Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Yellow Throated Warbler


I don't mean to be morbid.  Truly, I don't.  But I am so fascinated by dead animals.  You get to study them so closely, in a way you would never be able to alive.  I'm also fascinated by the process of decay.  The opening credits for True Blood?  Possibly the best opening credits ever, thanks in large part to the time-lapse sequence of the dead fox.  This might also explain my love for places like Jazz Land, things like compost, and why I have a dead cicada on my dresser.  

The cycle of life is just incredible to me, and the dark part - the part between death and life - is often neglected, or deemed morbid.  I find it to be as beautiful as the part between life and death.  


These are some photos I took of a yellow throated warbler I found on our back steps.  I don't know how he died (flying into the glass maybe?), but he was right there.  Even in death, he was just too beautiful not to take a few pictures of.   Look how brilliant his yellow feathers are, and how the drops of rain rest delicately on his feathers.  And the most beautiful part?  His body was given back to the earth to sustain new life.  How magical.  

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Quote

"If there is magic in the world, surely this is it: the descendants of tiny creatures in leaves, capable of ingesting the sun." 

-Rob Dunn, "The Glory of Leaves," National Geographic, October 2012.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Silence


My thoughts were with New Orleans this week, but now that I can let out a sigh of relief, I'm so jealous of the power outage.  More than anything I wonder how spectacular the night sky would be right now without the city lights, or just how loud it would sound without the constant hum of electricity.  

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Anatomy of a Mushroom


On my walk this morning I came across this tiny umbrella of a mushroom.  I tried to bend it over so I could look at the underside, forgetting that fungi don't bend the way plants do.  The stem snapped, and I decided that since I had already doomed it, I might as well take it home to photograph.  I have always been fascinated with mushrooms, and getting to study the tiny details of this one was so fun.  



I love the structure of the gills underneath the cap.  It seems so perfect, so engineered.  



For size.

Monday, August 20, 2012