Oh, what a magnificent morning! The air temperature was about sixty degrees, and the cool breeze was delightful. The sky was still overcast, and I felt a bit of mist against my skin as I made my way to Piney Woods Church Road. Evidence of the long overnight rainstorm were everywhere. To celebrate Day 135, I have chosen this macro of a single drop of water, containing an inverted roadside landscape, suspended from a horizontal plant stem.
On my walk home today along Hutcheson Ferry Road, I noticed this banded flower longhorn beetle (Typocerus velutinus) resting on an English daisy flower head. The larvae of this beetle feed on decaying hardwood trees, while the adults, not surprisingly, dine on nectar and pollen.
After so many photographs of light on leaves (and so many more to come, no doubt), today I photographed this sassafras tree trunk along the edge of Piney Woods Church Road.
On my way back toward Rico Road, my attention was caught by a couple of blades of grass in a recently planted future horse pasture along Piney Woods Church Road. One blade was curved above another, shorter one. I was entranced by their flowing forms in the golden light of one half-hour before sunset.
On a warm and humid mid-afternoon, I roamed Piney Woods Church Road, in search of new discoveries and possible images. Near Rico Road, I found an circular web with this jewel of a spider waiting patiently for her prey. She is a female orchard orbweaver (Leucage venusta), a relatively common orb spider of the Eastern forest, notable for a prominent orange-red horseshoe on the underside of her abdomen.
On a Sunday morning in May, I encountered a spider’s web bejeweled with water droplets along the edge of a cattle pasture along Piney Woods Church Road. The experience inspired a series of half a dozen images of all the suspended drops of water along the spider’s silken threads: field rosaries.
I ventured out this morning into lingering fog after rain yesterday and overnight. I found endless delight in all the water droplets, like finely polished gems, that had collected on the surfaces of leaves and at their tips. My photograph today is the largest droplet I saw on my walk, suspended at the curled tip of a Chinese privet leaf.
Today I spotted the first daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus) in bloom along Piney Woods Church Road. Summer is approaching.
One drop of water, poised on a curled plantain leaf, waiting for the next gust of wind.
On my daily walk down Piney Woods Church Road today, I relished the warm, moist air, evocative of a rain forest. Everywhere I was bedazzled by sundry shades of green — saplings, shrubs, and vines all crowding for space along the roadside. In this image, one vine supports another as they scramble for sunlight.
