A Barrow's Goldeneye paddling with seeming determination—
I love how his 'bow-wave' and wake are so clearly defined in the calm water and the early morning light. Trailing behind him you might see the little eddies left by his webbed feet as he powers forward.
Maybe because we've waited so long for spring this year, or maybe its just that these wonders are more precious with each passing year, but surely the delicate beauty of the huckleberry buds opening has never been quite so breathtakingly beautiful to me.
With some sun, and a blustery wind after all the rain of the past couple of days it was a treat to see two eagles atop the snag at Bluffs Park today.
Sunlight diffused by a the thin fog sifts through the trees. It was surprisingly chilly, yet even the winter sun can warm the ground and raise a mist to meet with the fog.
I took several photos while walking in Bellhouse Park a few days ago. But it was this one that I found myself drawn to.
There's something in the image that touches me. Maybe its the way the two trees lean together— the tall slender one, and the one that's broken...
The colours are muted and soft along the Heritage Forest Road, and the ground is rock hard, frozen solid. It may look like there's little life in the landscape, that it everything is 'dead'. Dull. How far from the truth!
As we walked the road what struck me was how many signals there were that even in the quiet stillness of winter, and its apparent barrenness, there is a pulsing vitality to the season: the creeks burble beneath a skim of ice, lichens hang conspicuously from limbs all round, colourful slime molds are 'there' for the observant eye as are various fascinating fungi; winter birds— wrens, sparrows, nuthatches, chickadees and towhees flit amongst the low shrubs while the finches and others occupy the higher branches; the deer meander and graze undisturbed. Surely the forest pulses with life as much in winter as any season.
I wonder if maybe the forest and its creatures enjoy the relative quiet. Maybe its their 'sabbath'.
What can be found in the deserts of the Negev, in Antarctica, the Isle of Skye, Germany, India...and Galiano Island?
Tafoni!
Here on Galiano Island our coast is predominantly sandstone, and features amazing tafoni from north to south. In all its spectacular shapes, hollows, lacework and lattice, it provides endless fascination as the light plays on it, highlighting its contours and patterns. The photo here (above) was taken on our own flagpole point, and I've included a gallery below with several other photos I've posted over the past while.
It wasn't what I was looking for. I was after a photo of a Northern Flicker. But— as I carefully crept along beneath the trees to get close enough for a photo, a flash of a different orange caught my eye.
Nestled in the hollow core of a very old fir stump was a beautiful fan of orange and yellow mushroom. Turns out it is known as a ‘Conifer Chicken of the Woods’ (Laetiporus conifericola). I’ve seen it before growing on trunks of decaying fir trees, sometimes quite spectacularly, but the appeal of this sighting was accented by its cozy home low down, inside the empty round of the stump.
If I’d not been pursuing the Flicker, I may well have missed this beauty! I didn’t get the Flicker. He was long gone by the time I’d finished photographing the ‘Chicken of the Woods’.
(Note: The inside of the stump was in shadow in the morning, so I returned later in the day when the sun was higher to get the photo above.)
During my school days, our Headmistress would often urge us to notice what's around us saying, 'Even the thorn bush by the wayside is ablaze with the glory of God.' I've come to appreciate over the years that she was absolutely right.
Today I was reminded of this as I saw, not a 'thorn bush' but an ordinary drainage ditch, 'blazing' with beauty: colour, texture and pattern.
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I have intentionally adjusted the photo above with texture and colour as I contemplated the beauty on display. The red colours in the weeds to the right were actually there, and brighter. I've muted them so as not to 'take over' the image as a whole. It's the raindrop circles that particularly entranced me— the way they refracted and reflected the light.
When the sun came out after a morning of heavy rain, the light in the forest was dramatic. Intense and beautiful— light and shadow; texture and pattern; colours and hues.
