On a recent visit to Huntley Meadows Park, I found the regular cast of characters, including Green-winged Teals, Red-winged Blackbirds and Ring-billed Gulls (an immature below) who reside in the park throughout the year.  There were other regulars like the Northern Pintail, Hooded Merganser, American Black Duck and plenty of Mallards and Canada Goose.

One thing I was not expecting to see was a pair of Bluebirds here in February.  The male flew off just as I was trying to get a photo, but the female hung around just long enough to allow me one shot.  It was good reminder that Spring is around the corner.

One last shot from this past weekend at Blackwater Falls…  arrived before sunrise on Sunday, watching groups of clouds stream by overhead, hoping that when the sun came over the horizon, there would be some clouds behind the falls. This image shows the full falls at 57′ tall and the huge frozen structures built up by the water still able to flow.  The sun rose… and there were clouds behind the falls, making a nice ending to a good weekend of photography.

This interesting ice structure stood between 5″-6″ tall, constructed by dripping water from the overhead rocks, forming an ice stalagmite with a very graceful base.  I liked the contrast between the smooth ice formation and the sharp-edged, colorful rocks surrounding it.

The snow finally subsided in the late afternoon as we continued to photograph near Blackwater Falls.  Once again I concentrated on the rock face across the river. My eye kept being drawn to the small group of snow-covered branches against the grey rock background in this image above.

On Saturday evening, the group was on Pendleton Point overlooking Blackwater Canyon, hoping for a nice sunset since the overcast skies had mostly cleared with a few clouds remaining.  Although thick cloud cover on the western horizon prevented the sun from lighting up the remaining clouds, the sunset did provide a brief period of nice color in the sky.

This is a view of the top of Blackwater Falls, the tallest and the most photographed waterfalls in West Virginia.  During the winter this area sees a lot of snow and the cold temperatures freeze over much of the falls. This past Saturday, an unexpected snow fall added a few more inches to the season accumulation total and also put a little coating of snow on the trees around the falls.

A steady snowfall continued throughout the day, making it a challenge to keep my camera lens dry and wiping off the front of the lens became a frequent chore. In the shot above of the rock face on the other side of the river, our guide Joe recommended using a high ISO to allow a faster shutter speed in order to stop the snowflakes in ‘mid-air’ which would help give the image a grainier look. Although it’s not easy to spot them, there are snowflakes throughout the image. Joe also pointed out the markings on the rock face in the lower left that are reminiscent of the human figures seen in petroglyphs in the Southwest U.S.

The small seam above exposes the only view of Shays Run as it winds its way to another set of frozen falls just past the large rock in the background.  This area of West Virginia receives between 60 and 130 inches of snowfall each year.

I spent the weekend at a Joseph Rossbach workshop held in Blackwater Falls State Park near Davis, WV with a great group of folks (hi to Kate, Mark, Michelle, Rob, and Sue!). The photo above is an ice cave that Joe had found, formed by a wall of ice from melting snow running off a ledge above and then freezing into large sheets of ice. This shot is at the midpoint of the ‘cave’ looking to the opening at one end.  Very neat place to shoot in.  It’s hard to tell the scale here but the ice wall was at least 8′ tall.

That was the big ice above and this is a much smaller piece of ice.  This shot is a close-up of the patterns formed in a single ice sickle about two inches wide, taken with a macro lens.

On Saturday evening we trekked through some deep snow to Pendleton Point for sunset.  The image above was taken with a telephoto lens looking down into Blackwater Canyon as the river reflects the color of the setting sun and sunlight highlights the tops of some of the trees along the river bank.

I still have some images to go through, so more from this weekend to follow.

It’s been a tough winter just about everywhere in this country.  I’m sure winter has some more in store for us but today in northern Virginia the temperature is above freezing and it feels pretty good to be outside.  I took a walk through a local park and found that ice still has a grip on parts of the landscape but I also found signs of the next season, with nice patches of green moss.

As I stepped over a fallen tree, I noticed what appeared to be ‘fuzzy hair’ growing on the side of the trunk.  A close-up shot with a macro lens revealed this alien-world view. Freaky.

I am honored to have my photograph of the Lea Valley area in Great Smoky Mountains National Park selected as one of 13 finalists in The Nature Conservancy’s 5th Annual Digital Photo Contest.  Being selected out of over 26,000 entries is pretty amazing. I hope you take the opportunity to view the other finalists, they are all outstanding images. Voting for the Grand Prize Winner ends on Monday, February 7th at 3PM eastern.  You can see all of the finalists and place your vote by clicking on this link.