Welcome Spring! After a strange winter, spring has arrived. I covered the first two months of winter in a previous blog post. Here I review the last month of winter.
Sky
I would advise photo students to “eliminate the sky”. When the sky is featureless, often photos are improved by framing to eliminate it completely. But there are times when the sky is the subject, or at least an important part of the image. Here are some examples from the last month.
As I approached Lyme the first day of March, I noticed a slight fog. So I stopped short of the village itself to take a few photos. I found this tree fascinating. I did not notice the faint sun dog to the left of the tree when I took the photo.
When there is fog, and even when there is none, I sometimes like to put the sun in the photo. Again, I did not notice the sun dog above the cupola of the barn when I took this photo.
But I certainly saw the sun dog when I entered the village.
I managed to get a few photos with the Lyme Congregational Church before the sun dog faded.
Everyone loves a nice sunrise. A great local spot for them is in Enfield. Here is a very recent photo from Mascoma Lakeside Park.
Crossing the Shaker Bridge to the boat launch site, I made a nine-image panorama a few minutes before sunrise.
A few minutes later from almost the same spot, I photographed Mount Cardigan just a bit to the right of center in this photo. The lower peak to its left is Firescrew Mountain, a wonderful spot with a cotton grass marsh very near the summit.
I backed up to the intersection with Route 4A and took this uncropped photo of Mount Cardigan with a long lens.
Below is a sunset from Hanover taken from a similar spot and at about the same time as the first photo on this blog.
Sometimes the moon can imitate the sun in a photo. The photo below shows the moon with slightly iridescent clouds at 4:15am March 7. The moon appears full, and in fact it was. An overexposed partial moon can look full in a photo.
Trescott Ridge Wetlands Area
Adair Mulligan and Gale McPeek led a Hanover Conservancy “Hayes Farm Park Winter Ramble” on March 12. This nature hike started at the Etna Library, passed through the King Bird Sanctuary, and dropped down to the Trescott Ridge Wetlands Area. Here we are climbing through the Hayes Farm Park with the library in the background.
Down in the beautiful hemlock grove in the wetlands, we stopped to hear about the trees and the area.
This wetlands is home to a prime red maple black ash swamp. You can see photos of the swamp in spring after the snow has melted if you CLICK HERE.
The photo below is a six-image panorama taken with the widest lens of an iPhone camera and hence it has a lot of distortion. But it is fun to look out and up at the same time.
We hiked the Audrey McCollum Trail to Woodcock Lane. Below we are returning through Hayes Farm Park between two stone walls that likely guided sheep many years ago when there were many more sheep than people in Hanover.
The glacial erratic on the right, not far from the library parking area, guards the entrance to a wonderful area with many birds and filled with crabapple trees that are glorious in mid-May.
Birds
I photographed a large flock of Bohemian Waxwings in Newport, NH during this last month of winter. Here I show photos of other birds taken during this last month.
Areas around the plazas in West Lebanon can be surprisingly good for birds. Here is a Northern Mockingbird I saw near the LaValley store.
And a few days ago, a Red-winged Blackbird near Cranberry Pond behind Walmart. If you look closely your can see its breath — the whitish condensation from the morning cold expelled from its mouth as it called, kon-ka-reeeee.
Another RWBB also singing near the electric car chargers by Price Chopper.
At the Hanover Town Library, aka the Etna Library, I photographed a Northern Cardinal. We live only 2 miles from the library, but we have never seen one in our yard. We are quite a bit uphill from the library so perhaps cardinals don’t like to fly that high.
We have a resident pair of Mourning Doves. They are occasionally joined by half a dozen others, but most of the time there are just the pair hanging around. Here are a few photos.
A pair of Snow Buntings briefly visited our yard mid-March. They perched high in a tree before departing.
We continue to enjoy our resident Tufted Titmice — such cute and beautiful birds with a monotonous song.
A Barred Owl paid us a visit several times.
Wandering around the Upper Valley, I found a Bald Eagle to photograph.
In Lyme I photographed another Red-winged Blackbird…
… and a European Starling, actually a striking bird though an introduced species.
Finally an Eastern Bluebird photographed through our livingroom window.
Odds and Ends
We stopped at the Etna Library during a snowstorm. A woman was walking her three dogs in the Hayes Farm Park.
And a pair of mountains across snow-covered lakes: Mount Kearsarge beyond Lake Sunapee …
… and Mount Cardigan across Lake Mascoma.
Here are nine more photos from Lyme, Orford, Thetford, and Etna.
We eagerly await Spring, a wonderful season of rebirth — trees in many shades of green, emerging flowers, and returning birds.