Tag: sunflower

Golden Bumble on a Red-tinged Sunflower

This one is from August, 2018. Going through folders I’ve not seen entirely yet – preparing for some fun for the first anniversary of the site…which is just a couple of weeks away. Good fun that day, I’m planning… Also, Yoda I sound like.

Late post today. And silly narrative. At least the bee is cute!

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DoubleBumble on a Sunflower

Looks like they’re both brown-belted bumbles. That doesn’t always happen. The same species, I mean, sharing a blossom. The other thing that rarely happens is having two bees in (near) focus at the same time. But here’s a nice, pollen-covered pair. Couple more months until the crocuses? We’ve had some in January, so here’s hoping. They’re nestled under the snow for now.

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Almost a Twofer?

Found this one yesterday while looking at some shots from August 2019. It’s always fun to get one in flight. And the ones with laden baskets are always pretty. Her purpose.

But the fun came with a monstrous brown-belted bumble coming in onto the same flower. That shadow…almost there! In looking at further pics (none of which had both bees in focus at the same time, sadly) they shared that sunflower for a while, both doing their thing. Great shadow on a great backdrop.

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Brown-belted Bumble on a Sunflower

This is the whole shot. No cropping. Like the focus on the eye and face. The foreground and background out of focus can be a little tough on some of my shots. There’s a “rule” in photography that the foreground out of focus distracts. Maybe it does. But with bees, and so much of life, keeping the focus in the right spot seems key. Irrespective of whatever else is going on around – both fore and back. And the sunflower doesn’t seem to mind.

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Give Thanks!

Great native on a sunflower today. Longhorn bee. That eye just gets me. And that left antenna (vs the right) really shows how razor-fine the plane of focus is on these shots (as if you need to be reminded).

Diversion here – skip this noise if you’d like:

I’m not a fan of holidays, really. This is because I think that setting aside a single day for gratitude or generosity or celebrating a person or remembering those who have passed (those just as examples – there are many more) really isn’t enough. All of those things are good things. And there’s probably nothing wrong with an annual fixed focus on those things.

I think what I’m trying to say is not so much a dig on the single-day, hard focus, but rather that I’d hope that these things would be habits in us – have become (or are becoming) innate. That we’d not need a day to honor our mothers, for example, but that would be part of who we are and how we behave – every day.

Be grateful every day and give thanks. Call your mom on a random Thursday if she’s still around. Give a gift randomly just because you’re generous – and you know it’s something the recipient will never acquire for himself. Send a “just because” card in addition to the annual birthday card.

That was kind of a loose rant. Maybe I’m saying that the reasons for the holidays we celebrate are generally good reasons. And I’d hope that these reasons are something that we can all internalize and integrate and reflect every day. And I’m looking at myself first.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

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