Joe

Joe catches me taking a shot of him while a fishing boat rumbles just off shore.

Update

Joe didn't leave hospital... blood pressure still way too high with meds. All are very dissappointed. Prayers and hope.

My Thanks

I want to thank all of you for the prayers and best wishes for my friend, Joe. His extreme EKG was from very high blood pressure. The battery of tests showed no heart damage. He's being released today!

Mark

My very long time friend and father of my godson has apparently had a heart attack and is taking a battery of tests as I write. Joe, along with my brother, Evan, have been my photography mentors teaching me so much as well as showing me how to "see". I hope they'll let me visit him soon. It is with this in mind that I've chosen to publish photos of scenic peace for this Sky Watch Friday.

Solitude on the Sound


Cry of Distant Gulls




The Calm on Peconic Bay




Fall Comes to the Apple Orchard



For many more Sky Watch Friday photos from around the world, click here.

Tuesday Morning

Tuesday morning was unseasonably warm for November at 62 degrees. There was no perceptible wind, no sound other than the gentle lap of wavelets, nothing but the changing light in the sky to the east. Nature colored these skies and needed no help from me. I was the only one there but I didn't feel alone.











For more wonderful Sky Watch Friday photos, click here.

Autumn Comes to Dam Pond Maritime Reserve

Dam Pond Maritime Reserve, an area of 36 acres in East Marion, is best known for birders during early spring, mid fall, and winter migration as a place to see over-wintering land birds and water fowl. There is salt scrub and grass, hardwoods and now a grassland restoration project. It is a wonderful shallow tide pond that exits into Orient Harbor. A very narrow sandbar is all that separates the pond from Long Island Sound, yet it has been there through storms and tides as long as anyone can remember. It's a unique spot... well worth a visit.

Lights Enroute to Gardener's Island and the Race

Recently we put the boat in at Greenport Harbor and headed due east to do some fly casting on and beyond the Plum and Gardiners Islands flats. The day was a bit hazy and the air had a little bite to it. We were hoping to catch blue fish, striped bass and false albacore (little tunny) but the weather from the northeast two days earlier had put them down and only the "albies" were spotted under a flock of gulls hitting the water to eat the scraps left by the marauding fish. I fought one briefly before it managed to get unhooked, a risk I take by using only barbless hooks which do almost no damage to the fish I want to release. Only their egos are hurt. The day was not a total loss however. I had my camera and squeezed off a few shots of the light houses we passed along the way and enjoyed the companionship of my boat mates and an excellent packed lunch to be eaten at slack tide waiting for the change to incoming.


Long Beach Bar Light (Bug Light)




Little Gull Light




Plum Island Light




Orient Point Light (the Coffee Pot)




Plum Gut at slack tide with the Coffee Pot to the extreme left and Plum Light on the right. The water goes through this two mile wide gut with depths from 60 to 200 - 300 feet. My brother Bruce would remember a white knuckle passage we made several years ago. Click here for a video made from a powered sailboat fighting the current.



For more photos and commentary about this area and north to Connecticut see Matthew Housekeepers excellent blog "Soundbounder".

Sky Watch Friday - A Goodbye to Summer

It is so very, very difficult for me to say goodbye to summer. I'm at my happiest and feeling my best during the days of blazing sun and warm waters, early dawns and late sunsets, the natural progression of crops ripening each to be enjoyed in it's own turn. I preserve as much of it as I can for the months of cold when I need a reminder that this will pass. I cling to summer for days after the autumnal equinox has come and gone and rime frost has twinkled on the grass. At last my cold fingers just can't hang on anymore and I have to let go.

For more Skywatch Friday photos click here.

Sky Watch Friday Photos 9/30

I went down to the inlet as soon as I could the other morning with 2 fly rods. I had a 9', 9 weight with floating line and an 8', 6 weight with an intermediate sinking tip. The purpose was not to catch fish but to practice my fly casting to avoid embarrassing myself badly when casting with my father-in-law who was to arrive very shortly for two weeks of fishing the migrating striped bass on the flats near Gardiner's Island, around the Ruins and in The Race just east of Plum Island. As light gradually came into the sky I was struck by how ominous it first appeared. Fortunately I had my camera. Unfortunately I'd been too loaded down to bring a tripod, hence, a second series of grainy shots (where's my quality control!) that seemed too dramatic to pass up for a Sky Watch Friday. Please bear with me...

For more Sky Watch Friday photos, please click here.

North Fork Herons

These birds were all photographed in the early to midmorning and at considerable distance and with out a tripod which could explain why the shots are so grainy. Still, I wanted to share them. The Night Heron below was my first sighting of the species.

The Black-crowned Night Heron, sometimes referred to as Black Capped Night Heron. Click to enlarge, note the beautiful orange eye.

The Great Blue Heron.

The Green Heron.

The Great White Egret sometimes referred to as Great White Heron.

Early Morning Sky Over East Creek

Early Birds



Moon in the West



A Rosy Hue


For more Sky Watch Photography please click here.

At the End of the Day

Sunday a group of us went to a Long Island beach on the North Fork just east of the Mattituck Inlet. The deepening evening light was beautiful, the sand still warm from a sunny day felt good on bare feet, the Sound was calm. Birds were winging their way to nests, once the sun was down a party boat full of fishermen headed back to dock, along the beach fires were being lit one by one. What a wonderful close to the day.

For more My World Tuesday photos click here.

See my "Coney Island" posting below for today's Sky watch Friday photos. The sky was very blue punctuated by clouds contrasting nicely with the colorful gaudiness of the amusement park. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

For more great Sky Watch Friday photos please click here.

Coney Island

Yesterday "From The North Fork" took a road trip to the southern most point in Brooklyn, Coney Island. The amusement park section of Coney Island was already going strong in the 1880s and was at one time adjacent to the famed Luna Park which burned to the ground in the 1940s. When the subway lines to Coney Island were completed in 1919, summer Sunday visitors soared from 100,000 to 1,000,000 a day! Today the park is only a vestige of it's former self, but the Cyclone, at one time the world's biggest roller coaster, carried screaming passengers as we watched. The Wonder Wheel continued it's stately revolutions as the inner cars whipped about and on the Boardwalk colorful locals took the sun while kids of all ages found plenty of eats including the "Famous Nathan's" hot dogs with 20 available toppings which was established in 1916.

For more of My World Tuesday click here.

East Coast - West Coast

From the North Fork


From the Pacific Northwest


For more of Today's Flowers click here.

Clouds

Looking at the Shinnicock Hills club house from the Peconic Bay



Robins Island from a mile out in the Great Peconic Bay


Unloading a cooler at the East Creek Inlet


For more Sky Watch photos click here.

Sanctuary

Found objects and driftwood on the beach + creativity = Beach Art

Take a stroll several hundred yards east of the Mattituck inlet and discover a magical installation of driftwood that evokes images of creatures and humans in skewed proportions, whimsical and animated. The centerpiece is a driftwood enclosure. Inside one finds a place to sit and is welcomed to sign a guest book and leave any thoughts that you wish to. It is unlike anything I've seen before and instantly put a smile on my face. Reportedly one very uptight neighbor abhors it but I doubt his sense of fun or vision. I read the comments to discover he is the only one who feels that way.

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Foggy Morning

When the sky is low enough to walk in it...

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A Walk Around New Suffolk

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