Although known for white squirrels, it isn’t easy to spot a rendering of one in Brevard if it is in front of white clouds as background, but here is a close-up of one on a traffic signal against a blue sky.
Traffic Signal Mast Arm Pole
White Squirrel Sculpture on Traffic Signal
Portraits of live white squirrels in Silvermont Park, Brevard, North Carolina.
Seeing a white squirrel is rare overall, but in some areas, they have established colonies where they are relatively common. Brevard, North Carolina, is known as the “Home of the White Squirrel” and has a large population, with some estimates saying a third of the squirrels there are white.
White Squirrel Searching
White Squirrel
Brevard, NC, is famous for its white squirrels, which are a unique variant of the eastern gray squirrel and not albinos. The town’s population is believed to have originated from a pair of white squirrels from an overturned carnival truck in 1949. A city ordinance now protects these squirrels.
Many white squirrel-related decorations are displayed all over the town, even on a traffic signal pole and a gazebo roof.
White Squirrel Sculpture on Traffic Signal
White Squirrel Gazebo
White squirrel, painted butterflies, and pumpkins decorate this garden in Silvermont Park in Brevard
White Squirrel Butterfly Garden
Known for its white squirrels and pumpkins, which are perfect for Thanksgiving, here is an illustration in Silvermont Park in Brevard, North Carolina.
Illustration of White Squirrel in Brevard
Hawaiian Duck, also known as Koloa, is a medium-sized duck, similar to a female Mallard in appearance, but smaller and darker. Both sexes have spotted tail feathers. The bill is dark greenish, with an orange tip in some females. This duck is a native species found exclusively in the Hawaiian Islands; this one is at Sylvan Heights Bird Park. This beautiful duck exhibits a stunning combination of mottled brown plumage and a distinctive white eye-ring.
Hawaiian Duck
Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) is a climbing vine with white and purple flowers. Its chemicals have calming effects. Passion flowers are lovely and unique, and some varieties even make delicious passion fruit!
Passion Flower
We saw a distinctive horse at the barn at Churchill Downs. “Albino” horses are a color type of horse born white and have pink skin, but they are not true biological albinos. They have slim heads, muscular necks, compact bodies, sloping shoulders, muscular croup, and long tails. Their eyes are blue, dark, or light brown rather than pink. Their hooves are often weak, but they have flat, smooth gait.
Albino Horse
Blue Eye of a Horse
Grant’s zebras, one at Ark Encounter, are the smallest of the six subspecies of plains zebras and the smallest zebra species overall. Are zebras black with white stripes or white with black stripes? It depends on how you look at it! While most zebras appear to have a white base coat with black striping, their skin is solid black.
Grant’s Zebra at the Ark
Compared to white picket fences, dark fences are now common in the countryside around Lexington. In 2014, the state of Kentucky passed an ordinance called Paint it Black. It required that miles of white plank fencing that had been in place since be painted black to lower maintenance costs. Now, the most common color for horse fencing is black.
Double-fencing between paddocks or fields keeps horses from interacting across a typical fence and allows vehicles and farm machinery to move easily around the property.
Double Fences in Lexington Countryside
Dual Fences in Lexington Countryside
In the United States, the Magnolia tree symbolizes luck and stability. It’s a staple in Southern gardens and delights people with its flowers in the early to mid-spring. In the east, the white blooms of the magnolia represent nobility and purity, while many of its parts are used in traditional folk medicine.
Southern magnolia, is a large, broadleaf evergreen tree that is noted for its attractive glossy dark green leaves and its large, extremely fragrant flowers. It is native to the bottomlands and moist wooded areas in the central and southeastern coastal plains from North Carolina to Florida and Texas.
Magnolia Bud
Bloomed Magnolia
Hydrangeas, one of the most beloved landscape plants, are revered for their large dramatic blooms that add long-lasting color to the garden in summer and fall. These romantic shrubs come in many white flowering varieties, adding timeless beauty to any yard. The color white complements most other hues, helping to cool down the landscape during the heat of summer.
White Hydrangeas
White Hydrangea Closeup
White lamps and their symmetrical black shadows on a walkway at Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina in their monochrome version accentuate their contrasts
Lamps and Shadows
Switching our posts for the next two weeks from color to monochrome.
Monochrome photography is an artistic type of photography that uses tones of a single color to colorize a photograph. Instead of having colors from all over the spectrum, a monochrome photo has just one color scale. All black and white images are monochrome images, but not all monochrome images are black and white.
Here is an image captured from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park in California, that is converted from color to monochrome making it balanced and visually appealing.
Cloud Formations over Yosemite in Monochrome
Cloud Formations from Glacier Point Yosemite
Known widely as “Chianti in the Carolinas” Raffaldini currently produces only classically dry Italian style wines ranging from reds like Sangiovese Classico, Montepulciano Riserva, Sagrantino and Grande Riserva with the white being Vermentino and a sparkling Prosecco style wine called Auguri.
Sampling Wines at Raffaldini Vineyards
Another photo of a lighthouse stairs in a black and white image, taken for top looking down.
We start focusing on the simple beauty of nature. There are countless natural wonders in North Carolina. North Carolina’s state and national parks offer bountiful opportunities to get outside and explore nature’s wonders. Here is a typical scene of blue sky, white cloud formations, and greenery of trees midst the mountains.
Chester, England is famous for its black and white buildings including the Rows, medieval two-tier buildings above street level with covered walkways which today house many of Chester’s shopping galleries. The Black-and-White Revival was an architectural movement in the mid-19th century that re-used the vernacular elements of the past, such as painted black timber framing with panels in between painted white, referring to Tudor style.
Although these orchids have white petals, the variety of colors on them is mesmerizing.
Fairy Snow White Balloon Flower is an interesting clump forming perennial so named because the buds puff up like balloons before they open. This compact Platycodon produces white bell-shaped blossoms with delicately contrasting blue veins in mid through late summer. Captured in Santa Monica, California.
