I love to take pictures. Maybe you’ve noticed.
Sometimes, I find that I see more in the picture than I noticed when I was on the ground, squinting against the sun. Sometimes, I find that what the still photo doesn’t capture is integral to what I saw or experienced.
This video is the result of thinking about that in the context of a short drive in the country a week ago.
I am a one-kid illustration for glump.
glump: to look glum: FROWN
Sitting at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the half of our storey-and-a-half house in Edmonton, my head hangs, my shoulders slump. Can you blame me for glumping? I’ve just had terrible news: to wit, the wrong answer to my question.
Are they coming home today?
Sometimes, there’s no rhyme or reason to the images I like: no pattern to play with, no story to tell. Sometimes, there’s just some fun. (Well, for me at least.) This is one of those times.
Blue shadow feet! Oh. No, that’s me that’s blue, not the shadow.
Look up (left). Look waaay up (right).
Reflections, like chocolate, are never wrong. Never.
Even an interstate rest stop can be beautiful.
Sunset Seen Through the Back Side-window of a Car Driving Through a Light-industrial Area (Titles are de rigeur on modern art, no? Also thinking of going with A Power Line Runs Through It.)
Aaah. The first entry for my to-do (i.e. to-play-with-again) list for next year.
They stand in clumps; they stand alone.
They flaunt themselves beside the Interstate; they lurk in the underbrush on distant hills.
They flower as full trees; they flower as bushes; they flower as single twigs stuck in the ground.
They clearly grow best in full sun; they obviously grow best in the shade.
In a 30-mile-or-so-square around Winchester VA, they grow *everywhere*. And they just happened to be at the peak of their blooming as we drove by last week.
There’s a poem in here somewhere, but a collage is faster. Here’s a summary of 1/100th of what we saw, just from the Interstate.
And here’s the thing: We were not in Oklahoma. So what, you ask. So this, I respond: The redbud is the state tree of Oklahoma. Methinks they should have more redbud than Virginia, which is hard to imagine.
And here’s the other thing: They grow in hardiness zones 4 through 9. Where’s that, you ask. Everywhere in America, I respond.
And here’s the last thing: They’re Canadian. Yes, the American Redbud is actually Cercis canadensis. In Canada, they’re native only to Pelee Island (our southernmost point, roughly the same latitude as Northern California), but they grow elsewhere with some care, and you can buy one from these helpful folks.
What? Are you still here? Don’t let the Americans have all the fun. Get out and plant your very own redbud today.
My last 2023 visit to Huntington Beach State Park last week was much like all the others, this year and other years: Wonderfully predictable and unpredictable. Predictable in the generalities; unpredictable in the specifics.
Predictable: Seeing alligators. Unpredictable: Seeing so many (and this collage omits the six I could see basking on the near side of a small island in the pond).
Predictable: Seeing pelicans. Unpredictable: Seeing one sitting close to the walkway while going through its pretzel-bird grooming routine.
Digression – The grooming routine is best seen in motion.
End of digression.
Predictable: Seeing great blue herons. Unpredictable: Seeing one imitating a Major League Ball outfielder going for a catch.
The pattern continued when I arrived home (aka back at our rental apartment). Predictable: Seeing anoles scampering over the walls. Unpredictable: Catching sight of an anole’s dewlap for the first time…
… and seeing an anole catch sight of me.
This weekend is our last one in the USofA this season. After three+ months, we are going home. But here’s the thing: After three months or so, year after year, I am already *at* home.
At home with differences in English spelling: color, not colour; center, not centre. At home with differences in English usage: soda, not pop; sack, not bag; napkin, not serviette. At home with the occasional cunning required to hunt down tasty bread, as well as with the everyday access to properly fried foods. At home with wonderful service in restaurants and stores, and with friendly interactions with strangers. At home with seeing mystery plants in passing on the highway: What *is* that thing that from a distance looks like a lilac, but is not?
The place? A state park.
The location? The causeway separating the coastal estuary, subject to the tides, from a dammed-up pond of water, subject only to human whims.
The time? Noon.
The conditions? Warm. Sunny.
The result? Oodles of smirking alligators basking in the sun along the “shoreline” where the rocks buttressing the causeway meet the scummy water.
This is my best side.
That’s funny. This is *my* best side.
Secure in their apex-predator role, these guys are not worried about being within 20 feet of any puny human. Nevertheless, some still go for stealth, perhaps the better to surprise lunch, my dear.
Nothing to see here but a bit of green weed . . .
But I don’t drive through steady traffic for the gators: I do it for the birds. There are all kinds.
Some birds have no trouble maintaining their stance, even when their top half is moving fast…
Ready, set, GO!
… but some have to work a little harder to get and to maintain their balance, both when landing…
Incoming!
… and even when just walking.
Yikes! It’s squishy soft stuff! Deploy wing flaps!
Most are fairly good at not attracting unwanted attention, as seen in this 30-minute time-lapse photo.
I am the grass-rus.
Some are extremely uncooperative, lunging partly out of the frame and completely out of focus, and in search of what? A measly morsel.
Got ya!
I dunno. It hardly seems worth the trouble.
Some, though, are happy to pose for what seems like seconds, admiring the view.
Mirror, mirror, in the pond…
And some seem to be reflecting on the whims not of humans, but of fate.
Why did I have to get the ecological niche of wading through scummy water?
I know just how they feel. All of them.
Thwapety, thwapety, thwap
Three seniors’ heads turn as one: not in the direction of the thwapping but in the direction of its path, as subconsciously projected. We had learned that lesson 65 years ago as pre-schoolers, hearing the engine roar behind us but looking ahead to see the jet.
Thwapety, thwapety, thwap
With nary a pause, a pre-school boy thwapped past us on the extended wooden ramp, clearly designed to enhance accessibility to the sort-of second-floor, “sort-of” because there really was no first floor. The part underneath was mostly stilts. All the business end of the building started at least 15 feet in the air, this Nature Center being equally clearly designed to withstand hurricane-induced flooding and tidal surges from the adjacent estuary.
But as I watched the thwapper’s mother run lightly after him, sans foot-powered sound effects, I wondered whether the ramp was really designed for people being pushed in wheelchairs, or pushing walkers, or just not pushing their knees or hearts on the available stairs. I wondered whether it was, at least in part, designed for the pre-school stage. If not, it was a happy coincidence that it offered such a splendid place to thwap.
I was standing with two people in my age cohort, but unknown to me. We had been discussing the wind damage to a boardwalk that used to stretch out and across the afore-mentioned estuary, and that now rested on it in pieces and at odd angles. Wind is a powerful force.
As are thwappers. As the small boy’s feet could be heard hitting the paved parking lot — THWAP — I moved to go and the man shook his head, ruefully.
I’d love to still have that energy.
I made my way down the rest of the ramp steadily but pretty much silently, and thought, “Radishes.”
Radishes?
Sometimes my subconscious is a bit terse, but yes, radishes.
As a grade-schooler, I had a conversation with a friend of my parents about radishes. Why were some so delightful and some so hot, I wondered. Ah, he said, their size was the key. They all had the same amount of heat in them: it was just diffused in the large ones, making them more palatable. Or more boring, depending on your point of view.
Was it true? I had (and have) no idea, but just in case I’ve avoided tiny radishes ever since.
Maybe we’re like radishes. Maybe we actually do have the same amount of energy as a pre-schooler, it’s just diffused through a larger space, larger in all senses. A larger body to power, certainly, but also a larger number of things to do. A larger number of things to remember, and memories to connect. A larger set of interests to manage, and thoughtful thoughts to think. A larger life experience to savour. I mean, of course we don’t thwap.
Could it be true? I have no idea, but just in case I think I’ll avoid regretting the apparent loss of what used to be.
We paid an admission fee of 8 USD per person, so we tried to get our money’s worth.
We looked all around.
Boat-tailed grackle – female
We looked high AND low; we gazed thoughtfully off into the distance.
Anhingas – male & female
We put on our game faces. After all, we had paid 8 USD per person: We had serious expectations.
Snowy egret & double-crested cormorant
Were our expectations frustrated? They were not.
We saw birds playing chicken.
Brown pelican and osprey
We saw birds striking noble poses.
Great blue heron & osprey
We saw things that would have been Spectacular Photos if only we had been closer.
Great blue heron & osprey
And we saw Spectacular Things that we were happy weren’t any closer.
Alligator noshing on week-old pelican carcass
Alligator near shore with pelican carcass
Posted: 2025 May 31
Thanks to John Whitman for this slightly dismayed face from downtown Ottawa.
This space is available for other submissions.
