Whispers in green

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Yellow whispers in a big old sea of green.

That is what this Yellow Columbine felt like on a recent hike into the forests nearby. A rainier than typical spring and early summer has the forest looking green as green can be and even a large patch of Columbine growing strong could only mustard a whisper in that sea of green yet sometimes a whispers is all you need.

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Forest Treasures

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Finding wild Orchids growing in the forest always feels like finding a little treasure, a treasure offered by the forest itself. Sometimes the treasure is small and hidden deep in the undergrowth as was the fairy slipper above.

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Other times the treasure sits alone in the forest waiting for you to some along as this spring coral root did on recent day.

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And every once in awhile the treasure sings out to you saying look at me as the Striped Coralroot has a habit to do.Treasures_4Any time I find these orchids growing in the forest it does indeed feel like finding a small treasure that brightens the day.

The whole

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“the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

Sometimes that feels so very true. On a day where flowers mix with trees and rock and all blend into one. A single memory, a single thought and a single feeling of a day and a place.

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All combine to make the whole.THe_whole_3

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Ok…the parts are pretty fantastic as well.THe_whole_6

Probing and Pollinating

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Bugs and flowers go hand and hand. This little black and yellow guy was probing for nectar while doing a little polinating at the same time. One of the things that is fun about macro photography is getting a glimpse into a world you really can not see with the naked eye and all too often we forget that just because we can not see something it does not matter.

On green grass

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A Western White Butterfly taking a bit of a rest on the green green grasses growing in a field nearby. Spring has sure done it’s job this year as the grasses have grown up tall. It’s only a matter of time and the mid-summer heat before they will seed and turn towards brown. It all happened in what seems a blink of an eye this year and it sometimes feels hard to drink it all in.

Triteleia Grandiflora

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One of the more unusual wildflowers we see each summer is Triteleia Grandiflora.

The tall slender stalk with only one or two basal leaves spring up out of grassy areas and are capped with a cluster of delicate yet hardy and unusual looking purple-blue flowers.

A native to the pacific northwest east of the cascade mountains from Oregon into Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. We have see it growing in open Prairies and up into mountain foothills. Usually it seems that each plant is widely spaced from it’s neighbors or many times we see a single plant spring up far from others of its own species.

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It’s always fun to photograph these each spring and this years we have noticed greater numbers of Triteleia Grandiflora blooming than in the previous years.

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