Butterfly Activity at My House

Most of the butterfly activity appears on two or three stalwart flowers,

all the more reason to focus on butterfly-attracting plants.

Sulphur butterfly on a rose in early December.

Butterflies known as dainty sulphur, painted lady, and copper, enjoy a meal together.

Copper butterfly content with left-overs.

A skipper and a painted lady.

And then they fly away.

Winter Butterflies

     What an unusually warm winter this year. Flowers and butterflies maintain busy lives in the warm temperatures, and I maintain great interest and love for them, happily chasing them around my garden, camera in hand.

White checkered.

Common mestra.

                           

Gray hairstreak, closed wings.

Gray hairstreak, opened wings. 

Gulf fritillary.

Red admiral.

Sulphur.

White checkered skipper.

Crescent.

Afternoon Ducks and Parhelion

     North Texas enjoyed (or not) warm temperatures this week. We still have water in every pond, some at full capacity, and plenty of grass in the countryside.

In the late afternoon, the sun, the clouds, the grasslands, and a road.

A parhelion.

A pumping unit bringing up oil.

Decades of erosion expose the roots of a tree in an area 

damaged by saltwater extracted from the ground during drilling. 

An oil product, perhaps paraffin, held together the clay soil during erosion,

leaving interesting formations.

A calf watches me as I capture the hooded mergansers in flight. 

Hooded mergansers.

MyMrMallory stopped the truck for me to capture some American widgeons.

    Speaking of birds, we had some very nice sightings during our afternoon visit to the countryside: Several Red-tailed hawks, a Northern harrier, a couple of American kestrels, many meadowlarks, about  ten Hooded mergansers, approximately thirty American widgeons, a solitary sandpiper, a Grasshopper sparrow, seagulls, and a Swainson's hawk.

Fall and the Barred Owl

     She is in there, somewhere in those trees, for the evenings. Comes in, wings spread, swooping into the branches now red or yellow or purple, bluejays trailing boisterously around her, and she perches, unconcerned about me.

Microscope Sequoia

Rummaging through a drawer, I found an old microscopic slide
belonging, perhaps, to MyMrMallory.
See Wikipedia to read about S. sempervirens. 

Such treasures one finds in an old home! 

So I brought out my (also old) microscope to get a better look at the slide. 

Mind-boggling to see such a tiny part of such a gigantic tree.

Calla lily

November Butterflies

Buckeye

Painted Lady

Red Admiral

Danaus gilippus

Papilio pergamus

Bugscuffle, Texas

     MyMrMallory found Bugscuffle on Google Earth. We could not resist not going. We found a busy community spread among thousands of acres of thriving farmland.

     "Where are we?" MyMrMallory asked Joe Koff, a friendly fellow from nearby Electra, whom we found fueling his truck. A neighbor's dog ambled over to sniff us and join in our camaraderie.

     "We are in Elliot," said Joe.

     "Do you know where Bugscuffle is?"

     Joe laughed. "See that barn? That's where Bugscuffle starts."

Fall Beautiful Yellow

Nikon Coolpix P7700, f2.2, auto ISO 80 - 400, auto WB, manual, slight cropping.

Micro Landscape with Cows

At first, one can see a hill. Upon closer study, one can see from above two cows standing in a lake.

I call this micro landscape "Two Cows Strayed from the Mountain Path."

Sandhill Cranes Arrived in North Texas

    After spotting them yesterday from the helicopter, we returned to the wheat field to confirm approximately two hundred sand hill cranes. They danced as we approached, then rose, boisterously, to fly away from us.