Some nature pictures

[luzula]

I finally got myself a new camera! My previous one broke last summer, and I was annoyed and didn't buy a new one because expensive things shouldn't just break like that for no reason. Anyway, I'd forgotten how much fun it is to take pictures. Here are some of my recent ones (click for bigger versions):

The first one is from my visit to the seashore last weekend (well, the Baltic sea--it's brackish water). This is Lathyrus japonicus (Beach Pea).


I've also got some pictures from today's excursion to a nearby nature reserve. This beauty is Ledum palustre (alternative name: Rhododendron tomentosum). In English it's apparently called Labrador Tea, among other things. It likes wet places in the taiga, all over the northern hemisphere.


Typical wet place in the taiga:


Finally caught the little monster! Dragonflies aren't easy to catch--they're fast predators--and I always feel all triumphant when I do. (And no, I didn't snatch it up with my hand. I used a butterfly net.) This is a Cordulia aenea, Downy Emerald in English. Huh, that's a good name, since the thorax is all metallic green and covered in hair.


Here's another one, a Leucorrhinia dubia (White-faced Darter).


Finally, here's Cynthia cardui, which Wikipedia tells me is called Painted Lady in English, and is found on every continent except Antarctica. This one has migrated all the way from northern Africa (no wonder it looks all worn out). They can reproduce up here, but the offspring never survive the winter, and so they have to migrate all over again next spring.


For now, please comment at the LJ entry.

Comments

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

Amazing how many dragonflies there are in the world; I've got at least four species zooming around at the moment, but they persist in being high above my head and unphotographable.

Are those larches or spruce in the taiga photo?

Julia, having had a week when everything needs done immediately, and photos don't happen

[luzula]

Yeah, the second dragonfly is only sitting on my hand because I held onto it for a while before letting it go--it tends to make them a little dazed or something. I have a friend who always puts them on his nose to take a picture.

Are those larches or spruce in the taiga photo?

Neither, actually. They're pines (Pinus sylvestris), although there's a spruce (Picea abies) in the background. Those are the only native coniferous trees that we have in Sweden. (Well, and juniper, but that's more of a bush.)

I hope you will have more time for photos soon!

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

Wow, so open and delicate for pines! Here, treeline pines, such as they are (subalpine rather than subarctic, of course) are dense and black and short. I want to go north instead of up to see the results of cold-stress!

I'm too dry and have too much summer heat for one spruce native to this state (Picea sitchensis) and too wet and warm in winter for the other (Picea engelmannii). The big Sitka spruce that are left (they were logged out for B-17 airframes in WW2) are all on the west face of the Olympics, up the Ho and Quinault rivers in Olympic Nathinal Park; they exist in Puget Sound in pockets where the fog lingers and rain falls first.

Julia, my son keeps trying to plant P. sitchensis and they keep dying in summer.

[luzula]

Those pines aren't really stressed by cold, but more by the wet, boggy ground. Pines (and spruce) both grow to be tall and hefty where I live (here's a picture of some pines, for example). The treeline for coniferous trees is about 300-400 meters above sea level here (depending on the latitude), and some interesting things happen there. The lower branches of the spruces attach to the ground and grow roots, so you get small groups of cloned spruce. These clones can be thousands of years old, even though the individual trees only live a few hundred years. This also happens in the islands in the archipelago, where there's a lot of wind. We also have a few areas of real Arctic tundra in the far north of the country, I'm actually going to one of these in a couple of weeks. \o/

I'm hoping to come to Bitching Party in Seattle next year, and it would be fun to go exploring in Washington then. I'd love to visit the Olympic Peninsula, for example--I was there as a kid, but I don't remember much except that there were long strands of stuff hanging from the trees. : )

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

This is an argument for me to try to make the Bitching Party myself, at least if I can be a one-day drop-in. We could work on a environmental tour contingent on the weather; some places are more miserable than you can imaging in a SW tending weather pattern, while the same conditions make other places better.

Julia, I'm by necessity cautious of activities which get me eating and socializing at hours off my schedule; I can be a healthy diabetic or a party animal, but so far not both

[luzula]

Oh, you mean you'd want to go with me? That would be cool, I was thinking that it would be fun to find someone to do it with. And you seem to know so much about the area.

And I'm sure it'd be okay to do part of BP if you're not up for all of it.

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

Either that or I confer with you about the decission matrix; there are times that being 57 and having to take my health into account sucks a whole lot.

Julia, but yeah, I have some ideas about where you could go.

[luzula]

Yes, I'd love to hear your advice, even if you don't come along! We can talk about it when BP gets closer.

[vsee.livejournal.com]

Ohh, lovely. I see dragonflies around here, but rarely get such a good look at them. I don't know the name of the species I see, but there is one that has black and white (or really better described as dark and light)patches on the wings that almost makes checkers or stripes across all the wings. I got very excited last summer when a really spectacular, large metallic green one landed on the house to rest. I did some research, only to discover that it is the most common variety in this region. Yet I never saw one before.

[luzula]

Yeah, they're hard to get a close look at. Binoculars can work pretty well, actually. And I'd love to see the one with patches on the wings!

[vsee.livejournal.com]

I asked around and found the common name of that dragonfly and found a photo.

Its common name is the Ten Spot (http://www.animalpicturesarchive.com/view.php?tid=2&did=25259).

[luzula]

Oh wow. That is spectacular.

[(Anonymous)]

I saw several Ten Spots in my garden today, and thought of you! I've been trying to figure out how to take a photo of the garden, but it's kind of hard to capture the sense of it even in two or three photos. Everything is so spread out this year, on four terraces, and in a long, u-shaped strip all around three sides of the yard. My garden is looking terribly scruffy, with runty second crops and late starters, mixed in with things burning out from the spring. On the other hand, I am harvesting several different things. Despite the intense heat the last few days, I am still getting several types of lettuce and spinach, as well as a few pea pods, carrots, radises, and plentiful wild strawberries and edible nasturtium flowers. I made a nice salad for my tai chi teacher to take home, and made a wild strawberry-basil vinaigrette. Those little berries don't hold up all that well, but they made a wonderful base for salad dressing. Hulling dozens of teeny berries is a little tedious, but picking them was kind of fun. :)

How's your patch coming?

[luzula]

Replying to this comment instead, because you forgot to log in on the last one.

Anyway: I love wild strawberries! They grow wild here, and we eat them as they are, or with milk and sugar. I've never tried them in salad dressing, that sounds interesting.

I haven't seen my patch in a couple of days, because I'm down in the south visiting my family. Last I checked, the beans were about ten cm high, and the red beets and carrots were just poking out of the ground.

[vsee.livejournal.com]

Aw, rats. I keep losing my cookie for LJ on this computer and it doesn't always warn me. Sorry about the anonymous comment!

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, and I wanted to mention that I cultivate two types of wild strawberries in my garden, along with some more conventional/commercial types. I have mostly wild plants that thrive in crappy conditions and make great ground cover. I bought the plants from someone who labeled them rather generically as "wild" and "woodland" varieties. They'd obviously been foraged from the woods on someone's farm. I can't remember which one is which. One makes very small, sort of conical shaped fruit, and one makes strawberries which resemble small raspberries. Those are bearing tons of fruit this year and are worth the labor.

[vsee.livejournal.com]

This being randomly logged out is going to make me completely crazy! So sorry.

[luzula]

Yeah, that must be frustrating!
: (

[luzula]

Oh, and I would have taken garden pictures, but we haven't gotten much yet. The carrots and red beets are just peeking out of the ground.

[vsee.livejournal.com]

I love garden pictures. Hope you'll share some. I've been making a garden video journal this year. Maybe some week I'll send you the link and you can see mine. :)

[luzula]

Yes, I would love to see your garden!

[akamine_chan]

MOAR pictures, please!

I'm so happy you finally broke down and got a new camera.

[luzula]

Yeah, I'll probably post more of them. Actually, I tried to post one from today in this comment, but LJ wouldn't let me. It featured me failing to catch dragonflies. : )