Mendon Ponds Up Close

This week came very close to becoming my first posting of a previously taken photo as threatened in my first post.  Saturday came around and I still had not taken a single picture all week and I had some chores to do around the house before the rainy weekend weather that has been forecast arrived.  With the chores done by noon and the sun still shining, Amy and I headed across the county to Mendon Ponds Park to see what interesting things I could photograph in nature with my new macro lens that I introduced last week.  My goal was to get a perfectly sharp photograph of a dragonfly and I knew that the park had plenty as I'd been there before  on a hot summer day and experienced them.  I did get some pictures of one that was willing to sit still long enough but as is often the case, I think one of my other shots from the hike turned out to be better.  In fact, I had a hard time choosing which picture to be featured in the post and the dragonfly picture is at least 4th on the list and as such is not getting top billing this week.

We hiked the Quaker Pond loop trail in the park, a 2.7 mile loop that takes you around the pond and through some marshy areas that I assumed would be ideal for finding dragonflies.  The edge of the trail was lined with wild flowers (or were they weeds?) and among them were plenty of goldenrods(?).  I would not normally consider these all that attractive but the sun was shining brightly on them and I took a few shots to see what they would look like.  This exposure came out almost perfect on the picture posted here.  It has had no post processing or adjustments done to it at all.  I like the bright yellow against the dark, out of focus background.

As we approached the pond and the wooden foot bridge that crosses the marshy area I could spot several dragonflies zooming about so I figured we could hang out for a while to see if one lent itself to a good shot.  While watching and looking around I noticed this grasshopper just off the trail near the bridge.  I tried to get a shot of him as he climbed along the reeds.  This shot of the grasshopper, like the goldenrod picture, turned out to better than the one I would eventually get of the dragonfly.  The sun became too hot to stand and we moved on off the bridge without the dragonfly picture.  Shortly after the bridge there was a fork in the trail and we were to go to the right to continue circumnavigating the pond but just up the trail to the left stood a deer staring down the trail at us.  I did get a picture of it but it was too far away and not really worth sharing here.  As we made our way around the pond the trees became thick again and shaded us from the worse of the heat.  Not too far along this path I came upon a red dragonfly that was happy to sit still for me.  I took several shots of it and the one here is the best of the bunch.  It is very difficult to get enough depth of field to get the insect in sharp focus while hand holding the camera and shooting quickly enough before your subject takes off.

After more hiking around the pond we came upon these pretty purplish colored flowers that were being picked over by both bees and butterflies.  I took several frames of the bee working its way around the flowers collecting pollen.  I knew if I took enough I would get a few with decent focus and pose and it was one of these shots that I selected to be featured this week.  Once I had my fill of shooting the bee and resumed my hike to catch up to Amy (she moved on until it was shaded) I noticed a butterfly that was collecting from the same set of flowers as the bee was.  I took several shots of it and I kind of like the way this particular profile shot turned out.  If it were a little sharper around the head it might have taken the top billing over the bee.  With that lack of sharpness, however, I don't think I can put it above the bee or the grasshopper and the earlier flower shot for that matter. Still a pretty good shot worth sharing.

We hurried along to return to the air conditioning of our car and only stopped briefly a couple more times to take pictures of some more flowers and some wild berries.  The berry shots were OK but this picture of the blue flowers was better.   Amy and I enjoyed the short hike to take the pictures even with several bug bites for our trouble.  If it wasn't for the need to have pictures for this blog we would not have taken the time to ride out to Mendon and enjoyed a pleasant walk in the woods.  I guess the blog's objective of getting me to go out and shoot more pictures is working (so far).  Until next week, enjoy.