Showing posts with label Painted Lady butterfly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Painted Lady butterfly. Show all posts

Monday, November 25, 2019

Where Are All the Flowers?

Red Rose

Last blog was about winter scenes and this is about flowers. When I used to do a photo a day and a weekly post here I had my photographic efforts organized by those blogs. I stopped that in 2018 and so 2019 is a jumble of dated uploads on my hard drive.

Not a problem for me until the time comes around for garden club photographic entries or a friend asks for three flower photographs as a Christmas gift for a mutual friend. Easy, huh? Just go to the summer months. It snowed the 23 of May and nothing bloomed in June because it was too cool. And the lead photo is from a green house, and the last one from my studio in February.


Yellow Banded Bumble Bees in a sunflower

Fall redeemed the season which seemed all too in a rush to bloom and seed and go away before winter returned. Summer 2018 had been a great year for flower photography but all my best flower photos of 2019 seemed to be in chasing the insects in a frenzy to get all the pollen they could while it lasted.


Fly in a Hollyhock

The star of the summer

And oh, the Painted Ladies. They were just everywhere. One of the largest migrations going of these butterflies this summer.  And I never seemed to have passed up an opportunity to attempt a photographic capture from their first appearance on milk thistle through yellow cone flowers.

Danse Pour Deux

Solo Performance

As a gardener disappointed by my hollyhocks, poppies, and sunflowers I found solace in the wonderful return blooms of my orchids in the studio. They are preparing to do it yet again.

Return Performance 

Georgia O'Keeffe is quoted as saying she didn't much like flowers but painted them because they were cheap models. I hardly ever paint time but I love to photograph them.

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Bristle Cone Pine Cone
Balfourianae
Sticky Stuff
So once again I a culling through photo files to come up with submissions for a contest. This one to the New Mexico Garden Clubs. I am new to garden clubs. And seem to go for weeds in the horticulture category I am split between submitting the Bristle Cone Pine Cone above or the Monk Thistle below. Wise to note I won the flower show with an onion blossom. So I did not even consider any of my photographs of cultivated flowers.



Musk Thistle
carduus nutans

But after horticulture it doesn't get any easier. There is a butterfly and an insect category. I have three pictures of butterflies. I joined the garden club to identify flowers I took pictures of and now I am identifying butterflies.

Small Wood Nymph
Cercyonis pegala

Painted Lady on Cone Flower
vanessa viiginiensis
echinaea paradoxa

Sylvan Hairstreak on Thistle
satyrium sylvinus

Leaning toward the first two with one in the insect category.

Doe and Fawn in the snow
Mule deer -  odocoileus hemionus

Deer above or Chipmonk below for wildlife.

Least Chipmunk of Northern New Mexico
tamias minimas 

And for bird. Though a turkey is also wildlife.

Wild Tom Turkey on the make
meleagris gallopavo

Which brings us to Landscape category. Frequent visitors to this site have seen a lot of my landscapes but because it is a garden club I am leaning toward the field of Cowpen Daisies below.

Skipping through the field of Cowpen daisies
verbesina encelioides

But I also like the one below.

Reflections on the High Plains
Stubblefield Reservoir

Like I said, decisions, decisions, decisions.