Landscapes
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Boardwalk
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Reflective…
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Seasonal Palette
I was struck by the bleached out look of the ferns along the same trail where they are so strikingly green in the early spring.
Yet — on the quintessentially autumn day, with its dapples of sunlight and its breezes making all the foliage dance — they are just as beautiful as they were in spring.
Fall’s color palette is a little different, richer in reds and browns. Whether it’s dead leaves or fresh winterberries, there are plenty of accents.
It’s always interesting to me that my initial impression of perfection — perfect red berries — shows flaws when I look at it through the camera: dead leaves, little spots on the berries, strands of spider web.
Maybe flawlessness doesn’t have much to do with beauty. It’s all around us, all the time.
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Morning river
My daughter let me use her camera to get this photo of the river this morning. Fog muted the colors along the bank and cloaked the hillside.
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Adirondack Album
We visited the Adirondacks in July. Here is just a sampling of the beauties we enjoyed.
Bog 
Distant haze 
White-throated sparrow 
Mystery trail 
Hidden art 
Broad-winged hawk 
Maze 
Roadside frill 
Crowded hilltop 
Mountaintop view -
Mossy Falls
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Winter melts into spring
Some of these are from January, and some from early March.
Tree tunnel in a snow globe 
Snowbird house 
Two mice leave their tracks 
Encrusted twigs 
Boardwalk in March 
March woods melting 
Ice-traced leaves 
Moss and bracket fungus emerging 
Early spring tree tunnel 
Boardwalk, toy camera effect 
Mud-coated stream 
Mysterious boardwalk -
Buttermilk Falls, Ithaca: October
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Tanglewood Trails
We hustled through our schoolwork in the morning and drove to the Tanglewood Nature Center in Elmira yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we took the trail up to an overlook over the Chemung River Valley.
We spotted two redtails circling over the river, but by the time I got my camera back out, they were high above us.
We ate our lunch there, and I enjoyed reading about Mark Twain’s thoughts on such an experience, posted nearby:
On the way back down we paused at this lower point, and a juvenile eagle soared past at eye level. No pics — but a grand sight.
Of course there were many beautiful perspectives on the trail. We passed through yellow sections, red sections, and conifer sections. I was partial to the golden yesterday — even though “nothing gold can stay.”
The reds were lovely too.
I commented on these bi-colored yellow/red maple leaves, and the kids proceeded to gather specimens.
There were apple trees, and faded pearl crescent butterflies.
We enjoyed the many fossils seen along the trail, too.
When we got back to the bottom, we rested a bit…
…and saw several bluebirds. They were perching in a walnut tree, then swooping down to hawk insects near the ground. It’s always a treat to see our state bird.
I was surprised to see red-winged blackbirds too, plucking and eating the keys from this tree.
On the whole it was a grand way to drink in the sights and smells of autumn.
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Bittersweet
Fall is filled with a sense of foreboding. It precedes the cold, colorless season, and I dread that.
Yet I also love the fall! It sure looks amazing here in the Northeast.
