Backyard and Beyond

I was on Nantucket at the beginning of the month and it was cool, overcast, and/or rainy much of the time I was there. One afternoon, however, the sun poured out.The “beard” of a bearded lily. A polypore mushroom of some kind in the State Forest.In the Highlands of Scotland some years ago, I got to know the gorse, Ulex gallii. In the same family is what we Yanks call Scotch broom, Cytisus scoparius, an invasive. The sheet webs of spiders in the grass are most visible when dew-laden in the morning.These Mallard ducklings were only about five feet away, but I had to shoot through a window screen. One more out of frame makes eight total for this brood.