Capturing photographs and videos on the fly, we visited
Fillmore Glen State Park, Moravia, New York with our granddaughter, Nia. This is Pam and my favorite park for the lack of crowds, variety of wildflowers and dramatic views.
Growing near Cowsheds Waterfall, at the foot of Gorge Trail, was this
strange fruiting wildflower so like a modular space station. It is Baneberry. There are white and red forms. This is white Baneberry (Actaea pachypoda). These terminal round nodes resolve into white balls with black dots, like dolls eyes. The cylindrical connectors (as in space station) turn bright red. Red Baneberry (Actaea rubra) has bright red berries. The flower is a fluffy white mass that gives no hint of the seed form.
All parts of both forms are highly poisonous, the bane of Baneberry. The berries are deadly. Ingestion of as few as two berries by children will cause death from cardiac arrest. Six for an adult.
Click any photograph for a larger view.
Cowsheds Waterfall is littered with enormous limestone blocks, remnants of a shelf. The rock under the limestone, a soft shale, is worn away first by running water forming a room (or Cowshed) under the limestone. Eventually, the limstone falls into the creek. The waterfall is at the end of a blind canyon with a sign at a trail end warning visitors to go no further. Careless visitors to Finger Lakes Gorges are killed, on occasion, by falling rock when they loiter beneath cliffs.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 
I enjoyed the photograph of Cowsheds Waterfall.
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Thanks for visiting, Khurt, and your kind compliment.
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The video makes the pictures even better.
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Great to hear, Dave and Laura. The sound adds dimension and I did sweep around to see the entire area.
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I agree, I love pictures, it’s my thing I like to dwell on them, but the video, made it tops!
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Love those waterfalls
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Thanks, Theresa.
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Very nice.
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Very beautiful place! great photos 👌
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Your compliment is appreciated!!
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Lovely post. Lack of crowds and beautiful views are two features that I also always favor in a natural area. ☺️
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They are here in the Finger Lakes, though we need to choose carefully to avoid crowds. Watkins Glen is absurdly crowded summertime.
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