Virginia Bluebell

Virginia Bluebell, a photo by Bernie Kasper on Flickr.

A light at the end of the tunnel looks like this is the last really cold night and temps here in Madison are supposed to start rising into the 60-70 degree mark the next week..it’s time !!

“Madison Indiana Wildflowers”

It has been an incredible show so far, best wildflower bloom I have seen in at least five years, Clifty Falls State Park has been putting on show the last few days that don’t come around often.  I spent yesterday evening in the gorge at Clifty Falls  and have never seen so many varieties blooming at once and the  colors are so vibrant I can’t begin to describe them !!

The ground was virtually covered in Blue-Eyed Marys and Virginia Bluebells, and in between Wild Phlox and false Rue Anemone added a great contrast to the vivid colors.  I have been able to really get a lot of great shots this year, hopefully this trend will continue  this spring !!

I think the peak is right now and probably after this weekend things will go downhill fast, so if you want to see the show this weekend should be your best bet !!

Here are some more shots from Southern Indiana and Clifty I hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I did in capturing their beauty , thanks for stopping by and taking a look !!

 

                                                                                                                                                                                   

Blue-Eyed Mary

                                                                                                                                                                      Virginia Bluebell

                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                                      Trillium

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Wildflowers..Madison Indiana”

The wildflowers are still blooming fast ans furious here in Madison Indiana, just about every early species is in full bloom, including Virginia Bluebell, Wild Phlox and Squirrel Corn  all pictured here. The weather has been outstanding and the bloom is amazing the only foreseeable problem has been a lack of moisture and the speed of which the bloom has been progressing.

I can see most of the early bloom past peak by next week and then the later flowers blooming thru the next couple of weeks and then it will probably be gone, usually by that time the early blooms would be peaking, so it looks like the bloom is running a couple weeks ahead of schedule.  I can’t control that just hopefully be out in the woods when it is at it’s peak !!!

Here are three different wildflower images I got earlier today all three are peaking as we speak and hopefully I will be able to get a  few more shots of them thru the weekend, there is heavy rain in the forecast which would actually help some and keep the blooms from drying out.

Clifty Falls is ablaze right now with all the beautiful color palettes that these early season wildflowers have to offer. Ina couple more weeks it will be gone so if you have the chance to hike the park now would be a great time to get out and view this beautiful display of nature before it disappears !!

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look !!

 

                                                                                                                                                                           Virginia Bluebell

                                                                                                                                                                            Wild Phlox

 

                                                                                                                                                                                           

Squirrel Corn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Madison Indiana”

Once again I thought I might share a pic from past seasons wildflower quest, today looks to be a great day to get out in the woods and see what is popping. It looks like an unseasonably warm pattern setting up for the next ten days or so, what do you want to bet we have a major cool down in their somewhere that will screw up all my efforts this spring !!

This image is a Virginia Bluebell one of my favorite wildflowers to photograph, the colors in these are fantastic, and the way the bloom droops down always makes for great  composition   Clifty Falls State Park has an abundance of this little gems the only problem with them as with most all wildflowers is the short season you have to work them.

Here in Madison Indiana the  wildflower season is starting to heat up a well as the weather so if your looking for a great place to hike or if you just would like to stroll thru a beautiful historic Rivertown why don’t you give Madison and Clifty Falls a try….you will be glad you did !!

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look !!

 

                                                                                                                                                                        

 

 

 

 

“Thunderstorm Wildflowers”

BOOM…followed by an even louder thunderclap roused me  from my warm conformable environment, sheets of wind and rain followed,  I was now smack dab in the middle  of a Southern Indiana thunderstorm !!   But the only problem was I wasn’t home in my warm comfortable bed or on my couch but I was stuck underneath a rock outcropping in one of the deep canyons that make up Clifty Falls Sate Park.

For being stuck outside durng a heavy thunderstorm my shelter was actually a pretty comfortable place to be, I could sit and watch the storm unfold before my eyes and experience the whole ordeal from the relatively dry ground underneath the rock ledge !!  The cool thing about the whole ordeal was there happened to be a big male turkey very close to my location that would gobble after every thunder clap which made the situation that much more enjoyable.

Now you might be wondering what I was doing to get myself in such a predicament, well photographing wildflowers is the answer to that question, finally after what seemed like an eternity of winter weather I was able to get out Saturday morning to shoot some wildflowers.  And as you can tell by now I no sooner got into Clifty Falls State Park then all hell broke loose, I had just hiked down into one of the gorges when the storm snuck up on me and left me nowhere to go but under this fortuitously located rock outcropping.

After a long stretch of wind and rain I was finally able to venture out into the woods to photograph the native wildflowers that make their home in the Park.  The spring season has pretty much been a bust so far but things were definitely turning around this morning, all around flowers were sharing their beautifully colored blooms for the world to witness, and it seems I had finally been in the right place at the right time.

There were many specimens to shoot and not enough time to get them all in, but I can tell you I tried real hard to shoot them all, I will post  many of them later but the ones I spent  most of this morning on were the Virginia Bluebells, according to Wikipedia…

The Virginia Bluebell (Mertensia virginica; also Virginia Cowslip, Lungwort Oysterleaf, Roanoke Bells) is a spring ephemeral plant with bell-shaped sky-blue flowers opening from pink buds, native to moist woodland in eastern North America.

Leaves are rounded and gray-green, borne on a stem up to 60 cm (2 ft) high. They are petiolate at the bottom of the flower stem and sessile at the top.

Flowers with five petals fused into a tube, five stamens, and a central pistil (carpel) are borne in mid-spring in nodding cymes at the end of arched stems. Buds are pink-tinged, changing to sky-blue as they open. White flowers occur rarely.

Stamen and pistil are spaced too far apart for self-fertilization. The flower can be pollinated by bumblebees, but due to its funnel shape, bumblebees must hover, making the bumblebee a rare pollinator. Butterflies are the most common pollinators, because they can easily perch on the edges and still enjoy the nectar.In early summer, each fertilized flower produces four seeds within wrinkled nuts, and the plant goes dormant till the next spring

These are some of the most colorful blooms in the spring forest and one of my favorites to shoot, the hills that surround Madison Indiana are covered in these in good years and they make for quite a spectacular show when in full bloom !!

This image was shot just as the sun penetrated the clouds after the morning thunderstorms, I loved the water droplets and how they interacted with the morning light, it was just one of the many images I shot that morning and hopefully I will be able to get more the next few days. This is the peak time to be in the woods so if you get a chance try to get out for a hike at Clifty or anywhere else wildflowers grow…just make sure you check the weather report before you go !!

Thanks for stopping by and click on the image for best viewing !!