The passionflower vine continues to thrive in the small amounts of rain. Its three flowers yesterday caught my eye, and as I admired them, I noted something else thrived in the garden. Flitting from plant to plant, flower to flower, disappearing and reappearing from behind foliage, their colorful wings glimmering in pockets of sun underneath the great oak tree, dragonflies and butterflies landed and then took off. I ran for my camera.
MyMrMallory sat in a chair minding the coals in the old grill, preparing to cook our supper of grilled eggplant, glancing from fire to our garden as I dashed after a monarch (Danaus plexippus) butterfly. "He's behind you now," he would say, as I stood up from behind the lantana bushes, looking all around me for the butterfly. The insects provided me with fine exercise and a show for MyMrMallory before our meal.
Taken with a Nikon D3200 set on auto everything and a 55-300mm lens.
Cropped during fearless and shameless post-processing with the dodge tool in the digital darkroom.
The monarch stood still enough for my camera to finally focus on it, rather than the surrounding foliage.
Do hunter's with rifles have this much fun?
Here is the same butterfly sitting on a turk's cap leaf in the shade.
No post-processing except for cropping.
Elsewhere in the garden, more challenges:
A skimmer alighted on the buds of a turk's cap plant.
Skimmer lands on the dead stalk of a rose bush.
Libellula pulchella males.
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