I've been on a spurt of backyard photography, so I have a whole bunch of pictures of birds, bees, and butterflies in the queue right now.
I'll start with butterflies. Getting a picture of a butterfly resting on a plant is easy, so I've instead been trying to get them in flight, which is very, very hard. I finally decided—and this is not a joke—that my best bet was to literally wave the camera in the general direction of a butterfly in flight and rip off a few dozen shots in burst mode. This technique finally yielded one good picture, which is one more than I ever got by trying to track butterflies in the viewfinder.
On another occasion I got a picture of our pair of butterflies, who have produced a cocoon that will produce a baby butterfly someday, maybe. According to the Guardian, there are only 2,000 western monarch butterflies left in the world, which means the picture on the bottom shows 0.1% of all the monarchs in existence.
Since you've sometimes commented that the Dems are for "open borders", I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Kamala's speech yesterday. I don't have any preconceived view of it; I've only seen the headlines.
FWIW I’ve seen way more than the usual number of monarchs in our neighborhood in Oakland CA this year. Not sure what it means — maybe migration patterns have changed somehow. Beautiful photos!
I've got a bumper crop of milkweed in my back yard - over a dozen plants have come up! No monarchs yet, nor any sign that anything has been chewing on the milkweed leaves.
Stunning. Still remember humble milkweed plants in my hometown park near the redbud, honey locusts, & persimmons, which seemed unusual but made me happy.
Their migration may be in danger due to elimination of forested land in Mexico, but photos of a multitude of monarchs resting there after their last trip still made me hopeful.
These photos showing one or two butterflies against blue sky are simply glorious. Thanks.
That's hard to believe. There are many monarch butterflies in Hawaii.
These are not the Western Monarch, but different Hawaiian monarch butterflies. A different species. The Western Monarch was the species that famously would migrate to LA and Orange County mission in the millions, but now look to be going the way of the Passenger Pigeon.
Interesting statistic on the Western Monarch. There are still plenty of the migrating to Mexico ones back in the Midwest, so this isn't 0.1% of the Monarchs existing on Earth, but it is VERY sad.
It brings to mind the summer of 1974 when I visited the then-abandoned "Wheeler's Ranch" up in Sonoma County where I had lived from 1971-73 when it was closed by the County. My then-wife and I were walking through the Laurel trees in the "West Canyon" when we heard what can only be described as "a great munching sound" all around us. It was a "Butterfly year" and there were Monarch larvae all over the Laurels.
It is extremely sad to know that a great migration has been decimated by pesticides, climate change and habitat loss.