Monarch’s exploit many plants, not only milkweed. This specimen had just been laying eggs on milkweed leaves and had moved over to this Echinacea to stocky up on nectar.
Wild carrot (Daucus carota) after sunset
A pair of bumble bees at work inside a male squash flower – hopefully they will later find themselves in a female flower and be able to put the pollen to good use.
Happened upon while wandering at Ardtornish on the west coast of Scotland – autumn 2016
Facing off on the flowers of a wild carrot plant with an ant. Who will back down first?
I had some difficulty identifying this fellow but with a little external assistance pinned it down as a ‘Weevil Wasp’ … a future contributor to the 1000 Species Project when I have done some more reading up on them.
Photographers often sing the praises of “the golden hour” at sunset or “the blue hour” just after and they are worth making use of. However, I often find that to my eye, maybe not yours, the really interesting light is in the middle of a heavy shower of rain when there are no shadows, the light is diffused and the colours of flowers positively glow.
This Monarch butterfly prospected the garden in the early morning before settling for a while on this, yet to flower, golden rod stem. There are plenty of milkweed plants nearby so hopefully eggs, caterpillars and then more butterflies.
Homing in on a rose …
This week the moss on the waterfall has pushed up a forest of sporangia
