Sunday, January 29, 2012

Pinkball

PINKBALL (DOMBEYA WALLICHII), CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 27, 2012

Pentax K-5
Tamron SP AF 90mm f2.8 DI Macro
1/500 sec. f8
ISO 800

This quarter-sized bud found in the Chicago Botanic Garden's semi-tropical greenhouse soon will become a bright pompon of petals as large as a softball. It's from Africa and Madagascar, and if you bend close and take a deep sniff, you'll be wreathed in the odor of movie-house buttered popcorn.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Mystery plant

UNIDENTIFIED PLANT, CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 27, 2012

Pentax K-5
Tamron SP AF 90mm f2.8 DI Macro
1/60 sec. f8
ISO 1600

One of the minor frustrations about visiting the Chicago Botanic Garden is identifying what you're seeing from the welter of identification tags stuck in the ground around the plants, some of them hidden by foliage. If you know what this is, please let me know. For now I'm calling it "Bunched-Up Cotton Swabs," or "Pussycat Toes." [Later: I think this might be Whitfieldia elongata "White Candles," a shrub in the acanthus family, but I'm not absolutely certain.]

Friday, January 27, 2012

Red Spike Ice Plant

RED SPIKE ICE PLANT (CEPHALOPHYLLUM ALSTONI), CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 25, 2012

Pentax K-5
Tamron SP AF 90mm f2.8 DI Macro
1/60 sec. f8
ISO 1600

The succulent plant from southwestern South Africa is only about five inches high, but its intense cerise bloom (here dime-sized in its early stages) will grow to about two inches wide in a week or two. Though it lay low on the ground, the red, red flower immediately captured my eye as I strode through the arid greenhouse at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Peruvian Apple Cactus

PERUVIAN APPLE CACTUS (CEREUS REPANDUS), CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 25, 2012

Pentax K-5
Tamron SP AF 90mm f2.8 DI Macro
1/100 sec. f8
ISO 1600

This prickly fellow hails from the deserts of Peru and its edible fruits are used there, though in the United States the cactus is chiefly ornamental. It can grow as tall as 33 feet, although this specimen in the arid greenhouse at the Chicago Botanic Garden is only about 2 1/2 feet high.

Mexican Fan Palm

MEXICAN FAN PALM (WASHINGTONIA ROBUSTA), CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN, GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 25, 2012

Pentax K-5
Tamron SP AF 90mm f2.8 DI Macro
1/60 sec. f8
ISO 1600

Midwesterners may be mystified, but any Southern Californian will recognize this shaggy mess as the normal trunk bark of the Mexican Fan Palm, a south-of-the-border native that often lines city boulevards. For some no doubt obscure reason it's named for George Washington. I captured it during a foray to the tropical greenhouse at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Click on the photo for a bedsheet-sized version.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Third sparrow of the season

HOUSE SPARROW, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 13, 2012

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 ED (IF)
1/750 sec. f8
IS0 400

Backyard sparrows are about as exciting as three-year-old Honda Civics, but now and then one puts on a pretty pose that's worth capturing.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Mourning dove

MOURNING DOVE (ZENAIDA MACROURA), EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 13, 2012

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm ED (IF)
1/90 sec. f8
ISO 400

This is (or was) one of a pair of doves that had frequented our back yard for a number of years. A few days after this photo was taken, a Cooper's hawk killed and ate one of the doves in the neighbor's back yard. The hawk has taken up residence in the neighborhood, and we expect more such incidents.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Third squirrel of the season

GRAY SQUIRREL, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 20, 2012

Pentax K20D
Sigma APO 135-400 DC at 135mm
1/125 sec. f6.7
ISO 400

The squirrels descended upon our backyard desk en masse during the beginning of yesterday's snowstorm hoping for an extra handout to tide them through the night. After taking this photo, I obliged.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Second sparrow of the season

FEMALE HOUSE SPARROW, EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 15, 2012

Pentax K20D
Sigma APO 135-400 DC at 400mm
1/750 sec. f6.7
ISO 400

This sparrow posed prettily atop a snowbank on our backyard deck railing one frigid morning, fluffing its feathers against the cold.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Pine Siskin

PINE SISKIN (CARDUELIS PINUS), EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 11, 2012

Pentax K-5
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 ED (IF)
1/2500 sec. f9
ISO 1600

Another rare visitor to our backyard feeder, the Pine Siskin is a close relative of  house finches and goldfinches (the yellow tinge on the siskin's lower wing feathers is an identifying point). It's said to be a noisy and agile flier often mistaken for a sparrow, but the siskin is a much smaller bird.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Goldfinch in winter camo

MALE AMERICAN GOLDFINCH (CARDUELIS TRISTIS), EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 12, 2012

Pentax K-5
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 ED (IF)
1/320 sec. f8
ISO 1600

It's hard to believe that the bright yellow male goldfinch turns so gray and dull in January, but it does. This specimen made a nice change from the ubiquitous sparrows at our backyard birdbath today.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

First sparrow of the season

FEMALE HOUSE SPARROW (PASSER DOMESTICUS), EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, JANUARY 4, 2012

Pentax K20D
SMC Pentax-F* 300mm f4.5 ED (IF)
1/250 sec. f5.6
ISO 400

House sparrows are ten cents a gross in anybody's backyard, and naturally I throw out most of the shots of them as being exceedingly uninteresting. Once in a while, however, a sparrow will strike a pose that's worthy of a bird species identification catalogue if nothing else, and so I proffer this example.