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Posts tagged ‘nature’

The Nature of Living Things

Above/featured: A warm summer afternoon on Grouse Mountain: North Vancouver, BC – 1 August 2016 (450D).

It’s a play on the title of a long-running documentary series on science and technology: “The Nature of Things” airs on Canada’s national broadcaster, the CBC. “Nature” can mean different things to different people, but I’ve three words in mind: flora, fauna, and mountains. Having begun photography as an active interest relatively late from 2005, it’s been a wondrous journey of non-stop discovery. Between 2007 and 2018, the following locations provided backdrops and venues to photographs about “nature.”

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Sonnenblumen, Bienen, sunflowers, bees, Park Weinberg, Kassel, Hesse, Hessen, Germany, fotoeins.com

Awake the Giant

Before visiting the Grimmwelt museum in Kassel, Germany, I spent some time in the neighbouring park on Weinberg hill. Among many flowers, various bees and insects were in orbit-, launch-, and landing manoeuvres. I watched a bee land, and there was a composition of yellow sunflowers with dark centres surrounded by green leaves and trees against a backlit clear blue sky.

A larger bumblebee landed on the same flower, and I expected a “bumblin’ tumblin’ battle royale.” But it went quick, as the bumblebee first nudged then pushed its smaller cousin off the yard. Presumably satisfied with its sip, the bumblebee flew off shortly thereafter. I waited a few more minutes, but neither bee returned.

Gathering pollen is tough work for a tough crowd. The real truth is the world needs bees to remain healthy, thrive, and flourish.

“Move aside, and let the bee go through …”

Sonnenblumen und Bienen

As I’m product of the 1980s, the post title is a nod to Lawrence Gowan’s “Awake the Giant” (1987). I made the photos above on 1 October 2017. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins.com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-bIt.

Flowers aflame, Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

I was skeptical of a visit to tulip gardens.

“They’re just flowers after all.”

When I lived in Heidelberg, Germany, my friends wanted to travel to the Netherlands before pregnancy kicked into full swing. They wanted to visit Keukenhof and Amsterdam. I was excited about Amsterdam; I was unsure about Keukenhof.

But one step inside the tulip gardens in Keukenhof was enough to turn my head and my opinion about tulip fields spun completely around.

That was 2002, and this is 2017. I’m highway-bound along I-5 into western Washington State to see tulips.

During the annual tulip festival in April, the Skagit river valley is populated by fields of daffodils and tulips, in eye-popping yellow, red, orange, purple, and white. The overcast skies with diffuse grey light provides ideal light conditions with no strong shadows. The explosion of colour should surely melt hearts and convince minds, if the change to my once obstinate stance is any indication.

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Kangaroo Island (SA): seals, koalas, & roos

Devastating bushfires in the 2020 Australian summer (December 2019-March 2020) wiped out a significant fraction of flora and fauna on Kangaroo Island. For many plant and animal species, recovery will require years to decades.

Kangaroo Island in South Australia was named for the large number of kangaroos, which were a source of fresh meat for the crew of the British ship HMS Investigator in 1802. The ship was captained by Matthew Flinders, who was tasked to chart the southern Australian coastline. Desperate without fresh supplies for months, Flinders named the island in gratitude for the abundance of roo meat.

Then again, the indigenous name for the island is “Karta” or “Island of the Dead.” That’s a little sinister, as something must have happened; either the aborigine population left the island or they died out.

But life bounces back, and there’s plenty of it on this island.

There are plenty of sheep where on grassy meadows, seals at Kingscote Jetty, young and adult seals relaxing and sleeping in the sun at Admirals Arch, free-climbing koala bears and free-roaming kangaroos at the Hanson Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, Ligurian honey bees at Clifford’s Honey Farm, and a lone echidna by the side of a dirt road in the middle of the island.

In making these photos, I used my long-zoom lens; no animals were harmed, poked, prodded, or ridiculed in the process.

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