Reflection

A very quiet place and very still water. This is a stream, and we haven't had rain in a few days, so it's a little low and not running very fast. Perfect for a still-life portrait.

And reflection.

Fallen tree

Judging by the amount of moss on the underside of this tree, it's been on its side for a long, long time. But it hasn't given up - all along its length, new sprouts are rising up, reaching out and growing.

Skunk cabbage and violets

Was there ever a more unexpected combination? Growing in and among the skunk cabbages are these beautiful, delicate violets. More than that, these are white violets, not the typical dark blue violets we see so many of.

The violets have such a delicate fragrance and the skunk cabbages... well, don't break one and you won't have to learn about their smell!

This scene looks like a terrarium to me. It was an overcast day. The tree branches are just beginning to bud, and the light is filtered perfectly, evenly, wonderfully down to the forest floor.

This is on the bank of the Cowhorn Creek, literally in the middle of the city. This spot is no more than 4 blocks from the busiest streets in Schenectady. Well, assuming you climbed the hundred feet or so out of the valley. But there's almost no traffic noise down here, it's easy to completely forget that I'm in the city at all, and imagine I'm in a primeval forest.

I haven't figured out how to get good photos of the birds down here yet, so that's why there haven't been any. Photos, that is. Birds there are aplenty. I saw 2 species of woodpecker, robins, cardinals, several varieties of finches I couldn't name, chickadees, nuthatches, sparrows, mallard ducks and wood ducks. No Canada geese though - they've found better feeding grounds by now.

Purple Trillium

This is a purple Trillium. I looked it up, and found out it's also called wake-robin. I didn't know that. I tried to capture a fairly representative image of the entire plant in situ rather than do my typical macro image.

This is a cluster of trillium plants growing on a hillside a few feet off the path in Vale Park. It would be easy to walk past these and never notice them, which is probably good for them since picking them can damage the plant to the point where they can die (I didn't know that either.)

This spot is quite shady, with a full canopy overhead (well, it will be full when the leaves all come in!) and well drained. I wonder if the leaf litter helps protect them from the winter's chill?

Flowering crab apple

I miss all the flowers, so I've been like a madman taking their portrait everywhere I see them. These are ornamental crab apples of some kind. I tried to look them up, but there are too many for me to make sense of which is which!

These are definitely apples though, because they smell wonderful.

Strawberries and violets

The vegetable garden has started flowering! Are strawberries considered a vegetable? I don't know, but they come back year after year, like the violets, and like the violets, they're in bloom!

Nature is wonderful - all this beauty in just a few feet of soil in the middle of the city.

Theme day - Shadows

It's the first of the month, and that means that it is Theme Day for people in the City Daily Photo community. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

This is me, standing on the remains of the old fortification on the Mohawk River in the Stockade district. The stone blocks I'm standing on used to be the basis of a fort protecting the river. Fort might be too generous here - gun emplacement might be more accurate. Anyway, there is a similar stone setting across the river and a long chain was stretched between them in order to block passage of hostile boats. I'm not sure how many hostile boats there were back then, or how many times those guns were used, but today, this spot is a fine place to watch the river.

This particular photo was taken just after the last ice moved down the river. There is so much silt in the river from all the melting snow that it almost looks like soil! Sometimes, when the ice jams up on the bridges downstream, the spot where I'm standing is covered by the swollen river. Thankfully, no problems this year.