Swatara Falls

A short 20-25 minute hike in the Appalachian Mtns. in Pennsylvania on Thursday afternoon led us to Swatara Falls. The trail was lined with wild Rhododendrons, assorted wild flowers and fungi so what should have taken 20 minutes took us more like 40 minutes. Not a difficult hike but a little steep and loose in places.

Wild Rhododendron

Swatara Falls

Swatara Falls

Agriggs Falls

After a pretty intense thunderstorm and torrential rain last night I thought I know where I'm going in the morning. Swatara State Park is only 20 minutes away and a mile and a half walk takes you to an old log cabin beside Agriggs Falls. It wasn't the torrent that I expected but it wasn't too bad.

Agriggs Falls

Agriggs Falls

Ruby

Not quite what I wanted but close enough. The wings of a Hummingbird beat over 200 times a second so the only way your going to freeze the wings is to use high speed flash, I nearly got it right but I think my flash was too far away. I'll have to move it closer and have another go.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Hummer

Living in a wooded area as I do, I don't have many flowers apart from shade loving Hostas. In a sunlit patch I do grow some Bee Balm for the hummingbirds. Here's one from this afternoon.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird on Bee Balm

Blue Butterfly

As I was strolling down the drive to retrieve the wheely bin I noticed this little blue butterfly fluttering about. When I came back with the bin he had settled on this little pile of bird crap. He seemed to be enjoying himself so I dashed in and got my camera.

Appalachian Blue Butterfly

I looked through my super-duper East Coast Butterfly book but I am none the wiser as to a name for him. Morris thinks it's an Appalachian Blue, so that's settled then, he knows his Butterflies.

Orchids

A couple of years ago while meandering up the driveway half reading the mail I noticed a plant I'd never noticed before. As I am most definitely botanically challenged that's not too surprising. I am  however reasonably observant when it comes to matters of my domain ( the yard). Now I know an orchid when I see one and this was an orchid. Turns out it was not a native orchid but one that was either accidentally introduced or maybe deliberately,  I don't think anyone knows. It's a Broadleaf Helleborine Epipactus helleborine. This year they are sprouting up all over the place. I never brought it over, well not intentionally.

Helleborine

Black and White

Spending a very lazy Saturday afternoon just reading and playing with the furry critters. I was reading an actual paper magazine entitled Outdoor Photographer. The main focus (get the pun? Photography Mag, focus) of the magazine was black and white photographs. I thought I'll do a bit of B&W myself. I fired up Photoshop, bit of tweaking here and there, converted to Black and White with Nik Silver Efex and voila. Here ya go.

Bass Harbor Lighthouse is my favorite lighthouse in the whole world, well ones that I've been to anyway. To reach it and get photographs such as these you have to climb down steep and precarious wooden steps, leap, clamber and jump over and onto wet barnacle encrusted slippery rocks while carrying camera gear all the while keeping a watchful eye for rogue waves and tsunamis. One of these days I'm going to do it in the pre-dawn hours so I can get a shot or two as the sun is coming up.

Foggy Coast

Bass Harbor Lighthouse.

Bass Harbor Lighthouse.

Cool and Green and Shady

One from yesterday at Memorial Lake. Can you spot the Green Heron? No? Neither can I, because the little bastard had flown off!

Memorial Lake overflow stream.

Ft. Indiantown Gap Butterfly Walk Part Deux

Friday. July 11th was the 3rd of the Butterfly walks for 2014. Leaving early I wanted to try and get some misty morning pictures of Memorial Lake. No such luck, the sun had burned off the mist by the time I got there. On the way I came across this Box Turtle crossing the road so it was time for a turtle rescue. I took some photographs of him and put him safely into the wooded area in the direction he was heading.

Box Turtle

The overflow stream from the dam at Memorial Lake looked cool and green and shady so I took a few pictures of that and missed the little Green Heron fishing under the bridge.

Overflow Stream at Memorial Lake

In one of the meadows at Memorial Lake I stopped and took a few pictures of the grasses and flowers.

Chicory

The FTIG Biologists were helpful as always and I got to handle a Ring Necked Snake. What a beautiful green and yellow coloring.

Ring Necked Snake

So onto the butterflies. There seemed to be many more Regal Fritillaries this week compared to the Great Spangled Fritillaries of last Saturday.

Regal Fritillary on Thistle

Regal Fritillary on Butterfly Milkweed.

Special thanks to Mason for finding this Zebra Swallowtail for me to photograph.

Zebra Swallowtail

Zebra Swallowtail

Zebra Swallowtail

Orange Sulphur

All in all an excellent morning out in the sunshine up at the Gap. My thanks to all the biology staff and volunteers that make these annual Butterfly walks possible, not forgetting the PA National Guard of course.

Yellowstone

It's been nearly 7 years since we visited Yellowstone and I've mentioned before that I like going back and reprocessing older photographs so I thought I would add a few images of the National Park.

Buffalo

Wily Coyote

Firehole River

Yellowstone Lake with Grand Tetons

Lava Creek

Lava Creek

Mammoth Hot Springs

Red Fox

Yellowstone River

Ft. Indiantown Gap Butterfly Walk

Ft Indiantown Gap is a 17,000 acre live fire training facility in the Appalachian Mountain valley between Blue Mountain and Second Mountain. On four days each year around this time the resident biologists treat the public to a guided walk into the live fire range at the Gap to see the butterflies and assorted wildlife that live and breed there. The walk is centered on the Regal Fritillary butterfly which is the main attraction.

From the press release:-
“As one of the busiest National Guard Training Centers in the country, Fort Indiantown Gap is also a leader on the environmental forefront because we place a very high priority on being environmentally aware,” said Lt. Col. Robert Hepner, commander of Fort Indiantown Gap. “These butterfly tours, given by our biologists, provide excellent insight on not only the regal fritillary butterfly but also on the flora, fauna, and wildlife that inhabit beautiful Fort Indiantown Gap and our dedication to safeguard these spectacular natural resources.”

Now the funny thing is that it's not the peace and quiet that makes this area so attractive to the Regal Fritillary it's the opposite. It's the disturbed ground which is favored by a species of violet which provide food for the Regal Fritillary butterfly larva.

Anyway, it was a nice 1 1/2-2 mile walk seeing lots of birds, butterflies, flowers and a Ring-necked Snake (no Rattlesnakes this year).

Range 22

Black-eyed Susan

Butterfly Bush

Great Spangled Fritillary

Great Spangled Fritillary

Great Spangled Fritillary on Thistle

Regal Fritillary

No apologies

Yes,  pictures from Maine ..........again. I cant help it, the place is so picturesque. No matter what the weather, time of day or location there's always something special to photograph. Well enough said, here's more images of Maine from 2012 and 2013.

Coastal Rocks

Pretty Marsh

Pretty Marsh

Acadia Loop Road View

Twilight on Schoodic Pensinsula

Squall at Seawall

Milky Way

Long Exposure

Sieur de Monts