bees at work on wildflowers
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Category Archives: wildflowers
wildflower gardening
In my world, flower gardening means weeding.There’s nothing to plant. I let all native wildflower volunteers grow and remove most (can you ever get them all?) invasive weeds.
The wildflowers have grown so much in this summer of rain the garden path has almost disappeared. Bees buzz busily at the flowers and ignore me as I push through on the path.
I learned the common names of all the plants several years ago, but have forgotten many. There are wild roses, bellflowers and blanket flowers, asters and daisies, and pussytoes just to name a few.
Granite gravel soil makes weed removal rough, hard work. The tall dandelion with enormous sead head is allowed to stay as it doesn’t spread and take over like the shorter invasive ones.
Let nature do it’s thing. Photography it.
Wildflower gardener. That’s me!
Snow in Summer
Detail from a drift of wildflower snow flowing down my rock garden.
paintbrush
Wildflowers are a summer thing, like the local festivals in consworld. Both flourish in the summer and keep me busy photographing, printing, and showing.
This year, afternoon rains have been very good for flower and stormy sky photography, however, not so good for packing up and breaking down the booth at outdoor festivals. Am I complaining about the rain? Never. The paintbrush image, above, was captured on a stormy day less than 1/2 mile from my home.
wild geranium
Backlit by the setting sun, this very common wildflower blooms continuously throughout the summer in my area.
columbines
I woke up early this morning dreaming of photographing flowers. It was a good day for working the flowers alongside the bees and hummingbirds. The columbines around my home are taller and have many flowers thanks to all the rain we have had this year.
Wild Things: elk, heron, sparrow, red wing, and buttercup
Elk in the early morning yesterday after a night of rain showers in a Staunton Park prescribed burn area. The burned area is turning green with new growth, but the tall grass in the unburned area is still brown.
Some minutes later at upper lake, a heron, startled when I opened the ranch gate, flew across and stood on the other side.
Captured with 100-400 mm zoom at 400, handheld at the gate, the photo above is a crop of the original. I chose an ISO of 1000 for the weak early light.
The bird didn’t allow me too close. It did stay while I drove in, closed the gate, and parked. The image above was taken across the small lake, also at 400mm and cropped to perhaps 1/2 of the original image.
My regret is that I didn’t change batteries after capturing the elk images earlier. I suppose, at 36 degrees F, it was cold enough to weaken the battery. I’d forgotten about the cold’s effect on battery life because these spring days seem warm to me. An early morning above freezing is a wonderful thing this time of year.
As I changed battery, the heron stretched its neck, then its wings, walked a few steps and took off. I got the battery in and was able to capture a few images as it flew over middle lake toward lower lake where it stayed until I left the area.
I’ll go back in a day or two and try again. After the heron left, I walked around upper and middle lakes and was able to capture images of a sparrow and a red wing blackbird.
I was surprised to see how far the sparrow could turn its head. I wish I could do that.
The redwing called again and again while I photographed.
When I got home, wild buttercups (aka pasque flowers) with raindrops were waiting for the camera.
It was a good day for photography.
Wildflowers – Bee Happy
Summer is coming to an end, many of the flowers have gone by, but these few still bloom. We may have a frost or a dusting of snow next week at my house, so I have spent the past few days photographing bees, mushrooms, flowers, and the few hummingbirds still about.
another buzz
I listen for hummingbirds, but today find bees busy pollinating wildflowers. Hey, it’s a sticky job, but someone has to do it, eh? Flower to flower with no end in sight this time of year, especially with all the rain we’ve had this month. Yet the bee gets little thanks, silly girls scream when they see one and no one likes to get too close. This close up was shot with a telephoto, from several feet away, so as not to disturb the important work.
1/1000 second at f/11, 300mm, ISO 400
Wild About Wildflowers
Fairy Trumpets (can you hear the music?)
1/800 second (wind!) @ f/8, ISO400, 200mm
The wildflowers are fantastic this year. Rain almost every afternoon this summer has kept the color show going throughout the forest, meadows and along the roads. Early morning is a good time to photography wildflowers. You can find sunlit flowers against shadowy backgrounds before the sun gets too high and the light too harsh.
Bell Flowers
1/400 second @ f/5.6, 200mm, ISO400
I like to photograph the flowers after a rain or whenever the clouds soften the sunlight and shadows. The images below were captured under cloudy skies.
Wild Geranium
1/125 second @ f/8, 60mm, ISO 400
Paintbrush
1/125 second @ f/8, 60mm, ISO 400
1/125 second @ f/8, 60mm, ISO 400
Wild paintbrush glows with the beautiful colors of sunsets. A story is told of a young man who wanted to paint the summer sunset. He was given brushes dipped in all the right colors and painted a beautiful sunset. When finished he tossed the brushes to the ground and now each summer the wild paintbrushes grow red, pink and orange.
the red columbine
Here’s a close up of a small red columbine I photographed Father’s Day weekend in June.
Sorry to have been neglecting the blog recently. I’ve been busy selling my images at local festivals. Tomorrow is the 3rd one for me in a month’s time. After that, I’ll have a month’s break and more time to spend photographing and posting here in consworld.
Pasques at the Patterson’s
I went to visit my good friends, the Pattersons, a couple of days ago. ‘Twas a good thing I had my camera along, for this group of three perfect pasques is quite a rare thing this year. With all the snow and freezing rains we’ve had, many of the pasques have brown frostbite on the petals. These three beauties must have emerged at just the right moment between the snows. We had snow again last night, so I wonder how they are looking now. Many thanks to the Pattersons for allowing me to crawl around on their ground shooting the flowers.
The broadtail hummingbirds should be coming any day now. I’ve read reports of a few sightings in the area. My feeders have come out of storage and are washed and ready. My two year old fuchsia is blooming in the greenhouse and ready to be hung outside – but only during the day, the nights are still too cold for it. I’m hoping my next post will include my first hummer pic of the year.
“Pasques at the Patterson’s” was shot with Canon 30D, 60 mm lens, 1/125 second at f/8 from about 18 inches away.