Passin' thru

For those with bird feeders still up, keep an eye peeled for this handsome guy. This is the Rose breasted Grosbeak which winters in Central America, Venezuela, Peru and Mexico and passes thru our area on migration as they head north. The male is pretty unmistakable with his black hood and back, snow white breast with a bright rose red triangle and black and white wings. The female resembles a large brown sparrow with a white eye stripe.

The name "grosbeak" obviously refers to the large heavy beak used to crack seeds that are the birds main diet. There are six grosbeak species that make their home in the east.

The first photo shows well the avian ear which is a small opening directly behind the eye. Birds have exceptional hearing but lack the external ear (pinna) that we see in humans and most mammals.

Spring Beauties

This is Claytonia, commonly called "Spring Beauty" and that it is! The ditches over in Wilderness are white with these delicate little flowers that range in color from white to pink with pink veins and stamens. The macro lens reveals the exquisite detail of the little flowers that grow from a small underground tuber similiar to a small sweet potato that has a nut like flavor. Named for Va. botanist John Clayton.

Ditch Patrol 09

The 09 Ditch Patrol is off and runnin' so to speak. Generally the Crocuses mark the official start in Feb. I didn't shoot any this year as everyone knows what they look like and it's tough to be creative with them. Add in the fact that I can't get up anymore after getting down to their level. Below are a couple I took previously that I don't believe I sent out. The first one shows the Crocuses colorful reproductive apparatus with the central orange (female) pistil and the three blade like (male) stamens covered with pollen (analogous to sperm in animals)

The next three pics are of Sanguinaria, commonly called "Bloodroot". I've been looking for this somewhat rare plant for years and finally found some last spring in a ditch (where else!) over in Wilderness battlefield. It is one of our earliest spring flora blooming in March. I found it today in full bloom. It is absolutely gorgeous with the pristine white petals radiating from a cluster of bright yellow stamens. The plant is toxic although American Indians used the red juice from the root (hence the name) for a variety of ails including war paint for their faces and bodies. The plants are somewhat inconspicuous amid the leaf litter etc on the ground. The first flower is a bit smaller than a quarter and the last 3 about nickel sized.

Heavy hearts revisited

It's with heavy hearts that we bid farewell this past Friday to Emerson, our beloved 13
year old orange tabby cat due to kidney failure.
We learned in late summer that he had Feline CRF (chronic renal
failure) a fairly common progressive, ultimately fatal condition of
older cats. As the kidneys have tremendous reserve capacity, little to no signs of the disease appear until about 75% of kidney function is lost. As the kidneys have no ability to regenerate as do organs such as the liver, when there're gone they're gone. Under the direction of veterinarians Drs. Witter, Collins and Newman at Confederate Ridge Animal Hospital, we did manage, by diet, medication and aggressive fluid therapy to prolong his life about 6 months. Having lost our 13 year old Lab "Dewey" in October, it hasn't been a good run for the Lowery pets.

We got Emerson when he was little more than a tiny ball of orange fuzz. It's a wonder he made 1 year much less 13 as I thought about ringing his neck countless times ;o) Always into something, he fell in the toilet, out windows and he seemed to know (and enjoy) what pushed my buttons. Dubbed the "orange hand grenade" by my dad, it was indeed hilarious to watch them square off! A superb hunter, he earned his keep by keeping the mice population in check and it was common to find piles of feathers or assorted rodent body parts by the back door. Then there was his trick of bringing his (very much) alive catch in the house and turning it loose. I remember well the full grown Dove that managed to fill the house with blood and feathers as it flew room to room. We'll miss him greatly.

Christmas wishes

As we just celebrated the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Pam and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and will enjoy a happy and prosperous New Year!

Lighthouse at Cape May

This is my favorite non floral, non avian subject. This is the Cape May, NJ lighthouse located on Cape May Point, NJ which is where the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean meet. I've shot hundreds of photos of it over the years as it is one beautiful structure. I'll post quite a few below.

We try to go to Cape May twice a year usually in Sept and May (when we can afford it!) Cape May is, I think, the oldest or one of the oldest resorts in the US. It is a small city located on the southern tip of Joisee noted for its beautiful Victorian architecture. The LH is located about 2 miles south of the city. Cape May is a seasonal town with many businesses closing down or operating on short schedules from Labor Day to Memorial Day. The traffic lights are also on "flash" mode during the off season.

The current LH was constructed in 1859 and is the third on the site. The first opened in 1823 and was 70 feet high but because of erosion eventually fell into the ocean in 1847. A second lighthouse was built a third of a mile away during 1847 but was demolished ten years later because of poor construction.


Some references I've found say the current LH was constructed under the supervision of Lt. George Meade who would later rise to the rank of Major General and command the Union Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg. Meade was a USMA graduate in engineering. Meade served as the architect for the New Jersey Lighthouses of Abescon and Barnegat.

The structure is 157' 6" tall, brick and is constructed of two cylinders, one within the other. It is built to withstand 2-3 times any conceivable hurricane force winds. To aid mariners in identification, lighthouses have unique color schemes and flash sequences. This one is solid beige in color with a bright red cap and the automated light flashes every 15 seconds.
Inside, there are 199 steps to the top. No elevator meant lighthouse keepers had to haul kerosene and whale blubber oil that fueled the light up the tower by hand every day so the romantic idea that they lived a life of solitude and leisure is false. The last keeper to live in the Cape May Lighthouse in the 1920's was a guy named Harry Palmer. He lived there with his wife and nine children so Harry did manage to find some spare time somewhere. :o)
I shot this photo in 02 with an old Nikon film camera and is my all time favorite. A storm had just cleared the area. I sat my tripod up in the LH's shadow but the sky was so bright I really couldn't see much so I shot with my eyes closed. I wasn't aware of the cloud swirl around the lantern and had no idea of what I had until I got the slides back. WOW!

Shining lights

Early lighthouses used a system of silvered reflectors to intensify the main light source, a whale-oil lamp but in the 1850's, the government authorized use of a technology new to U.S.: the glorious, multiprismed lens invented by French physicist Augustin Fresnel in 1822. It was a complex array of dazzling glass prisms and bull's-eye lens mounted in a gleaming brass framework. The larger ones weighed up to 3 tons and each lens cost $12,000 at the time plus shipping costs from France (no UPS or FedEx!). The lenses came in six sizes called "orders" with the largest "First Order" ones being used in lighthouses. These contained up to 1000 prisims and stood 10-12' tall. With no cranes like we have today, they had to be hoisted 150' in the air by hand and real "horse power" using pulley systems.

The Fresnel lens was replaced by a 36-inch rotating aero-beacon lens in 1945 and equipped with a 1,000 watt bulb. This arrangement produced 350,000 candle-power with the light visible about 25 nm.

I took this double exposure with an old manual Nikon film camera on a dismal cold overcast day mainly because I couldn't think of anything else to do. The lantern on the right I took with a 300 mm lens and then, without advancing the film, took a second shot with a regular 50 mm lens. Result kinda cool I thought.


No two sunsets are the same! The best months to shoot are Sept. and Oct. based on the position of the setting sun. I generally take spot light meter reading of all sections of the scene and take multiple shots which give some interesting results.

Some of favorite photos of this elegant structure:



I shot these on a foggy, misty morning. I could only see the LH occasionally thru the mist. I started to trash the shots but then realized this kind of weather was the reason for building lighthouses in the first place.

Heavy Hearts

It's with heavy hearts that we had to put our beloved Lab Dewey to sleep this afternoon after a long battle with severe spinal arthritis and kidney disease. We'd hoped, by changing medicines, to somehow buy him a bit more time but it wasn't to be and there were no options left. My criteria for euthanasia was when he could no longer enjoy life but it becomes a burden for him it was time to stop. His tail was always going even on bad days but not so this AM so I knew it was time. He basically lost the use of his hind legs from the spinal arthritis nerve compression so he couldn't get up. We're thankful for the 13 wonderful years we had him and the knowledge that he is no longer suffering. All he ever wanted was to be with us.

True to his breed, he was obsessed with retrieving and would fetch anything you could throw. Even as his health failed, the spark was still there and his eyes would light up when you picked up his retriever dummy or ball. I still recall him retrieving an empty Clorox jug that was larger than him the day we brought him home as a little pup. We'll miss him greatly.