbling them as fast as they could, but this tree was full of them, so why aren’t they? Science has shown that birds will leave fruits that are lower in fat for last but are crab apples low in fat? The answers are simple; many crab apples are ornamental cultivars that birds just don’t like. Some other cultivars have fruit that birds will eat only after it has frozen and thawed several times.  If you want to attract fruit eating birds with crab apples (Malus) the choice of cultivar requires some research.

The fruits of horse nettle plants are quite pretty against the snow. Carolina horse nettle (Solanum carolinense) isn’t a true nettle but instead is in the nightshade family, along with tomatoes and potatoes and many toxic plants. This plant is also toxic, enough so to be named devil’s tomato. It contains alkaloids that can make you very sick and which have caused death. There are also spines on the leaves which can break off and embed themselves in the skin. Skunks, pheasant, and turkeys are said to eat the fruit but it didn’t look to me like a single one had been touched. Nothing seems to eat the stems or foliage.

I’ve seen lots of seed pods on rose of Sharon plants but when I saw this one I realized that I had never looked inside one.

It was full of flat, dark colored, kidney shaped seeds which were quite pretty. I wondered if they would grow. There must have been thousands of them on this one plant but I’ve never seen a seedling near it.

The seed eating birds have been busy picking all the prickly looking coneflower seeds in my yard. They had eaten about two thirds of this one.

For the first time I’ve seen seed pods on a monkshood plant. If you were found growing monkshood (Aconitum napellus) in ancient Rome there was a good chance that you’d be put to death, because the extremely toxic plant was added to the water of one’s enemies to eliminate them. It was used on spear and arrow tips in wars and in hunting parties. It is also called winter aconite and is so poisonous its aconitine toxins can be absorbed through the skin. People who have mistaken its roots for horseradish have died within 4-6 hours after eating them. It is also called friar’s cap, leopard’s bane, wolf’s bane, devil’s helmet, and queen of poisons. In 2015 an experienced gardener in the U.K. died of multiple organ failure after weeding and hoeing near aconite plants. I didn’t pick the seeds.

This poison ivy was wearing its vine disguise, climbing a tree by using aerial roots which grow directly out of the wood of its stem when it needs them. Poison ivy can appear as a plant, a shrub, or a vine and if you’re going to spend much time in the woods it’s a good idea to know it well. In the winter a vine like this can help identify the plant because of these many aerial roots. It’s best not to touch it because even in winter it can cause an itchy rash.

This poison ivy vine even had a few berries left on it. I was surprised to see them because birds usually eat them right up.

All the freezing rain turned our snow into something resembling white concrete so squirrels, deer and other animals that dig through the snow to find acorns and seeds are having a hard time of it. There is supposed to be a warm up coming though, so that should help. I know that anything that melts all of this ice and hard, slippery snow will be greatly appreciated by humans.

I am grateful for the magic, mystery and majesty of nature – my loyal friend and companion – always there, welcoming and waiting for me to come; to be healed. ~Tom North

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Things I’ve Seen

I should mention, for newer readers, that these “Things I’ve seen” posts are made up of photos I’ve taken of things that didn’t fit into other posts, usually because the other posts were already far too long. Quite often I end up with too many photos to fit in one post but I don’t want to waste them, so here they are.

The pond in this shot shows very well what “rotten ice” looks like. Specks of dirt and bubbles get between the ice crystal bonds and weaken their strength, and when it looks like this, with a dark matte finish, you certainly don’t want to walk on it. Of course this was taken when we had a warm spell. The ice has firmed up now and is covered with about 6 inches of snow.

The pond in the previous photo connects to a swamp by way of a culvert under a road and beavers use it to travel back and forth, stopping long enough to cut some trees on the way.

The beavers have been very active here this year and have cut many young birch trees in this area. They do this every few years and then cut somewhere else, giving the birches time to grow back. I’ve seen these clumps grow back at least twice in the 30 years or so that I’ve paid attention.

You know you’re seeing some strange weather when a tree drips sap in January.

But then it got cold; cold enough to grow ice shelves on the Ashuelot River.

How enticing they are to pig headed little boys who don’t like to listen to their elders. I know that because I was one of those once, and I walked right down the middle of the frozen river. All of the sudden I heard what sounded like rifle shots and I ran as fast as I could for the river bank. When I was able to peel myself from the tree I had a death grip on and take a look, I saw water where I had been walking. It scared me more than anything else ever has I think, and I doubt I’ll ever forget it.

Even the stones were coated with ice.

The Ashuelot was tame on this day and there were no waves to take photos of.

The river had coughed up an ice bauble which caught the sunshine but didn’t melt. I’m always surprised by how clear river ice is. This bauble was so clear I could see a V shaped something frozen inside it.

Jelly fungi are made almost entirely water so of course they were frozen too. This amber example felt like an ice cube rather than an earlobe as they usually do. Freezing doesn’t seem to affect them much, I’ve noticed.

The seed eating birds have been busy picking all the prickly looking coneflower seeds in my yard. They had just gotten started on this one.

And they had just about finished with this one. Odd that these seed heads are hollow.

I don’t know if birds eat the tiny seeds of forked blue curls (Trichostema dichotomum) but the seed pods look almost like a trough that would make them easy to reach. I can’t remember this pretty little annual plant having such hairy parts in life but they certainly do in death.

I thought the color of these dead fern stems (Rachis) was very beautiful on a winter day. I think they might have been hay scented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula,) which grow in large colonies and have stems that persist long after the leaves have fallen.

Many things are as beautiful in death as they are in life, especially fungi. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call this one beautiful but it was certainly interesting.

This isn’t a very good photo but it does help illustrate how strange our weather has been, because you don’t see too many flies flying around in January in New Hampshire. Last Tuesday it was -13 degrees F. and everything was frozen solid. By Thursday it was 50 degrees; warm enough apparently to awaken this fly. It was also warm enough to cause an unusual snow slide in Claremont, which is north of here. A large amount of snow suddenly slid down a hillside and slammed into a house, partially destroying it. It also pushed a parked truck about 75 feet.

It’s easy to see how the horse hoof fungus (Fomes fomentarius) got its name. It’s also easy to see how this fungus grows, because its spore bearing surface always points toward the ground. If you see a fallen log with this fungus on it and its spore bearing surface doesn’t point toward the ground you know that it grew while the tree was standing. If it does point toward the ground it grew after the tree fell. This bracket fungus produces spores at all times of year but through spring and summer studies have shown that it can produce as many as 800 million in a single hour; fine as dust and nearly impossible to see. The fungus is also known for its ability to stop bleeding and was recommended for that purpose by Hippocrates, who is considered the father of medicine.

Lemon drop fungi (Bisporella citrina) start life as a tiny bright yellow disc and look as if they lie flat on the log, but they actually hover just above the surface on a short stalk. As they age each disc becomes cup shaped. The Citrina part of the scientific name comes from the Latin Citrin, which means “lemon yellow.” They are very small, so you’ll need a loupe or a macro lens to see them properly.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I like looking at buds at this time of year and some of my favorite buds are found on the red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa.) They’re about medium size as buds go, and nice and chubby. I love their beautiful purple and green color combination.

I think my favorite thing this time around is this river ice that caught and magnified the blue of the sky. I thought it was quite beautiful, but blue is my favorite color so that could have something to do with it.

The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves. ~Kahlil Gibran

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