Getty IStock accepted twelve (12) of the “Burgeoning Forest” photographs featured in my blog. Click Me to visit the original post
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Burgeoning Forest Accepted by IStock
Happy News
Category: Season
Botanic Royality
A selection of photographs from our February 2022 visit to McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
Royal Palm grove (Roystonea elata) in honor of Dianne and Jacob Brown and Mary and Stephen Keating. This grove of Roy Palms was planted in 2002 to commemorate one of the best loved features of the old McKee Jungle Garden. Royal Palms are native to Florida, Cuba and Honduras. They are among the tallest palms in the world.
Click me for a dinosaur at McKee Gardens, Amargasaurus, a “small” sauropod.
References: text is from the park placard with minor edits.
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Mystery hole in the ground
A selection of photographs from our February 2022 visit to McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
The holes are land crab burrow entrances. The burrows are often several feet deep. These crabs are often blue in color and they eat leaves, fruits and berries. They are very shy, but if you stand still they may make an appearance..
Click me for a dinosaur at McKee Gardens, Baellynasaura, “Big Eyes
References: text is from the park placard with minor edits.
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Fishy Business
A selection of photographs from our February 2022 visit to McKee Botanical Gardens, Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida
Beginning in 2018, McKee Botanical Garden had an opportunity to work with the US Geological survey to inform our visitors about what a healthy native fish population is. Countless human hours went into a fish population program within McKee’s 800,000-gallon waterway system, including the pond you are now looking at. Our efforts were successful and the established populations of non-native, invasive cichlids were eradicated. While we did lose some fish during the project, McKee’s waterways are now thriving with diverse Florida native fish.
Click me for a dinosaur at McKee Gardens, Neovenator, teeth like steak knives
References: text is from the park placard with minor edits.
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Modern Drystone, Dún Aonghasa
A modern path to Dún Aonghasa offers views of the karst landscape, walled fields, and the North Atlantic Ocean in Inishmore, County Galway, Ireland.
Modern stonework borders the 1/2 mile path to the inner Dún Aonghasa walls, keeping tourists off delicate plants, maintaining the integrity of this ancient site.
The view north, northwest over the walled path to Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus) looking across karst landscape, walled fields, farms, the North Atlantic Ocean, coast of Connemara and the 12 Bens (12 Pins) mountains. Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.
Click the photograph for a larger view.
Click the link for my Getty IStock photography of the Aran Islands
Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”
References: search wikipedia “Dún Aonghasa.”
Copyright 2019 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Grand Views
Brock-Harvey Forest Preserve on an early May morning
Click me for the first post of this series, “Burgeoning Forest .”
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Two Snags
Brock-Harvey Forest Preserve on an early May morning
I found these snags surrounded and, at a distance, hidden by the burgeoning Brock-Harvey forest preserve here in the Finger Lakes.
As with burgeon (see yesterday’s blog post), the word “snag” has a long history from a forested northern region of the planet, though it hales from Scandinavian languages rather than Old English and Old German. As a noun “snag” is something with a point and a body long enough to cause inconvenience, the point catching on anything handy. As a verb “snag” is to become inconvenienced by a projecting body.
In forestry, a snag is any trunk of a dead tree. Commonly, a tree top breaks off leaving a jagged point which possibly can become an inconvenience. For birds, an upright dead tree is a blessing, perfect for homemaking.
Fallen, the snag is still a snag and also a home first for fungus. When the work of the fungus is done, the resulting mound is perfect for growing new trees.
Click me for the next post from this forest preserve, “Grand Views.”
References
snag definitions are from the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1971
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Burgeoning Forest
Brock-Harvey Forest Preserve on an early May morning
There is a word to describe the first growth of spring, rare in a way as having grown within the English/French languages without roots from either Greek or Latin, wholly suitable to a forest people. The first growth of spring so impressive it has words of its own: burgeon.
Both as a noun, burgeon the bud itself, and a verb; to burgeon, as in to burst forth. Burgeoning: the process of the act itself.
Click me for another post from this forest preserve.
References
burgeon/burgeoning definitions from the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1971
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Feeding Frenzy
Nine videos taken the same morning, February 5, 2022
A multi-day hatch of small fry around the time of a new moon triggered this Black Skimmers (scientific name: Rynchops niger) feeding behavior surf off Cocoa Beach, Brevard County on Florida’s Atlantic Coast.
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Here and There
Around Cocoa Beach
Sights and Sounds
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 