Out of this World

Johnson's Mills Shorebird Reserve, Bay of Fundy, Canada

Bay of Fundy is a special place... with the world's largest tides, up to 14 meters...

We have just arrived on the shores of the Reserve -
the stopover for thousands of sandpipers on their migration to South America. Birds stop here for food and there is plenty in the tidal mudflats. So much so that they double their weight in just three weeks, before resuming non-stop flight to the South.

It is low tide... the mudflats extend far into distance...
... the Ocean is compressed to a thin line on the horizon and birds are scattered all over the surface...
... with hours passing, the thin line gets thicker and birds come closer...
... hundreds... perhaps thousands...
... overflying the area in unison exhibits... so airy, vivid, joyful... without worry about the long flight...

After full six hours, the ocean reaches the coast...
... the flat is wavy... and birds are coasting just to stretch their wings...

... until the next low tide...

Rising Tide

Crane Beach, Massachusetts

... the ocean is flowing... like a river...
  ... I squat on the sand and watch the water coming in undulating breaths of the Sun and the Moon...  
  ... sandpipers celebrate...

Coping With the Heat

Lincoln Conservation Land, Concord Conservation Land, Massachusetts

On these boiling summer days, a visit to nature feels like an escape...
   ... shading forests... flowering meadows... buzzing dragonflies...
   ... animated lushness...
... where coping with the heat loses its meaning...

   ... blackberries... bring me back in time...

With the Wind

Danehy Park, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Danehy is a sports park with the swampy portion given to grasses.
   It is windy today...
   ... humans are playing and grasses are dancing...
   ... without notice...

   ... a dog finds IT strange, barks at us and passes by...

After Rain

Fresh Pond, Cambridge, Massachusetts

It rained last night... the football field is sprinkled with mushrooms...
   ... I enjoy these hats poking through grasses...  flowers of the fungal underworld...
   ... or, as Stephan Harding calls IT,  the forgotten kingdom...

Fungi are all around us, they are everywhere. In some habitats, says Harding, such as forest soils, fungal biomass often reaches 90% of the combined biomass of microorganisms such as bacteria and other small animals. They are responsible for recycling, they deliver food to the weak, and maintain health of the forest.

Fungi have been HERE much longer than plants and animals. And, in partnership with bacteria, they have created conditions for this lavish and ornate world we call nature... thus,

... we must pay them due honour, for without their secret labours there would be no forests, no grasslands, no heathlands, no savannahs, nor any of the great animals that roam in those wild realms. Without fungi, the earth's land surfaces would be nothing more than exposed rocks...

STEPHAN HARDING, Animate Earth

... as I stand amongst them, I wonder if they can sense my footsteps... and my thoughts...