Monday in Nature Weekly Photo Nov. 17, 2014

[GlennS]

<p>Went out early on a foggy morning and found these Hooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) doing their mating ritual. It involved the males doing power swimming in circles while extending their necks. The females did their best to look uninterested.<br>

Location southern Vancouver island. D800e 70-300 @ 300mm</p>

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[Laura Weishaupt]

<p>Colin, have you compared with H. sublateritium if on braodleaf wood or H. capnoides if on conifer? There are scattered fibrils on the caps, especially noticeable on the center cluster. Many of these have a pretty darker orangey cinnamony color, and a lighter edge on the cap. It may be the way color is showing here also. It is a pretty shot and a nice find in the forest.</p>

<p>I'm quite envious of the fungi today. The offerings around here lately have been unremarkable.</p>

[User_6502147]

<p>"Morning has broken........."</p><div></div>

[jordan2240]

<p>Would have liked to present a sunrise shot in keeping with Laura's intro, but decided to go with the 'fading fall colors' theme instead since I have one from last week. Lovely shots as usual. I'll never look at fungi the same again after spending time in this forum.</p><div></div>

[MarcelRomviel]

<p>Sunrise from the traffic jam I was in this morning;</p><div></div>

[Gup]

<p>I see about 3 or 4 dawns a year and each time I promise myself to try harder to go to bed earlier! On the other hand, I spend countless hours each year gazing skyward at the infinite starscape I'm blessed with here. It can be just mesmerizing some nights. I often fall asleep on my back on the rocks behind my home counting shooting stars, my dog curled up beside me.<br>

Today we are literally snowed in, as in the plow hasn't arrived and isn't likely to and my camera hasn't moved for a few days. I have a dawnscape to share that I took last February, though, from a hotel window.</p><div></div>

[RickDB]

<p>Sunrise over the Serengeti - made it worth getting out of bed at 3:40am! 7D + EF 70-200mm f/4L IS at 138mm; 1/30s at f/5.6 ISO 400.</p><div></div>

[Mary Doo]

<p>This was shot sometime ago. I staked out the composition the day prior and went out before dawn the next morning with a flashlight. The thing I could not quite predict was where exactly the sun would appear. So I had to make some adjustment with the composition when it happened.</p><div></div>

[SteveH]

<p>Wood ducks arrive in southern Oregon about this time. This guy is in Lithia Park in Ashland, OR. The fall colors reflected in the pond make a pretty good counterpoint.</p>

[SteveH]

<p>Oops, here's the duck</p><div></div>

[Laura Weishaupt]

<p>Rick, Mary, that's what getting up is all about. Spectacular images.</p>

[roman_p]

<p id="docs-internal-guid-a21bc054-c0de-b6c6-f611-226a39be97de" dir="ltr">Sunrise over Brant Lake, Adirondacks, NY.</p><div></div>

[Mark Keefer]

<p>Acadia, Me.</p><div></div>

[thadley]

<p><img src="/photo/17899612" alt="" />Mine was taken in a Zoo in Anchorage Alaska. I think this a South American alpaca. D70, nikkor 70-300mm f7.1 at 1/800s.</p><div></div>

[colin carron]

<p>Laura, you may well be right about the H. sublateritium suggestion. They were in a UK broadleaf forest and fairly small, maybe 3cm max. My own fungal knowledge is sketchy but I contribute photos to a monthly nature diary for this forest and will run the shot past the chief diarist who is a complete forest enthusiast.</p>

[johnfarrar]

<p>Gordon B, Mary Doo - spectacular!</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Nice image, Mary. I have been to Monument Valley once. We arrived late in the day in a December afternoon. The light was dimming but the valley looked beautiful. Little did I know that when I woke up the next morning, it was completely overcast with poor light quality. We left without taking one picture.</p>

[Mary Doo]

<p>Thanks. Sorry to hear about the lost opportunity Shun - just about anything photographic in Monument Valley is so dependent on good light and shadows.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Photography in general but nature photography in particular is all about lighting. You win some and you lose some.</p>

<p>That trip to Arizona and Utah was in December 2001, a few months after September 11 so that there were very few tourists. However, the following year I had better luck in Australia. The following image is from the archives: sunrise at the Kakadu National Park in Northern Territory. I still recall that I watched the one-year anniversary ceremony of Sept 11 on TV in Australia, and my flight to Sydney was like 10% full.</p><div></div>

[RickDB]

<p>"<em>Photography in general but nature photography in particular is all about lighting. You win some and you lose some</em>."<br>

So right Shun! My dawn over the Serengeti was beautiful and seemed like a good omen - but once airborne in a hot air balloon the sun rose above the cloud layer and the light was diffuse and there were no long shadows. I hardly took any worthwhile shots. In the words of Chas Glatzer "Light illuminates, shadow defines".</p>