Two kettles of the preserve represent a pond and, below, a bog. Here is a photograph from the observation platform using the IPhone 7. I brought along the Canon dslr and 100 mm “macro” lens for the stars of this show…..
….purple pitcher plants (scientific name: Sarracenia purpurea). In past years, the central observation deck cut-out, hosted healthy pitchers. Today, invading high bush blueberries from the bog margin, crowded out the pitchers and the only flowering plant were among the grasses 8 to 10 feet away. My goal was photographing the extraordinary flowers.
Each flower rises from the base on a strong stalk. Here are the pitchers, also called “turtle socks”, flooded with sunlight.
A flower unlike any I have experienced, like the carapace of an insect, the reproductive element underneath a hood.
The posterior, there are only bracts.
I have, somewhere, macro images of the pitcher, with the downward facing hairs. Brought the wrong lens to capture this at a distance.
Amazingly swamp, fen, bog, marsh can all be experienced during a thirty minute walk within this preserve. Here we are traversing a swamp …
…buoyed along on planking from recycled plastic.
The founders of this place, from a dairy farming family, strove for years to protect the water sources from encroachment by development, primary a duplicate of a gravel pit found on the other side of the Fall Creek valley.
This former acidic rainwater, percolating through glacial till, is buffered and chemically altered to create these multiform environments.
Water, flowing quietly, almost soundlessly, with powerful effect.
Let’s digress from our exploration of Iquique, Chile for this attraction local to the Finger Lakes Region of New York State, an environment diametrically opposed to the Atacama desert. The Preserve at Malloryville opened 1997, eleven years after we moved to our home our home on Fall Creek (see header photograph).
The correct name is the O.D. von Engeln Preserve at Malloryville. I knew this name from his Finger Lakes geology book obtained from the library and read closely in the early 1990’s. It helped me understand the landscape among which our home was set, in 5 minutes walking distance from the future location of the preserve.
The text from the above information placard at the preserve entrance says it all:“Wetland habitats are shaped by the water that supplies them: the amount, how it moves, and the minerals it carries. Malloryville’s eskers, kames and kettles control the rate of delivery of water to the surface and suffuse it with varied concentrations of minerals. As ground water bubbles to the surface at the base of these hills, distinctive wetland habitats form, each with its own unique community of plants. The preserve’s intense concentration of bog, fen, marsh and swamp habitats is the direct result of ground water moving through this unusually complex array of glacial features.
Before the preserve was opened I was familiar with the landforms described in the above placard. My son and I did his first camping on top of an esker outside our front door. We enjoyed hiking along Fall Creek.
To be continued…..
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Our tour tickets and bus designation ( “number 2” ) firmly in hand, Pam and I walked the gangplank from the tender (see yesterday’s post), into the Iquique International Cruise terminal, then out to the sunshine to find out bus, following the crowd.
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Downtown High rises soar above downtown
Touring this way can feel link a rodent maze, it was not our feeling at all. The groups maxed at 15, the guides friendly and knowledgeable, the tour buses luxurious. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. Here we are, later that day, dressed for adventure.
Mike and Pam Wills on tour at the Pintados Geoglyphs, Tarapacá, Chile within the Atacama desert.
Our itinerary for the day is to navigate through the city, across the desert to visit a World Heritage Site, Humberstone, and ancient geoglyph sites, touching on local ecology.
Another view of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception among the downtown high-rises of Iquique.
Here is our tour, time to hop on the bus, get going.
Ninety minutes after docking our assigned tender pulled away from the Regatta for a twenty minute trip to Iquique. A tender is a boat with an enclosed seating area designed to transport about twenty persons in quiet waters from an anchorage to port. I recall the morning announcement from the ship Captain advising use the winds were high (or the waves), and he negotiated a mooring with the port, instead of the planned docking, in order to save our visit to Iquique.
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The approximate anchorage of the Regatta marked with a pushpin. The tender transported use from the Regatta to the base of the island port.
Above is a screen capture from Google Earth, the entire Iquique harbor is pictured from Punta Negra (see photo from yesterday) to the base of the island port connected to the mainland with a road. The tender port is at this base, on the shore side. If you wish, download the following PDF document with a clearer image. You will need a PDF viewer.
Shipping containers being unloaded from the container ship San Christobal.
Here are some of the sights visible from the tender. I recall sitting next to the large rear window. Above is the large red container ship. From earlier posts, the San Christobal is docked at the outer berth. The ship is being unloaded, you can see a yellow shipping container on the crane.
Today, aneconomic reason for Iquque’s prosperity is the status as a duty free zone the government dubbed “ZOFRI.” Another is tourists flocking to this “Miami of South America” for duty free shopping (there is a mall), the shore lined with tall hotels and condominiums. Adventure-seekers love the surfing and hang gliding from the escarpment.
Notice the fishing nets in the stern with yellow floats
This is the scene close to the tender port, past mooring for smaller fishing and other boats.
Replica of the Chilean navy ship Esmeralda sunk during the Battle of Iquique. It is a nautical “living museum.” From the website: “The museum script of the Museum ‘Emerald Corvette’ is represented by thirteen museum scenes that inspire the guided tour, where it was recreated what life was like on board on May 20, 1879, the day before the historic Pacific War day.” The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is to the right of the ship stern. Here is a previous post with more about the Esmeralda in historical context.
After disembarkation, I looked back for this shot of our tender pilot.
The Ulster Museum is set among the Botanic Gardens. It was in the gardens on this rainy Saturday Pam and I wandered for twenty minutes to sweep away the cobwebs of our rainy drive from Coleraine.
I do not have an identification for the following photograph. If you know, please comment. Thank You.
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photo by Pam Wills
“Tropical” palm trees and bromeliad are found throughout Ireland. Thank You Gulf Stream.
The Ulster Museum is set among the Botanic Gardens. It was in the gardens on this rainy Saturday, after the Foxglove flowers of yesterday’s post, flourishing, bright red poppy flowers caught my eye.
Here is a take on poppy flower buds on long stems among leaves.
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Poppy is a storied plant, most species do not produce the narcotic alkaloids associated with sleep and death, pain control. Papaveroideae, the sub-family of these plants, is derived from the Latin for paper, papyrus. You can see the association in the following photographs, petals drenched in water, crumpling like wet paper.
The Ulster Museum is set among the Botanic Gardens. It was in the gardens on this rainy Saturday we needed the umbrellas several times during our twenty minute digression before the museum engulfed us.
The rain brought out this snail, house on its back.
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We found flowers flourishing throughout the island. These foxglove were huge. The common name is after Leonhard Fuchs, who first described it. “Fuchs” is German for fox.
The Ulster Museum is set among the Botanic Gardens. It was in the gardens on this rainy Saturday. We needed the umbrellas several times during our twenty minute digression before the museum engulfed us.
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So Many Choices
A solid fence, more dignified than a “Keep Off The Grass” sign.
I regret not recording the names of the trees and plants
This large, 28 acre, city owned park is free, opened to the public. It is treated with suitable respect by the residents.
The Row Houses on Colenso Parade (street) running parallel to the avenue of flowers we enjoyed.
The Ulster Museum is set among the Botanic Gardens. Armed with umbrellas, Pam and I parked on this interesting street, Colenso Parade, on one side these row houses, on the other the gardens.
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Interesting, “no parking at any time” indicated by a double yellow line along the curb. We parked with everyone else, across the street on the Botanical Gardens side.
We parked and walked in, free as you please, taking in some of the beauty on our way to “Treasures from the Girona”, a permanent Ulster Museum exhibit.
I compliment the photography skills of our waitress
Our time strolling the walks was all too brief, 20 minutes, not enough to savor the treasures of knowledge suggested by the words “Botanic Garden.”
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 