Monday, February 26, 2007

Hidden Well

On Saturday, the Spring Creek Forest Preserve had its 14th Annual Trout Lily Tour. Unfortunately, I had to miss it due to a conflict with incoming relatives.

On Sunday morning I woke before everyone else & went to look for myself. Now, these little guys are pretty small & I had only seen pictures before. Due to the early morning hour, they were still closed, making them harder to spot. I finally stumbled across this one.

Trout Lily 1

All of these are shot with natural light, most likely on a tripod. If not a tripod, then I had the VR on my new Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED lens. (what a mouthful!)

I had read that often, when you find one, you find another. These guys are pollinated by ants (among other things) & one theory is that after the ants take the seed, it produces a volatile pheromone that triggers something called the “dead corpse response.” They lose interest and drop the seed. Other ants ignore it as well.

Nearby I found this one.

Trout Lily 2

Now that I had spotted a couple, I started walking the trail back & noticed a few more.

Trout Lily 3

I plan to get out this week during the afternoon and catch them open.

Now, that isn't all. On the way back home, I stopped at a piece of "private property" near my house that has similar wet ground and trees to cover the ground. I was hoping to find a Trout lily, but stumbled across something quite different. I was thankful that it was daytime.

Hidden Well

An "open" well just waiting for someone to fall in. I dropped a couple of rocks down... seemed to hit a hard bottom & fall about 20 feet. I couldn't see the bottom. I may head back with a flashlight again & see what is down there.

Another shot. Not much to see... just a hole. Dangerous as hell though.

Hidden Well

To be honest, it freaked me out at the time. I recently saw bothThe Ring and Silence of the Lambs and kept thinking about what if I saw a fingernail stuck in the wall. -shudder-

BBB

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Johnny Sunflowerseed

We were doing a little random bird feeding in the backyard yesterday.

Johnny Sunflower Seed

BBB