Butterfly bright

When we lived in Illinois, there was a butterfly bush right outside our large living room window. I enjoyed seeing butterflies, hummingbird moths, bees, and other critters up close and personal and of course, taking photos through the window. 🙂

Life in Colour: kaleidoscope

Friday flowers…with guest

The only thing that could make a flower better is…a beautiful guest

And of course, the fact that tomorrow is Saturday is also good.  Have a marvel-filled weekend!

A girl’s best friend

I love milkweed, seeds and pods, and their role in providing food for monarch and other butterflies.  But there’s much more to this plant.  The silky floss has good insulation properties and its fibers are used to clean up oil spills.  On the darker side, many natives in Africa and South America use the poison on the tips of their arrows, while milkweed is toxic to animals when taken in large amounts.

Often the floss of the milkweed flies in the wind, like a head of blonde hair. But in the case of the seeds I found in the park not long ago, each strand was adorned with a plethora of tiny, frosty diamonds.

 

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Evanescent…monarch

The aroma of freshly-made granola perfumes the air in our house this morning, while outside, the flowers I finally planted have been drinking deeply of the rain. I’m ready for a bit of sunshine, but there isn’t much I can do. Tea and a good book are in my plans for the afternoon, at least the part where I’m not working at something.

Today’s Photo Challenge theme is “Evanescent.”  Butterflies are, by nature, evanescent, flitting from flower to flower.  To see one at rest is truly an evanescent moment.

Monarch of all it surveys

Just because…

…I really am going to the Chicago Institute of Art today, so no Photo Challenge.
…I can’t wait to see the butterflies again.
…I love the colors and I’m color hungry after winter.
…I just like the photo.  Hope you do, too.  I’m off into “the city” today, downtown Chicago, on a day that’s supposed to be warm and sunny.  I’m packing my camera as well as my phone and Kindle, so who knows what you may see in upcoming days?

Happy Friday!

Photo101 Rehab…Cloudy with a chance of photos

I walk for exercise three mornings a week, carrying my iPhone because photo ops happen all the time at the park.  I keep track of my walks on Map My Walk and was relieved to discover the “Pause workout” button, enabling me to stop for photos without having my pace impacted.  But every so often, I take a photo walk, carrying my Nikon with telephoto lens as well as my iPhone.  I don’t map those walks, as a distance that takes about 30 min. on an exercise day may take as long as an hour and a half on a photography day!

Last week, my photo walk day turned out to be cloudy with the threat of rain.  I packed a plastic bag in my fanny pack to cover  my camera if necessary.  I wasn’t sure if I should expect much in the way of animal life, but perhaps because it still seemed like night or because there were hardly any other people, it was an excellent day, as you’ll see from the following photos.  This is true soul food.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Today Was a Good Day…outside the window

The butterfly bush outside our living room window provides hours of viewing pleasure.  Besides butterflies, bees, and other insects, it attracts the unusual hummingbird moth.  Not only humans confuse this lovely moth with a hummingbird; insects and other birds do as well.  But instead of a long, thin beak, the moth has a proboscis to reach into flowers for nectar.  The moth also pollinates plants.

On this day, my eyes catch movement.  I grab my camera, moving carefully to the window.  Today was a good day outside the window in our own backyard.

On this day, the hummingbird impostor isn’t the only thing I see.  Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal dropped by for a visit.

And, yes, least I forget, there was also a butterfly.

 

 

We have a butterfly bush.

We have a butterfly bush.  We actually have two, one with purple blooms, one with white, both looking like lilac bushes.  I only realized recently that the white one was a butterfly bush as well.  The white one grows to the side of the deck, so I can’t see it as easily. The purple bush grows directly outside the large living room window, against the window when at its largest.

Wordless Wednesday the day after