POOL FULL OF LIFE

Little pool full of life in a creek

Basswood Creek is a small tributary that meets the Mississippi River at Finleys Landing, a small marina and campsite not far from home here in eastern Iowa. The last few hundred yards of this creek are on the same level as the Mississippi and sometimes flooding of the big river has an impact on the water level of this little creek. The water was pretty low for most part of August and in Basswood Creek nothing but clear water came down this small side valley. It can be very muddy after a heavy rain, when the water pours down from higher elevations, with tons of runoff from the fields, but it wasn’t this time. Tadpoles and small fish used the little pools and deeper parts in the creek as a habitat.

A photo like this can be made even at the height of the day, when light is awful for any other pictures out in the Great Outdoors. It was very hot that day and just looking at the life in a creek is a welcome change. Well, our dog Cooper did not develop the same sense of visual appreciation, he just lies down in the water and calls it a day… I can’t blame him when it’s so hot as it was!

HUMMER IN THE RAIN

Male Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Hard to believe that the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are here since two months already, although today I hardly saw any of them. We had very high temperatures and humidity today and it doesn’t look much better for tomorrow. But maybe this was the reason for their absence from our feeders?

The photo was made a week ago, and the drops on his bill are the result of a rain shower. Boy, I wished we would have one of those again… 😅

DOES SUMMER HAVE AN END?

To my friends and family in Germany I always describe September as a month that has in general still the character of summer here in Iowa, This is in particular true for this year. During the last few days unusual high temperatures made life a little uncomfortable for people like me, who love a more moderate climate. This all had to come to an end and this evening thunderstorms crossed the country and will continue to cool down the air in the next 24 hours. With thunderstorms come big, puffy clouds. If you follow my blog since a while you know already that I like to make clouds the subject of photos in my landscape photography quite often. I just love how clouds, and the ever changing light that comes with them, can create drama in a landscape. If in addition a string of Canada Geese crosses the sky, the shutter of my Nikon D750 is rattling… Oh, I love fall, even if it still feels like summer…😉

NATURE CLICKS #293 - PICKEREL FROG

I do not like the very warm and humid weather we have this labor day weekend but this frog didn’t seem to mind it. I found this little guy on the bottom of a canyon in the White Pine Hollow State Preserve, near Luxembourg, Iowa. I’m not one hundred percent sure if this is a young Pickerel Frog because I only have this image from its side. In Iowa the Pickerel Frog is only found in the very eastern part along the Mississippi. There is a chance that this is its cousin, the more common Northern Leopard Frog, but it looks like this frog has a paired series of squarish blotches extending down the back between the dorsolateral folds. No other frog in Iowa has paired squarish blotches. (source: The Salamanders and Frogs of Iowa, by J.L. Christansen and R.M. Bailey, Nov. 1991). I guess next time I pay a little more attention to the details while I see the critter … 😉

Both images: Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-120mm / f4

The second photo shows the habitat, a slow running stream that runs between the rock walls of the canyon, and pools filled with crystal clear water. The reason I went to White Pine Hollow was because I wanted to try out a new photo technique that actually required fast running water. There wasn’t enough water coming down the creek this time and so this project had to be put on hold, but coming back with these photos was a nice reward for hiking into the canyon despite heat and humidity.