male widow skimmer – Picture Walks

June 18, 2020

I have been on so many picture walks since I last wrote that I’m having a hard time choosing which pictures to post and which ones to cast aside. At this time of year, there are so many beautiful things to photograph that it’s hard to stop taking pictures! The woods and the fields are bursting with new life, and so many colors!! I take hundreds of photos every time I’m out on a walk because almost everything grabs my attention!

**Flowers currently in bloom: Lupine, Lance-leaved Coriopsis, and Clover**

**Blackberry, Clematis and Deptford Pink**

Sometimes, my husband, Mel, and I go on picture walks together. He often shoots with a close-up lens, while I almost always use a 600mm telephoto lens. When we go out together, it’s nice to have a mix of shots—he finding the tiniest of bugs or the finest of detail, and me zooming in on creatures well beyond the tip of my camera. We see the world around us through a different lens—both literally, figuratively!

**Left: Mel’s close-up of a Baltimore Checkerspot Caterpillar, Center: Mel’s close-up of a Canada Thistle Bud Weevil, Right: My shot of a Baltimore Checkerspot Butterfly**

**Mel’s close-up of a female Blue Dasher**

**Left: Male Widow Skimmer Dragonfly, Right: Spatterdock Darner Dragonfly**

**Left: Female Slaty Skimmer, Right: Male Slaty Skimmer**

The pictures here were gleaned from 14 different photo shoots at seven different locations over the course of about two weeks. All these pictures were taken in relatively close proximity to where we live: Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery (10 miles), Western Michigan University’s Business Technology and Research Park (.5 miles), West Lake Nature Preserve (10 miles), Chipman Preserve (14 miles), Pierce Cedar Creek Institute (35 miles), Kalamazoo Nature Center (10 miles) and downtown Kalamazoo for a Peregrine Falcon watch (2 miles). We’re lucky to have so many natural resources so close at hand!

**Two of the juvenile falcons whose nest is on the 13th floor of a bank building in downtown Kalamazoo**

**Left: American Goldfinch, Right: Tree Swallows**

Wherever I take pictures, I tend to walk as slowly and as quietly as possible so that I don’t overlook anything, and so I don’t scare anything away! Surprisingly, even turtles out in a pond, far from where I am walking, will know that I’m coming long before I arrive and slip quietly into the water from wherever they are perched! Bullfrogs, sitting hidden in the grass along the shore, will leap in fright if they know I’m on my way. I’ve been startled out of my skin on more than one occasion as they catapult themselves into the nearby water and let out a loud ‘squawk’! When I do happen upon an animal or an insect that hasn’t noticed my arrival, I feel as if I’ve really accomplished something!

**Left: American Bullfrog, Right: Common Snapping Turtle**

**Snapping Turtle making a run for it as I approached!**

No matter where I go or what I find, my picture walks are making this pandemic bearable. There is comfort in knowing that I have places nearby where the cycle of life quietly ambles on and the birds still find reason to sing.

Tag: male widow skimmer

Reason to Sing