The bare-ground stick season ended with a great snowstorm. But those photos will have to wait for the next blog. The highlight of the last month’s photos shown here was a …
Red Fox Visit
Not as exciting as the bobcat featured in my last blog, but it was great to see a very healthy-looking red fox in daylight.
In this short series, the fox appears to be hunting something.
I did not see it catch anything. I was holding as still as possible while still trying to take photos, but it finally noticed me. It looked at me for a few seconds, then bolted.
Perhaps the red foxes will return, use the den near our house again, and raise kits like they did in 2019 and 2020 before neighborhood dogs found the den and caused them to move elsewhere. Those were great times watching and photographing the cute youngsters. If you would like to see those photos, PLEASE CLICK HERE, and a blog with links to other blogs will open in a separate tab.
Walking in Canaan and Lebanon
Can’t really call the few walks I did hikes. The terrain was mostly flat. Two of the three were along the Northern Rail Trail, a great resource for this region.
A friend and I hiked the rail trail west from Potato Road in Canaan. I photographed a building and modified the image to minimize details and emphasize lines, shapes, and colors.
The early part of the walk was along the Indian River seen below.
Later, along the Mascoma River, we paused just below the site of the 1907 train crash that “sent 26 souls to their deaths in the worst train wreck in New Hampshire history.”
Here are six more photos I took at the site and as we walked the NRT.
Our hike into the 900 acre UVLT Bear Pond Natural Area began off Switch Road and immediately crossed the Mascoma River. Here is a photo from the wide wooden bridge across the river. You can see our shadows in the water.
I had been to the Bear Pond Natural Area many times in the summer to photograph Canada Warblers and other species, and in the winter on several snowshoe hikes with the UVLT. I knew the pond was a bit tricky to find, but we had no problem. We carefully stepped through the partly-frozen bog along a minimal trail.
When we reached the edge of the pond we spotted a pair of beavers or otters. They raised out of the water to look at us, even though we were quite far away. This behavior signaled otter rather than beaver. I only had a very short lens with me. I did not expect to see birds so I left a long one behind. But I took some photos anyway. Below is a highly cropped photo of the pair of North American River Otters.
From the pond edge I made a 14-photo panorama. You can see a piece of a canoe that I used with permission many years ago to explore the pond.
We found a few pitcher plants.
I used my body to shade this one from the sun. Most plants show best when not in direct overhead sun.
Here are three photos I took on our walk back to our car.
While getting our car serviced, I took an early morning walk along the Rail Trail in Lebanon. Here are a half dozen photos I took. We had an inch or two of snow the night before.
Lines, Shapes, Patterns, and Textures
Lines and shapes are important compositional elements. Often creating pleasing compositions is aided by not “labelling” the subject but instead looking at it as a collection of lines and shapes rather than what it is. Here is a simple example with four circles and some horizontal lines.
Here are two more examples of straight lines and shapes, triangles and rectangles this time in Etna and Lebanon.
Curved lines are generally quite pleasing, and S-curves especially so. Even ordinary subjects benefit when their S-curves are highlighted. This pair is from Lebanon.
The photo below from Canaan has been modified slightly to minimize detail. It is a collection of mostly rectangles.
The stone wall in this recent photo from Etna forms a leading line to the barn in the background. The plowed field echoes the curve of the wall.
Add a sunstar and snow to the scene and the photo is elevated to the next level. The one below, from late November 2021, was used this year by Mascoma Bank for their holiday card.
Sometimes lines blend into textures and patterns as this tree along the shore of the Mascoma River in Lebanon.
In the Hayes Farm Park in Etna near the Hanover Town Library, there is a huge bolder. The bare young tree in front of it is a counterpoint to the texture of the rock.
Jann and I parked near the Rail Trail in Lebanon for a walk. We were fascinated by the patterns and textures in the ice and frozen mud. Simple things can be interesting if one takes time to look and appreciate what we often just step over and ignore.
Sky
A little color, some dark drama, and a spectacular sun pillar were the sky highlights in the past month. On November 19 there were some nice crepuscular rays over Vermont.
Here is a closer view. The mountain with the ski trails is Ludlow Mountain, a.k.a. Okemo Mountain.
A week later the eastern sky was very colorful at sunrise.
Dark skies can also be interesting, especially when parts of the sky or the ground are light. Here are three from Hanover.
On December 12 there was a dramatic sun pillar over Okemo.
A few minutes later it was joined by crepuscular rays.
December 5 featured a nice sunset over Vermont. The mountain in this photo is Ascutney.
A few minutes later, this was the view toward Okemo (left of center).
We had our first real snow December 16 and 17. Some photos will appear in my next blog.