I'm getting fast on the focusing,. These flowers don't have much nectar of pollen so the bees move fast.
Zoom in & see her tongue in the tiny flower! I think it is Redshank or ladies thumb. Persicaria maculosa.
This would have been a perfect shot if that blue flower hadn't been in the way. :-)
Enlarge, look closely, and you can see a 1mm hitchhiker that hopped onto her. I think it's a thrip.
Here's an enlargement:
I love the colors in this one.
Skunks vs Daisy: Skunk-3 Dog-0 Me-two!
The second one let out a squirt on the inside of the blanket I covered the trap with, but I escaped un-odored.
No doubt there are several more.
The blue flower is probably batchelors button. (Wild chicory doesn’t have as many petals.)
The blue flower is probably batchelors button. (Wild chicory doesn’t have as many petals.)
The red-pink clusters with the splotch on the leaves. Macroscopic flowers: knotweed, smart weed, Redshank or ladies thumb. Persicaria maculosa
Each flower on the persicaria is no bigger than the size of one of the
honey bee’s eyes. That fact gets lost when the perspective is enlarged in the
macro photo. This fools me when I look at some of these photos and I lose the
sense of the proper scale of how small those flowers actually are. They were
hard to photograph. I had to hand hold with manual focus aperture priority &
they only were on each individual flower for a fraction of a second. Each good
clear shot well framed & in focus that I got, took at least 15 or 20 crappy
ones to get it. I need more practice & I’ll get quicker.
Those were all part of a packet of “friendly insect”
seeds somebody gave us a couple of years ago. Except for the knot weed which
came with the alpaca shit. At least the bees like it.
So...
ReplyDeleteI did hay for the parents of a friend yesterday. They came out to talk to me when I had finished. We had a great chat about all sorts of things and then the Mrs. commented on the beautiful sunset, then I remembered my little helper who was baling two valleys over from Muddy Valley. In between talking to you and picking up my last load I had completely forgotten about him.
He was setting up there on a bale. Patiently waiting for me in the dark.
On the way home I came around a corner to encounter a whole family of skunks. One died, the rest sprayed my pickup. Yikes! That stinks!
You must have been really beat, because the last thing we talked about was your "little" helper and his post dietary habits, and the fact that I don't have a seat with belts in the bed of my truck, so I cannot legally haul him for you.
DeleteI hope there are not too many more skunks in their family. I do not want to make a career of this. So far I have been lucky.
Nice sharp photos.I released a skunk from a live trap a while back. I was very patient and the skunk was too I guess. No foul odors were released ,. Skunks get a pass but raccoons , that is a different story.
DeleteEither one would have to be moved a long way & every minute with a skunk being bounced around in the truck is a gamble.
DeleteThat one flower in the last pic looks like an eyeball :)
ReplyDeleteNice Bee and Blooms pictures there.
We used to kill skunks up in South Dakota by plugging up their den holes except two and putting a hose from a tailpipe in one hole and a big trap over the other. One old guy told me a skunk could not spray if it's hind legs were off the ground. He used to grab em by the tail and claimed he never got sprayed. Being from Missouri I said show me and he did. Except said skunk managed to get it's hind legs on this old guys thigh and let the spray rip right up the guys torso and in the face.
He rode in the back of the truck home that night.
We have a skunk that comes down the driveway every morning when I am checking the steers water and feed. We cross paths but so far so good, the steers go up to it and it ignores them. Sill I don't like the idea of it staying out late and then going to sleep under the old garage. Really nice photos.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I've "re-located" four from the pack so far. I understand that they love to eat honey bees as well as spray the dog. They scratch on the hive at night and eat them when they come out to see what's happening.
Delete