Jim Ferguson 🫘
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jimferguson.bsky.social
Jim Ferguson 🫘
@jimferguson.bsky.social
830 followers 410 following 2.5K posts
he/him
retired teacher
active reader, hiker, bicyclist, trail builder, amateur photographer
blocker of trolls and DMs I don't know IRL
Photos are mine unless noted.
I don't do follow backs. Post things that make me want to follow you.
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jimferguson.bsky.social
Sniff and Giddy drank the creek dry. #photography #dogs
Two dogs, a beagle mix in the foreground and a malamute?/shepherd? mix in the background, are sitting and lying in a dry creek bed at the height of summer. Giddy, the mala-mutt hated summer and soaked herself in a creek whenever she had a chance.
December 4, 2025 at 11:05 AM
jimferguson.bsky.social
Life imitates art.
Sec. of Defense Kegseth is standing holding his hands out in what looks like a calming gesture. Kevin Bacon as ROTC student Chip Diller in the movie Animal House telling people to "Remain Calm."
December 3, 2025 at 4:47 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
I'm sitting at the computer looking at our first snow that has lasted for more than a day and this little one popped up on my screen. #photography #summer #insect #dragonfly #macro
A red dragonfly is perched on a green leaf. I took this shot at the end of July over 20 years ago. Just recently I learned that dragonflies do not use their legs for walking. Somewhere I read that the legs and feet are used for landing to grab onto what they are landing on and as springs to takeoff. If that's not right, please correct me.
December 3, 2025 at 1:19 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
The path not taken yet. #snow #B&W #photography #forest #nature
A snow fall covered the branches and ground in the forest. The path does not have any animal or human track on it yet.
December 2, 2025 at 2:03 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
Spiny saguaro cactus, spiny ocatillo, and the spine of a mountain range in Saguaro National Park, Tucson, Arizona set the theme for today. #photography #Support_Public_Lands #desert #plants #MountainMonday
The thin branches of an ocatillo tipped with its orange buds are in front of a large saguaro cactus. The green of the cactus contrasts the orange of the ocatillo buds and the dusty red of the distant mountains.
December 1, 2025 at 3:16 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
Here's another frost flower. I cropped this photo a lot to show the streaky patterns in the icy ribbons. The cropping made the background grainy. The actual frost flower was only about 2 inches (5 cm) tall. #photography #frostflowers #nature
White ribbon-like ice that has been extruded from the stem of a dittany plant makes an interesting and fragile natural sculpture on the forest floor. The ice that had been in sunlight was beginning to melt and was clear.
November 30, 2025 at 12:36 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
The first frost flowers that I've seen this season showed up in the woods yesterday. #photography #frostflowers #nature
The white ribbon-like flower on the stem of a dead plant is not a flower at all or a fungus. Frost flowers are icy structures that emerge from the stalks of thin stemmed plants. The water in the plant is forced out of the plants in these fragile sheets. Like snowflakes, frost flowers are infinite in variety. The ones in our area mostly emerge from dittany (Cunila origanoides).
November 29, 2025 at 11:18 AM
jimferguson.bsky.social
Look but don't touch. I am not sure what this plant is. I don't think it is a stinging nettle, but it doesn't look like it wants to cuddle. #photography #plants #nature
This close up shows the thin transparent hairs covering the leaves and stem of a dead plant in the late fall. The stem is mostly brown but has just a bit of pale green left from the summer.
November 28, 2025 at 10:57 AM
jimferguson.bsky.social
Forest floor flora came through in my #quest_for_color in the gray months #photography #nature
Yellow maple leaves and a Christmas fern frond brighten up the brown and black leaves and decomposing wood on the ground.
November 27, 2025 at 6:22 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
Late November celebrates the months long almost black and white #photography season. #trees #nature #gray
Standing in a grove of tulip trees (aka tulip poplars) I shot straight up to show the bare branches and gray sky.
November 26, 2025 at 3:25 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
It's a #TwoferTuesday from #Banff National Park, Alberta, #Canada. On the left is The Beehive from Lake Agnes, and on the right is Lake Agnes and Lake Louise from the Beehive. #photography #Support_public_lands
A small lake is in the foreground. A multilayered red, gray, and tan domed cliff, The Beehive, and a valley and two peaks are behind the lake. We hiked to the top of The Beehive and were treated to a spectacular view of Lake Agnes, left center in the photo, the forest of Banff, and the turquoise waters of Lake Louise with the famous hotel at the end of the lake.
November 25, 2025 at 6:24 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
Mountain view from 35,000 feet #photography #MountainMonday #Support_Public_Lands #nature
I took this photo of the snow capped mountains of southwest Colorado and possibly southeast Utah on a trip in April, 2024. As you look to the north (the top of the photo) there are clouds among the mountains. From this height, the mountains look vast, which is how they must have felt to the people trying to cross them on foot. But the photo also flattens and smooths them. Among those mountains are national parks, national forests, and Bureau of Land Mangement properties. They are a treasure of nature.
November 24, 2025 at 9:33 AM
jimferguson.bsky.social
A frosty still life of the forest floor from the archives shows mostly dead things. #photography #nature #autumn #still_life
A variety of brown tree leaves, fern fronds, and a small limb are rimmed or coated with frost. The leves are shades of brown and red-brown. The stick is mostly dark gray with a few patches of brown.
November 23, 2025 at 1:41 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
My gray months #quest_for_color continues. Witch hazel is an unusual little tree/shrub/bush because it flowers in the late fall and early winter. #photography #flowers #trees #yellow
Yellow ribbony petals on the witch hazel shrub glow in the sunlight. The reproductive parts of the flower look like a bug tangled up in ribbons. The flowers and branch in this photo were caught in a sunbeam and the rest of the photo is in shadow.
November 22, 2025 at 4:24 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
The gray days are here. The quest for color has begun. #photography #street_photography #urbangaze
A green ivy vine is climbing up a white painted brick wall. Other than some brown stems the ivy leaves are the only things in the photo with colors other than gray, black, or white.
November 21, 2025 at 1:33 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
Not all waterfalls have to be big to be splashy #photography #Yosemite #waterfall #nature #Support_Public_Lands
A small waterfall along the trail from the Merced Lake High Sierra Camp to Vogelsang Camp provided a great place to rest our feet and eat lunch. Fletcher Creek is flowing over a jumble of rocks. A granite dome is in the background.
November 20, 2025 at 1:41 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
"Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?" #photography #birds #feather #nature
A single feather that I found on the forest floor belongs to one of our year-round residents. It is gray/brown with white stripes running generally perpendicular to the feather's shaft. I think this is a Barred Owl feather. They are common in our woods. More info on them is at this URL. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barred_Owl/overview
November 19, 2025 at 1:02 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
A photo from the Glacial Lagoon in ‎⁨Vatnajökull National Park⁩, ⁨Southern Region⁩, ⁨Iceland⁩ is nearly a black and white photo. #photography #Iceland #glacier #iceberg #Support_Public_Lands
Icebergs are calving from the glacier, melting, breaking up, and floating out to the North Sea in this glacial lagoon. The gray streaks in the icebergs and glaciers are the pulverized rock of the island.
November 18, 2025 at 12:11 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
21 years later this slightly out of focus photo is still my favorite photo of a mountain from a mountain top. Lassen Peak from Brokeoff Mountain, ⁨Lassen Volcanic National Park⁩, California⁩ #photography #Support_Public_Lands #MountainMonday #Lassen #nature #out_of_focus #selfie
After Andi and I hiked up to the summit of Brokeoff Mountain and enjoyed our cookies, I set the camera up for a photo of us with Lassen in the background. I forgot to manually focus the camera so when it snapped the shot Lassen was in focus and we were not. This was a year before I went digital so I didn't know until I got the film back. 🤷🏻‍♂️
November 17, 2025 at 12:16 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
‎⁨Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming #photography #B&W #Support_Public_Lands #stunday
The Devil's Tower monolith rises above the plains of eastern Wyoming. The gray igneous rock (phonolite porphyry) that it is made of formed hexagonal columns as it cooled. These columns make the furrowed sides of the tower and inspired the indigenous people to tell how great bears scratched the grooves in the tower.
November 16, 2025 at 1:14 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
When you have to go somewhere early in the morning, you should at least have an interesting sky as a reward. #photography #sunrise #clouds
The dawn sky is streaked with rose and gray bands of clouds.
November 15, 2025 at 2:02 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
Mystery mushroom? Flummoxing fungi? I took this photo last December. I don't know anything about it other than I was surprised to see that a mushroom had grown so late in the year. Do you know what species it might be? [more info in ALT] #photography #FungiFriday #nature #mushroom #question
This is a cluster of pale orange mushrooms with yellow edges growing on the side of a decaying log. There are some brown leaves below them. The mushrooms remind me of chicken of the woods in colors, but they don't have the curly edges. Also instead of being smooth surfaced, these are fuzzy. Is it possible that these late emerging mushrooms are young chicken of the woods that froze?
November 14, 2025 at 12:17 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
This massive black oak is one of the few giants that have survived in the nearby woods. #photography #ThickTrunkThursday #oak #nature
The base of this tree is about 7± feet (2± m) across, and its diameter at breast height is at least 4 feet (1.2 m). I don't have an estimate of its height. Trees of this size and age are uncommon in Brown County, Indiana for 2 reasons. Logging is an obvious one. In the late 19th and early 20 century our county was virtually clear cut to make the land tillable. That was a mistake because the steep hillsides are unsuitable for farming. Few trees as old as this one escaped that. Later logging has been done to harvest valuable timber. The second reason is Brown County's soil. At the surface the heavy clay soil is not the best for any plant. A few fee below that is a densely packed clay layer, and under that is sandstone. All this means that the trees have shallow root systems. In a storm the trees are often uprooted and topple. I mentioned a few days ago a storm we had in March of this year and the damage it did to our woods. So when I see a tree like this around here, I am looking at a lottery winner.
November 13, 2025 at 11:38 AM
jimferguson.bsky.social
I captured the annual downward migration. Looking forward to seeing the next generation in the spring. #photography #leaves #clouds #autumn #nature
Beech leaves against a mostly blue sky are falling to the ground after a gust of wind blew them off of the trees.
November 12, 2025 at 12:41 PM
jimferguson.bsky.social
This is a shot of the Aurora Borealis from our deck. I took this with my iPhone 13. I used the porch rail to hold it steady for a 3 second exposure.
Reds and lavenders of the Aurora Borealis through the trees.
November 12, 2025 at 2:41 AM