Columbus Indiana, yes, Indiana
There are many cities in the US named Columbus. 23 to be exact. But only this one in Indiana has the enviable distinction of being number six on the top list of US cities rich in modern architecture. Right behind Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco and Washington D.C. according to the AIA. I had the pleasure of being almost a week in Columbus and spent most of that time exploring the magnitude of its architectural treasures. More than 90 buildings, landscapes, parks, civic amenities and housings. Most designed by titans of modern architecture such as Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Alexander Girard, Robert A. Stern, Harry Weese, Richard Meier, Robert Venturi and Cesar Pelli. How did a small Midwestern town, about 19,000 people in the 1950s become such a magnet for modern architecture?
The spark was ignited by J. Irwin Miller after the WW II. He was a second generation company executive at Cummins Engine Co., the family business. He joined Cummins in 1934, moved up the corporate ladder and from 1951 until 1977 was Chairman. His vision for Columbus after the war was to help build a town that would attract young, talented, dedicated and sophisticated people. He surmised that those people would be concerned with the quality of education their children would receive in the small town. That in turn would be influenced by the level of teachers who would be attracted to Columbus. To make that happen, Irwin’s vision was to design and build schools of high architectural standards. Miller developed a love for architecture while studying at Yale and understood its power to shape and spark social progress. (He also was a civil activist, advocated the Civil Rights Act and had a part in organizing the March to Washington with Martin Luther King.)
In 1954, he established the Cummins Foundation and in 1957 made an offer to Columbus that the foundation would pay the cost of architect’s fees plus 10% of the construction costs of any civic building as long as the architects were chosen from his personal list. This also led to projects by private clients in Columbus resulting in churches, fire stations, banks and others designed by world-renown architects. From 1954 to 1970 an average of two outstanding buildings were erected every year in Columbus.
So it all started with the schools. The first one I visited, the Lillian Schmitt Elementary School, was also the one that launched the Cummins Foundation Architecture Program and was completed in 1957, designed by Harry Weese. The first one of the many in the district. Various architectural styles, many expanded later to accommodate the growing population of the district. Some on the smaller side, while others huge like Columbus East High School. Some interesting and attractive, while others not so. Like South Side Elementary School, designed by Eliot Noyes and completed in 1969. From a distance it looks like a prison or a fortress with jutting parapets, vertical fins, hooded doors and small slot windows. Typical of the modern Brutalism style. Today, Columbus is the seat of Bartholomew County encompassing seven towns with a population of about 83,000 (as of 2019). Columbus makes up the majority of that number with a population of about 48,000. The county is served by the Bartholomew Consolidated School District serving more than 11,000 students with eleven elementary schools, two middle schools, and two high schools. I visited almost all of them.
Schools, firehouses, health centers, banks, manufacturing centers, office buildings, assembly plants, clubhouses, conference halls, parks, a jail, city hall, memorials, a covered bridge, a library, post office and art installations. To experience the plethora of this architectural richness one must first stop by the Visitors Center on 5th Street. They offer a fantastic guided architectural bus tour of Columbus. Well worth the $25 and the two hours. They also offer the Miller House and Garden Tour, also a must see while in Columbus.
Oh, I almost forgot the highlight of my visit. The four churches. First Christian Church was designed by Eliel Saarinen completed in 1942. North Christian Church, designed by Eero Saarinen, Eliel’s son, completed in 1964. First Baptist Church, Harry Weese architect, completed in 1965. And last but not least, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, designed by Gunnar Brikerts and completed in 1988. I visited all four churches extensively. Spoke with church staff and parishioners. Was invited to join the congregation for a Thanksgiving lunch. Was given the church all to myself and told to lock the door when I was done. The style of the churches was so diverse and amazing. The hospitality was warm and genuine. Absolutely unlike any of the churches that I have visited in the past. If you’re interested in architecture this small Midwestern town is a gem. If you have the time you could spend 2-3 weeks there and find something architecturally interesting every single day.
A note about fairness. The Columbus guide to Art, Architecture Landscapes & Historic Buildings lists almost 100 such attractions. Do all of them reflect outstanding design? No. The generic ‘all glass and steel’ designs can be found in almost any city these days. Some designs are not that interesting or attractive. Columbus has build this reputation on many outstanding designs by pillars of modern architecture. And rightfully so. I am not aware of another small town so rich in modern architecture as Columbus. A small Midwestern town anchored by a global company, Cummins, that has invested deeply in the development and enrichment of its city and people, all started by J. Irwin Miller back in 1950s.
More about the four landmark churches in the blog post here.
The Barn Owl and the Vole ... in the pellet!
While walking through the woods in the vicinity of a Barn Owl's nest, I stumbled upon their favorite place to regurgitate pellets. The undigested parts, hair and bones, from a previous meal or two that accumulate in their stomach. And there were so many of them. Struck by curiosity I picked up two. After disinfecting the pellets I spent a few days taking them apart, separating the massive amount of hair from the bones. I thoroughly cleaned the bones and reconstructed the skeleton that seemed to be about 80% complete. As I suspected it was a Meadow Vole. And a big one too. With the second pellet I was not so lucky. Maybe half the number of bones compared to the first one. The bones also belonged to a Vole but of much smaller size. An interesting and fascinating find!
A bit more detail on how all this careful dissection went from start to finish in the blog post here.
In 2010, Grace Farms Foundation, selected the Pritzker Prize winning Japanese architectural firm SANNA to bring to life their vision for a flourishing place and multi-purpose building where visitors could get close to nature, explore the arts, pursue justice, be part of a community, and explore faith, Grace Farms. The building would blend effortlessly into the landscape with minimal interference, taking advantage of the landscape and its topography. Basically it is a single long roof that meanders its way across the landscape connecting all-glass rooms, some very large, others on a smaller scale. The structures are made of glass, concrete, steel, and wood. Grace Farms is a non-profit center dedicated to advancing faith, nature, arts, community and justice initiatives. The center is owned and managed by Grace Farms Foundation, a private organization, which encourages individuals and institutions to collaborate for good at the local, national, and global level. The 80 acre site also includes a walking trail and 75 of the acres are left in a native state made up of hills, meadows, ponds and wetlands. The River, as it is called, has five main structures:
•The Court, a multi-purpose recreational/gym and event space. It is below ground level but it’s surrounded on all sides by glass.
•The Pavilion. The smallest glass-enclosed volume of the River buildings. It is a space where people are welcome to relax, drink tea and have a conversation with others.
•The Commons, a central community gathering place where fresh food and beverages are available for purchase for lunch or for a light snack.
•The Library, with all glass walls is a space where one can read, study, hold a meeting in the small conference room, work or relax near the fireplace during winter months.
•At the top of the River you’ll find the Sanctuary. It’s a 700-seat indoor amphitheater that naturally slopes downhill. From the seats one can see the expansive views of Grace Farms’ natural landscape. Performances, lectures, workshops and a variety of activities are held here.
All under one long winding roof surrounded by beautiful nature. The River!
My blog about Grace Farms with many more details about the buildings and the landscape can be found here.
Five months with a Great Horned Owl family
It is rare that one gets the chance to closely observe and spend that much time with the elusive and majestic Great Horned Owl. And in ones backyard too. That’s exactly what I experienced this spring and summer. Well, almost my backyard. Found them in Hempstead Lake State Park. It’s a five minute drive from where I live. So yes, I’ll call it my backyard if I may.
I knew a Great Horned Owl pair called home this state park for at least the last three years. On previous visits I rarely spotted one perched on a branch far into the woods in late afternoon. This spring I heard that they nested fairly close to a path and I went searching. Fairly close? That’s an understatement. I found them nesting in a very busy spot. On the edge of a meadow, in a tree right by a paved path frequently used by many walkers, bicyclists, skateboarders and dog walkers. Up about 60 feet in a very small nest. They are secondary-nest users, taking over existing raptor, heron or mammal (squirrel) nests.
There was the mother sitting on eggs. Or so I thought. She already had owlets by the time I first got there. Two, just about one to two weeks young. Two puffy balls of white down. Barely able to keep their eyes open or stand on their legs. And very, very hungry. There were a few spectators, some just walking by and of course photographers.
That was early March. For the next five months I watched them almost every day. From their first few days till they fledged and became independent and learned to fend for themselves expanding their territory by late July. An hour or so in the morning and a couple of hours in late afternoon. There was not much going on during the rest of the day when they were just roosting. As most owls they prefer twilight. These months were full of wonder, amazement, surprises, joy, near tragedy and a sad goodbye. I watched caring parents (mostly the mother) bring pray and feed them small bites early on. Watched them grow and start to move around the nest and open their tiny wings. Then near tragedy. They both fell out of the nest, way too early in their lives, followed by a rescue and relocation to a man-made nest. A bit later another fall and rescue. This time I played a small role in finding one of them, held him in my hands for a bit before he went back in the nest. That was very special. As they got bigger, branching came followed by fledgling. Always hungry and calling for their parents to bring them food. Always staying near one another. They were brothers, or so we believed. By the fifth month they started to become independent and fend for themselves. Most of the native down feathers were long gone replaced by the feathers of juveniles as they got close in size to that of their parents. A very handsome pair. Throughout these five months there was one constant that never wavered. The love and affection between mother and young ones and between the brothers. Never saw them fight over anything. Lots of loving looks, bonding, snuggling, kissing and ‘hand’ shakes. Yes, claw shakes.
By early July they became more elusive. They were harder and harder to find. The parents were mostly out of the picture. By middle of July I think they were gone, or so it seemed. Either to other parts of the park or possibly they just said good bye to their parents and the park and left in search of a territory of their own, though that usually happens in late August, early September. I searched for them a few more times in August with no luck. So it was a sad goodbye for me. I wondered if they stayed together or if they separated.
To write about the events mentioned above would take up too much space in this gallery introduction. I have written a couple blog posts detailing the major events in their young life. Link below. They are majestic birds that have a beauty and character not seen in many other raptors. The memories I have from them are priceless and will stay with me forever. After all, for five months we were a family!
Link to blog posts here.
Recently I wrote two blog posts about a nesting colony of Yellow-Crowned Night-Herons in my neighborhood and some of the problems they are causing to the people who live right under the nests. I don’t want to fill up the posts with too many pictures. They're more about the story. And this gallery is more about the pictures than the story. But the blog can definitely benefit from more photos. So I’m making this gallery as a place to showcase those images. Best thing to do is to read the two post and then come to this gallery to complement the stories. Link to first blog post here and for the second blog post here
Carpenter bees are often mistaken for bumble bees. They are similar in size and appearance but that’s where the similarities end. Bumblebees are social, Carpenter bees are not. Bumblebees nest underground while the Carpenter bees nest in trees or in the wood frames of buildings. They drill an almost perfectly round hole about 1/2 inch in diameter usually against the grain of the wood. When about one inch deep it turns at a right angle, left or right, and tunnels along the grain. They do not eat the wood. The female does the drilling and clearly she has very sharp teeth. The tunnels are drilled for shelter and chambers in which to raise their young and hibernate during winter. Carpenter bees are territorial and will defend their space from other insects and people. The male has no stinger but the female does. Stings are very rare. The easiest way to differentiate the males from the females is by the yellow/golden square spot on the face. That’s a male.
It’s amazing to see these bees fly into my porch window at full speed, bounce off and continue flying. They do that for the same reason birds fly into windows. They don’t see the window, they see a darker space or a sky reflection that looks like a passage. And bump. Birds sometimes get dazed by the bump but recover shortly. Sometimes they don’t and unfortunately die. But the bees have no such problem. Imagine a person running at full speed and hitting a wall or a tree. Something will break and will require a visit to the ER.
People get freaked out when they see a lot of Carpenter bees around their house or property. It usually is not a problem unless the number is large and it becomes an infestation. Since they don’t eat the wood, using treated wood makes no difference. Covering wood with non-wood material will help. Filling the holes with steel wool also works.
Photographing them is not an easy task unless they land and enter or exit the nest. Shooting them in flight is very difficult.
Link to my blog post on how to get some good result at BIF .. Bees In Flight photography here.
Sex, gluttony, revival and death
A monumental event takes place every year in the month of May right here on the Eastern shores of the United States. Two epic migrations come together to create a natural event seen nowhere else in the world. You could go to Africa and witness the migration of the Wildebeests and Zebras in the Serengeti or to Mexico to see the millions of Monarchs invade the forests of the Monarch Biosphere Reserve. You would have to travel far, pay a good deal of money and deal with crowds of tourists and the selfie takers.
These migrations happen on the shores of Delaware Bay. It’s not a secret but it’s not overly covered by the media or the nature programs on television. There are two migrations that come together on these shores in the month of May every single year.
One is made up of almost a million shorebirds. Mostly Semipalmated Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones and Red Knots who are alarmingly declining in number. (In 2014 the Red Knot rufa was listed as a federally threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the second most critical status that can be awarded to a subspecies.)
The other migration is made up of millions of Horseshoe crabs. The shorebirds are on a journey that stars at the bottom of South America at Tierra del Fuego, and ends up in the Arctic. The Horseshoe crabs start at the bottom of Delaware Bay and are looking to get to its beaches especially at high tide a few miles away.
So where is the sex, gluttony revival and death? It all comes together in a fascinating and interesting series of events.
Every May, especially at full and new moon and at high tide, the Horseshoe crabs, by the hundreds of thousands make their way as far up the beach as they can to spawn. They deposit millions of eggs on the sandy beaches of the bay. Sex
About the same time almost a million shorebirds on their way to the Arctic where they breed and nest, arrive, need to rest, feed and regain their strength on this very long journey. They need to double their weight for the last leg of the migration, 3,000 miles north to the Arctic. They will feed on the horseshoe crab eggs non stop every day till they are fat enough to resume their journey. Gluttony and revival
Of the Horseshoe crabs spawning, a large number will die on these beaches, either stranded by a storm or the high tide or are unable for one reason or another to make it back to the water. And millions of their eggs are eaten by the shorebirds. Death
I spent almost a week on the beaches of Delaware Bay witnessing this epic event at the end of May. The peak of the migrations is not always predictable and I caught the end of both. Still amazing in every way. All that spawning and feeding frenzy is all over in early June. Compared to May, the June beaches of Delaware Bay look completely deserted.
Blog post on the Red Knots here
The New York Botanical Garden is one of my favorite places to visit throughout the year. Just before the trees and the plants start to wake up from the long winter months, from early March and ongoing to almost the end of April, the NYBG puts on a dazzling display of some of the most exquisite orchids in the world.
Now in its 16th year, the Orchid Show takes place in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory where a wonderful and imaginative display of orchids is put on by the NYBG. The highlight of the Orchid Show is a creative series of orchid installations by Daniel Ost found throughout the conservatory. Ost is one of the worlds leading floral designers, garden architect and floral artist. A short clip by Ost on the challenge of creating the installations at the NYBG is here.
Exotic and unique in appearance, orchids represent a rare and delicate beauty. Wether a potted plant or a cut flower arrangement, orchids have an irresistible appeal. If wanting to make a lasting impression with a unique flower, the orchid would be a perfect choice.
This is the first time that I got to have a close look at these gorgeous flowers and spend three days in the conservatory visiting during the day and also attending the Orchid Evenings show when the NYBG creates a special evening by setting up fire pits in the conservatory plaza to keep those waiting to get in warm (there were no lines when I was there), entertains the visitors in the conservatory with three Orchid Dancers from Alice Farley Dance Theather and of course the stunning displays of orchids all accompanied by curated music by DJ X-Ray making for a perfect atmosphere to explore the Conservatory with friends or loved ones while sipping from a glass of wine.
From my very limited experience with growing plants, I seem to remember that orchids have a reputation for being a challenging and finicky plant to grow and maintain. After going to the Orchid Show and doing some reading, I discovered that orchids are some of the most diverse and well adapted plants on Earth. They thrive in many environments around the world, from rain and tropical forests to deserts. They grow in almost any color, size and shape imaginable. With 30,000 naturally occurring orchid species and tens of thousands of artificially created hybrids, Orchidaceae is the largest plant family on Earth. About 208 species of orchids are native to the United States and Canada as well as a number of hybrids. Orchids tend to bloom for quite a bit longer than most other flowers. The average orchid bloom, regardless of species, usually lasts for at least six weeks. Others last for months.
Can one grow an orchid from seed? Growing orchids from seed at home is NOT easy at all. Seeds are generally almost microscopic and very numerous, in some species over a million per capsule. Seed growth is done in the highly controlled environment of a laboratory. Even if you are successful at orchid seed germination, it takes a month or two for the first tiny leaves to develop, and may take many months or years before you’ll see the first bloom. It’s easy to understand why orchids are so expensive! In recent years they have become much more popular and affordable. I see them for sale at Trader Joes and most supermarkets all the time.
Some interesting facts about orchids:
✿ The genus Orchis comes from an ancient Greek word meaning 'testicle'; because of the shape of the bulbous roots. The term 'orchid', which is just a shortened form of the family Orchidaceae, was not introduced until 1845.
✿ The smallest orchid in the world features flowers that measure in at a little over 2mm wide. The flower petals are transparent and are only one cell thick. This teeny tiny orchid belongs to the Platystele genus.
✿ The tiger orchid (Grammatophyllum speciosum) is the world's largest type of orchid. The biggest on record weighed roughly 4,000 pounds. One hanging in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is 12 feet wide, weighs 300 pounds and has hundreds of flowers blossoming on 17 spikes.
✿ Orchid seeds are the smallest seeds in the world and are comparable to the size of a particle of dust. Each orchid seedpod can contain millions of orchid seeds.
✿ Some orchids strangely resemble creatures from the animal kingdom. Ophrys apifera, better known as the Bee Orchid, lures male bees with its enticing smell and bee like appearance.
✿ The vanilla extract we pour into all those cake and cookie recipes? It comes from the orchid! Vanilla is a species of orchid, and vanilla extract comes from the orchid Vanilla planifolia. It’s the only orchid that produces a fruit that can be eaten.
✿ The tallest variety, the Sobralia altissima from the forest of Peru, can soar to 44 feet.
I also took advantage of a one day workshop on orchid flash photography offered by the NYBG. Link to that blog post here.
Snow geese are migratory birds that travel all the way from the northeast of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and back. They travel in large flocks made of many family units and fly during both night and day. They tend to return to the same nesting areas year after year. They are herbivorous; they eat roots, leaves, grasses, and sedges. They have strong bills for digging up roots in thick mud. There are two phases seen in the snow goose called the 'snow' phase and the 'blue' phase. In the adult 'snow' phase the body is a snowy white with black wing tips. They have red feet and legs, a pink bill, and a black 'grin patch' (the black patch of skin that surrounds the base of the bill, which resembles a smile). The adult blue phase geese have the same feet, legs, bill, and grin patch, but they have blue/gray bodies with black wing tips. They also have white necks and heads, and some white on the underside of their bellies. In the immature snow phase the body is a dirty white color with black wing tips and in the immature blue phase they are a slate gray with little or no white. In both immature phases they have red feet and legs but they are not as bright as the adult goose. Video clip of feeding Snow Geese in a tidal salt marsh at the end of the gallery. —animaldiversity.org
Snow geese are probably the noisiest waterfowl I have ever heard. Sounds here. Their call is a one syllable honk that one can hear from a far distance announcing their arrival. One gets a fair warning of arrival so no need to fumble with camera settings if photography is the activity. They 'bark' this way all the time weather in the air, on the water or on the ground. Jamaica Bay has its share of snow geese in the winter with large groups, hundreds to a couple of thousand, feeding in the bay and flying over to fresh water ponds. I don't think I have seen a solitary goose ever. In other locations with a much larger habitat, I have seen over ten thousand snow geese congregating together. It is quite a sight to see, and hear, at sunrise or sunset, thousands of these noisy birds flying over yor head.