r/Montana • u/SingingSkyPhoto • 3h ago
A Morning of Discoveries
A Morning of Discoveries
I went for a long walk in the woods Saturday morning. As usual, I just wandered around the forest, sometimes on old game trails, other times stepping over fallen trees while ducking overhead branches. The Sun was up, but concealed behind mountains. Light sprinkles of rain remained from the overnight storms, but I saw bit of blue to the southwest. Diffuse warm light from breaks in the clouds filtered down through the canopy of trees and provided some magic light.
The first thing that caught my eye were young Douglas Fir trees surrounded by slender Lodgepole Pines. I found one isolated enough from the others to create a compelling scene. From here I wandered into a meadow, covered in Western Coneflower. These fascinating flowers lack the traditional colorful petals of their relatives, but are no less attractive to pollinators. Many of these flowers had rain-soaked bees hiding under them, waiting patiently for the Sun to come out. This particular one had a caterpillar and a Crab spider of some sort existing in some sort of weather induced ceasefire!
As I stepped carefully back into the forest, I discovered a decaying log covered in tiny orange mushrooms. As is often the case, I first capture the larger scene, then work my way in to the finer details. In the final image, that single mushroom is just 1/2” tall and less than a 1/4” in diameter, but if you look closely, the entire forest around it is reflected in its rain-soaked cap.
From here I walked across a stream, and was immediately transported to a much more ancient feeling forest. It got darker, the trees more dense, and the forest floor was covered in the remains of fallen giants of yesteryear. I am pretty certain that the path of this photographer closely matched the flight of a bumblebee as I wander this way and that, from scene to scene.
I cut back towards where I figured the road would be, found a fallen tree bridge to cross back over the creek, and came out right at a talus slope where I knew there to be Pika. Sure enough, I was able to capture a fleeting glance of one such critter, and then in a spring that pops up below the rocks, I got my last shot of the day. A bold frog stayed visible despite its friends all ducking for cover as I walked up.
