Sunrise 42: Ault Park (Spring Haze, Ants & Pillbugs)

An old prop plane with its wing tips folded up takes off from Lunken Airfield into the sunrise

This morning was a great start to the short holiday week. When I crawled out of bed, a bit stiff from a holiday weekend and slightly out of routine, I could hear the birds chattering about the hot day ahead. Today should be another scorcher with a high in the mid 90s. This morning, however, the day was still young and the temperature was a comfortable 65F. The atmosphere had a thick accent of haze, indicative of the high humidity we’ve had recently. I’m not surprised to see thunderstorms in the forecast for the week.

The fog was thick down in the little miami river valley. You could see the tops of telephone poles just barely popping above the surface.

The sun has drifted so far to the left that I no longer have an unobstructed shot. You can see it in the above picture just behind the tree, a dark reddish purple sphere.

I had to patiently wait for the sun to get this high above the tree. The camera doesn’t quite do it justice – the richness of the sun was a saturated magenta.

The hazy sky meant that the sun was visible but not blinding. A great morning to look directly into the sun without consequence… for the first five minutes at least.

The upper atmosphere didn’t have the deep blue that I’ve seen on the days with less humidity. It was more of a muted navy blue.

If you’re on the front page, click to continue. Ants & Pillbugs macro-style –>

Time lapse overlook shot. You can see the fog in the valley below.

Looking at the sunrise from the overlook. Kind of a strange picture but I kept it because the fog down in the valley provides some nice contrast against the thickly vined tree.

Looking east through the overlook.

I stopped by one of the bases of the metal columns. There was a familiar entrance to the aphid herder’s nest as well as a few pillbugs hanging around. One in particular was rather large and it had its attention held by something on the wood base. His antennae were flicking around wildly but it provided an easy opportunity for me to get a macro shot or two.

Mr. Pillbug.

You can almost make out his face. Almost.

An ant was thoroughly investigating something on the ground. I now know them to be aphid herding ants.

He’s still dancing. Wagging his butt up and down. Only he knows what he is trying to say. The other ants didn’t seem to be paying much attention. Although to be fair, I think he was probably “pumping up” his pheromone hardware to drop a scented trail for the other ants to find in case he decides that he has found some food worth talking about.

Looking east from one of my favorite spots. That little branch in the top right corner provides such a nice framing guide.

Looking west towards Lunken Airfield through the overlook. We can see the fog beginning to retreat in the foreground below.

Another view of the foggy valley down below, looking west again.

About half an hour after sunrise the fog has started to retreat.

The office building below are starting to become more visible.

It seems that haze makes the sky more scattered, where a clear sky has higher saturation of colors but the atmosphere doesn’t fill up as much. A good hybrid of the two styles, then, are sunrises that have clear skies with lots of chunks of cloud cover against the open skies.

A silhouette of a proud oak tree

The trusty old steed. The Fuji-S10S.

After a few minutes I another aphid herdering nest entrance. The light from the sunrise provided some great dynamic colors and I didn’t have to try very hard to get a nice organic natural feel to the pictures I took.

Another dancing ant at the entrance to the nest.

I stayed here for several minutes trying to catch an ant against this backdrop. All I could get was a blurry streak. I like it anyway.

No ants in this shot, although I tried. This is one of the entrances to the aphid herder’s nest.

A final shot of the sunrise over the foggy valley looking through the trees from the overlook.

It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the week shapes up. A few days ago the forecast was for all sun with mixed overcast skies, but now it looks like every day has about a 30% chance of thunderstorms. This should make for some great sunrises.