Tuliptree Blossom with Guest
Another Day at Work
Apis Workers' Party
Predator
Some of Your Beeswax
Sedum Bumbler
Look of Defiance
Chicory Bee
Bumbling Bees
Garden Cafe
Buzz By Here - To Infinity and Beyond
Pick Your Poison
Blind Side Attack
On a Mission
Honey Bee on Sedum
Covering the Cosmos
Center of the Cosmos
Three's a Crowd
Popular Spot
On A Pedestal
Big Harry Fireworks Display
To Impress the Girl
Different Perspective
Sweet Ride
Perfect Little Piggies B&W
Flipping the Light Fantastic
Festival of Flights
To the Crowd's Delight
Amish Go Round
Wondersome One
The Stars In Her Eyes
Tuesday's Child
Sleeper Hold
Considering the Next Move
Sugar and Spice
Front Porch Portrait
Caged Competitor
Early Adoration
Child In the Ligtht
Stroll Through the Weeds
Attention Grabbing
Eye Contact
On the Line
Eyes of Wonder
Rounding the Curve
Troubadours of Basin Spring Park
Down by the Creek
Sun Day
Catching Some Light
EAA Fireworks
Hear Me Roar
Pops Photos
American Celebration
An appropriate Fourth of July fireworks burst of red, white and blue – taken at Manitowoc, Wisconsin’s celebration.
The ship (on the left) is the World War II fleet submarine, USS Cobia (SS-245) – permanently moored on the Manitowoc River, adjacent to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. The USS Cobia has a notable wartime history. You can learn more about it here: COBIA
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Aging Patriot
Happy Independence Day!
This wounded warrior was sighted at the Topeka, Kansas zoo. They had two bald eagles on display who had been injured and no longer able to fly, so they were life-long residents.
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Freshwater Gar
A little synchronized swimming demonstration by two Freshwater Gar (or Garpike) in a marine display at Cabella’s in Kansas City. OK, they weren’t actually performing, I just happened to catch two gliding by, side by side.
According to Wikipedia: Gar bodies are elongated, heavily armored with ganoid scales, and fronted by similarly elongated jaws filled with long, sharp teeth. Their tails are heterocercal, and the dorsal fins are close to the tail. As their vascularised swim bladders can function as lungs, most gars surface periodically to take a gulp of air, doing so more frequently in stagnant or warm water when the concentration of oxygen in the water is low. They also appear to surface in fast-moving rapids. As a result, they are extremely hardy and able to tolerate conditions that would kill most other fish.
This was a difficult image to capture. The scene wasn’t as bright as it looks here. In order to get this shot at f/6.7 I had to kick up the ISO to 3200 and the shutter speed down to 1/20tth of a second. Of course, handheld with no flash through. I don’t think I’ve ever shot at ISO 3200 before. (Even in low light conditions, I try to keep the ISO no higher than 800.) If you look closely, you’ll notice the image is not quite as sharp as I’d like and there’s a bit of digital noise…but not enough to discard the image.
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June Rainbow
This was a rainbow that popped up on an early, mid-June evening. If you squint, you can kind of see a second band in the upper right corner.
I should have processed it earlier, but just got around to processing it. I remember, when photographing it, being disappointed that I couldn’t get the whole rainbow in one frame. It was very tall in the sky.
If you have a large monitor, you may be able to see a bigger version of this image by clicking on it.
Sneaky Snake
I call this guy, Sneaky Snake. I stumbled upon him on a walk through the woods of northwest Missouri.
On vacation I got to spend some time in the woods with my camera. As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I’m alone in the woods I like to walk slowly, stopping often to look around me, taking my time to spot anything of interest. It was at such a stop on a path that I noticed this snake in the grass. I really don’t know how I spotted it, it was so well hidden.
This was an unusual find for me because the snake wasn’t on the ground. It had coiled itself up on some of the stalks of grass, resting in its own stand, about a foot of the ground.
It sat motionless as I tried to move my camera into a position that would allow me to get a shot through the grass. After snapping a few frames, I decided to try and move some of the grass that was obstructing my view since the snake was holding steady, with only the a slightest movement of it’s head. Using a stick, I tried to part some of the grass nearest me. The moment a blade of grass moved the stake dropped to the ground and was gone. It was freaky fast. No way to follow it through the tall grass.
I have no idea what kind of snake it was. I’m guessing its overall length was about three feet.
This image is much more impressive in the large size. Click on the photo to see the bigger version.
Wild Roses of Kansas
These are wild roses found on a hiking trail at Perry State Park, Ozawkie, Kansas. (About 20 miles northeast of Topeka.)
This was our first visit to this park. We were visiting our son, Aaron, and his family in Topeka and decided to venture out for something new. We found an area of trails through the woods, grabbed a map, paid the park fee of $5 and started our hike. The party included four adults and an 8-month old in his stroller.
These flowers greeted us at the very beginning of the trail. We made it about another minute before everyone started noticing ticks – lots of ticks – from the tiniest specs to the normal sized rascals. An occasional tick is tolerable, but a couple of minutes into our walk they were crawling all over us. We high-tailed it out of the woods and spent 15 minutes in the parking lot trying to remove the beasts. We got most of them, but did find a couple when we got back home. Can’t imagine the ordeal we would have had is we hiked an hour or so.
It was too bad because all of us were looking forward to a little outdoor activity and I wonder what other beauties we might have missed.
If you look closely, you can see a spider’s legs on the flower on the right. Click the image to see a larger version.
Toadstool
Mushrooms are a wonder to me. This sturdy toadstool popped up in a shaded lawn, literally, overnight.
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Damsel in Distress
When I walk through the woods with my camera, I walk slowly. I’m being careful to observe all that is around me – eyes attuned to the slightest movement or color or pattern or light that might make an interesting image. On such a walk, I noticed a small, white butterfly moving though the weeds along the path. I decided to try a take a photo of it when it finally found a place to land.
I watched as it fluttered a bit from spot to spot. At one point it was fluttering under a large leaf. With my camera ready, I waited for it to emerge. Despite it’s continued fluttering, it wouldn’t come out in the open. Tired of waiting, I stooped down to get a better look and discovered why it wasn’t flying out into the open.
A spider had snatched it. It wasn’t caught in a web. This spider, hiding on the underside of this leaf, grabbed it as it fluttered by.
This is a close-up view of some tiny critters. Both of them together would not be much bigger than my thumbnail.
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House Wren Spider Snack
This house wren was busy taking fresh food to its babies nestled in the tiny birdhouse hanging in this tree. If you look closely at the snack in its beak, this particular morsel was a spider.
This little cutie was captured in rural Missouri.
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Spring Streaming By
A beautiful display of colorful spring tulips seems to flow on forever at West of the Lake Gardens in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
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