Red, White and Blue
As we approach the 250th Anniversary of the birth of our country, I thought it would be fun to search for three species of birds and wildflowers that were the color of “Old Glory”. We’ll begin with the flowers that I found (and one that I did NOT find). First up is Red which officially signifies hardiness and valor. Unofficially, it has also come to stand for courage and sacrifice of those who shed their blood for our country. Our Red flower is the Firecracker Plant - also totally appropriate in name for our 4th of July theme this week.
Firecracker Plant (Vermillionaire) - Ondaora - 6-28-26
This species known as “Vermillionaire” is in fact not a true wildflower. It is a garden hybrid which is extremely popular in great measure due to its attractiveness for Hummingbirds.
Ruby-throated hummingbird at our Vermillionaire plant in the back yard.
Next color of our flag is White. White, as interpreted by Charles Thompson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, symbolizes Purity and Innocence. The Water lily that I have chosen to represent this color in the floral world simply seems to exude these characteristics as it almost glows out upon the waters of Silver Mine Lake.
Water lily - Silver Mine Lake - 6-26-26
The way the light caught the center disc of this beauty only seemed to augment the feeling of Purity and Innocence suggested by Thompson.
Blue flag iris - Mine Road - 5-25-12
My goal for today was to find and photograph this gorgeous species that I feel it the bluest of the blue wildflowers. I see the Blue flag iris every year along the causeway out to Iona Island, one of my favorite haunts. Sadly, it was not making a presence today. Was I too late in the season? I did notice that a considerable amount of mowing had taken place along the roadway. Did these flowers fall victim to the mowers blade? I tried a few other places as well, but came up short handed. Denied but undaunted, I went back into the archives and found the above image of the Blue flag iris from a number of years ago. I think it fits the requirements of representing our nation’s flag admirably.
I still felt obligated to find and record an image of a nice blue wildflower from today and settled upon a species that is pretty much ubiquitous here in southeastern New York. Chicory is beautiful in its simplicity, it does it the bill for our current representative of the color blue from the wildflower world.
Chicory - Mine Road - 6-28-26
TechTip - I know I’ve mentioned this technique in the past, but I do think it deserves to be restated. The image of the “Vermillionaire” was produced using a technique known as “Focus stacking”.
Focus stacking is a photographic technique that combines multiple images taken at different focus distances to create a final image with greater depth of field and sharpness than any single shot can achieve. It’s commonly used in macro, landscape, and product photography where achieving sharp detail from foreground to background in one exposure is impractical due to optical limits. The process involves shooting a sequence of overlapping focal planes (35 shots in this case)—usually with a fixed aperture and tripod to maintain framing—then blending the sharpest areas of each frame in post-processing software that aligns images, detects in-focus regions, and seamlessly merges them, often followed by local retouching to correct artifacts. For this image, I used a post-processing app known as Helicon Focus. Benefits include increased perceived resolution and the ability to use wider apertures for subject isolation or better light gathering, while challenges include managing parallax in close subjects, ensuring consistent lighting and exposure across frames, handling moving elements that cause ghosting, and maintaining natural-looking transitions to avoid overly clinical results.
