Monday in Nature Weekly Photo May 19, 2014

[Laura Weishaupt]

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<p ><strong >Basic Guidelines</strong>: Nature based subject matter. Please, declare captive subjects. Keep your image at/under 700 pixels on the long axis for in-line viewing and try to keep file size under 300kb. Note that this includes photos hosted off-site at Flicker, Photobucket, your own site, etc. Do you have a series of great shots to compliment your post? Please, tell us where they are so we can see them.</p>

<p ><em >In the strictest sense, nature photography should not include hand of man elements. Try to minimize man made features, keep the focus on nature, and let common sense be your guide. <strong >Let's make this a true Photo of the Week and only post 1 image per week.</strong></em></p>

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<p>“The cure for anything is salt water - tears, sweat, or the sea.” Denison<br>

"Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all." Mandela<br>

"Salt is the only rock we eat." Kurlanski<br>

"Below the Salt" Steeleye Span<br>

"O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt, Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!" Shakespeare</p>

<p>We are bound to nature. We need water to drink. We need arable land for crops. We need the Sun for life itself. We need sodium and we get it in the form of salt. We need it for everything from balancing electrolytes to treating icy roads to curing bacon. Our requirement for sodium has seasoned our relationship with nature throughout history. It has been mined, extracted from seaweed, evaporated from sea water in many a fashion. Salt is essential to almost every method of food preservation Salt has been as important to international trade as oil is today.</p>

<p>References to salt permeate culture and sprinkle down to our personal lives. Are your worth your salt? Maybe you're a salty dog. Funny that a salt cellar is a little bowl with a tiny spoon. Are you watching your salt? Do you long to smell and feel the salt air? We take our cameras to inland and coastal seas. We visit salt marshes to photograph birds, bugs, and fish. Estuaries, bays, and tidewater up river are salty environments that capture our imaginations as we protect our gear from the salt air and sand. My opener this week is a macro shot of halite crystals. During a trip to California in 2005 I collected some beach water at Santa Cruz. The water evaporated over the years and the small crystals were left in the sand. <em>On a personal note, thanks again for all the well wishes last week. Nature is full of beauty, then there are the viruses that plant us on the couch.</em></p>

<p>It's Monday in Nature. Pssst.........pass the salt, or do you like your chips salt free?.</p><div></div>

[jordan2240]

<p>Having a blast with the new 'bridge' camera, and came across this shot on a recent walk with my wife. A little salt, and you might have some good eatin' ;) (though I've never personally tried frogs legs).</p><div></div>

[mbkissel]

<p>Very cool macro, Laura. </p><div></div>

[User_2019667]

<p>Lunch counter for chipmunks and squirrels. Black walnut shells cleaned out by the toothy critters. </p><div></div>

[bob-c]

<p>A flower of some type.</p><div></div>

[Rick Bortnick]

<p>Robert - The flower is a Fuschia<br>

Drops of water on a leaf<em><br /></em></p><div></div>

[Bill J Boyd]

<p>Deer in my backyard. This was shot from my patio. </p><div></div>

[nicolaiecostel]

<p>Hi, my contribution this week is a shot of a mandarin duck spreading its wings on the banks of the Bega river, in Romania. What makes it special is that normaly mandarin ducks do not live freely in this area, so I was lucky to be there and shoot it.</p><div></div>

[sgust]

<p>I've never seen salt form such nice crystals, pretty neat. And nice shot of the green heron, they never seem to let me get close enough to get a good picture.<br>

A Barred Antshrike<br>

<a href="http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/336036004"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/I40S8h3cAS8xtuDkA31O_L0_xHNvOaqzMjDO_hGk1c_7r31lNty9iYwFfL2UuJBmMG3R0pCJ_XYVzs-jY1M=s580" alt="" width="580" height="326" /></a></p>

[gordonjb]

<p>A toad calling for a mate. Photographed last week on the shore of my pond. The pond edge now has many strands of toad eggs mixed into the submerged reeds and grasses .</p><div></div>

[didereaux]

<p>Coyote habitat<br>

T2i 100-400 IS L 1/250 F/6 ISO 160<br>

<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xft2xlP0Rtg/U3ZjZF_wN0I/AAAAAAAACvs/qQrIS_ihxUA/s640/IMG_0338%2520adj%2520corr.JPG" alt="" width="640" height="510" /></p>

[Andy Murphy]

<p>Magnolia after it blooms</p><div></div>

[kts]

<p>nice one Jake.....we have a lot of coyote's in the parks around here but i've yet to get a decent shot of one</p>

<p>we also have a lot of these green turd machines</p><div></div>

[elizabeth_skendzic]

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17768280-md.jpg" alt="" width="661" height="680" /><br /> Fascinated by feathers! A visit to Florida gave me a chance to see nesting flamingos.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Flowers</p><div></div>

[paul_de_ley]

<p>I'll be geologically flippant here and pretend that lava is very overdone salt. And sometimes it comes with toppings, in this case a zebratailed lizard showing off his team colors!</p>

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[srspeck]

<p>Spring has been very wet here in North Florida. In normal years, this area isn't a swamp.</p><div></div>

[bob-c]

<p>Thanks Rick, I knew someone would bail me out.</p>

[johnfarrar]

<p>Gordon B - beautiful.<br>

So here's some salt, crystallised onto a wave-cut slab of Torridonian sandstone on a shore in north-west Scotland. </p><div></div>

[JDMvW]

<p>Missouri Botanical Garden - Japanese Garden- Saturday</p>

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[gordonjb]

<p>Paul, what a beautiful lizard.</p>

 

[bing_huey1]

<p>Good Monday. Fine images. Seen last week, this is one of the fairy moths of genus Adela, foraging on cow parsnip. I do not know the species.</p>

[bing_huey1]

<p>Sorry. Here it is again.</p><div></div>

[robert100]

must be the week the lizards come out, first one of these i've ever seen on the island, yesterday morning

while i was on brief business with some folks on triangle mountain<div></div>

[DawsonPointers]

<p>Greetings from the depths of northern Ontario.<br>

The ice finally left the lake last weekend. Guess summer's here!<br>

Gordon, great shot of the toad. It is nice to see them whole and alive. They are suicidal here; just like chipmunks on the roadways. Despite my best efforts, I cannot keep them from entering the pump on my pond. I have not yet found the balance between keeping the toads out and allowing the water, leaves, detritus, etc. through. I'll have to keep my needle-nose pliers handy to pull the remaining toad bits out of the pump through the toad breeding season. The joys of spring while learning toad anatomy.<br>

Here's some sphagnum moss (and a dog hair) creeping up a rock on our pond. </p><div></div>