A few days ago I spent a morning at the top of a 20 foot ladder photographing a brown-headed nuthatch couple building a nest. I made about 200 photographs trying to catch those moments that tell their story.



Clouds softened the early morning light for the first two images in the series above. I concentrated at first just on capturing a typical nuthatch pose next to the nest cavity. After a while the clouds parted and direct sunlight fell on the nest. The brighter light allowed me to use faster shutter speeds so I could capture some of the action. Instead of just dropping wood chips out of the hole, the bird would carefully perch at the opening and flip its head several times back and forth in a complete circle flinging the wood chips in every direction. It was very funny to watch but almost impossible to catch in a photo because it all happened so fast. At one point one of the birds took a break from excavating the cavity to just take in the morning, and perhaps to wonder what that human was doing on the ladder. This image made me laugh because the feathers on top of the birds head were all messed up from all the work it had been doing down at the bottom of the cavity.

A little later some high thin clouds diffused the harsh sunlight and provided the perfect light. It was bright enough to use the base ISO on my camera and still have enough shutter speed to avoid motion blur.

Finally, everything came together. While one of the birds was excavating the cavity, the other one was stuffing it with dried grass. It seemed to me that it would be better to wait until the excavation was finished before bringing in the grass but no relationship is without its challenges. Anyway, at one point the removal of wood chips and the bringing of dried grass coincided so that both birds were at the nest hole at the same time. At this moment the light was perfect, bright, diffuse, and warm, and I was ready.


Brown-headed Nuthatch Couple

I spent the day at the North Carolina Botanical Garden hanging the exhibit. Everything went together pretty much as I imagined it would, it just took a lot longer than I imagined. The exhibit consists of 29 wrapped canvas prints with captions that relate the images to plant conservation. There are also a lot of unframed prints on photographic paper available for purchase in a stand by the table.

A lot has been happening behind the scenes lately that does not make it to the web site. Most of the photographs I have been making for my next book are being kept under wraps until the book is published. However, you will have a chance to see some of these photographs at the exhibit at the North Carolina Botanical Garden that opens on January 9th.



Most of my photography efforts for the book for the last few years have been focused on finding and photographing the best examples of what remains of North Carolina’s natural places. The image above was made on the Black River in an area with the oldest trees in Eastern North America, bald-cypress with an average age around 1600 years.

The theme of the exhibit is North Carolina plant conservation. I selected images from across the State as well as across a range of conservation efforts. There will be photographs from public lands, grassroots conservation, North Carolina Plant Conservation Preserves, as well as some rare and newly discovered plant species. I also created some new images from properties managed by the North Carolina Botanical Garden especially for this exhibit. This one of Morgan Creek was posted on the web site last month:


Morgan Creek

This will be the first time I am exhibiting prints on canvas. I am really excited about the look and quality of the canvas prints. If you have only seen my images on the internet you will be impressed by what you are missing when you see these prints.

If you would like to help spread the word about the exhibit you can print out this flyer.

For more information about the exhibit visit the North Carolina Botanical Garden Web site.

I will be attending the annual meeting of the Friends of Plant Conservation on November 4th from 9:30am to 3:00pm. The meeting is open to the public so anyone interested in North Carolina's native plants is welcome to attend. In addition to presentations by Rob Sutter, Cecil Frost, and Rob Evans, we will be exploring ways to create and manage a system of Plant Conservation Preserves to protect North Carolina's imperiled plants in their natural habitats. The event will be held at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill in the new Education Center. Registration is $15 and includes lunch.

Two of the new photographs this month are from a Plant Conservation Preserve in the mountains called Tater Hill. This preserve has a high elevation grassy bald, rock outcrops, northern hardwood forests, and a bog. When I visited it was too late in the growing season to photograph the rare plants but the dramatic landscape is interesting any time of year.


Tater Hill Plant Conservation Preserve

You can see the rest of the new photographs on the November 2009 page.

I recently returned from a trip to photograph some of the remnant prairies near Charlotte, North Carolina. My sister lives in Charlotte so I got to spend some time with her as well. She has these canisters on a shelf between her kitchen and living room with things like sugar, flour, salt, you know, the staples. I have been telling her for years it would be hilarious if one of the canisters had actual staples in it. Then she could watch the faces of her guests as they tried to figure out why office supplies were mixed in with the food. Well, she finally did it and was waiting for me to arrive so she could see how long it would take me to notice. I did not notice at first. I walked in the door, hugged her neck, and then, about 20 seconds later, I noticed it and burst out laughing! See, I was right, it is hilarious!


"Staples"

Anyway, back to the prairies. It seems strange to think about prairies in North Carolina. Today they are all but gone yet early explorers reported extensive prairies in the North Carolina Piedmont. Most of the evidence suggests these prairies were created and maintained by Native Americans. Many of the plants and animals that depended on the open conditions of the prairies now struggle to survive or are gone. I chose this time to visit because one of these plants, the federally endangered Schweinitz’s Sunflower, was at its peak flowering.


Schweinitz's Sunflower

One of the sites I visited was Mineral Springs Barren, a Plant Conservation Preserve whose purpose is to improve the habitat for the Schweinitz’s Sunflower. The few remnant prairies like this one are faint reminders of what once was, but from certain angles and perspectives, and with some imagination, I could see the open fields and bison that once characterized this area.


Mineral Springs Barren