Autumn – Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Sycamores and Riparian Space

a Preview of Reavis Ranch

….continued from the chapter “A Peaceful Day at Pine Creek.”

Compare these Arizona Sycamores with the struggling specimen from the last chapter, “A Peaceful Day at Pine Creek.” Many Sycamores such as this one flourish along Reavis Creek, a perennial stream of the eastern Superstition Wilderness. The drainage that feeds Pine Creek is far less acreage than that of Reavis Creek and, when the Pine Creek flow fades in the driest seasons, plants go into survival mode and halt growth and may even slough off limbs to conserve water.

These Sycamores grace a stream that seldom stops flowing, even in the driest of seasons. I had the good fortune to visit the Reavis valley of the Superstition Wilderness in November 2007, when these trees were at peak autumn foliage.

The tree requires a supply of water to thrive. This specimen demonstrates the species growth habit growing multiple trunks with a shape driven by water availability and the environmental context. The multiple trunks may be a desert survival mechanism. In dry periods a trunk or trunks are sloughed off to reduce moisture loss. This is why the Sycamore of “A Peaceful Day at Pine Creek” has a single trunk.”

To encounter a riparian space of the Arizona desert is a revelation, to progress from Sonoran desert spaces assailed by the breath of dry wind, to see the first signs of water in the distance as a welcome fluttering of leaves, to feel a welcome odor of water.

Yes, the first effect of a riparian space on the senses is the smell of water. Let’s finish this post with limbs of the Reavis Creek Arizona Sycamore reaching for the sky.

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Click me for the next post in this series, “Desert Luxuries.”

Clck me for the first post in this series, “Racing the Sun.”

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Keuka Lake Fall Winter

December 12, 2018 MichaelStephenWills3 Comments

We visited Keuka Lake on a December day for my last two posts,
“Keuka Lake Winter” and “Iron Grace”. October 5, 2014 found Pam and I at the same overlook after my son completed the Wine Glass Marathon. Here we are at the finish line in Corning, home of the Corning Glass Factory. You may know it from your set of Correlle dinnerware.

Afterwards, Pam and I made it up to the Dr. Frank Winery for a tasting followed by dinner at a local restaurant. Here is a photograph from the same viewpoint, using the “zoom” setting of my Sony DSLR A700. The view is more interesting than the winter shot of “Keuka Lake Winter I” from the autumn clouds and the burst of late day sun on the eastern lake shore.

This is the juncture of the “Y” shaped lake where the two arms joint the long foot. The pointed high headland is the point where the two arms meet. We are looking north here. The western arm, on the right, is unique in that the water is flowing down into the juncture. In Keuka Lake the water flows in two directions. The flow of lake foot and eastern arm is in the opposite direction, Keuka Lake empties at the top of the eastern arm, eventually reaching Lake Ontario.

North View from Overlook using “Zoom” lens

Here is the eastern view, from the overlook, looking over a vineyard ready for harvest, covered with fruit and leaves. Every once in awhile there is a loud “bang” from a noisemaker used to discourage birds from feasting on grapes. The buildings along the shore are summer cottages, Keuka is lined with them.

The same view, from our December 2018 visit. The vines are bare, the fallen leaves cleared, the vine roots covered under banked earth to protect them from the cold.

Pam and I, enjoying wine after the 2014 Wine Glass Marathon. Cheers!!

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At Home with Tom and Hen Turkey

Thanksgiving Freedom

November 23, 2018 MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

The Catskill Mountains are not mountains. The Catskills started as a high plateau. Over eons, before the first humans, water, the sun, and wind carved high steep peaks: rounded, forested and teeming with life.

October 2008, on a return trip from my Mother’s house on Long Island, we traveled the winding road called “Route 17”, through the high autumn hillsides, one of our last trips to see her. She broke her hip on New Year’s and lived with me and my sisters until her 2013 passing.

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Fishs Eddy

We left Long Island early afternoon, as the sun passed over the western hills we stopped to explore a place called “Fishs Eddy”, a town on the banks of the Delaware River.

On the east side, facing sunset is a formation that would be a cliff if it was not for the hardwood trees growing from every available nook, crevice. Everywhere a root could be sunk, roots fed trees that, one late October afternoon, made a hill bright with autumn.

Turkey Habitat

Turkeys live in this type of habitat. We took a trail, barely a road that climbed past failed farms and hunting shacks.

The Hens Flee

On a level place, in front of a ruined home, we came upon a Tom (male) turkey and his four hens. The hens fled at the sight of us.

With barely time to raise the camera I caught Tom and the last hen as she fled into the bushes.

Tom Turkey Defiant

I say she, because Tom stayed behind. He stood erect, all three feet of him, defiant and strutting in a direction opposite from the hens.

This is the bird Benjamin Franklin proposed as the national emblem of the new United State of America (the bald eagle won that competition).

Hunted into almost oblivion, across the United States the wild turkey is making a dramatic come back in many places, including the forests and farmland of rural New York State.

This fellow made no noise. His strutting posture and head bobbing said it all.

We left Tom Turkey in peace to his domain and hens.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, my friends.

Red Near and Far

November 4, 2018 MichaelStephenWills17 Comments

Yesterday, Pam and I headed to the peneplane behind our home to enjoy the Finger Lakes terrain graced by fall colors. The day before I noticed the Japanese Maple leaves had turned from maroon to vermillion. While waiting for Pam to get ready, I capture the following two shots.

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This tree was planted by my father and mother in-laws. Developed over the centuries by the Japanese, specimens reached England in the 1820 and spread from there. It is not strictly accurate to call the color vermillion, since cinnabar finely ground produces the pigment for which the color is named, when the sun strikes the leaves vermillion is a metaphor for the impression made.

The scientific name for these trees is Acer palmatum with common names Palmate Maple (for the shape of the leaves “like a palm tree”, as for the scientific name), Japanese Maple or Smooth Japanese-Maple (for the bark).

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We drove under the clouds, enjoying the rare dramatic shafts of sunlight and I gave up, finally, tying to time my shots. Here is the view from Connecticut Hill.

The previous photos were taken with a hand held Sony Alpha 700 with variable lens. The next two are with an Apple iPhone I had a hand when Pam and I returned home for a walk around the neighborhood to witness the transformations.

We were surprised by this orange maple, never recalling this shade before. Like our Japanese Maple were assume it is a non-native ornamental.

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Our Japanese Maple is a challenge to capture photographically as it grows beneath a larger “nut” (don’t recall the kind at the moment) tree. We are working together to improve that, so I don’t have an overall photograph.

Here is our neighbor’s Japanese Maple. They have a story of carrying this tree, as a sapling, on the bus from Long Island. I love the impression of dark limbs among the clouds of red foliage.

This photograph (the “far” of the “near and far”) is from a remote corner of Chiricahua National Monument, during the trip mentioned in my post, “History and Ghosts of the Triangle T Ranch”. To get there, I drove over a mountain pass to a location was featured in an “Arizona Highways” I read long ago.

I call this photograph “Red Dragon,” the formation is known as a “maple ”

dragon”, from the long sinuous form of the tree limb. Known for this reddish orange autumn color, this is a Big Tooth Maple, AKA Canyon Maple. Scientific Name Acer grandidentatum (as in “big tooth”). It is a wild specimen, living along the north fork of Cave Creek. It is a area well know to avid bird watchers and ornithologists.

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The camera was my Kodak, DSC slr-c with a Canon 50 mm lens mounted on a tripod.

Halloween Invasion

friendly ghouls

November 2, 2018 MichaelStephenWills17 Comments

Wednesday, we were invaded by a team of Halloween spooks.

Lead by this crafty cat

the well armed ninja kept us at bay

this is NOT the happy cow

Bat-GIRL (not Bat-woman)

We staved off the tricks with dinner and treats, then sent them on their way to terrorize the neighborhood.

Autumn Mushroom

Moments from a September backpack

November 1, 2018November 1, 2018 MichaelStephenWills16 Comments

A budding mushroom

among autumn leaf litter

along mountain shores

Peaked Mountain and Pond, Siamese Ponds Wilderness, The Adirondacks

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Thin Crescent Bowl filled with Earthglow

pre-dawn sky event

October 31, 2018 MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

A thin crescent bowl filled with earthglow floating above the dawn attended by Venus, Mars, Virgo.

This was the view from Ithaca, New York at the start of dawn this morning of Tuesday, October 17, 2017. Mars is next to the moon, the stars of the constellation Virgo scattered around, Venus is the bright object below. We had a bright, clear sky not unusual for September and October.

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In the city, an arch of Schoellkopf Stadium on the Cornell University campus. Cornell is on east hill. We live on west hill, across the valley. It is quiet on west hill, away from the students.

Earlier this week the crescent was in the constellation Leo where the bright limb occulted the bright star Regulus, to reappeared from behind the dark limb, a brilliant spectacle that happened after dawn for New York. It was cloudy, as usual, on October 14.

When I woke, the moon was shining through the trees, still full of just turning leaves. The crescent turned, cup like, above the horizon, to cradle the dark orb glowing from the reflected light of our earth. I did not recognize Mars, the disk was less red than usual. Research revealed the moon had two planets in seeming attendance. I also learned that, when the horns point right the moon is waning, moving toward a new, or un-illuminated, moon. When the phase moved from new it is also a crescent with horns pointing left.

This morning was a fortunate gift, I had never contemplated the moon in quite this form before.