Monday in Nature, September 11, 2017

Basic Guidelines: In the strictest sense, nature photography should not include "hand of man elements". Please refrain from images with buildings or human made structures like roads, fences, walls. Pets are not permitted. Captive subjects in zoos, arboretums, or aquariums are permitted, but must be declared, and must focus on the subject, not the captivity. Images with obvious human made elements will likely be deleted from the thread, with an explanation to the photographer. Guidelines are based on PSA rules governing Nature photography which also cover the Nature Forum. Keep your image at/under 1000 pixels on the long axis for in-line viewing. Note that this includes photos hosted off-site at Flicker, Photobucket, your own site, etc Are you new to this thread? We post one image per week.

The calendar says September 11. It has been 16 years since the attack in 2001.

 

American white pelican taking off after feeding

 

American White Pelican landing at White Rock Lake in Dallas.

I don't know why photonet "nature" has so much mushrooms in it, but here is my contribution.

Last week I posted a photo of reddish puddle at Cullinan Ranch wetlands salt marsh, one of the forms of Archaea, a microbe which is one of the oldest life forms on earth. This photo is another form of Archaea after it had dried out slowly over a period of several months. Each little knob is millions and millions of tiny cells piled on top of each other. The salt spikes are Archaea's way of maintaining optimum saline levels within the cells, pumping excess salt outside the cells. The forms were readily visible through by the naked eye and, I suspect, unusual in that it flourished to such an extent. The entire area was bulldozed in the name of "restoration" in Sept 2016.

 

It took a microbiologist to ID the Archaea, nobody else could figure out what it was.

 

"Marsh, Mud, and Microbes" is an exhibit of my wetlands photos, including the Archaea, being presented at the Benicia Public Library, Sept 12-Oct 17, 2017. A presentation by Dr. Wayne Lanier, the microbiologist, is included in the exhibit. A reception will be held next Saturday, Sept 16, 2:30-5. It will be more of a meet-the-artist kind of thing than a real reception but Wayne and I will be there. I'd love to meet Bay Area photographers. If you can't make it to the reception, perhaps we could arrange to meet at the library some other time. The exhibit is free and open to the public. The library is located at 150 East L Street in Benicia. CA. Check library hours before you go, Home | Benicia Public Library

Harbor Seal

Not much going on here, and today's nature shot is purely for the nature and not the photography. On a recent trip to Iceland and its environs our ship came upon a pod of killer whales, and of course we all went out to photograph them. And while killer whales don't usually flip up their flukes, one did, and I caught it. The resulting photograph is a drastic crop, but I thought it interesting enough, and it seems that killer whale flukes are quite pretty in their own right. So, a common enough pose for many whales, a bit less so for an orca:

Marah oreganus (aka coastal manroot, western wild cucumber). I can't stop taking pictures of these tendrils...

 

So the crocodile exclaimed in excitement, "My, what beautiful eyelashes you have!"

"Marsh, Mud, and Microbes" is an exhibit of my wetlands photos, including the Archaea, being presented at the Benicia Public Library, Sept 12-Oct 17, 2017.

 

Sally, you are the expert. Enjoy! :)

Southern Illinois Geese (formerly known as Canada Geese)

[ATTACH=full]1208734[/ATTACH]

year-round, now naturalized

JDM , we can send more of them from Canada, looks like they love Toronto, they had stop winter migrating to south at all. They adjusted to city life, flying in to High Park around 9 A.M. , flying out around 4 P.M., full business day picking up grass and bread crumbs from under snow.

Edited September 12, 2017 by ShunCheung

You can never have too many mushroom photos.

I don't know why photonet "nature" has so much mushrooms in it, but here is my contribution

 

Well, because nature everywhere has so many fungi to offer. Only bacteria occupy more ecological niches than fungi.....and some eat bacteria. Lot's of folks here know a lot about fungi. Many others notice fungi more often now because of this forum, and all the fungi here. There is always a fungus amongus.

 

More fungi for all. On a recent outing I told my husband that I wanted to find Boletus hortonii. In almost 30 years of looking at fungi I've only found it on a single slope in a nearby park. The day of the outing I found one, on that slope. It's beautiful and distinctive with the highly textured cap.

 

 

 

Boletus hortonii cap details, Canon XSi, Canon ef-s 60mm f2.8

Marah oreganus (aka coastal manroot, western wild cucumber). I can't stop taking pictures of these tendrils...

I can see why!

Popham beach, Maine

 

Well, because nature everywhere has so many fungi to offer. Only bacteria occupy more ecological niches than fungi.....and some eat bacteria. Lot's of folks here know a lot about fungi. Many others notice fungi more often now because of this forum, and all the fungi here. There is always a fungus amongus.

 

More fungi for all. On a recent outing I told my husband that I wanted to find Boletus hortonii. In almost 30 years of looking at fungi I've only found it on a single slope in a nearby park. The day of the outing I found one, on that slope. It's beautiful and distinctive with the highly textured cap.

 

Laura, I know MiN allows one photo per photographer but I'd like to see a less detailed shot of this mushroom, if you have any. The cap detail is so intriguing, I can't imagine what the whole thing looks like. Maybe in another thread?

Sally,

The entire cap has that wonderfully corrugated, velvety texture with creamy reddish tones. The stipe is mundane. The one I found had been eaten on one side so it wasn't suitable for a larger view.

Sally,

The entire cap has that wonderfully corrugated, velvety texture with creamy reddish tones. The stipe is mundane. The one I found had been eaten on one side so it wasn't suitable for a larger view.

 

Thanks, Laura. Amazing stuff, fungus!

"Amazing stuff, fungus!" till it gets in your lens.

A flower to compensate for the fungy. ;)

 

"Amazing stuff, fungus!" till it gets in your lens

 

It's still amazing. Think about the environment inside a lens. It's not particularly inviting, yet fungi manage to make a living. Of course it's no fun from a photography POV, unless you're going to photograph it. I've lost a lens to fungi and agree with you. It's no picnic, but being the fungaloid that I am, I can't help but marvel at it.

 

Marcel, no need to compensate, but it is a wonderful companion.

Edited September 13, 2017 by tom_kessler