On Day 148, I set out shortly after 9 am in search of something new and intriguing. A new horse fence is being installed along Piney Woods Church Road, and I was also distracted by various frustrations, so I found it more difficult than usual to focus on all the beauty around me. Still, I found this lovely common persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) leaf, glowing with the morning sunlight. It is quite sufficient for the day.
On my walk today I glanced down onto the ground beside the roadway and saw this forewing of a Luna Moth (Actias luna) — a memento mori, a reminder of how fleeting nature’s beauty can sometimes be. It makes me realize that my single walk down Piney Woods Church Road each day isn’t nearly enough to take it all in — I am missing so much that happens during the many hours that I am not there.
Today I stopped to photograph a fairly ubiquitous yellow flower, very dandelion-like but much taller, with a slender green stem. The flower is almost certainly Two-flowered Cynthia (Krigia biflora), a wildflower in the Aster family native to most of the Eastern US and north into Canada. The flower head is quite lovely when viewed-close up — not as similar in form to a dandelion as I had assumed at first glance.
I struggled with what to call this photograph I took along Piney Woods Church Road this evening. It really isn’t a sunset — that was still half an hour away when I took this photo. The Sun was descending behind a thunderhead cloud, and the lighting was lovely. But what was it? “Sun going behind large dark cloud” doesn’t quite express it. So I opted for “Sun’s Descent” despite its somber overtones. It seems to fit the photo well, and also is appropriate on the occasion of Memorial Day.
The late-day sun glows brightly beneath a young sweetgum leaf along Piney Woods Church Road.
I love photographing orb spiders. Perhaps it is because they are not easy to spook. Tunnel web spiders dash off into their tunnels at the slightest shadow or provocation. And flying insects seem to know when your camera is in focus, choosing that moment to take off. Perhaps, too, it is because orbweavers are so beautiful. Here is a pair of them. The top is an orchard orbweaver (Leucage venusta), which I have photographed before, but this time as seen from above (or more precisely, from underneath, looking up at its top surface). The second is, at the moment, a mystery — one that I am hoping my friends at BugGuide on Facebook will be able to solve. It may be a Hentz orbweaver (Neoscona crucifera), but then again, it may not.
It was a nondescript warm and somewhat hazy late afternoon along Piney Woods Church Road today. I found nothing particularly exciting to photograph (apart from a couple of lovely spiders I will save for another post). But this image of vine wrapped with a tendril I find entrancing. There is an Asian watercolor feel to it — a flowing grace of color and form. It is one of a thousand vines along the roadside (probably greenbrier) that I pass every day. And yet it is beautiful.
On my way home on a hazy evening after a lackluster photo shoot along Piney Woods Church Road, I paused to photograph a coiled tendril of wild muscadine grape. Against the gray sky, the tendril was simply a black outline; but against the dark green of a nearby cedar, the vine became a vibrant red spiral.
Sunset arrives on the prairie (or, in this case, the nearest prairie equivalent along Piney Woods Church Road: the edge of a cow pasture near a barbed-wire fence, giant fire ant mound, and drainage ditch).
Here is another spider photograph; thanks to the help of someone at BugGuide on Facebook, I was able to ID this one as an orchard orbweaver also, though the distinctive red horseshoe on the abdomen is not visible in this picture.
