damage - Black and White

Cygnus olor, Swan v Automobile

The Mute Swan is one of the heaviest flying birds, with males averaging about 12 kilograms (26 lb) and the slightly smaller females weighing about 9 kilograms (20 lb).–Wikipedia

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still– W.B.Yeats

This time, wasn’t Leda hit, it was the swan.

Caterpillars have about 4,000 muscles (compare humans, with 629). They move through contraction of the muscles in the rear segments pushing the blood forward into the front segments elongating the torso. The average caterpillar has 248 muscles in the head segment alone. Wikipedia

bucket of bugs

cag1002-c2779-bucket-bugs — I left a five gallon bucket filled to the rim with water outside overnight in Slabtown. The next morning the water level was two inches lower and this drama was occurring. What's up with the green v black thorax? Fashion, class, sex? What is the dragonfly up to? Need an entomologist. Easier to see in color

lack of water

dying trees

Yellow poplar (Liriodendron) is notorious for shedding many leaves during summer droughts, sycamore (Platanus) sheds some leaves, and buckeye (Aesculus) may shed all of its leaves as drought continues. On the other hand, leaves of dogwood (Cornus) usually wilt and die rather than abscise. If water becomes available later in the growing season, some trees defoliated by drought may produce a second crop of leaves from previously dormant buds. Many times these leaves are stunted.–Dr. Kim D. Coder

These three trees planted in 2009, a swamp white oak and two sycamores in Riverview Park, need water. Trees are like dogs, or children, if you plant two inch caliper ($100) trees, they have to be cared for until their root systems are established.

According to Dr. Coder’s article these juveniles might still have a chance…

Acer saccharinum

robin on her nest during a thunderstorm — We had a severe thunderstorm in Charlottesville last Thursday. It snapped power poles, uprooted trees.
The robin made this nest in a 120 year old silver maple. The dread silver maple.
Outlawed by municipalities around the country. Experts say it is a weak wooded, weedy, infrastructure trashing tree.
Sure enough, this tree lost limbs, is that weak wooded or smart?
Instead of hanging onto all its limbs and blowing over in one beautiful piece,
it dropped a few limbs and lived.
Sister robin protecting those youngsters. Mommas all right.

blood red

bloody hand on a glass door — scratched by a quercus virginiana, tree was standing still, I was moving

robin egg blue

a robin's egg and some old govt correspondence
Michael Carrithers commented that b&w photos of rust are not entirely informative. I am taking his words as an invitation.
Despite my monochromatic preference (“friends don’t let friends shoot colour”), I am falling off the wagon for a few days, into the chaos and mess, 390 to 750 nanometers.
Blue egg of Robin largely meaningless in b&w would be.