Catfaced Spider

The first time I saw one of these spiders on a watering can, I did the creeped out shudder.  Yikes this is one ugly bug!  But of course, it was a great subject to photograph! Needing to know it’s name, I did a search online and discovered that this is a catfaced spider.  You can’t really see the reason for the name from this angle, but it does appear to have the face of a cat on it’s big bulbos back area.  None of my original photos of the first catfaced spider turned out well, as the spider stayed in the shadows and the lighting was bad. This was the case with...

Viceroy butterfly (Monarch look a like)

Monarch Butterfly The Viceroy Butterfly (Limenitis archippus) is a North American butterfly with a range from the Northwest Territories along the eastern edges of the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada mountains, southwards into central Mexico. I photographed this one in the Katherine Albertson Park in Boise Idaho. Its wings feature an orange and black pattern, and over most of its range it is a Müllerian mimic with the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). The viceroy’s wingspan is between 53 and 81 mm.  It can be distinguished from the Monarch by its smaller size and the postmedian...

Dogbane Beetle

I have been busy and have fallen behind in posting any new images. Now that it is cold outside and I am spending most of my time indoors, I thought I should catch up on posting some of the fun pictures I took over the summer. How about this little guy, what a bug!  The dogbane beetle (species Chrysochus auratus), member of the insect subfamily Eumolpinae of the leaf beetle family Chrysomelidae (order Coleoptera). One of the most intriguing characteristics of the dogbane beetle is the kaleidoscope of brilliant colors. The beetles’ iridescence is produced by special body structures...

Sunflower Bee

Species in the genera Diadasia and Svastra are collectively called sunflower bees because, along with several other groups of plants, they are sunflower (Helianthus annuus) specialists. In addition to sunflowers, these bees specialize on mallows (Malvaceae), cacti (Cactaceae), evening primroses and willow herbs (Onagraceae), and wild bindweeds (Convolvulaceae). In fact, several cacti and mallows rely on sunflower bees for pollination services. Sunflower bees are found throughout the New World and generally are hairy bees. Males have long antennae. Sunflower crops are typically planted in rows - pollen-producing male plants in one row, nectar-producing female plants in another. In order for pollination to occur, pollen must be moved from male plants to female plants by pollinators, primarily bees. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are often used to pollinate sunflower crops, but worker honey bees specialize in either collecting pollen or nectar and primarily visit only one type of row. However, the presence of native bees, like sunflower bees, causes honey bees to change their foraging activity - the native bees chase the honey bees between the rows of sunflowers, making them up to five times more efficient pollinators, increasing seed set from three to 15 seeds produced per honey bee visit. In fact, research by Sarah S. Greenleaf and Claire Kremen has shown that the only sunflower fields to achieve 100% pollination are those fields with abundant native bee populations. The most important of these native bee species are long-horned (Melissodes spp.) and sunflower (Diadasia and Svastra spp.) bees. In this study, pollination by native bees accounted for only 7% of total pollination, but they were indirectly responsible for an additional 40% of pollination by alternating honey bee behavior. What I like is that these bees have two larger yellow legs, one on either side of their body, that resemble the petals from the sunflower!

Swan

This swan photo was taken on another visit to the cemetery in Boise that has a bird sanctuary.  The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day when I stopped to feed the birds and take a few photos.  Sometimes it’s tricky to get a swan alone for a picture, because all the other birds want to be fed too, and so they follow you around, hoping for a bit of stale bread.  On this day I was fortunate that another family was also there feeding the birds and so I was able to lure one swan away from all geese and ducks to get a few shots of him swimming gracefully around the pond. ...

Tulips

Also going in my garden soon.  I love tulips.  They come in a rainbow of colors and they have such pretty blossoms.  I only wish that they would bloom more than once and last longer.

Pansie

Another pretty little flower for my garden.  I love pansies.  They are the first thing to show up in the yard in the spring and they last way into the coldest parts of the year.  They always remind me of Alice in Wonderland, which is one of my favorite stories.

Ranunculus

I bought a series of Ranunculus for my garden.  These are beautiful perennial flowers, at least the tag said they were perennials.   We haven’t had a real sunny days since I bought the flowers, so for the moment, they are still in plastic pots waiting to be planted.  Hopefully the weather will warm up soon.

Shaggy Cow

Isn’t this one of the coolest looking cows you have ever seen?  Well it’s one of the coolest looking cows I’ve ever seen, and I see a lot of cows where I live in Idaho.  I have a fondness for cows, having spent a lot of time visiting a dairy growing up and drinking whole milk.  You really don’t know what milk tastes like if you only drink the stuff they sell at the market.  That’s NOT real milk.  Anyway, I photograph cows all the time because I think they are sweet animals and normally when I stop the car to take a photograph, they might come up to the fence...

Fuchsia

Fuchsia are lovely little flowers, with an assortment of colors and shapes that make it fun to shop at Fred Meyer each spring when they have their fuchsia starter sales.  In the past, the plants were only .50 cents each.  If you failed with it, you weren’t out much money.  Now a days they sell for .88 cents a plant, but still a reasonable price for these darling flowers.  I always buy two of each variety for my hanging baskets.  I hope to have them planted and hanging in the next week or so, depending on the weather, so maybe I will have more photos soon.