A Great Blue Heron poised on a fallen tree limb at Reelfoot Lake State Park.
“Poise: the ability to be ill at ease inconspicuously.” ~Earl Wilson
Great Blue Heron
Uncategorized
Dragonflies
Blue dasher (male)
Common (Eastern) Pondhawk
Eastern Amberwing
Double-ringed Pennant
Blue dasher (female)
Common Whitetail
Dragonflies spotted around the area of Reelfoot Lake, Lake County, Tennessee.
The dragon-fly is dancing,—
Is on the water glancing,
She flits about with nimble wing,
The flickering, fluttering, restless thing.
Besotted chafers all admire
Her light-blue, gauze-like, neat attire;
They laud her blue complexion,
And think her shape perfection…
~Heinrich Heine, “Die Libelle” (The Dragonfly)
Photobombed by a squirrel
Recently, while out for a walk, I spotted a rabbit sitting quietly in some grass. I was in the process of taking a few photos of the bunny, when a gray squirrel unexpectedly came bounding into view. I guess he was interested in having his picture taken too. 🙂
“Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.” ~Marc Riboud
Swallowtail on a butterfly bush
“Discovering this idyllic place, we find ourselves filled with a yearning to linger here, where time stands still and beauty overwhelms.” ~Unknown
Head up!
“Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level.” ~Max L. Forman
Final journey
For many years, the Illinois Central carried passengers through West Tennessee on its journey between Chicago and New Orleans. Watching the trains pass through our small town, as a child, is a little piece of local history that I recall fondly. Sadly, these two old passenger cars, sitting on the side tracks at a local scrap metal recycling facility, have made their final journey. Somehow, I can’t help but wish that they had met a kinder fate.
Life is like a journey, taken on a train
With a pair of travelers at each windowpane.
I may sit beside you all the journey through,
Or I may sit elsewhere, never knowing you.
But if fate should make me sit by your side,
Let’s be pleasant travelers; it’s so short a ride.
~Unknown
Great Egret
“Calmness is the graceful form of confidence.” ~Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach
Red-Winged Blackbirds
A male and female Red-winged blackbird sitting in a marshy area near the Mississippi River.
The marsh, to him who enters it in a receptive mood, holds, besides mosquitoes and stagnation, melody, the mystery of unknown waters, and the sweetness of Nature undisturbed by man. ~ Charles William Beebe
Honey bee
“A work of arte; and yet no arte of man,
Can worke, this worke, these little creatures can”
~ Geffrey Whitney, 1586.
Clothed in white
White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. ~G. K. Chesterton
walking on a country road 