A lone yellow-green fallen leaf catches my eye as I walk down Piney Woods Church Road. There is such beauty in simple things.
Mar 162014
Mar 162014
After many hours of heavy rainfall, I set out today along Piney Woods Church Road, stopping at ruts, potholes, and ditches to see what I might discover there. I took a number of reflection photos, but my favorite is this one, with its bright splashes of color from the fallen leaves that have collected on the water surface.
Mar 152014
On my late afternoon walk, I discovered the cocoon of a promethea moth (Callosamia promethea), partially encased in a brown leaf and hanging from a shrub along the roadside. Based upon the mass of the cocoon and the absence of any holes in it, I am fairly confident that a moth is waiting inside for the right moment to emerge, later this spring. I wonder if I will be there when it happens?
Mar 142014
Throughout the neighborhood (including across my own front yard), Bradford pear trees are in bloom. Their flowers are a brilliant white, with a perfume, well, something like a cross between slaking concrete and ammonia. They are perhaps best admired from a distance — in this case, along Piney Woods Church Road. Beyond the Bradford pear, a maple tree is in bloom. Spring is only a week away.
Mar 132014
Here is another abstract photograph from late this afternoon along Piney Woods Church Road. A ball of light seems to hover between two branches of a shrub on the left side of the photograph. I enjoy the blurred colors here — the green of magnolia leaves and the patch of blue sky.
Mar 132014
As we approach the middle of March, spring is getting well underway along the roadside where Piney Woods Church Road meets Hutcheson Ferry Road. Now henbits, bluets, hoary bittercresses, and other ruderal wildflowers begin to carpet the margin with dots of color — whites, blues, and purples. There is a sense of celebration in the air.
Mar 122014
After an overnight rainfall but before the predicted arrival of cold air and strong winds, I encountered this Carolina mantleslug (Philomycus carolinianus) grazing on a wood ear jelly fungus (Auricularia auricula) along Piney Woods Church Road. This jelly fungus is evidently edible, according to my field guidebooks; related species of wood ear fungi are commonly used in Chinese cuisine. I cannot vouch for it personally, though. And I definitely cannot address the question of this slug’s edibility, or the viability of this particular combination in a luncheon sandwich.
Mar 112014
Thank you, Karen Reed, for your excellent suggestion of a title for today’s photograph of a greenbrier leaf. I feel drawn to photographing the fascinating internal structures of leaves, and this is one of the most stunning examples I have yet encountered.
Mar 102014
Wandering down Piney Woods Church Road late this afternoon, I passed a driveway all aglow with moss sporophytes, with their globe-like capsules perched atop stalks, called seta, reaching high above the leafy gametophytes. (That sentence, I realize, begs a lesson in the moss life cycle, but I will instead refer curious readers here.) The yellow-green of this sporophyte carpet betokens the impending arrival of spring (although not before another cold spell visits the region this Wednesday).
Mar 092014
While the resurrection ferns along Piney Woods Church Road are still green, I took the opportunity to take a few more photographs of them. Here is a trio of new images.
