OLC volunteers Tim Magee and Ray Clarke had a moment of serendipity in the George Lorimer Preserve parking lot in late August, with a stunning demonstration of why OLC’s mission to protect natural habitat, and provide opportunities for the community to enjoy it, is so important.
While unloading fencing material to store for upcoming tree plantings, they met Jeff Alexander. Jeff is remarkable because: a) he offered to help with some heavy lifting, and b) because he came out of the Preserve with a truly impressive camera set-up - a Nikon D7200 with a Nikkor 200-500mm lens, seemingly long enough to reach out and touch the subject!
Photography by Jeff Alexander
And then he showed our stunned duo some of the photographs he had just taken in the Preserve, reproduced here along with others taken in Cedar Hollow Preserve the next day. Regular visitors to Lorimer may well have seen the long time resident green heron, but likely never in such stunning detail, along with their lunch and what looks like a salad side dish. Kingfishers and their machine-gun rattle are common sights and sounds in OLC’s main riparian Preserves, but less frequently seen in Lorimer, and never close up in any location.
(Click through to see a slideshow.)
The small birds from Cedar Hollow Preserve are less flamboyant, but Jeff has brought them up close for your enjoyment. A house wren, a couple of common yellowthroats, and what Vice- President of Birdtown PA and OLC keynote speaker Phil Witmer thinks may be a nashville warbler – although the head looks dark and opinions welcome!
Finally, please take a moment to join the frog in hoping it’s not going to be the heron’s lunch, and to revel in the colors of the swallowtail butterfly and its thistle host.
This encounter was so fortunate because Jeff actually lives two states away in Abingdon, MD, and was in the area for a couple of days looking for photography/hiking spots while his fiancée was working at her company’s corporate office. He tells us he found out about OLC through a web search that identified the George Lorimer preserve as close by with very high ratings.
Kudos to OLC’s website team! And especially thanks to Jeff for the spectacular photos and for taking the time to send them along.