A closer look at a Rocky Mountain iris

In the last post you saw a large colony of Rocky Mountain irises (Iris missouriensis) in northern New Mexico. The first time I encountered the species was on June 30th, when I found a smaller and less dense group of these irises in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The one shown here was in the process of opening.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Another unconventional view of a national monument

On the morning of May 30th, two days before bedeviling Devil’s Tower, we’d rushed to Mt. Rushmore, where along with more-conventional pictures I took this one looking up at a portion of the famous monument from a cleft between boulders.

But this is a nature photography blog, so here, likewise from Mt. Rushmore, is the different yet somehow similar white of a truncated trunk sculpted by nature rather than people.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Bison wander freely

Bison wander freely in South Dakota’s Custer State Park, especially through land along the Wildlife Loop Road. On June 2nd I stared at this animal that zoologists have redundantly named Bison bison. Handsome handsome though it was, I can’t say that it was a bison without peer, because it did peer periodically back at me. (In case you’re wondering, the other extant species in the genus is Bison bonasus.)

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Needles

These and other pointy rock formations have led to a name for a portion of South Dakota Route 87 in the Black Hills: the Needles Highway. We threaded our way through (okay, past) the needles on May 30th. And speaking of that, here’s the geological formation called the Needle’s Eye:

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

The Black Hills of South Dakota

On June 2nd I took this picture from well up on the slope of a mountain (was it Mount Coolidge?) in Custer State Park, which lies in the Black Hills of South Dakota. In addition to looking outward and far away, I looked downward and close, where I found pastel-colored rocks and lichens, brown pine needles and cones, and an entrance to an ant nest.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

The Badlands are good lands

First the Indians and then the other settlers who were trying to stay alive through farming and ranching referred to a particularly rugged portion of western South Dakota as Badlands, but the Badlands are good lands for a modern landscape photographer. In the top picture, look how the light and shadow delineated the steeply rising curves of the formations that were among the first we visited on the morning of May 31st. And look at how the delineation between light and dark took place on the ground at the base of nearby strata:

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman