There’s nothing like a little rain and a lightly overcast sky to really saturate autumn colors. Adding a polarizing filter, when conditions are right, can make the colors "pop" even more! These Silver Maple leaves caught on the tree’s lichen covered trunk are now a long-lasting reminder of a nice quiet walk when part of me was saying "stay inside". 

There seems to be a lesson there, for those times we'd rather stay warm and comfortable. When we choose to listen, those clear -- though quiet -- calls beckoning us outside can really be productive!

Have you had similar experiences?

An inviting path meanders into a beautiful Maple woods. 

A comfortably cool, misty autumn day; an occasional gentle rain softly pattering through the vibrant canopy overhead. The fresh yellow and orange carpet underfoot sponges up the clean, new moisture. Bright, new-fallen autumn leaves add a tang to the rich, earthy, fertile loam under gently swaying branches.

Let’s take a hike…

Eastern Yellow Jackets are a type of wasp that builds their nest in the ground; I usually discover them after I’ve run over the entrance with my lawn mower. They don't like that very much... I don't either, since they tend to make their point rather venomously. So now I keep an eye open for the tidy little clearings they make around the nests’ entrance hole, and their busy inbound and outbound flights. 

The nest can be a very busy place, especially later in the season as the colony grows. The industrious wasps are constantly coming and going, foraging for food and enlarging the nest. These two Eastern Yellow Jackets bumped into each other just above the nest entrance during such a busy time. One wasp was flying off to hunt as another came zipping back with a bit of food clenched in its mandibles, or jaws.

This image is a crop of the original, which was taken at ½x life-size, as I lay at their nest entrance. In my experience this magnification seems to be the "sweet spot" for best results. It leaves about 16 inches between camera and subject -- which is great for skittish insects... to say nothing of my comfort level with ones that sting! It also gives me more depth of field than taking them at life-size, which means my success rate for sharp images of flying insects is much greater. Plus, it gives me more leeway for timing the shutter release as they fly into the 2 x 3 inch target area. When I tried taking them at life-size, my success rate was bordering on abysmal... half life-size increases it to about one in ten shots!

Thank goodness for digital over film!