Butterfly Sighting

Over the weekend a fine gentleman I know by the name of Terry Koch snapped this photo of a gorgeous white butterfly perched on a dandelion flower in his yard. He was gracious enough to allow me to use the photo for this blog, as he resides in the Walla Walla Valley. Though he's not sure, he thinks this might either be a Western White Butterfly or a Spring White Butterfly. Any butterfly experts out there care to try their hand at identifying this beauty?

Chloe's Birthday Butterfly

I was sitting at the table waiting to take pictures of my best friend's little girl taking the first bite of her birthday cake at her second birthday party, when I looked down and saw this little guy. My friend's nephew had caught the butterfly and brought it inside, and it was, I'm guessing, recuperating. I set my camera to "macro" and snapped away. It made a fantastic model - it never moved while I took pictures.

Close-Up Wildlife

Some of the smaller wildlife of the Walla Walla Valley: A caterpillar that has probably (if it survived) turned into a beautiful butterfly...what kind I can't tell you. Anyone know?

Busy at Work

I was borrowing a camera over the weekend and my husband and I went to Rooks Park, which I've mentioned on several occasions here on this blog. Rooks has a few dozen acres and is surrounded mostly by fields, but is a mere 10-minute drive from the heart of downtown Walla Walla. The camera I was borrowing had a fun macro feature which I've never used before, so I played with it a lot. Here's some kind of insect that resembles a bee but wasn't really, exploring a flower bunch near the river. Though these flowers/plants are very common in this area, I can never remember the name of them. Anyone know?

Calling to Collect

It is now a week into official summer here in the United States, and the bees are still buzzing happily around, collecting pollen and nectar to turn into honey for us to enjoy. You can see the dusting of pollen on this bee's underside if you look closely enough. Local honey is something we in the WWV enjoy regularly. It's good for your seasonal allergies to ingest local honey, because it helps your body build up immunity to the pollen that floats around relentlessly each spring.

NOTE: I don't know what is going on with Blogger's scheduled postings, but I had scheduled postings every day for the last week, and it didn't actually post any of them automatically. I had to go in and manually publish them each day. (In some cases I was a day or two late.) Is anyone else having this problem?

That Time of Year

Well, it's certainly springtime, and that means more sun, more heat, and more bugs. Like this one. I have no idea what it is, but it was enjoying a rest on our front deck, and its size caught my eye. It was almost as long as my pinky finger (not including antennae). I don't do well with flying insects, but at least this one, as far as I could tell, didn't have a stinger. Anyone know what this is?

That Time of Year

I hate bees. I hate anything that resembles them, too: wasps, hornets, yellow-jackets, and those flies that look like bees as a defense mechanism. So although spring brings with it beautiful flowers, warm breezes, and opportunities to enjoy a "cuppa" on the outdoor patio, I still find part of myself loathing the coming of warmer months. Over the weekend I noticed a growing number of these buzzing insects excitedly perusing our front yard trees. The fuzzy bits on the branches were evidently attracting them, and they were giving in to the call. Once they loaded up with pollen, though, they had a hard time flying. They were dive-bombing our porch railing, scaring the heck out of me as they did so. I was trying to enjoy a brownie with my husband, but drunken bees kind of put a stop to that! I did finally manage to get up enough nerve to snap a couple of pictures of the pollen-laden insects. Here is one, who was trying to clean himself, but was so overwhelmed with the pollen (the orange bits on his legs) that he kept falling over. A larger view of this image reveals stunning details on the bee, and I really enjoyed examining the photo...from the safety of my dining room.