Vivid Beach

 

 Spring is an awesome time to explore nature, things are waking up, sprouting, and beginning to look their best. And spring days are often surprisingly unsettled too, one minute clouds, the next minute full sun. This was one of those days as we arrived at Mt. Baldy to hike the woods and the beach. The sky was overcast, but there was a bit of optimism looking at the blue sky to the west, and sure enough, as we turned around at our usual halfway point, Kintzele Ditch, the sun came out in full force. 

 Bright sun in the spring often creates great vivid colors, especially against a deep blue sky, and with the newly opened, bright green oak leaves on the trees of the dune. The colors look almost impossibly vivid, yet I actually had to reduce the saturation in post. I never increase the saturation of a photo, and almost never need to decrease it, but the light and optics were almost too perfect on this particular morning.  

A week later, and this sand will begin to fill up with beachgoers ready to bathe in the sun, and splash in the water. An empty beach like this will not be seen again until October, so I really took some time and enjoyed it.

Curious Hummingbird

Hummingbirds are curious creatures I think. I see them frequenting the feeders and flowers of the area, and don't seem all that bothered by people unless they move quickly. I suspect they know they can move faster than us, so there's no reason to fear anything slower than them.

On this evening, I was photographing the setting sun and noticed the hummingbirds flying around, so I couldn't resist trying to capture them on camera. Of course, the situation couldn't be worse - low light, shooting directly into the setting sun, and a silhouetted bird - all of which call for slow shutters speeds, and high ISO which usually ruins images. These were taken with an ISO of 10,000 and a slow shutter speed (for a 600mm lens in low light) of 1/400th of a second.

I hope to capture more of this guy in the weeks to come, but using a fast shutter to stop the 3000 beat per minute wings. With the correct light, and up to a 1/32,000 of a second shutter speed, I should have no problem freezing them, the challenge is getting them in focus.  

While not perfectly happy with these results, they do tell a story of this little guy's curiosity with me and my camera. He would feed for a bit, then fly toward my camera and sit there checking me out, then fly long and high loop-de-loop arcs over me. I have seen this before when other hummingbirds come near, the male often flies in these arcs, I'm not sure if it's intimidation, or something else. 

It is interesting to watch them, and pretty easy as they need to feed every 25 minutes or so, and often frequent the same flowers or feeders. In fact, hummingbirds have been known to visit the same feeders each year, and during migration, they visit the exact same feeder on the exact same day of the year! And many of these hummingbirds fly over a portion of the Gulf of Mexico, not bad for a tiny creature that drinks nectar.

Unrolling

 

 

One of the highlights of spring at the Indiana Dunes National Park, is the progress the emerging ferns make in such a short time. In a shaded area just outside of the wetlands in Cowles Bog, a rather large group of ferns has taken hold and flourished. 

I find myself visiting a few times each spring to see the fiddleheads unrolling, and marveling at the detail of each one. They're all slightly different, but an astonishing feature is that each of the small leaves of the larger frond looks exactly like a miniature version of the frond itself.

They're especially interesting to me when backlit by the morning sun, as the light shines through the translucent leaves.

   

On this particular visit, I spent about three hours photographing these particular fiddleheads. For reference, each one is about the size of a U.S. quarter, and packed with details. I'm not exactly certain how long it takes for the fiddleheads to open up, but I'm sure it's relatively quick. Once open, these ferns will reach a height of six feet! 

Walking through this area in summer reminds me of a trip through the Jurassic period of geologic time. Ferns date back to the Devonian period (about 360 millions years ago), but the current type of fern appeared around the Cretaceous period (145 million years ago). So, they really are a prehistoric life form.

 

Similar to the freezing of Illinois waterfalls, and the icing of Lake Michigan Lighthouses, the unrolling ferns are something that I look forward to each year. Unlike the cold weather-dependent subjects, the ferns are much more reliable, almost to the calendar date each year. 

With the increase in visitors to the Indiana Dunes National Park, and the very limited parking at Cowles Bog, it's getting a bit more difficult to see the ferns, but arriving early and being patient waiting for a spot to open up is worth the effort.