Spectacular Spring Sunset

 

On Sunday evening, as I was drawing the curtains in the house to keep out the nighttime chill, I noticed the woods between my house and the road were suffused with pink light.  I grabbed my camera and literally ran out of the house to capture some images because, as all photographers appreciate, sunset light waits for no man (or woman).  Though I captured 20 images, this was my best - by far.  I love the apparent multiple focal planes and the smoky look. 

Wounded Weekend Warrior

Sunday, April 13, was a beautiful day here in the northern Piedmont - sunny, a nice breeze, and temperatures in the upper 70s - too nice to stay inside.  So Kali and decided to take our first bike ride of the year on the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park towpath trail that parallels the Delaware Rive in New Jersey north of Trenton.

The day was perfect and the ride was great until just before the end.  This winter's ice storms had brought down a lot of woody debris alongside the path that the state park folks had not yet had a chance to clear.

Because the day was so nice, there were a lot of riders.  I was following closely behind Kali, who moved toward the verge of the path to give oncoming riders room to pass.  Kali's bike caught the end of a branch alongside the trail, but didn't interfere with her ride.  However, the branch snapped back and became entangled in my front wheel's spokes.

The bike (and I) went down unceremoniously and I slid, mostly face-first, toward the Delaware River over a steep embankment with a thick growth of multiflora roses.  Fortunately, I was wearing my helmet (as I always do) and only got scratches and scrapes.  Oh, and I jarred my neck a bit, too, which is still stiff today.  But, all in all, it could have been worse.

Ouch!

Kali took these pictures after we got back home.  I look more and more like my father (now deceased) every day.

Looks worse than it is

Baldpate Spring

Wolf tree (a locust) on the summit of Baldpate Mountain

Kali and I hiked six miles at the Ted Stiles Preserve at Baldpate Mountain, a Mercer County natural area just north of Trenton, New Jersey yesterday.  A mountain in New Jersey?  Well, Kittatinny Ridge (a real mountain, for those of us in the East) which embraces the Appalachian Trail, crosses the northwest corner of New Jersey.  Further south, though, erosion-resistant diabase ridges rise a few hundred feet above the surrounding landscape and create "mountains" like Baldpate.

Because of the steep topography and the stony soil that develops from diabase (an igneous rock that cooled and solidified in fissures below the surface of the earth), these ridges were often left forested or only lightly farmed.  Despite the forest cover, though, there was plenty of evidence of farming and disturbance on Baldpate.  Stone walls ran through the woods, and we came upon the ruins of stone cottages and woods roads buttressed with stone. In addition, the air was perfumed throughout the hike by countless invasive non-native autumn olive trees in bloom.  In fact, the understory there consisted of nothing much more than mutiflora rosebushes and garlic mustard, though some spring ephemerals managed to persist.  Nevertheless, the tree canopies were alive with the songs of wood warblers and thrushes.

View over southern New Jersey (including Delaware River)

When we finally reached the crest of the ridge, we were rewarded with long views of southern New Jersey and the Delaware River below.  You'd almost never guess that we were in the most densely settled state in the union.

First Firefly--Really!

I know, I know... In my last post, I said that I wasn't going to make my blog phenological. But, I just have to report that, last evening, at 9:30, I spotted the first firefly of the year near the top of a large tree near my house. It's very, very early!

Crickets...and More!

I don't necessarily want this to be a phenological blog; that can get a little dull and prone to "one upmanship." Nevertheless, crickets began chirping for the first time this year on Friday evening, April 30. That, in and of itself, is a wonderful marker in my book of days. But, rather than just report on the crickets, I'm going to quote the final two paragraphs of a book that I read when first published in 1992, Crickets and Katydids, Concerts and Solos by Vincent G. Dethier. These two haunting paragraphs have stayed with me ever since I first read the book.

Three days before Thanksgiving, as I was hurrying through Harvard Yard, I heard a single cricket. The chirp sounded exactly like that which in early June had ushered in a sumer of song. This time, however, the call was a Fall Field Cricket that had found temporary shelter near the grating of a heating vent outside Thayer Hall. Whereas the chirping of the Spring Field Cricket had resonated with promise, had evoked memories of summers past and anticipation of summers to come, this song, with identical scoring and execution, evoked different emotions. Even as I let my imagination range, I realized anew how much the listener brings to the music, how music evokes moods complementary to its setting, and how moods close the circle by shading the music. I felt a sense of melancholy, listening to the cricket. He was calling, and there was no mate to listen. He was calling into the void of imminent winter. Yet in that melancholy, I experienced--if not the anticipation and assurance--at least hope for another spring.

Two days later it snowed.

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In addition to the first cricket song, we were tumbled in the first real wave of spring migrants. Temperatures hit 93 on Saturday and 89 on Sunday (both records), and the birds thought they were back in the Central American jungle! Of note, first Wood Thrushes and Scarlet Tanagers, though there were plenty of warblers to go around, too.

A Spring Beauty

Bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia)

I love bladdernuts. The shrub grows in two large clusters (I suspect it's clonal) along the creek in the natural area I frequent most often. The flowers are short-lived (like all spring ephemerals) and beautiful, but, of course, the real treat comes in the fall. That's when the fertilized flowers produce the unmistakable papery, Chinese-lantern-like tripartite seed pods (the "bladders"). When the fruit is ripe, the seeds loosen inside and become miniature rattles. What's not to like about this plant?

A view downstream...

Wild blue phlox (Phlox divaricata) adorns the streambanks of the creek flowing through the preserve. It seems like there's more of it with each passing year. The deer must avoid it, though a colleague told me that rabbits decimate any phlox plants she adds to her garden.

...and up.

Springing...into Summer

Another image from my artist/photographer friend, this time of a redbud tree growing at the bottom of a canyon in a local city park. I think that the contrast between the luminescent tree and the muted gray of the rocks is striking. Great image!

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My wife and I took a day trip via chartered bus to Washington DC on Saturday. All of the folks in the group had a connection with a local photographer whose work is featured prominently in a major new exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History.

The museum was very crowded--Saturday afternoon at the end of the school year probably wasn't the best time to visit. Nevertheless, we got an hour-long guided tour of the exhibition, and then had 1-1/2 hours of free time before we had to board the bus back home. Because the natural history museum was so crowded, we headed over to the National Museum of Art's East Building, which features a collection of contemporary art. I wanted to see the installation called Roofs by Scottish landscape sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, an artist whose work has intrigued and inspired me. It's worth a visit if you're in Washington, but not worth a special trip.

We returned to the bus with a few minutes to spare, boarded promptly at 4:30--and then waited. One of the tour group's members failed to show up at the appointed time. It was very warm in Washington on Saturday--in the low 90s--and the bus was like a greenhouse. A few members of the group got off the bus to wait in the shade of the trees near the museum while other members of the group scoured the museum to try to find the wayward traveler. Many of the group's members stayed on the bus--I don't know how they tolerated the heat. Forty-five minutes later, the woman showed up at the bus stop, confused and flustered.

To make matters worse,the bus's air conditioning system didn't work, so we rode back home in considerable discomfort, arriving back at the rendezvous point about 8:45 p.m.

Roofs, Andy Goldsworthy