Blazing ferns

Sadly, neither I nor my wife have living mothers to honor on what would be their day, so, since my wife basically loathes such Hallmark holidays, I spent the day outside honoring Mother Earth. I was happily hiking just after dawn and in the late afternoon, the latter hike an effort to begin to familiarize myself with a refuge in town known as Tefftweald at Birchenturn, a nearly 80-acre preserve that used to be a Girl Scouts camp. The Avalonia Land Conservancy property is a genuine gem, filled with gentle meadows, deep forest, stone ledges and walls, and the mini-waterfall-bearing Wyassup Brook, which defines the refuge's western boundary. I took photographs of everything, from woods to rushing water, and I even managed to convince a Red-eyed Vireo to descend from its hiding place in the tree canopy for a close-up. But my favorite shot of the afternoon was an image of ferns on fire, well, backlit by the sun. Learning all about Tefftweald in advance of the guided tour I'll be doing for the CT Trails Day folks is going to be very rewarding.

Red-eyed Vireo