Clark Botanic Garden

I truly enjoy photographing anything that has to do with nature.  Since my summer has been spent working and without the luxury of affording a traditional vacation, I decided that my vacation would be taking my camera and discovering my own surroundings.  I have already shown you the Levy and Muttontown Preserves.  Today's subject is Clark Botanic Garden which I discovered via an internet search.  When I drove there, I realized that I had been down that street many times, but never knew that the garden even existed.  The garden has several different areas such as a woodland area, wetland area, and various garden areas including a hedge maze and butterfly plants.  Wildlife that I saw included chipmunks, rabbits, birds, tadpoles, turtles, butterflies, and bees.  They even had a bee hive area which I stumbled upon accidentally and abruptly retreated from since I am highly allergic to stings.  I enjoyed my time at the garden and walked through each area several times seeing something new each time.  It was a very tranquil and relaxing outing, and I felt that I had ample time to compose my shots and try out various settings on my camera.  This was also the first time that I used a sun shade on my lens.  All pictures were taken with the Canon SX 40HS with GIMP used for post production.

Here is a link to learn more about Clark Botanic Garden:

http://clarkbotanic.org/