Cosmos & Roses

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Can you find the Painted Lady butterflies?

Our cosmos have started to bloom, and the roses are putting on another round of blooms. The little white and green flowers in the second and third set of photos below are a wildflower that busts open like fireworks. It reminds me of dill, and the wasps and butterflies love it.

 

Pillow Parking

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A pillow with racing stripes parked next to my MX-5 this morning. Maybe it felt a kinship with the MX-5 being close to the same color and having racing stripes; although the pillow did not have a parking permit. I park on the 6th level of the parking garage, that, by the way, I was banned for life from in January 2016; however, the parking permit department didn’t get the memo that I was banned for life, and they issued me a parking permit to park in the garage I was banned for life from over a year ago.

For my “green” red car update, I’ve been driving to schools this week to survey sites and facilities in order to update fire escape plans. With people coming back from vacations, and getting ready to go back to school, there has been a lot more stop and go traffic in my normal daily commute. But then, with driving to different schools, I did a lot more city driving, and ran into a lot more road construction over the past week. My mileage dropped a full mile per gallon this last tank of gas to 39.1 mpg (16.62 kpl) driving 352.8 miles (567.8 kilometers). That’s not too bad for more city driving.

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Cooper’s Cry

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Cooper’s Hawk crying

We where walking on the levee well after sundown, when we heard a cry that sounded somewhat like a monkey. We looked in the trees, but could not see who was crying. Then we saw a bird jump from branch to branch. Finally a Copper’s Hawk settled on a branch where we had a better view, and I was able to get photos of it through the branches and leaves. It jumped to another branch where it was mostly hidden, but then a much larger bird, flapped it’s wings closer to the Cooper’s Hawk; but it remained hidden behind branches and leaves. The Cooper’s Hawk flew back to another branch where I was able to get another photo of it before it took off into the bosque. A Great Horned Owl (possibly Virginia) flew out from behind the branches and leaves into the bosque a few moments later. I presume the owl was after the Cooper’s Hawk’s chicks and the Cooper’s Hawk was trying to distract the owl with it’s crying. Great horned owls are three to four times larger than Cooper’s Hawks, and could easily make a meal of an adult Cooper’s Hawk, which is probably why the Copper’s Hawk was not attacking the owl.

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Looking determined
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Checking out the paparazzo or the owl or both of us.

Leave Me Bee Sam-I-am

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A bee, I’ll call Wild-B, was minding his own business collecting pollen on an echinacea, when another bee, I’ll call Sam-I-am, started buzzing Wild-B. Wild-B held his position and stuck out his pollen laden back legs as he tried to block and discourage Sam-I-am from buzzing him. Sam-I-am was quite pesky, but finally moved on after a Bumble Bee landed on the echinacea. Wild-B also took off once the Bumble Bee started making his way around the flower in Wild-B’s direction.

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Clouded Colors

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The echinaceas are attracting the various colors of clouded sulfur butterflies: green, orange, yellow.

Green Clouded Sulfur (Colias philodice)

I was able to get the orange sulfur (Colias eurytheme), also known as the “alfalfa butterfly”, above with it’s wings open as it landed on an enchinacea. Clouded Sulfurs rarely open their wings to a flattened position when they are perched. The solid black around the edges of the wings indicate that this one is a male (females have dots on the black edges).

Backlit orange.

A male Orange fluttering around an unfazed female Green (the green has spots on the black edges of her wings).

Yellow Sulfer (Colias croceus).