Moby peck

The big raucous pileated woodpeckers in our corner of the Ouachita Mountains have been the Moby Dick to my Ahab-ic photographic ambitions. For years, I’ve tried to capture a decent photo, but they’ve proven elusive, skittish and pretty good at hiding for something so large and loudly colored. But finally, FINALLY, one very vocal female lit in a tree this morning, not far from our living room window. And there she is.

All y’all, it’s fall!

Fall has definitely made its presence known here in the Arkansas Ouachitas!

DOGWOOD — Dogwood leaf’s red glows more intensely as the morning light hits it.

CONTRAST — Color contrasts against the autumn sky.

GOLD — Hickories light up the forest with their yellow leaves.

COLOR – Fall color spreads through the valley.

FALL VISTA — Fall is ramping up to its peak here in the Arkansas Ouachitas.

Gotcha!

Butterflies and dragonflies in flight can be mesmerizing.  However, their erratic flight styles can drive you crazy when trying to capture them in pixels, whether panning with a real viewfinder or even worse, trying to pan using a digital viewfinder and its fraction-of-a-second lag (and no drive or burst function).

Well, a little spray and pray with the shutter yielded my favorite shot of the morning as this red-spotted purple moved through the canopy of the valley forest.

TAKING FLIGHT – Red-spotted purple flits among trees in the valley forest.

Faded glory

White wildflower holding its head up after a heavy rain and after the peak of its blooming.

STILL BEAUTIFUL – Even in its final days.

Dogwoods

Spring has finally loosed all its charms here in the Arkansas Ouachitas. Even the dogwoods have caught up — blooming just in time for Easter.

REACHING FOR THE SUN– Dogwoods popping open o n a beautiful spring day.

THREE BLOOMS — Wild dogwoods dot the Ouachita Mountains, with sprinkles of white in the understory.

Songs in black and white

Black and white warbler singing his songs in the Arkansas Ouachitas this morning.

Black and white warbler sits in a pine tree branch. Taken April 4, 2015.

The stark beauty of a foggy winter’s day

For most of the last week, winter has cast a foggy, rainy spell over our part of the Arkansas Ouachitas. This is how nature makes her own monochromes.

The fog-shrouded silhouettes of pines, oaks and hickories describe the angle of descent to the south valley.

 

Bared of its leaves, except for a few tatters, this blackjack oak looks almost prickly.

Birdstorm

The ghost of Alfred Hitchcock must’ve been passing through the morning of Dec. 6. The noise of this many birds swirling from tree to tree is hard to describe, and while it wasn’t deafening, it was somewhat unnerving. The birdstorm came and went in just a few minutes.

RISING — Almost as one, this raucous flock of thousands of birds lit in a row of trees, then lifted away.

SWEEPING THROUGH — Thousands of birds swirled around the house before heading west.

Moss in the road

Sometimes, just because you can, you should.

MOSS IN THE ROAD — Green moss grows down a crevice in the concrete.

Coral fungus

Another surprise brought by the rainy and coolish summer — coral fungus. This was one we’d not seen before in the neighborhood.