Post by Fred P on Mar 15, 2008 4:09:57 GMT
I know there are not a lot of winter scenes posted in the forum so I thought I would throw one out there for you all to see.
It’s still quite cold here in southern Michigan but the weather is finally starting to break a little bit. My two boys and I went on a little walk this past Sunday (3/9) to check out one of my favorite bogs near our house in Oakland County, Michigan. It’s a little easier to get to when everything is frozen (including the lake below). In this scene of the lake; if you follow the footprints on the ice to the left around the point, the bog is nestled in behind the trees on that point.
This is a fresh water stream that feeds into the lake and keeps the water level up in the bog as well. This was moving water which is why it wasn’t frozen.
This is a photo of a small piece of the bog itself. This is back behind the trees as mentioned above and has its own little pond secluded from the lake. I was actually standing on the ice looking back toward the floating mat of sphagnum and brush. In the summer, this whole area quakes and shakes when you walk on it and you have to be very careful when approaching the edge of the water here because it’s so unstable and soft. But the edge of this water line is where most of the Sarracenia Purpurea ssp Purpurea are located along with a lot of poison sumac. I have also found Drosera Rotundifolia in large abundance here as well. There are hundreds and hundreds of Purps here but unfortunately, most of them were buried in about a foot of snow and ice.
Here are a few shots of some Purps just barely sticking out of the snow. Some of the photos aren’t the best because the sun was going in and out of the clouds and it was really messing up the light meter on my camera when it was reflecting off all the snow. You should get the idea though.
In this photo, the only part of the plant that’s visible is last season’s flower stalk. This was the only one I found like this. After I took this photo, I broke the pod open and scattered the seeds (a few hundred or so).
I did manage to find a few that were well above the snow. From late fall to early spring, these northern purps usually turn a very deep red as you can see in these next shots.
This one actually had a very nice orange look to it versus the typical deep red found here.
Another dark red one.
And of course I had to take a few shots of some sphagnum because I know Barry loves it so much. Here’s to you Barry!!
This is one way to get pumped up for spring! Enjoy!
Fred
It’s still quite cold here in southern Michigan but the weather is finally starting to break a little bit. My two boys and I went on a little walk this past Sunday (3/9) to check out one of my favorite bogs near our house in Oakland County, Michigan. It’s a little easier to get to when everything is frozen (including the lake below). In this scene of the lake; if you follow the footprints on the ice to the left around the point, the bog is nestled in behind the trees on that point.
This is a fresh water stream that feeds into the lake and keeps the water level up in the bog as well. This was moving water which is why it wasn’t frozen.
This is a photo of a small piece of the bog itself. This is back behind the trees as mentioned above and has its own little pond secluded from the lake. I was actually standing on the ice looking back toward the floating mat of sphagnum and brush. In the summer, this whole area quakes and shakes when you walk on it and you have to be very careful when approaching the edge of the water here because it’s so unstable and soft. But the edge of this water line is where most of the Sarracenia Purpurea ssp Purpurea are located along with a lot of poison sumac. I have also found Drosera Rotundifolia in large abundance here as well. There are hundreds and hundreds of Purps here but unfortunately, most of them were buried in about a foot of snow and ice.
Here are a few shots of some Purps just barely sticking out of the snow. Some of the photos aren’t the best because the sun was going in and out of the clouds and it was really messing up the light meter on my camera when it was reflecting off all the snow. You should get the idea though.
In this photo, the only part of the plant that’s visible is last season’s flower stalk. This was the only one I found like this. After I took this photo, I broke the pod open and scattered the seeds (a few hundred or so).
I did manage to find a few that were well above the snow. From late fall to early spring, these northern purps usually turn a very deep red as you can see in these next shots.
This one actually had a very nice orange look to it versus the typical deep red found here.
Another dark red one.
And of course I had to take a few shots of some sphagnum because I know Barry loves it so much. Here’s to you Barry!!
This is one way to get pumped up for spring! Enjoy!
Fred