Tag: Water

A Visit with Tom and Hen Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving

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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 family on Long Island, we traveled the winding road called “Route 17”, through the high autumn hillsides.

Route 17_FishsEddy_throughTheWindshield– CLICK ME!!!!

Click me for more Autumn Magic from my Online Gallery

Fishs Eddy

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.

Delaware River view at Fishes Eddy

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.

Catskill Hillside at Peak Autumn Foliage

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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 comeback 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.

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Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved http://www.MichaelStephenWills.com

Mirror

…on the wall

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On Lick Brook, Thayer Preserve, still pools become mirrors at low flow during a dry autumn.

Click photograph for larger view. Use combination keys to enlarge/reduce: Ctrl+ (Control / Plus) and Ctrl- (Control / Minus)

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Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved http://www.MichaelStephenWills.com

more Jennings Pond IV

Still life and stillness

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I described Jennings Pond to Pam and we returned together. Here is a photographic essay from that day, one of a series.

The first image is the small concrete dam, taken from the footbridge over the pond outlet, source for Buttermilk Creek.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

more Jennings Pond III

Picnics on the berm

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I described Jennings Pond to Pam and we returned together. Here is a photographic essay from that day, one of a series.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

more Jennings Pond II

A gathering autumn glory

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I described Jennings Pond to Pam and we returned together. Here is a photographic essay from that day, one of a series.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

more Jennings Pond I

No Swimming!?

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“Jennings Pond,” is a song, celebrating swimming.

Here is a photographic essay on the subject of swimming at Jennings Pond this October afternoon.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Treman Early Autumn Walk XIV

The post discusses the Hepatica acutiloba plant, highlighting its characteristics, growth, historical medicinal use, and its natural habitat in central eastern North America. It also includes an observation made in Robert H. Treman Park.

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These characteristic leaves are Hepatica plants growing on the sun dappled southern rim of Robert H. Treman Park captured on a bright late September morning.

“Hepatica acutiloba, the sharp-lobed hepatica, is a herbaceous flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. It is sometimes considered part of the genus Anemone, as Anemone acutiloba, A. hepatica, or A. nobilis. Also generally known as Liverleaf and Liverwort.”


“The word hepatica derives from the Greek ἡπατικός hēpatikós, from ἧπαρ hêpar ‘liver’, because its three-lobed leaf was thought to resemble the human liver.”


“Each clump-forming plant grows 5 to 19 cm (2.0 to 7.5 in) tall, flowering in the early to mid spring. The flowers are greenish-white, white, purple or pinkish in color, with a rounded shape. After flowering the fruits are produced in small, rounded columned heads, on pedicels 1 to 4 mm long. When the fruits, called achenes, are ripe they are ovoid in shape, 3.5–4.7 mm long and 1.3–1.9 mm wide, slightly winged and tend to lack a beak.”

Hepatica Flowers in early spring on the Rim Trail

“Hepatica acutiloba is native to central eastern North America where it can be found growing in deciduous open woods, most often in calcareous soils. Butterflies, moths, bees, flies and beetles are known pollinators. The leaves are basal, leathery, and usually three-lobed, remaining over winter.”

“Hepatica was once used as a medicinal herb. Owing to the doctrine of signatures, the plant was once thought to be an effective treatment for liver disorders. Although poisonous in large doses, the leaves and flowers may be used as an astringent, as a demulcent for slow-healing injuries, and as a diuretic.”

Ferns and Mosses growing beneath Red Pines

View of the lower falls and swimming hole from the Rim Trail

Click Me another post featuring Hepatica flowers

References
–text in italics and quotes is from Wikipedia, “Hepatica” and “Hepatica acutiloba.”
–“The Botanical Garden Vol II Perennials and Annuals,” Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix, Firefly Books, 2002.

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Treman Early Autumn Walk IX

The post discusses various unique kennings, their meanings, and reflects on the term “Swan-Road” symbolizing a serene river.

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Below Lucifer Falls this quiet water flows beneath a bridge linking Gorge and Rim trails. The reflection of blue sky between river trees brings to mind the kenning “Swan-Road.” To me it is more fitting than the established meaning: “The Sea,” also associated more appropriately with Whale-Road.

Swan Road

The seldom used English verb “ken.” The Oxford English dictionary proposed the word was borrowed from Norse based on a confluence of meaning, i.e. to know. When it is turned into a noun with the -ing ending, it is a phrase that brings to mind and object described.

Other kennings from : “Whale road = sea (e.g., a place where whales travel); Treasure seat = throne (e.g., the source of treasure or reward, or the role of the king in rewarding his men); Ring giver, ring breaker = king (e.g., the person who bestows rings, or breaks off a piece of his golden bracelet as a reward); Sword sleep = death (e.g., a “sleep” caused by a sword wound); Rapture of heaven = sun (e.g., the sun, brightest of heavenly objects, the joy of heaven); Weaver of peace = wife (e.g., a person whose grace and mildness instills peace, or one who creates domestic tranquility); Earl’s defense = Beowulf (e.g., the one who defends Hrothgar); Mead seats = benches in Heorot (e.g., the places where people sit and drink).”

Click Me for a master work of English poetry that employs kenning forms, “The Porcupine” by Galway Kinnell.

References:

–text in italics and quotes is from the eNotes.com, “Beowulf.”

–Kinnell, Galway. “The Porcupine.” The Hudson Review 20, no. 2 (1967): 219–22.

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Treman Early Autumn Walk VIII

Park staff evaluate and dislodge dangerous rocks on trails before springtime opening.

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Overhangs such as this worry me, always forcing a faster pace. Over the years during early springtime walks, sometime before the gorge trail is opened officially, the path is littered with huge blocks fallen during the winter, possibly even that same day.

A task the park staff undertakes before opening is an evaluation of sequences such as this, with cliffs and overhangs, for portions ready to fall. Rock climbers are engaged to dislodge these rocks. At times, larger segments of the cliff are blasted resulting in landslides.

On a gentler note, these asters grace Finger Lakes trails this time of year.

Click Me for another Fall Aster post.

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Treman Early Autumn Walk VII

Unnamed though memorable

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An unnamed waterfall along the Gorge Trail is memorable for the steps alongside.

I have captured it in all seasons from the beginning of my photography interest. Here it is at midday, early autumn, 2023, taken with the Apple Iphone 14 proMax. Bright sunlight ruins the shot.

Here, evening, early summer 2003, the foreground shaded, late day sunlight on trees beyond. The Sony dsc F828 camera, on a tripod, was used.

Here, bright sunlight at midday is handled by framing the brightly lit waterfall, April, 2002. A handheld Sony Mavica was used.

Daring visitors jump from the wall at right into a plunge pool, seen here as the quiet water at base of wall. It is a doubly dangerous activity as the force of water can hold a swimmer under indefinitely, missing the narrow pool results in striking the rocks. Robert H. Treman New York State Park, Tompkins County, Ithaca, New York.

“Plunge pools are formed by the natural force of falling water, such as at a waterfall or cascade; they also result from man-made structures such as some spillway designs. Plunge pools are often very deep, generally related to the height of fall, the volume of water, the resistance of the rock below the pool and other factors.[4] The impacting and swirling water, sometimes carrying rocks within it, abrades the riverbed into a basin, which often features rough and irregular sides. Plunge pools can remain long after the waterfall has ceased flow or the stream has been diverted. Several examples of former plunge pools exist at Dry Falls in the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington. They can also be found underwater in areas that were formerly above sea level, for example Perth Canyon off the coast of Western Australia.”

“Plunge pools are fluvial features of erosion which occur in the youthful stage of river development, characterized by steeper gradients and faster water flows. Where softer or fractured rock has been eroded back to a knickpoint, water continues to bombard its base. Because this rock is often less resistant than overlying strata, the water from the higher elevation continues eroding downward until an equilibrium is achieved.”

Reference: text in italics and quotes is from the Wikipedia, “Plunge Pool.”

Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills