I liked the green reflection from the distant trees in this old rice field canal. A storm was brewing and the sky had become dark eliminating the more common blue reflection. The water was so still it looked solid.
Emerald Path
Tag Archives: Summer
Out of a Rut
Ted and I have been visiting the Donnelley Wildlife Management Area regularly for almost three years. Somehow we always take the same few routes. The place is huge, just over 8000 acres, and yesterday we tried a new walking trail which starts in some woods overrun with mosquitoes then opens up to this!
The puffy clouds reflecting in the old rice field ponds were the perfect touch for some landscape photos. Several walkable dikes wind around the ponds and we saw a wide variety of birds, a few Alligators, and two Armadillos. And not another human being.
Wasp Architechture
From a distance this wasp nest looked like a dried flower head jammed into these branches. When I got close enough to see the insect movement I could tell that it was not a flower at all.
It’s interesting that the nest appeared to have a uniform depth and I couldn’t tell what was supporting the disk. The wasps were crawling around the outside of the nest, not coming and going as I would have expected.
Bye-bye Birds
This is an image from early July which at the time didn’t seem so interesting, being mostly bird butts. Now that we’ve spent several weeks seeing almost no birds this appeals to me more.
This is just a small part of what I estimated to be at least a thousand birds in the shallow water at the marsh edge. I could not get closer due to a huge alligator blocking the trail.
End of Summer Signals
We are seeing more flocks of honking Canada Geese in the sky, a sure sign that fall migrations aren’t far off. These four were part of a flock of about twenty that appeared to be trying to get into formation. They were not successful and ultimately circled noisily back and landed where they started.
Long Shadows
Long shadows reached from behind me, like arms stretching out across the pond. This end of the pond is covered in duck weed and mosquito fern, making it look more like a grass carpet than water.
8/22/2018, 6:20 pm, sunset about 8pm.
Grove House: Rear
Like many plantation homes in the south the front of Grove House faces the water where all traffic would have originated when the house was built in 1828. This is a view of the back of the plantation house, taken from the Live Oak lined drive.
The pond where I photographed the water lilies in yesterday’s post sits in the circular turn of this drive, just in front of the ground floor entry arches.
Below are the Live Oaks lining the driveway leading away from the back of the house.
Today Grove House is home to the offices of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge.
Water Lily
I mentioned back in June that I haven’t seen many water lilies this summer. That remains true all these weeks later.
These were in a small brick-rimmed pond at the back of the plantation house on a National Wildlife Refuge property I recently visited.
Sun Tree
Up early to be in place at sunup with the hope of seeing Spoonbills, Pelicans and Wood Storks get ready for their day.
July 3, 2018, Bear Island Wildlife Management Area, SC.
Pond After a Storm
I’ve photographed this pond many times throughout the seasons. Today’s version is summer green with a recently fallen tree in the foreground. The pink Elephant Ears on the far side of the pond and the little island to the right are a nice highlight in all that lushness.
