Nature Notes: Up down and all around

Looking through my nature shots for the past seven days I noticed I was pointing my camera in a lot of directions.

I spend a lot of time looking up at the sky and trees.

The quality of the light this time of the year is very beautiful.

In addition to looking up, I was looking down quite a bit.

In the case of the feather below I spotted it in the air but it landed before I got the shot.

I tend to get my best sunset shots when there are clouds.

There have only been a few times of the day when we haven't had a lot of clouds.

I like pine cones and soon they will be falling to the ground.

The catbirds spend a lot of time hidden in my deck vines eating berries but I caught a recent shot of one bathing.

I like furry looking seeds.

We've been having great temperatures. Chilly at night and warming up to a pleasant day time temperature.

I don't like hot weather so I always look forward to the fall.

I think the male cardinal looks like he's talking.

This summer was much better temperature wise than most years. It never got super hot.

The mourning dove above is almost the same color as my deck.

The female cardinal above was enjoying a bath.

The male cardinal above was turning up his nose at me.

I love textured clouds.

Almost every day I notice more trees beginning to change colors.

I enjoy tall plumes on grass.

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Today's Flowers and Weekend Flowers: September ending

At the end of the summer and during early fall, chrysanthemums show up at grocery stores for sale.

I photographed these outside the Food Lion this week.

I'm continuing to photograph my hydrangea blossoms as they slowly change and die.

I like the many phases they go through as I've mentioned many times.

Soon they'll all be completely brown and shriveled until the new blossoms form in the spring.

Click for Today's Flowers and here for Weekend Flowers.

Photohunters: A global shot from my hip

The only way I could think of to combine the two photohunter themes (global and a shot from your hip) was to take a picture of my globe with my camera on my hip. Believe me that's easier said than done. My living room has textiles, a screen and furniture from different parts of the world that added to the global part. I had to take a bunch of shots from my hip to get it to work and ended up with a cramp.

Click here for the shot from your hip photohunt and here from the global photohunt.

Nature Notes: Cooling down and daily changes

It's beginning to cool down a lot and feels more and more like fall.

There aren't many trees that have fall colors.

Every time I see autumn leaves I'm photographing them because the novelty hasn't worn out yet.

We won't reach peak colors for quite a while.

I always like to see seeds this time of the year.

Seeds and berries are as much of a welcome part of fall for me as the colorful leaves are.

It interests me how some trees change colors almost a month ahead of other trees in the same location.

We've had a few sunny days for a change.

We've also had some hard rains.

 My yard is such a jungle at this point I'm going to try to do fall cleanup this year.

The porcelain vines (shown below) are very invasive and have popped up everywhere. I planted them to grow on my deck wall with other vines, not realizing how prolific they were.

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Today's Flowers and Weekend Flowers: late flowers and going to seed

I love flowers at all of their stages.

There's something beautiful to me about flowers that have gone to seed. They provide food for the birds and the promise of new flowers for the next summer.

There are still a few roses in bloom.

The first first four shots were taken at Grace Garden in a Durham, NC park.

The rest of the shots were taken in my yard and driveway.

The rose of sharon (Hybiscus syriacus) above was wet from the rain. The fairy asters are late bloomers in my backyard.

The last shot is of fairy asters growing through the cracks in my driveway.

Click here for Today's Flowers and here for Weekend Flowers.