before reaching water, our dock passes through about 50 meters of cattails and then 25 meters of these reed-like plants. i have the hardest time identifying these wetland plants. and it is no wonder–these bulrushes, called club-rush in europe, are actually not a form of rush at all, but rather a form of sedge. now i understand the source of my confusion.
bulrush (aka common club-rush)
turtle lake, saint paul, minnesota
busy green helicopters have been whirlybirding down from our backyard sugar maple. i intended to sweep them off our deck this afternoon, and instead found myself making patterns.
sugar maple seeds
saint paul, minnesota
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it looks perfect with firefox :)
i like how some of these parts look like double helix (dna)reply -
love this!!!
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i can’t stop looking at the white tail deer vertebrae we found last weekend. they manage to look both functional and whimsical. evolutionary art.
white tail deer vertebra
saint paul, minnesota
i took this photo more than a week ago. the warblers were migrating through, and i assume he hit the glass. but my family wouldn’t let me post it. “no more dead birds” they cried. so i compromised, and waited a week, and here, with my apologies, is another dead bird. there is something about them, their sad and peaceful stillness, that i find both wrenching and beautiful.
tennessee warbler
saint paul, minnesota
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I put a big paper Ugly Face on my most popular bird strike window in the spring. Seems they can’t see the glass, but they do see the face – no more dead birds. I have enough wren skulls… poor Robins.
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I threaded some feathers onto thin cording, tied a key onto the bottom, and hung three strands of this in front of the “killer window.” Best solution ever, and it looks rather pretty. The keys weight down the feather strings so that they don’t, on windy days, fly up and lodge in the overhead gutter.
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Carol, this sounds much prettier than my Cartoon Frankenstein…!
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It makes me sad, want to cry. But so beautiful. Life=fragile. The little things seem to suffer more. I see horrible things on the highway all the time and would love to document it.
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i think you are right to document their tragic beauty
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i think sedges with their triangular stems are so cool
Memory trick I learned in plant ID class – ‘Rushes are round and sedges have edges.’
I love this! Thank you!
I adore your pictures!
I love to kayak through these–they make the best swooooooshing sound as one slowly paddles through.