About ten years ago I posted about the Hand of God Nebula and the general concept of Pareidolia, things that look like something else. I think that people have different abilities to see these things, and maybe it is a form of mental illness. This morning, I was going through this past winter’s photographs and came upon the image of Figure 1, snow in the branches of a giant pine outside my bedroom window.

To my eyes, it is filled with the heads of giant snow elephants, complete with ears, eyes, and slightly shortened trunks. We may even argue, based on the ear size, whether they are African or Indian elephants. Do you see them?

The other “night heron” in Southwest Florida is the Yellow-crowned (Nyctanassa violacea). The subject of Figure 1 was photographed at the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island.

As a New England birder, I am always delighted by the herons. Our marshes are dominated by the Great Blue Heron. But Southwest Florida, wow! And one of the favorites is the black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). The name leads one to wonder why it and its relatives are called “night herons,” and the answer is an obvious one. They are pretty sedentary during the day but active from dusk to dawn feeding on pretty much everything that wiggles.

The black-crowned of Figure 1 was photographed in a mangrove at the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island in January. The distinctive red eye seems all so knowing, or is it the effect of endlessly and sleeplessly burning the midnight oil?

One of my favorite birds in southwest Florida is the common gallinule (Gallinula galeata) with its delightful red beak. In the everglades it was always tricky to capture because it was invariably hiding behind grasses and mangroves. But always worth the effort! The photograph of Figure 1 was taken in Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island. I personally love the greys of the water, the vertical branches, the reflections, whose symmetry directs the eye to the subject, and the circular ripples, which has a similar effect.

Like Ozymandias* the haughty eagle chooses his perch high above the meager trees that hold the nests of the osprey. Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) carries with him so much symbolism. And they are often, like the one of Figure 1, so difficult to photograph. I was just beneath its tree, but really it was so far away and challenged my lens’ ability to capture him. “Capture” is the right word. The eagle is so hard to “capture” both physically and figuratively. Had we chosen the osprey instead as the emblem of America, might we have become a nation of pescatarians?

While Benjamin Franklin did not, as often cited, suggest that the turkey be the proper national bird. Perhaps it seems more appropriate in these troubled times, when we cannot find it in ourselves to come to aid of our allies. Franklin did comment in a letter to his daughter that the eagle in the national seal resembled a turkey. Franklin did apparently comment that “Bald Eagle…is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly…[he] is too lazy to fish for himself.” Like, I guess, the noble osprey. Neither agreeing or disagreeing with Franklin and having a strong disdain for the anthropomorphic, I just put it out there as a measure of a time when America was purer.

I took the image on a road side on Sanibel Island. TC and I pulled over and took photographs. The bird in question was himself haughty and disdainful. He barely looked at me and allowed me only so much time to take his image and, certainly not, to capture him before flying off.

*My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Percy Bysshe Shelly, Ozymandias

This is a usual time of year for post-winter flooding in New England, a kind of mud season. And, as I indicated yesterday, there’s a lot of flooding this year. I wanted to try and capture it in a photograph – the inundated trees, a deep chocolatey still water surface, thick with rich mud. Often, as in Figure 1 the key is the contorted abstract shapes and, of course, the reflections. What particularly caught my eye was the spiral pattern in the park and its inverted reflection in the water as well as the disconcerting contrast between the cylindrical symmetry of the log and the vertical linear reflections of the standing trees.

Well, it is officially spring, judging by the warmth of the air. The birds are putting on their best plumage for the mating season, and I am hitting the birding trail. So, Figure 1 is just a warm-up image that I took at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge this afternoon. After all the rain that we had these past few weeks the amount of flooding is insane and many of the paths and trails are impassable. This American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) was displaying some brilliant color. The redwings are similalrly spectacular and their mating calls fill every corner of the meadow. I cannot wait for the coming of the lotuses!