View allAll Photos Tagged Botany
Just before the vicious dog decided that I look bad in my pants I took some cool shots that night out with my friend, at least in my opinion. However these are my first attempts in astrophotography, my plan is to progress further with more opportunities ahead. (New lens are quite good for the purpose - Tokina ATX 11-20 f2.8)
With the Kelloggs cereal factory looming over them, VL351 and DL47 lead T171 trip train out of Botany Yard, bound for Sandown. At Sandown the remaining empty wagons will be loaded with empty containers, the locos will draw the train clear of the yard and wait for T185 to shunt and load with empty containers before the two rakes would combine to form 1877 to Dubbo.
Fast forward to present day. Sandown yard closed in mid 2010. Patrick PortLink shortly after wound up their NSW operations completely. The DL Class now see only sporadic use with owner Pacific National opting to store the bulk of the class in favour of more modern motive power. The Dubbo freight is now operated using modern C44aci locomotives owned by Fletchers International Exports and crewed by SSR.
Taken near the summit of the geologically wondrous Mount Cardigan.
And much of Mount Cardigan's summit is bare rock: the Early Devonian Kinsman Granodiorite, now reclassified by petrologists as a quartz monzonite (see Part 2 of this set). The large potassium-feldspar phenocrysts of this igneous intrusive rock type are visible in the foreground.
However, the summit is also home to scattered island plant communities of what New Hampshire ecologists call the Subalpine Heath-Krummholz association. The term "krummholz," derived from the German word for "crooked wood," refers to the windblasted Red Spruces (Picea rubens) that survive here only in low, contorted forms.
When I took a good look at this particular island, i found that it was remarkably well laid out in distinct zones of different species, as though a gardener had carefully placed the lowest growers in front and the tallest in the center. On the edges there were Prostrate Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) and Mountain Cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea var. minus); a little farther in, the mini-shrub Labrador Tea (Rohodendron groenlandicum) dominated. And in the middle, joining the scraggily Red Spruce, was Mountain Ash (Sorbus americana), here visible as almost-bare stems that had not yet leafed out fully by mid-May.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this series, visit my Exploring the Granite State album.
Prints & Rights - please contact for details.
*All Rights Reserved*
All works are protected by copyright, and are not to used for any purpose unless direct prior written consent has been given by me.