Here, we’re still wondering if spring has finally decided to settle in, or if its meds are going to wear off and send it scurrying for safety someplace, wherever spring goes when it’s not around – my guess is a shop that does specialty jams. The past few days have been spent dealing with the peripheral effects of a minor surgery – not mine, but that of The Girlfriend’s Younger Sprog, removing a bracing bar they’d put in earlier (make up your mind.) The surgery only took 40 minutes, but all the hoohah around it, not to mention the rescheduling because of an emergency that occupied the surgeon, meant two days of, really, not a damn thing happening while taking a very long time at it. The weather wasn’t bad then, though still a bit chilly, but now that all of that’s past I was able to take advantage of today’s warmth and went out looking for stuff, knowing full well that it’s still early yet.
A few wildflowers are peeking out here and there, certainly not doing more that putting a speck of color among the dead leaves and needles. Macro lenses, of course, can make them seem a bit more impressive than a normal perspective, so you’re receiving the concentrated effect of the only two flowers for quite a few meters around (I think these are Hepatica, but if questioned on it I will change the subject in a clever and distracting way.) This particular area sees fisherfolk from time to time, though none happened along to observe me lying on my side in the leaf litter shooting these from ground level; I’m still slightly self-conscious about how weird I might look getting these angles, yet not enough to prevent me from doing so, because this is a significant improvement over the typical perspective from above.
There was one fisher around who certainly did not miss me, no matter how you interpret that wording, and this was a targeted find, meaning one of the specific subjects I was looking for on this little trip. The same comments about shooting position apply here too, since I was on my side on a rock in the river, head hovering only centimeters over the water to get this portrait. While it may seem like I’ve flopped the image, the fishing spider (genus Dolomedes) was hanging out in just this position on the side of a log in the water, warming itself in the sun. They’re often pretty mellow and will allow a cautious approach, but I admit to coaxing this one to turn this way after it had shifted away from me, facing down into the water in a position that would have required a waterproof camera to nail the eyeball shot. Which makes me realize now that an image of the spider reflected from the water’s surface would have been supremely cool to obtain, even though the river was too turbulent here to attempt that – I’ll keep it on the list. I need to point out the other face visible, an owl-like visage on the abdomen – had you missed it? And yes, I remain true to form; a post without creepy things would make any regular reader (is there such a thing?) wonder what happened to me.
The trees are still almost entirely bare; only a few buds can be seen with effort, here portrayed against the water tumbling over the rocks. No one’s going to do a bunch of scenic landscape images in this area for a while yet, so abstract semi-fartsy shots are all that can be coaxed out right now. But perhaps I can drag myself out before sunrise and capture a beaver. Check back with me.
