Patricia Temples Photography

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Archive for the category “FLORA AND FAUNA”

24 May 2020

Canada Geese

In 2000, while I was still working as a school social worker, my husband and I owned a 32-acre farm where we spent weekends and summers. It was a beautiful piece of property with two ponds. We inherited a handicapped Canada Goose when we bought the property. Lucky Eddie could not fly because of a damaged wing, but he was the king of the property. He had a pair of Canada Geese friends who lived there with him, and they had young goslings in the spring. I used to sit on the hill above the pond to watch the geese parents training their young. It was fascinating. They had different steps as the goslings were becoming more mature. I even went back to one of my elementary schools and talked about writing a book about how they approached training. It could have been a good book to share with parents who were having a hard time understanding the goal of parenting, which is to produce independent and confident adults. Alas, in those days I was not a photographer, and I don’t have photos of those geese, but I do have recent photos of Canada Geese on the ponds at the golf course where we monitor a 32-box bluebird trail. There are two pairs who have young, one set born sometime earlier than the other. It is fun to see them swimming together, all learning from each other, their parents and aunts and uncles on the pond with them..

Here are some shots I took last week.

**This is the family with the younger offspring. There are six!**

**The family with an older set of seven goslings. It looks as if one gosling has three heads.**

**This day’s lesson was getting in the water. One gosling has already gone in, submerged at this point, and the others are anticipating their jump.**

**Mom doesn’t appreciate advice from the uncle of this group.**

06 Feb 2020

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Trees and their Stories #2

Today I want to share my American Chestnut photos. American Chestnuts are rare today, having almost been decimated by the Chestnut Blight in the early part of the 20th Century. The blight, a fungal disease, was introduced into this country on a Chinese Chestnut tree brought into the Bronx in 1904. By 1906, 98% of the chestnuts in the Bronx were infected.

Over 100 years ago there were 4 billion chestnut trees in the U.S., many of them in the northeastern states. Within 40 years the trees disappeared. The loss of the American Chestnut was devastating to U.S. economy. It was used for building, furniture, fencing, and the nuts were food for wildlife and humans alike.

These photos of an American Chestnut were taken a couple of years ago in Virginia. I was with a member of the American Chestnut Foundation who had learned of the existence of a couple of small American Chestnuts. The trees were small and are being watched carefully members of the ACF.

Last June I visited a friend in Belgium who had a European Chestnut on the property where she and her husband were living. There is a huge difference between what I saw there and what I saw in Virginia. This is a healthy group of three trees with new growth and abundant chestnuts on the ground.

The American Chestnut Foundation is making efforts and great strides to create a blight-resistant tree. Read about this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_chestnut

In Virginia, the Blue Ridge Parkway has split rail fences, many of them of chestnut wood. Old homesteads were built of chestnut logs, and in my own childhood home, there was a room with wormy chestnut paneling, virtually non-existent today. What a loss.

Posted in ADVENTURES, Environment, FLORA AND FAUNA

02 Jul 2017

My Iceland Adventure, Part I

I had the thrill of a lifetime going to Iceland for a thirteen day adventure. The major focus of the trip was a Birding and Landscape Photography Tour. We did so many different things and stayed in such a variety of places that I am having difficulty organizing the trip for this blog. But, I am going to jump in, posting in several stages.

Today I am going to tell you about our first stop, Myvatn (Me-vah’-tin). We spent three nights in this beautiful area, exploring along the river Laxa, Lake Myvatn, and at the geothermal areas near Krafla. The lake is known for its abundance of birds, and thirteen species of ducks nest there. Many of them are migratory. The harlequin duck is the duck everyone wanted to see and photograph, and they didn’t disappoint us. They played on the bank of the river and swam in the bubbles of a small waterfall.
Harlequin ducks

Harlequin Duck

The phalarope is the first bird I photographed in Iceland, and probably the bird I saw the most in every location. Many other birds were on the river and at Lake Myvatn.

Phalarope

Tufted Ducks

Long-tailed Ducks

Merganser

Horned Grebe

Barrow’s Goldeneye

In the photos above, clockwise from top left, are Tufted Ducks, Long-tailed Ducks, a Merganser, a Barrow’s Goldeneye, and a Horned Grebe.

But, of course, I am a landscape photographer, and I had the best opportunities on this trip for beautiful and unusual landscapes. At the river, snow-capped mountains were the backdrop for beautiful farm buildings.

Lake Myvatn was a small lake that we could walk around in about 1.5 hours at a leisurely pace while stopping to photograph. Of course, we met sheep along the way.

Lake scene 1 Lake scene 2

Changing of the Seasons

This morning I went for a walk as I sometimes do on my private road. This time I had my golden retriever Jesse, and a guest dog, Frannie, who belongs to my stepson, along for the adventure. I also took my camera because I had spotted a lot of birds this morning and wanted to capture some of them. On the walk, I didn’t see birds, but I saw leaves. All shapes and colors, some with ice on them, many still showing the colors of fall even though winter appears to be close by. When you are a photographer, it’s good to set a theme for your shooting, then try to find as many different ways to capture it as possible. Today is was LEAVES. I hope you like what I found.

Posted in ADVENTURES, FLORA AND FAUNA

21 Aug 2013

Fun on a Golf Course

I played golf for twenty-five years, and during that time I focused on very few things on the course besides that little white ball below me, the green grass in front of me and the expectation of hitting that spectacular shot. It rarely happened as I hoped, although there were days when I had relative success. But, I gave up the game four years ago, and I haven’t looked back. Now my trips to the golf course are for the purpose of monitoring a bluebird trail, which grew from my involvement in Master Naturalist training and volunteerism. I enjoy my outings even more now because of all the wonderful things that are hiding out there, and I take my camera along almost every week with the expectation of getting that spectacular shot. Here are some I took today that I think gave me relative success on the golf course.

Posted in ADVENTURES, FLORA AND FAUNA and tagged cardinal flower, green heron, pond, spider, vulture, willow | Leave a comment

28 May 2013

Shenandoah National Park

I live about fifteen minutes from an entrance to Shenandoah National Park and sometimes I am engaged in volunteer activities there. Memorial Day was one of those days. After getting the “work” done, I took some photos along the trail on the way back to the car. Enjoy.