My Favorite Things through the Four Seasons: Summer

Summer 2024

John W. Garbutt- Class of 2019

I have always found irony in that on the summer solstice, when the sun reaches its northern most location in the sky, it provides the longest amount of daylight during the course of a year and that the subsequent days get shorter, yet hotter as we long for fall by late August. I once read it is due to delayed heat release from the lands and oceans after the solstice, when the sun hits the northern hemisphere at the most direct angle.

Early summer is great for birding as males sing on territory and pairs actively gather food and rear a new generation. For migrants, they hopefully impart enough knowledge and skill so their offspring may follow the sun’s southward trajectory to lands they have never seen.

During late summer, when Orion and his faithful companion Canis Major can be seen hunting Lepus at sunrise, the birds, local and migrant, begin to lay low during the day as parental duties are completed. Haggard, they molt, with the new feathers ready to protect them when winter’s cold air takes hold, and for the migrants, they rely on them to cross lands and waters deep and wide. This is when dragonflies and butterflies now seem to be all that is flying about, and these photos are some of my favorite things from this summer.

6/24/24- May and June are bunting hunting season. Through the years I have attempted to get a good shot and have failed. This Painted Bunting, however, is my favorite from this year’s attempts at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge.

6/30/24- While on a stroll around the pasture with my sister, we came across this Southern Leopard Frog in Riesel, TX.

7/4/24- This was the only Waterlily I saw all year. By the time I looked for it again, the bloom was gone. At Frisco Commons.

7/14/24- It seemed that all of my Green Heron photo opportunities were in flight or backlit like this heron at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge at sunrise.

7/14/24- The Red-headed Woodpeckers are my favorite year-round subject at Hagerman. A pair was tending to their young in this nest cavity.

8/5/24- I liked how shooting the Halloween Pennant as I faced the sun created the circular and blurred backdrop of scabious as the light shown through the dragonfly’s wings.

8/11/24- I was fascinated with the Biennial Beeblossom at Hagerman and shot it as a normal shot and with lower ISO in an attempt for an artistic shot with a much darker background to highlight the flower.

8/12/24- Snow-on-the-Prairie at Erwin Park. This late summer flower means seasonal change is approaching. Now it will be a personal reminder of a day my life changed in a wonderful way.