OVERCAST DAY? HOW ABOUT DETAIL SHOTS?

Roots / Stones / Leaves, Backbone State Park, Iowa

Erosion on a steep slope has washed much of the soil and stones away that ones covered the roots of this old tree. A few rocks are still trapped between the roots. Fresh green surrounds the old tree trunk. The soft light reveals the structure on these exposed roots and let us wonder how old the tree might be.

Joan and I, and of course dog Cooper, went tent camping last weekend. We used Saturday for a couple hikes in Backbone State Park. With being it mostly an overcast day it wasn’t the right light for great vistas, although some leaves started changing colors. If a uniform gray overcast is good for anything, its for detail images in the landscape and that’s what I was going for.

Virgin’s Bower has many common names and I like “Old Man’s Beard” the best. The tails of the seeds are very feathery and inspired me to make this shot.

This is the flow of Richmond’s Spring in Backbone State Park. It’s water has a constant temperature of 48ºF (8.9ºC) as it comes to the surface. With 0,4 seconds exposure time I had the look I liked for the flowing water, not too milky, not too detailed…

LOCATIONS: BACKBONE STATE PARK / IOWA

In my last blog post I mentioned a location here in eastern Iowa we hadn’t visited for a while but a nice hike last Sunday made me considering it more often for future wildlife or landscape shootings.

Backbone State Park is a heavily forested area, mainly oaks and maples, measuring over 2000 acres (8.1 km2). As part of the driftless area it was left unglaciated during the last ice age. It has an interesting geology with ancient dolomite formations dating from the Silurian period. A large ridge of rock divides the park, resembling a spine, and lends its name to the park and adjacent forest. The area is characterized by active springs, caves, sinkholes and karsts. (source: Wikipedia)

A lake was created by building a dam across the Maquoketa River in 1933/34 and during my hike along the shore I found ducks, geese, a pair of Hooded Mergansers, and finally saw three Eastern Phoebes catching insects by perching on branches hanging over the water. The phoebe is a sure sign that spring is just around the corner, despite the fact that we had some light snow again today…

It was the pattern of old snow below one of the rock formations that made me push the shutter button. At this time of the year (no sign of any green yet) and with last Sunday’s gray overcast it was not so easy to “romance” the landscape. I tried to combine the textures of the grass, snow, rocks, and the trees on the slope and let the river guide the eye through the image.

Nikon D750, Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm, f/4G ED VR, @ 200 mm, 1/320 s, f/8, ISO 200

NATURE CLICKS #395 - HERMIT THRUSH

Hermit Thrush, Backbone State Park, Iowa --------

Joan had to work this weekend, so I took our little dog Cooper for an Easter hike to an area that I have a little neglected during recent years. Backbone State Park is the oldest state park in Iowa, dedicated in 1919 (2001 acres, 820 ha), and it is only an hour drive west of our area. It is named for a narrow and steep ridge of bedrock carved by a loop of the Maquoketa River originally known as the “Devil's Backbone” (source: Wikipedia). I always hope to see some wildlife during a hiking tour but I didn’t want to carry the heavy 150-600 mm lens with me. Instead the 70-200 was on the camera.

Only fifteen minutes into the hike I came across this Hermit Thrush, an inconspicuous little bird, that wasn’t very shy but nevertheless kept a safe distance to Cooper and me while searching for food between leaf litter. The Hermit Thrush breeds further north and that makes me believe that this was a migrating bird.

The thrush decided to pose between thorny branches and unfortunately one of them covers part of the bird. I still decided to use this photo for today’s post because it was the closest and sharpest image I was able to make. It isn’t ideal for identification because you can’t really see the spots on its chest, but other pictures, from a wider distance, helped me to compare the field marks. The last time I had this bird in front of the camera was in April 2014 in our front yard. I guess I’ll keep my eyes open during the next days…

Nikon D750, Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm, f/4G ED VR, @ 200 mm, 1/1250 s, f/4, ISO 200