Dids and Didnts in Japan

Eastern Rat Snake, Scotophis alleghaniensis
Gene and I went to Chiques Rock today for a short walk in the woods. I was busy photographing some bright orange colored polypore fungus when I heard him exclaim from a short distance up the trail. He stood still and pointed to the ground at this an eastern rat snake crossing the trail…in the third week of November. Just goes to show how warm it’s been

Cloud of Starlings
This is some incredible footage of a cloud of starlings in Denmark. The flock is estimated to be about 300,000 birds:

Butterick 4607
Yeehaw partners. Say howdy to my new western shirt:

Wolf Sanctuary, Horst’s, Baltimore Train Museum
We did a lot of touring last week that left me exhausted. One stop was the Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania where we were able to get up-close looks at their pack of refugees and victims of abuse. This group has a license to keep and house wolves that find themselves needing a home and, unfortunately, there are many of them. Unbelievably, it is perfectly legal in the state of Pennsylvania to keep a wo

More Longwood Gardens
Believe it or not, this is one plant! It has 721 blooms. This style was developed in Japan and is called okuzuri.  Here’s a video from Longwood Gardens showing how Yoko, Longwood Gardens’ mum grower expert, developed this plant: My old camera, the Rebel, might not have been able to handle an intense red like this (it had much less dynamic range, the minimum and maximum amount of information able to be captured), but my new 5