Archives for Lens Friends

Fluttering Wings

Categories: Lens Friends.
Tags: black swallowtail, butterflies, fritillary, monarch butterfly, mourning cloak, red admirals, swallowtail, and white admirals.

Butterflies are delicate critters that flit from flower to flower in the garden. Capturing them with the camera can be a challenge. The black swallowtail was seen in the spring when the lilacs were in bloom. The tiger swallowtail was found resting on the deck rail one day. A giant swallowtail was really enjoying the purple obedient plants just recently. A few years ago I discovered this mourning cloak butterfly by one of my hummingbird feeders which is close to a trellis where the clematis and honeysuckle vine grow. I think it had just emerged as it sat for a
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Good, Bad and Ugly

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Categories: Lens Friends.
Tags: caterpillars.

Caterpillar refers to the larval stage of a moth or butterfly or Lepidoptera. The word is Latin in origin and means hairy cat. During the year we see different caterpillars in the garden. The good, the bad and the ugly! Here is a Swallowtail caterpillar, Papilio polyxenes asterius. These like the leaves of carrots and parsley. I think I grow the parsley just to entice the swallowtail butterfly to lay eggs so I can photograph the caterpillar. These photos were taken late June. Monarch caterpillar or Danaus plexippus is munching away on milkweed. I always let the milkweed grow
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Sightings Down by the Bay

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Categories: Down by the Bay and Lens Friends.
Tags: killdeer, least sandpipers, lesser yellowlegs, and swans.

The bird sightings continue on our walks down by the bay. Last week we spotted the lesser yellowlegs. Here is another photo of one of them stretching its wing and balancing on one leg. A couple of days later we spotted some least sandpipers. At first I thought they might be young lesser yellowlegs as they were certainly smaller but and birding expert in our area, Terry Sprague, helped me with the identification and I learned that lesser yellowlegs don’t nest in our area. There was also a killdeer in the same area with the sandpipers. The swans are
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Down by the Bay

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Categories: Down by the Bay and Lens Friends.
Tags: great blue heron, lesser yellowlegs, reflections, and spider webs.

While walking down by the bay we spotted a pair of lesser yellowlegs shorebirds. These were most likely migrant birds passing through. We had seen the greater yellowlegs while in British Columbia last year. These were feeding in a muddy patch and some shallow water left over from the high waters in the lake where it flooded a few areas on the waterfront trail. I was lucky to capture the great blue heron just as it took off in its hunt for more food. It has a huge wingspan. It has been foggy overnight and when we arrived there
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Resourceful Visitors

Categories: Birds, Lens Friends, and Through My Lens.
Tags: pigeons, rabbits, red wing blackbirds, and robins.

Although the calendar says it is spring the days have been chilly, windy, snowy or rainy. The visitors keep arriving in the garden and are very resourceful at finding something to eat. The robins arrived at the end of January in a large flock that remains for the winter. At first there were lots in the garden but lately it seems that just one or two of them have picked our garden to remain in. We’ve had unexpected snow so far and this robin was very resourceful at finding the greenery baskets on the deck railing and
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