12 posts tagged “hike”

A lazy Sunday started off with a call from mother-in-law about a plumbing problem. She Who Must Be Obeyed tried to sort it out but the phone company then had problems connecting calls to mother's Area Code! Fortunately brother-in-law was able to pop over to his mom's and sort it out. Still, looks like more work for SWMBO lining up a plumber for repairs. Gad! Not a good way to start off the day.

Stealth Dragonfly

After an otherwise easy morning we finally settled on a visit to the Medina County Park System's Alderfer-Oenslager Wildlife Sanctuary -- really a park with a strong environmental theme. My "dragonfly summer" continued with activity there: numerous types of dragonfly zipping about. One insect in particular caught our eyes, though with some difficulty on our part. Not only were the dragonfly's wings near fully transparent, its body is in the same range of green as the reeds and other plants that line the pond it patrols. Standing mere inches from the beasie, it took effort to rediscover its location if we looked away for a moment. It is apparently an Eastern Pondhawk. I really must return there before dragonfly season ends!

I stayed up too late last night hosting a Public Night at the Observatory. Could have used more sleep. Sunday dawned cool and beautiful. It was a good day for a hike so we decided to head down to Brandywine Falls and the Gorge Trail there, a beautiful place inside the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, northeast from Peninsula.

Brandywine Creek

Tree Rock

I shot a good number of photos and was disappointed with a great many of them. They look pretty good at smaller size but enlargements show focus problems. It looks like my fancy Canon 17-40mm, f/4, L-series lens may suffer from a deficiency I read about in reviews of that product.

The lens is too expensive to let this flaw go uncorrected so now I'll need to figure out just what to do. Maybe first some more testing.

We had a very pleasant hike, it was just challenging enough (1.1 miles, says the GPS, with one very steep climb near the end), and a nice evening at home -- the film Trekkies 2 is recommended! Back to work tomorrow.

We're holding our breath waiting to see what will happen at our fine institution when state funding details become established and known. Painful cuts are expected.

The trees will grow, the waters flow, the stars will shine, and life will go on.  Goodnight!

Evidence of Human Activity

Today we decided to try out the Salt Run Trail in the Virginia Kendall area of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It's just outside the town of Peninsula and we've visited that area often but never tried that trail. Park materials said it was "moderate to difficult" hiking and they were not fooling. The warm, humid air quickly brought out the sweat in us as we hiked rolling to hilly forest pathway covering a little over three miles. Along the way we stopped to photograph plants and animals we encountered, shooing away far more mosquitoes than I would have liked to have dealt with... including one little biter who actually tried to enter my ear canal! I swear, I didn't mean to kill it... it was an accident! I saw my first scarlet tanager (bird) and, at the end of the walk, we had a close encounter with a beaver that was gathering reeds on the banks of a stream. The hike was a lot of work but the exercise was good, the woods were beautiful, and the wildlife surprises a treat.

Fritillary Butterfly on Clover

We sighted this great spangled fritillary butterfly visiting flowers in a prairie area of the park. It moved between plants at just slow enough pace to allow me some photo opportunities.

Fritillary Butterfly's Tongue

I didn't notice the detail in the head-on shot of the butterfly (it actually rotated for me as it sat upon the clover flower) until viewing my photos at home. Digitally zooming in we can see the insect's nectar-gathering tongue or proboscis  at work probing the flower, seeking sweet drink.

Scarlet Tanager

I don't believe I've ever seen a scarlet tanager before. This one was very shy ... I had to hide behind trees and brush to simply look at the beauty. The best images were captured with the bird in shadow where, apparently, it was most comfortable -- very difficult conditions for photography, however. Four frames exposed at long distance and that was it... off, deeper into the forest, it went!

Beaver Leaving

As we were emerging from the woods, finishing our hike, we crossed an automotive bridge spanning a stream. There, to my surprise, was a large, deep brown beaver gathering reeds from the bank. It finished its work, slipped into the water, and swam under the bridge with a bunch of green plants trailing from its mouth. I couldn't think of an appropriate pun based on the old TV series, so let's just say we'll Leave It to Beaver.

We had a very nice, quiet Fourth of July. After sleeping in --a rare pleasure for this sleep-deprived fellow-- we headed out for a four-mile hike on the Cuyahoga Valley National Park's Boston Run Trail. It's a woodland trail with paths ranging from packed earth to river gravel surface and terrain from rolling to hilly. Though it was a cool morning, the climbs quickly warmed us and we covered, probably, four miles. The photographic highlight came as we crossed a wooden footbridge over a quiet stream. There, flitting amongst the plants, were several damselflies. The lace-winged beauties alighted on green leaves, sat for a while near each other, then zipped off in singles or pairs possibly in a mating dance. This gave us many opportunities to photograph them. The "one that got away" was a beauty bearing a green iridescent abdomen. My photos just were not clear enough to show. I think the floater in my right eye is interfering with my manual focus and I can't trust the camera's auto-focus in situations like these: razor-thin depth of focus with sharp-edged objects surrounding the actual subject. The hike began under mostly clear, intensely-blue skies but when we emerged from the forest the sky was mostly cloudy.

Damselfly Fourth

After lunch at Burger King (a pretty fair BK Veggie) and a stop at PetSmart to stock up on canned food for Tasha, we headed home. Camera at hand, I shot a few photos in Her garden: flowers, a ladybug, and this tiny, really, really tiny, bee on the petal of an Asiatic Iris. For this kind of "wildlife" photography one needn't always go far.

Tiny Bee

She is making a dinner of veggie barbecued ribs (yes, it can be done), corn, and red, white, blue dessert (tapioca with strawberries and blueberries). I'll enjoy a glass or two of wine. Hoping for a fine, relaxing evening.

On Sunday we drove cross-country to to Sheldon Marsh State Wildlife Preserve just outside Huron, Ohio, a Lake Erie shoreline community. It was a cool, blue-sky day and perfect for a casual nature/photo walk in the protected area. We usually visit this area late in the season -- after the large wading birds have left, fleeing the approach of freezing weather. This early-season day, however, saw a large number of wetland- and water-loving avians including no fewer than three great egrets. One of the striking, white giants was hunting the shallows along our path. We stopped to watch and photograph the bird which was surprisingly tolerant of our actions. It hopped into the air once but alighted in the shallows only a few feet away. She Who Must Be Obeyed got one good shot and I, with a faster camera, came away with two.

Changing Position

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We watched and waited a while longer and, as anticipated, the egret either grew tired of our spying or decided to seek better hunting grounds. Holding down the shutter release I fired off a number of frames and got a couple of nice shots (one seen below) of the action. I've mostly stalked the wild great blue herons prior to this and these are my first images of the great egret. I'll be back for more!

Egret Departs

A common call heard across the nature preserve came from the male red-winged black birds as they defend their territories against intruders. They are most famous for their "Okalee" call and we stopped to watch, listen, and photograph one handsome fellow as he puffed up to stake his claim. The red-wings' were the most common bird calls echoing through the wetland woods but there were many others. Among the most beautiful were the songs (again, probably for territorial announcements) of the male cardinal.

Red-winged Blackbird

Wellington Reservation

After being off a couple of days late in the week (scheduled and "sick") I had recovered enough from my recent head cold and was able to put in my scheduled hours at the office on Saturday. Then, due to our change in operations to a summer schedule, I was off on the Sunday when I would have worked in previous months. Then I was also off today (Monday) due to observance of Memorial Day. It's no wonder I wake up these days wondering just what day of the week it actually is!

She and I made an effort Sunday to spend some time together. We wanted something low-key since I was not yet feeling back at full health so we headed to the zoo for a nice, quiet walkaround. As we approached the parking lot we could see that droves of people of every description were descending upon the entrance. I circled the Insight around and through the lot and we headed back home for lunch and to regroup. She proposed we check out a park we had not yet visited... Wellington Reservation of the Lorain County Metropark System. We were very impressed by the facility and She was excited by the prospect of using one of the park's pontoon paddle boats... "some day, not right now." We set out on one of the trails and discovered they are interconnecting loops. After following the outer line of the combined loop system we returned to the start having hiked 3.8 sweaty miles. She was pretty well tuckered out and I feared a relapse of my illness (which fortunately did not happen). Showers and a nice dinner at home put things right.

Telescope in There?

We both had plans for Monday (the holiday). She needed to help her mother and I needed to go to the Observatory to take advantage of an unusual opportunity. During our April 4, 2009 public night, the dome's shutter began acting up. (The shutter is a sliding door that covers a slit opening in the dome used to give the telescope access to the sky.) It was difficult to open for the night and was nearly impossible to close! College carpenters built up a scaffold inside the dome early in May and determined that the rollers that carry the shutter had derailed -- nominally the rollers move along an iron bar at the top of the opening easing operation. The craftsmen lifted the shutter back on to its track and lubricated the wheels. With the scaffold in place the telescope could not be moved so all use of the Observatory was suspended during the balance of April and through May. Today, while the scaffolding was still in place, I replaced the pull ropes that are used to manually open and close the shutter; there was no telling how much longer the scaffold will be available. I have no idea how old the cotton rope was; I replaced it with a tough poly braided rope. The shutter works better now than it has in years though close examination of the condition of its wooden components left me with worries. She finished her duties in decent time. My job took longer than expected. We both opted to spend the balance of the afternoon and evening at home resting up. Interesting weekend, that!

I actually had a fairly nice weekend. Mostly ran around with She Who Must Be Obeyed on errands great and small. On Sunday we took a nice hike in the Gorge Metro Park of the Summit (County) Metro Park system totaling about four miles. It was cool and sunny and a wonderful day for a walk. I carried the camera but wasn't inspired to shoot any images. A small sore spot that had been in my throat for a few days developed overnight into a something more uncomfortable. {No coughing, but loud snoring.} Today I've been pretty well drained of energy and doing the minimum necessary at the office to keep everything going -- not sick enough to warrant leaving but not fully effective staying! Treating it with aspirin, zinc throat lozenges, and lots of liquids. The skies and the weather are absolutely beautiful right now but I can't do much with them... I'm feelin' crappy.

This morning we visited the F.A. Seiberling Nature Realm property of Summit Metro Parks. It's a beautiful, 104-acre property preserving natural plant and animal life of the area. It's also at the north end of the Akron metropolitan area. Always a surprise and pleasure to see not only green space but forest land preserved so close to a city. We chose to take one of the hiking trails on what is now, for us, a regular event: a photo walk. The rolling 1.3-mile Seneca Trail took a while to cover as we would walk a bit, stop and photograph something or other, walk some more, stop and photograph... well, you get the picture and, of course, we got lots of 'em. At some point past the half-way mark I spied a bright object floating in a clearing between trees. At first I thought it was a brightly-colored autumn leaf caught in a spider web. Nope, it was a spider hanging from a high, vast web and it was a very large spider at that!

Along Came A Spider

Fortunately I had been using the nice macro lens on my camera so I was able to step right up and try and photograph the colorful beastie. I don't really want to know how close I was to this one. It was very large and, appropriately enough for the approaching Halloween and harvest sesaons, bright orange like a pumpkin! As I attempted to shoot close-ups of the hanging spider it apparently figured the giant a few inches away might be a threat and began lowering itself to the ground and the bed of autumn leaves below. Between the necessary manual focussing, wind, and a determined escape plan, I was only able to squeeze off two shots and only one was in good focus.

Spidey dropped to the ground and headed into a tent of curly tree leaves. I couldn't just give up so I crouched down on my knees and elbow to spider-eye level to get some more shots. The spider, now ensconced in a leaf tent, held still for my new attempts at a portrait. I got several shots, a couple of good ones, and my favorite of the bunch is shown here. My, such pretty eyes you have... and so many of them!

By the way, for those who may be interested in such details, our arachnid friend is an Araneus marmoreus or Marbled orb-weaver. Some may, however, refer to the commonly-heard names: "creepy crawler," or "eeeeeeek! "

Spider Hideaway

The autumn woods were looking, feeling, smelling, and sounding of the coming onset of winter. Everywhere there are lovely leaves on the ground and the trees are looking naked. There was a definite chill in the air and blustery winds that reach to the understorey. The sweet smell of decaying leaf matter hangs in some areas, strangely not everywhere. And bird calls are becoming less common with less variety, the whole woods are quieter.

Our trail exited into a beautifully landscaped garden area with water feature near the park entrance. Looking at the surface of the water I was taken by a tiny surprise, actually thousands of little surprises. I don't know why I hadn't considered that tiny aquatic plants might change leaf color with the seasons just as readily as the large terrestrial variety. There, floating on the pond, were miniscule, square plant leaves in colors ranging from green to red, all beautiful on the syrupy-looking dark water.

Tiny Autumn

I spent Saturday afternoon applying the color coat the the walls of the observatory dome room. It's a deep sky blue color the paint company calls "Pacific Panorama." It's a radical departure from what has been seen there in the past and I hope traditionalists aren't going to be too upset. Because they now look so drab (faded yellowish-gray) I'll next paint the facing edges of the capstones --the stone slabs at the top of the curved dome wall upon which the dome rails are mounted-- a shade of terra cota.I'll post a photo when I've finished.

Queen Anne's Lace

Today She and I spent the afternoon on a quick trip to West Branch State Park -- an Ohio park with a large lake and reservoir as the focal point. Beautiful drive out and a rather nice woodland hike of about a mile and one-half according to the GPS. The cloudy skies made photography difficult but we both managed to capture some nice views of nature. I had many that "got away" but used my brand-new 50mm macro lens to record a rather nice shot of some Queen Anne's Lace along the roadside. I didn't know until later that there's a single, tiny set of red petals at the very center of the complex collection of tiny blooms! (Look at the photo "full-size.") The macro checked out just fine and will be a lot of fun to use but, on darkish days like today, the depth of focus is practically nil though sharpness of the new lens is superb -- really can't ask for more from it. I may post another photo or two from our little walk at a later date.