― Michael Sims
Lark Sparrow
This is a really boring post and partly the reason I stopped blogging for 550 days. Take a look at the archive on the left. You see that? There's over a decade of posts just like this one –– a bird or two, some scenery, a few bugs, and the banal platitudes of Nature Observation. To be sure, I feel like I have nothing new to share on this blog. I've done it. Though Nature is unlimited in expression and form, what I habitually capture in digital images fits a fairly rigid pattern. Perhaps this is expected, like you can identify works by certain painters and musicians. What you see here is my style.
Spring Green Preserve –– East Unit
Like I mentioned with one of my earlier 2020 posts –– I never stopped taking photographs, and I never stopped sharing them (Facebook). I suppose I just stopped writing about them. It's in the trying to say something creative, yet original, with respect to Nature Appreciation. There's a very particular way I like my nature dosages, so perhaps that's why my photographs always turn out with a certain signature to them. In a way, I suspect what I put into a paragraph here and there is widely overlooked –– it's the photographs you all want to see.
Treehopper Glossonotus univittatus
Treehopper Archasia auriculate
Prairie Fame-flower
Watching the Prairie Fame-flowers slowly open was the highlight of my late afternoon visit to Spring Green Preserve. Upon arrival, not a single blossom's reflection landed on my retina. At first I thought perhaps I was too late, but that couldn't be –– they never open before, say 3PM, and it was 5PM. So, they would still be open, I reasoned. And then I found one ... then another, and another! Suddenly, they were all around me in various stages of revealing their breathtaking beauty.
Clustered Poppy-mallow
Spring Green Preserve –– West Unit
Dickcissel
And then it was over ... and I had to leave home for home.
What an amazing day.
All images © 2020 Mike McDowell