I’m more than a little disturbed that most of us are celebrating Independence Day this year in a manner that… I’ll shut up about it. The purpose of this site is to forget doom and really whatever else is going on in the world for a brief moment. Color and nature and industry and metaphor. That flash of joy. So…here’s one on the neighbors’ Russian Sage. Well, not really on it, but in it. Some days I don’t really notice that the wind is blowing any at all – until I try to shoot on/at/in a flappy flower. And this one is the poster child for that. Or at least one of them. Love them in flight!
Two honeybees on or near the Salvia. Very close to nailing the focus on both. I’ve mentioned before the variation in the color of the honeybees – note that one is the golden that you’d expect while the other is more grey. That’s not a trick of light, but really the color. I suspect that they come from different hives, but I’m not sure. Seems the ones in the three hives here are quite uniform in color – that golden you see in the top bee.
The other thing is that these little ones can be outright rude to each other. Sometimes they’ll share a blossom – and others, they’ll knock the one off to take the pollen – even those of the same species. Anyway…
In-flight approaching the catmint, not the salvia. Tongue out, could not wait. Nice detail on her eye and the pollen all over her head is neat, too. A little hard to see her wings, but they’re at work – not at rest.
The catalpa tree started blooming yesterday – as did the foxglove and the larkspur. Maybe some pics of those soon. Good day for bees yesterday – think I’m still figuring out how to take better, more interesting shots.
Shot this one at Noon yesterday. Light coming through the clouds made her look really golden. This one started blooming about a week ago. Seems a little bit ahead of the lighter ones. Weird day yesterday in that it was really windy – and the bees didn’t seem to want to stay anywhere for very long. Not sure if it has anything to do with the wind, but some days (and on some flowers) they seem to feed for a long time. Yesterday it was all about brush and fly off. I do like this shot, though.
Today marks the end of the third full month of this experiment/nonsense. Strangest three months of my life, truly – jumped in to a career change going after art full-time – huge up-front investment – a summer full of some pretty fine art shows/fairs on the docket – to an unthinkable, non-essential nothing – perhaps a perpetual nothing. Gives one pause.
Today’s bee, heading toward a Nanking Cherry, is blissfully ignorant of such things. This one is a full-frame picture. That means that I didn’t crop it like I normally do (by that I mean, you usually get about 1/3 of the entire shot). I liked the composition and thought it scaled down to 1000 pixels wide quite nicely. And thought it was worthwhile, in this case, to show what I saw through the lens when I clicked. Plus nailing the focus in-flight is pretty rare (for me, at least).
Honeybee in Flight – it’s been into the Siberian Squill (Scilla siberica)
Catching a bee in flight with really legit, hair-on-the-eyeballs focus is way more luck than management. But it happens sometimes. It’s kind of a busy shot with that Squill in the foreground and mess elsewhere. That yellow/green spikey thing is called Jenny’s Stonecrop. But I call her Angelina (Sedum (Petrosedum rupestre subsp. rupestre ‘Angelina’)) and I might have a bit of a plant crush on her.
While it does bloom once a year (I’ll find some bee pics on it eventually), it’s mostly a ground cover. And a wonderful one at that. It’s heartier than…well…come up with your own metaphor (and include living on concrete in a pinch), it grows quickly, and keeps most of the weeds out. And it’s nice-looking as it changes color through the season. But one of the best things about it is that it’s not hard to remove if you need to (or if it’s wandered somewhere it does not belong). Not all ground covers behave that way.
Didn’t I just rant about ads on sites? Apparently today’s post was brought to you by Sedum ‘Angelina’. Ha!
And that bee is almost iconic with that full bucket of blue pollen. Pretty girl.
