I Want Some Elecampane

Inula helenium

I found a field of elecampane up on Telfer Hill Road this summer and I want some. John and I returned to to the field to chase butterflies that afternoon. I don't know why I didn't dig up some of these wildflowers then, but I will next summer. The field was alive with the buzzing of insects. We think the bug in the photo above is a bee mimic fly of some sort but aren't sure. It could be a type of hover fly. In the days to come, you'll see the photos of the other bugs we captured there.

Elecampane looks like a tall, frilly sunflower. It is actually an aster, though. In France they use elecampane to make absinthe. The scientific name helenium is because legend says that where Helen of Troy's tears fell, elecampane sprung up. It is also, I learned on that marvelous afternoon, a butterfly magnet.

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Heads or Tails: The Legend of Queen Anne's Lace

New foliage of Queen Anne's Lace (wild carrot) taken during the
Wild Edibles walk on May 24

(Daucus carota)

from Plants for Dyeing: Queen Anne's Lace:

Queen Anne, wife of James I of England, was an avid lace maker, and is the namesake of the flower. The tiny purple dot in the center represents a spot of blood caused by a needle prick to the queen’s finger, and this tiny sliver of color was thought to cure epilepsy. Black swallowtail butterflies flock to them like cats to catnip. Farmers consider it an invasive weed, and the milk from animals that graze upon it is supposed to taste a bit bitter and carroty. The plant is also called bee’s nest, bird’s nest, crow’s nest, and devil’s plague (seems a bit harsh!). The carrots that we eat today are believed to be derived from this wild variety, and to revert to it when not tended or cultivated. Queen Anne’s Lace roots have also been used as a coffee substitute, like chicory.

from Ohio Perennial and Biennial Weed Guide:

• 'Daucus' is from 'daukos', which is Greek for carrot.
  
• 'Carrot' is Celtic meaning 'red of colour'.
  
• The are numerous legends about how this plant became associated with and was named after Queen Anne, wife of King James I of England.
  
• Devil's plague was a common name given by farmers who found this weed difficult to control; rantipole means rude and reckless.
  
• It is not known if there are benefits associated with having a purple flower located in the center of some flower clusters. A study showed that insects were neither attracted nor repelled by the presence or absence of the flower.
  
• The first year roots of wild carrot are reported to be edible, but care must be taken to not mistake poison hemlock for wild carrot.
  

Queen Anne's Lace is just beginning to grow here but will not flower for quite awhile. I call it the "fractal flower." And making one of these fractals is on my todo list.

These photos will open full-sized in a new window when clicked.

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Technorati Tags: Queen Anne's Lace, wild carrot, Daucus carota, wildflower, folklore, fractals 

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Heads or Tails: Three

Three Common Redpolls (Carduelis flammea) in today's snowstorm.

Painted Trillium (Trillium undulatum)
found this past summer at Moose Bog in Victory, Vermont

To see more Heads or Tails participants, visit Skittles
or click Heads or Tails.
Thank you so much for visiting.

Carduelis+flammea Common Redpoll Painted+Trillium Trillium+undulatum

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Five Feeders Every Yard Should Have

from The Audubon Magazine: The Winter Banquet by Stephen W. Kress

1. Ground-feeding table
This screen-bottomed tray sits several inches off the ground and is useful for helping to keep grain and bird excrement from coming in contact with each other. Some designs have covers to prevent snow from accumulating over the seed; others are surrounded by wire mesh to keep out squirrels and large birds such as crows and grackles. Place the feeder in an open location, at least 10 feet from the nearest shrub, to give birds a chance to flee in the event of a cat attack. Ground feeders are especially favored by doves, juncos, sparrows, towhees, goldfinches, and cardinals.

2. sunflower-seed tube feeders
If you are going to put out just one bird feeder, this is the best choice. Be sure to select a model with metal ports around the seed dispensers to protect the feeder from nibbling squirrels and house sparrows. Hang the feeder at least five feet off the ground and position it near a window, where you can enjoy the visitors. These feeders are especially attractive to small birds such as chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, goldfinches, siskins, and purple and house finches.

3. Suet Feeder
Suet is readily eaten by titmice, chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers. In addition to the regular suet-feeder visitors, wrens, creepers, and warblers occasionally pick at these mixes. You can hang suet chunks from a tree in an onion bag or a half-inch hardware-cloth basket, or in a more durable cage feeder like the one shown here. You can also make your own suet pudding and feeder. Suet puddings are made by grinding and melting suet and adding seeds. (There is no evidence that suet puddings are more attractive to birds than chunks of suet.) Pack peanut butter-cornmeal blends (when you mix the peanut butter with cornmeal it not only stretches the expensive peanut butter but also makes this sticky treat easier to swallow) and suet puddings into the crevices of large pinecones or into one-inch-diameter holes drilled into logs. Hang the pinecones and the logs from poles near other feeders, from trees, or from a wire stretched between trees. Avoid feeding suet when temperatures climb into the 80-degree range; it turns rancid and drippy and may damage feathers.

4. Hopper Feeder
Hopper feeders provide dry storage for several pounds of mixed seed, which tumbles forward on demand. Position hopper feeders on a pole about five feet off the ground. Hopper feeders attract all of the species tube feeders attract, as well as such larger birds as jays, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, and cardinals.

5. Thistle Feeder
Especially designed to dispense niger seed, also known as thistle seed -different from the prickly garden weed-these feeders typically have tiny holes that make the seed available only to small-beaked finches such as goldfinches, redpolls, and pine siskins. Thistle-seed-dispensing bags are not recommended, since squirrels can easily tear holes in them and waste this expensive seed. Hang your thistle feeder from a tree or place it on a five-foot pole near other feeders, taking care to protect it from squirrels with a special baffle.

Technorati tags: Stephen+Kress Audubon+Magazine backyard+feeders

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Dog Mountain Flowers In Autumn

Technorati tags: Dog+Mountain St.+Johnsbury Vermont autumn wildflowers 

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Heads or Tails: Hobby

New England Aster (Aster novae-angliae)

Black-capped Chickadee (Parus atricapillus)

Common Buttercup (Ranunculus acris)

Playing with iPhoto 7 from iLife '08. I'm getting different results and some I don't like, like the noise in my macros. I am posting these to see what they look like in Blogger and in different browsers.

Technorati tags: Heads+or+Tails, New+England+Aster, Aster+novae-angliae, Black-capped+Chickadee, Parus+atricapillus, Common+Buttercup, Ranunculus+acris
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The Good News

Spotted Touch-Me-Not (Impatiens capensis), also called Jewelweed

Some good things happened today. I have a new site for my photos. It is meeyauw photo gallery at dot Mac. You can view my photos in a slide show, carousel, and other ways. If you double click a photo, you can see it full size. It seems to load fairly well. If it continues to do well, I will renew my dot Mac subscription in October.

I got some good wildflower photos today. Be sure to check out my photo of the day for Sunday. Please.

Buddy took off again for another forty-eight hours. Being me, I presumed him dead. But he is home again, asleep here on the table next to me. His disappearance was reason #2 why I did not go to Rutland.

Best of all: Possum and Turnip are home after nearly three weeks in Amy's cattery at Oasis Pet Resort while they were treated for chronic bowel inflammation (Turnip) and bladder inflammation (Possum). They are doing well and are on prescription food which they won't touch. It was wonderful to have them in bed again at nap time. I missed them badly. Their homecoming was reason #3 why I did not go to Rutland.

A field of New England Asters

Technorati tags: Spotted+Touch-Me-Not Impatiens+capensis Jewelweed cats .Mac New+England+Aster

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Vermont Loon Recovery Project

Eric Hanson (click for more photos)

Yesterday, VPR's Vermont Tradition (August 15, 2007) (click here the mp3 archive of the show) interviewed Eric Hanson of the VINS Vermont Loon Recovery Project. He gave us some interesting loon information:

Loons are swimming and flying birds. They leave the land after birth and may not touch land again for seven years, when they have their first chicks.

• In a 10 year period, a pair of loons will produce, on average, 5 living chicks.
• In Vermont, the loons are producing an average of 7 living chicks in 10 years.
• In Maine, the average is down to 3.
• The difference could be mercury pollution.
• There are now 200 loons in Vermont. I saw five of them!
• Loons share chick-raising responsibilities 50-50.
• Because of the sharing of chick rearing, and the same plummage, there is no way to tell which loon is male and which is female.
• Loons often will raise one huge foot out of the water and waggle it as if waving hello.
• This is probably a stretching movement and not a cooling mechanism.

Technorati tags: VPR VINS loons Eric+Hanson Vermont
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Manual Settings

Ox-eye Daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum)

I used all manual settings for this photo and it is better than any of the other shots I took of this blossom with the factory settings. I am beginning to understand. All I want to do is take photographs. Please click on the photo to see it full size in a new window. 

Technorati tags: Ox-eye+Daisy Chrysanthemum+leucanthemum
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Hummie's World: Light Metering Photography Challenge

Hummie's World: Light Metering Photography Challenge

As always, all photographs will open in a new
window so that you can view them large.

Goldenrod: exposure compensation settings, left to right: -0.3, 0.0, +0.3

Hummie has offered us this Light Metering Photography Challenge which I have done because I need to learn as much as I can about cameras. I had begun learning about exposure through trial and error already, but this challenge has added to my knowledge. Histograms are an important topic to know so that you understand the relationship between exposure, what you see in the view finder, and what you are shooting.

Exposure is important to me because of flower and macro photos. I often have my flowers over exposed, especially if they are white or yellow flowers. If I use the flash for macros I also have overexposed shots. Learning about the histogram on iPhoto and my camera, I learned how to use the exposure settings to my advantage.

I have a Kodak Z710 point-and-shoot camera. I have "exposure compensation" and not the exposure settings the rest of you may have. For less exposure, I move a toggle down to -0.3, -0.7, -1.0, etc. And for more exposure, I move it up so to +0.3, +0.7, etc. The default setting is 0.0. I have found that using the camera's histogram and exposure compensation settings together does me little good. My eye is now what I trust, but I look at the settings to calibrate my eye to what the numbers read. I tend to enjoy photos that are slightly underexposed. I will be very interested in your opinion.

New England Aster: exposure compensation settings, left to right: -2.0, -1.67, -0.67, 0.0

These New England Aster photos are interesting because I like the dark purple best, yet the flower actually looked like the last photo with compensation setting of 0.0. If the sun disappeared, as happened the day I took these, the color of the flower became darker. The sun is what over- and under exposes our photos. Perhaps our preferences are caused by our personal preferences for exposure to the sun. If, like me, you prefer to be in the shade, you may prefer under exposed photos.

While preparing these aster photos for this post, I noticed that other settings such as shutter, aperture, exposure index and focal length changed. I don't know how that happened because I tried to keep all variables constant except what I was learning, the exposure compensation (or exposure bias). In all the other sets of photos here I have only one variable that I tested.

Little Flume, Dixville Notch, New Hampshire
Exposure compensation, left to right: -1.0, -0.67, -0.3, 0.0, +0.3, +0.67

For the photos of the Little Flume above I purposefully used a dozen different exposure compensation settings. In the view finder the water was always too bright. I am not satisfied with any of these photos because of that problem. The surrounding vegetation and rocks show the effects of the different exposures, but the water is just a mass of undifferentiated light.

Spotted Joe Pye-Weed exposure compensation: -0.3, 0.0, +0.3

These are my favorite photos of this whole week of the light metering challenge. I am very confident with purple flowers now and knew exactly what I wanted to see in the view finder. I referenced the exposure compensation setting and histogram, which confirmed that I prefer under exposed photos of flowers. I could easily tell when this Joe Pye-Weed was focused, but I couldn't with the goldenrod or asters. I got exactly what I wanted.

I learned a lot with this challenge and confirmed a lot that I knew. I need to continue learning how to photograph fast flowing water and the relationship between all of the available settings on my camera.

Hummie's new challenge is an ISO ChaIlenge. I don't even know what that means yet!

Please be sure to leave me constructive comments so that I can learn more.

Technorati tags: Hummie's+Photography+Challenge exposure light+metering

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Wildflower from Long Pond

I will update this post with an identification when I get it.
vtpeacenik on Flickr identified this as Turtlehead (Chelone glabra).

Do you know what it is?

Technorati tags: turtlehead Chelone+glabra

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STOKES BIRDING BLOG: Bee Grateful (More Bumble Bee Pollen)

I have used my own photos of bumble bees on common burdock (Arctium minus) to accompany the quotation from the Stokes about bumble bees and their pollen (used with permission).

STOKES BIRDING BLOG: Bee Grateful:

Bumblebees are our only 'social' native bee. They overwinter as fertilized adult females, or queens. These emerge in early spring and start a nest by choosing an existing underground cavity, such as an old chipmunk burrow, collecting pollen into clumps, and laying eggs on the pollen. The pollen and eggs are covered with wax, and the queen sits on them, keeping them warm while they develop. The eggs hatch in four to five days. The larvae feed on the pollen, and in about a week pupate in tough cocoons that they make. During pupation, which lasts about ten days, the queen takes off the wax that is covering them. The emerging adults are sterile females, and they take care of the subsequent broods during the summer. In later summer, the queen lays eggs that develop into fertile females and males. These leave the hive, mate, and the fertilized females overwinter. All other members of the colony die. The next spring the process starts over.

Technorati tags: Bumble+bees Common+burdock Stokes pollen Arctium+minus Bombus+pensylvanicus

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Long Pond, Westmore

Cedar Waxwing

We left for Long Pond in Westmore at 6 AM today in order to view loons. While waiting for the loons, I took these photos. The weather was beautiful, cold and clear. The mists, shadows and reflections were a joy to photograph.

Haystack Mountain

Spotted Joe-Pye Weed

Trail sign for Haystack Mountain

Technorati tags: Haystack+Mountain Long+Pond Westmore Vermont cedar+waxwing Spotted+Joe-Pye+Weed

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Photo Hunters: Creative

A Spinning Globe Made Using GIMP

Learn how to make your own here. I used my photo of a pink musk mallow bloom to make this animated gif. Be sure to e-mail me or leave a comment if you want further instructions! In the morning I will update this post with exact instructions but it is now 3 AM. Happy Photo Hunting!

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Musk Mallow

Malva moschata

Technorati tags: musk+mallow, Malva+moschata, wildflowers, pink

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Wild Chervil (Anthriscus sylvestris)

My original untouched photo

On June 24 I posted a photograph which I tentatively identified as Wild Chervil. I used the book Wildflowers of Vermont, 2nd edition by Kate Carter (2001) and National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Eastern Region (Eastern). I finally settled on my wild chervil identification because of the Carter book which seems to have had an error (see the last photo below).

On July 14 TrinkaVermont left a comment that this was not wild chervil but yarrow. After spending the afternoon reading about these two plants and using a link she supplied, I must agree. I have documented some of the material used for my decision and posted it below.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Yarrow is a wildflower frequently planted in flower gardens. Wild Chervil has two plants by the same common name but two different Latin names. The one we are concerned with in Vermont is Anthriscus sylvestris and it is a dangerous noxious invasive pest. There are statewide programs to eradicate the state of it. We must learn how to identify it. Once identified it must be eradicated properly or we can inadvertently help it spread.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Uploaded with Skitch!

I found two excellent sources of identification and eradication information:

UVM: Invasive Plant Information for Vermont: Identifying Wild Chervil
The Herald of Randolph, VT: Wild Chervil Information Center

Finally, I cannot find TrinkaVermont to thank her for her identification. I have used Google Blog Search, Google search and a Flickr search. If any of you know her, please pass on my thanks.

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