There appears to be a slight cooling trend happening in SoCal but it's not quite September and we natives know your tricks Mother Nature.
I thought I'd be going for a walk this morning but night becoming day became more complicated than the nature of consciousness. So I didn't.
Here are a few uncomplicated things that took place during the day, all of which made earlier events fade and become much easier to reconcile.
One, and there's no picture for this. I remained in place and joined in on the phone as Docken went walking in her locale. We had a pleasant conversation and never once discussed the nature of consciousness. Thank you, Dockie.
During a pause in that phone conversation, Stan showed up in the backyard. He had a late breakfast and hung out for quite some time. In fact, he was here for several hours and it's been awhile since that happened, probably the last time was in cooler climes again.
Then a little later this female California darner (Rhionaeschna californica) spent at least a couple of hours, that I know of, clinging to one of the screens on my office windows. This is what 60+ year old wire screens look like, in case you were wondering.
In the window directly to the left we have the lovely Lucy taking a bath.
Reaching for the light at the slightest noise from the floor Palms of hands perspire heart goes leaping at a knock from the door In the Dead of Night
There were walks too, both yesterday, Saturday, August 26 and today Sunday, the 27th. I made myself go out both mornings for the sake of my aching back. Yesterday I thought, you best try going for a walk because you're not going to have a good day if you don't perform a bipedal exorcism on your lower back. Docken went along on the phone. Thank you, Dockie. It worked so well yesterday I decided it was a must for today. If you have back issues I highly recommend walking, it increases blood flow and also promotes the release of natural pain-relieving endorphins. For me, I generally feel an amazing difference somewhere between 1/2 mile and a mile in (.8 to 1.6 km).
Once home I perched myself at my office desk where I have a window view of much of the backyard. At least I can see most of the Tithonia rotundifolia flowers which hold the primary responsibility for attracting the butterflies I'm capturing on camera. There have also been many cabbage white, cloudless sulphur and blue marine butterflies visiting the yard but they've been a little on the hyper side and if they land anywhere it tends to be on the background plants. I tried to track several cabbage whites to no avail. I have a special affection for cabbage white butterflies because of this image from 2013. National Geographic chose to oversaturate the image, that was not my doing. Apparently they are famous in this regard. More on the book here. This is simply a point of reference, not an endorsement. I haven't even read it. This image was a six shot focus stack.
Here are some pictures from Saturday and hopefully some from today, Sunday. So far, this morning I've raced outside five times and have only taken photos twice. Moments ago I almost broke my neck trying to get out for a hummingbird on the Tithonia flowers. I've made several efforts at getting a hummingbird on these flowers since they began blooming late July but so far have been unsuccessful. I have a chair out in the yard but two factors get in the way of sitting out and waiting for photo ops. One is a plethora of ankle biting mosquitos and two is high temps combined with high relative humidity. Right now, pushing noon, it's 98.6º and the RH is at 12% (down 8% from the same time yesterday).
Saturday images were taken in three "waves" from 9:15 AM up to 5:05 PM. These are going in somewhat randomly. This is wave one. We have, a giant swallowtail, a rather beat up but beautiful nonetheless female monarch, a Gulf fritillary and a grass skipper or two.
Wave number two.
Wave number three. The newcomer is a checkered skipper.
Sunday... I might be working on taking more pictures still today. I'm kinda pooped to be honest. So far I have taken 158 images. I'm just about to look at those now.
I don't know how much time has passed but it's a little over 105º right now and I just needed to put some water down in my front and side yards. I'm not going outside anymore for butterflies or anything else. They're gonna have to come inside if they want their picture taken. Here's what I've got for today. It's the usual suspects. Oh and there was this young lady. She was already too hot to be perturbed by my proximity at 10:35 and 91º.
More backyard butterfly photos, taken today from 10:40 to 10:49 AM.
This is a giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes). They constantly flutter their wings creating a strobing effect. I didn't get too meticulous about my editing routine, so there might be a certain level of redundancy here but these were all images I liked from one degree to another. Quite honestly, I’ve had enough time sitting at my desk.
It's a very warm and very humid day in SoCal, It was 97º and 25% relative humidity when I took these images. I don't find that very comfortable but the butterfly was delightful. Flowers are butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii) and Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia). Background flowers are bougainvillea and plumbago. This is the same butterfly I posted here, from August 9th. It’s a little more battle scarred now but still beautiful.
