Pic(k) of the Week: Daybreak over Constitution Lakes

Two small lakes —once excavation pits for an early-20th-century clay-brick manufacturer— now are beautiful bird-and-plant-fecund wetlands of the South River. Here, pictured just after daybreak.

Constitution Lakes Park: DeKalb County (Gresham Park), Georgia, USA. 18 July 2024 (7:35 am EDT).

Constitution Lakes is a 125-acre park operated by DeKalb County, the land purchased for $1.28 million in 2003. Part former brickworks, part wildlife refuge, part hiking trail, part snake pit, and part art exhibit, the land has been transformed by both humans and the flooding South River into an ecological sanctuary smack in the middle of an industrial district.

At the center of the park lie two small lakes that were excavation pits created by the former South River Brick Company [late 19th and early 20th-century] digging out the soft red clay for bricks. The lakes feature countless turtles, crappie, and catfish, along with bass fish: large mouth, small mouth, spotted and striped bass. For bird watchers, you’ll see belted kingfishers, woodpeckers, ducks, blue herons, >[ibises], geese, hawks, and more.

— History Atlanta.

***************

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Tree in morning marsh

Morning light anoints a dead tree, yet standing on marshy ground.

Seminary Wood in Legacy Park: City of Decatur, Georgia, USA.
3 October 2023.

***************

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Heron in morning pond

In early morning, a juvenile great blue heron (Ardea herodias) was fishing in in a large city-park pond. I tried not to disturb her.

Postal Pond in Decatur Legacy Park: Decatur, Georgia, USA. 1 August 2023 (8:12 am EDT).

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Castillo de San Marcos

Looking north at daybreak, along the Matanzas River, at the Castillo de San Marcos.

In downtown (!) St. Augustine, Florida, USA. 7 September 2022.

The Castillo de San Marcos (Spanish for "St. Mark's Castle") is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States; it is located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay in the city of St. Augustine, Florida, built by the Spanish to protect the city. The Castillo is a masonry star fort made of a stone called coquina (Spanish for "small shells"), which consists of ancient shells that have bonded together to form a sedimentary rock similar to limestone. Construction began in 1672 and was completed in 1695, though the structure would undergo many alterations and renovations over the centuries. Native Americans from Spain's nearby missions did most of the labor, with additional skilled workers brought in from Havana, Cuba.

— Wikipedia.

In 1924, the Castillo (then named Fort Marion) was declared a U.S. National Monument. In 1933, the National Park Service assumed responsibility. In 1942, the original name, Castillo de San Marcos, was restored.

— National Park Service pamphlet.

St. Augustine is a city on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States. The city served as the capital of Spanish Florida for over 200 years.

— Wikipedia.

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: St. Augustine Lighthouse, at morning

The waning gibbous moon set as the sun rose, over the St. Augustine Lighthouse in St. Augustine, Florida, USA, on 5 July 2023 (7:06 am EDT).

Missed it by thaat much. Only two days earlier, the 'Buck' moon had been a full 'supermoon.' That's the price of a vacation itinerary!

***************

About the Lighthouse

The St. Augustine Light Station is a privately maintained aid to navigation and an active, working lighthouse in St. Augustine, Florida. It stands at the north end of Anastasia Island and was built between 1871 and 1874. The current lighthouse tower, original first-order Fresnel lens and the Light Station grounds are owned by the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum, Inc., a not-for-profit maritime museum.

The St. Augustine Light Station consists of the 165-foot (50 m) 1874 tower, the 1876 Keepers' House, two summer kitchens added in 1886, a 1941 U.S. Coast Guard barracks, and a 1936 garage that was home to a jeep repair facility during World War II. The site is also a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather station. The lighthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

The tower, however is the second lighthouse tower in St. Augustine, the first being lit officially by the American territorial government in May 1824 as Florida's first lighthouse. However, both the Spanish and the British governments operated a major aid to navigation here including a series of wooden watch towers and beacons dating from 1565.

— Wikipedia.

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Paddleboard morningtide

A woman paddleboards in the golden light of an early summer morning.

As seen on Salt Run, off Anastasia Island, in St. Augustine, Florida, USA. 5 July 2023.

In 1940, the St. Augustine Inlet was created by dredging a new inlet of Matanzas Bay. Then, during the 1940s, the severed land mass that was south of the new inlet channel merged with the intertidal shoals of the original natural inlet. This created what is now called Conch Island, which includes the ocean shoreline of the Anastasia State Park. The old inlet closed at its southern terminus leaving the lagoon, now called Salt Run.

— Florida Department of Environmental Protection

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Hazy sunrise over Arabia Mountain, Georgia

Haze from the rampant Canadian wildfires has reached northern Georgia, where a 'Code Orange' air pollution alert has been issued (if nowhere as severe as in the US northeast and mid-Atlantic).

Sunrise over the summit of Arabia Mountain, in Stonecrest, Georgia, USA, at 6:40 am EDT, on 8 June 2023.

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Dead in fen

Even decaying and solitary, the dead tree can seem reborn when kissed by morning sun and mist.

Here, the headwaters of tiny Cecilia Creek meander into a marshy fen, that a wag once called Frog Bog. But, it's late autumn: the frogs are hibernating.

Legacy Park in Decatur, Georgia, USA. 20 November 2022.

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Close encounters of the arachnid kind

A Jorō near-miss (in Legacy Park: Decatur, Georgia, USA, 12 November 2022).

It was a foggy early morning on the forest trail. I didn't see the expansive web —or its spinster— until I was about to run into it. I quickly ducked.

Backlit, the web might not have been visible in a photo and the spider, merely a silhouette. So, I popped up the in-camera flash. Not expecting this situation, I wasn't carrying a diffuser and the image might be a bit hot. Nonetheless, the arachnid appears well-limned in all her colorful glory.

As to the arachnid...

Trichonephila clavata —also known as the Jorō spider (ジョロウグモ)— is a member of the Trichonephila genus. The spider can be found throughout Japan (except Hokkaidō), Korea, Taiwan, and China. The spider is also an introduced species in North America —first spotted, in 2013, in northeast Georgia and northwest / upstate South Carolina. It is believed that the species will become naturalized over much of the eastern seaboard of the United States due to its relative imperviousness to the cold.

The adult female's body size is 2/3 to 1 inch (17–25 mm), while the male's is 1/4 to 2/5 inches (7–10 mm). The adult female individual has stripes of yellow and dark blue, with red toward the rear of the abdomen. The web of females may reach several meters in length. In sunlight, the yellow threads appear to be a rich gold color. In autumn, the smaller males may be seen in the webs for copulating. After mating, the female spins an egg sack on a tree, laying 400 to 1,500 eggs in one sack. Her lifecycle ends by late autumn or early winter with the death of the spider. The next generation emerges in spring.

Although the spider is not aggressive, it will bite to protect itself. The bite is considered painful, but not life-threatening.

— Wikipedia.

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Morning mist on the beach

On the beach,

It's a morning sun,

Through cloud and ocean spray,

A beacon in gloom.
At peace.

St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA.
30 October 2022 (9:19 am EDT).

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Sunday morning Adirondack

Sunday morning light.

A sense of summer's close.

Have a seat.

Decatur, Georgia, USA.28 August 2022 (8:40 am EDT).

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Bird on a vine

This northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) may have posed for me; but, boy, did he give me a death stare.

He (and I) were hanging out at the Wheland Foundry Trailhead of the Tennessee Riverwalk, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, on 20 March 2022.

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Morning breaks over fen

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from Heaven,
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass. ^*

Crepuscular rays illuminated a marsh in morning mist. (Well, ok, deliberately induced sun-flares did.)

Legacy Park: Decatur, Georgia, USA. 7 November 2021.

-----more-----

Pic(k) of the Week: Morning on the Tennessee

I was hiking the Tennessee Riverwalk, near the Veterans Memorial Bridge, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, when I turned around and this: mist rising over the Tennessee River in early morning light. I may have missed deeper fog only thirty-minutes earlier but, with this view, I didn't mind.

10 October 2021.

-----more-----