Photohunters: Road

Once again we have a photohunters post that I have too many choices for.

I decided to use some of the shots I took on a road trip in the Virginia mountains.

I took so many shots on that trip that there were many I never used on my blog. Quite a few of them showed the road we were driving on.

Click for the home of photohunters.

Nature Notes: April blues and grays

All of the shots in this post were taken in my yard over the past 7 days.

Although the title mentions gray, the photographs are going to emphasize blue.

We've had stormy days and rain as well as clear blue days but I've taken more photographs on the sunny days. The pecan tree above is starting to show it's leaves.

I forget the name of these little flowers above but I'm always happy to see them return in the spring.

I also enjoy the rosemary blooms in the spring although I grow it to cook with.

The doves are nesting in my garden and they are starting to get pretty wild when I'm in my back yard. This one flew up from it's nest to keep an eye on me.

I love to stand under the dogwood trees and look up at the sky.

This time of year my wild yard has enough blooms to obscure the mess.

I don't know what kind of cherry trees I have because they were all originally volunteers. I have many like the one below that have grown to maturity.

I love the way some of my azaleas are reaching up for the oak limbs.

I guess I'll leave you with one last shot. I seem to have emphasized azaleas and dogwoods but they are putting on quite the show.

Click for the home of nature notes.

Today's Flowers: Lunch break flower shooting

These shots are all ones I took this week during lunch breaks in downtown Durham, NC.

We are in the full fling of spring and more and more flowers are blooming everywhere.

I even spotted one or two roses blooming in the large planting of miniature roses below.

Tulips are blooming all over the place and I love their splash of color.

I like the way individual flowers stand out in plantings where there are more blooms to come later.

I think I'll stop with one last shot.

Click for the home of Today's Flowers.

Photohunters: Trees

I love trees and frequently photograph them so when I saw what the theme was, I decided to place some limitation on what I used.

The first limitation I imposed was to only use photographs of trees I took this week.

The next limitation I imposed on myself was to only use shots I took during my lunch break on the days I commuted to work in Durham, NC.

Even with those limitations there were a lot of photographs to choose from.

I often think of downtown areas as being places where trees are eliminated for buildings.

It is certainly true that forests have the most trees and residential areas tend to have more trees than are left for the downtown business areas of cities.

However, once I started taking shots in the city with the idea of focusing on trees, I was pleased by how many there were.

In some ways trees are as important in densely populated areas as they are almost anywhere.

Without trees in cities you truly end up with a concrete jungle.

Trees have a way of softening the lines of buildings and giving the landscape a living feeling which it otherwise might not have.

This time of the year some trees are still bare, some are green and some have flowers.

I like the variety of spring trees in its many stages.

Click for the home of photohunters.

Nature Notes: First Nature Walk of April

Update: I accidentally put the photographs in at the large size I use on my other blog. That blog doesn't have a side bar of links but instead has archive links etc at the bottom of the page. After realizing my mistake on this one, I decided this time I'd leave it partly because I don't have time right now to fix it. Also, it's kind of nice to have the photos in a larger format although irritating to have the side bar floating over the top.

Sunday was a beautiful day for a walk. Everything seemed to be bursting into life.

It's nice to see the new shoots of green bursting out.

The Canadian geese must have seen something they liked in the dirt but I was surprised they weren't wading in the grasses as they often do.

I was surprised by how many gulls I saw. When I walked at Shelley Lake in March most of them had left but they seem to have come back at least for a bit.

Most of the gulls leave in the spring and don't come back until the fall.

I'm used to mostly seeing geese, duck and heron at the lake in the warmer months.

We had a lot of wind on Saturday and I wonder if the tree was knocked down then.

I love this time of year when there is still a mix of browns and greens and new buds.

More and more of the dogwoods are blooming and they brighten up the trails and neighborhood alike.

I heard some noisy geese in the sheltered areas around the lake and expect they are nesting.

In terms of the water, there were more gulls flying around than anything which is the opposite of a walk I took a few weeks ago.

I spotted some ducks hidden in the area below but couldn't get a clean shot of them.

It was fun trying to catch the gulls in action shots as they were definitely active.

The wisteria is starting to bloom and it covers many of the trees.

The light was great for reflections but hard to catch them perfectly when the gull is moving.

Amazing to me how fast the grasses on the dam grow after a winter of brown.

Click for the home of nature notes.