Beetles, a magnolia, and a butterfly

The weather is a lot more pleasant today. Lots of clouds and a bit of rain this morning and a relatively mild high of 94F. 10 degrees cooler than the past few days. *whew*

Here's two pictures I just took in my yard a few minutes ago. The title up above pretty much tells the whole story. I'm going to post this on my Nature Pictures blog also since I've not posted there in over a week.



Above, as you can see, we have a fading magnolia bloom that is providing living space for a few beetles. Not the guitar wielding type tho. And below we have a butterfly that's sipping some nectar just a few feet away from the magnolia tree.

Comments

rosemary said…
I can't see the butterflies here for all of the honey bees, wasps, hornets and other stinger bugs
7:33 PM
Unknown said…
All sensitively captured. A great art, Utenzi!
10:18 PM
Anonymous said…
I am soooo glad it has cooled down here. I didn't know you had a nature picture blog. I missed that...I'll have to check it out.
6:22 PM
Anonymous said…
Nice pictures!! Love them!
4:02 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nitroflex at home

Image
I mentioned a few days ago that I'd purchased off of Craig's List an exercise machine. A Nitroflex, to be more specific, for the grand sum of $75. The boxes you see to the left were bought by the seller as discontinued merchandise over a year ago and stored in his back yard storage shed. You might be able to see some of the bugs and such that had made their homes on these boxes. I left them out on my deck for a few days before opening them to allow the insects to leave gracefully or die in the sun. The picture to the left is the pieces from the box, unboxed, and up in one of my upstairs bedrooms. For the most part it wasn't difficult to move it around though two pieces were heavy and a number of them were kinda long and bulky to be wandering about the house with. Surprisingly, this kit didn't require any extra tools. There were two allen keys and one combo wrench included in the boxes and that was all it took to put it together. The whole thing only took about half an h...
Read more

ankle update

S ince a few people object to seeing my feet --poor misdirected souls--I have the two pictures below hidden behind links. Behold them at your own risk! *evil laugh* Actually they're not scary though the first one is a little colorful. T he first picture shows my ankle and foot from the side, as labeled. You can see a lot of general edema of the entire foot. There's also a good bit of discoloration of the ankle area and to a lesser degree the top of the foot all the way down to the toes. The side view is a lot worse in this regard than the top view. T he second picture shows the two feet from the top so you can compare the somewhat normal looking right foot to the injured left foot. There's not much abnormal color on this view but you can see the "sausage like" swelling of the left foot. It's this swelling that is causing my main problem--I can't get the foot into my boots and I need the boots to support the ankle. Damn Catch-22. Side view, looking inward ...
Read more

Ostrich poop found here

Image
I took these pictures last Fall while visiting the NC Zoo. On the left you can see what appears to be a nice polite ostrich just wandering around. This impression soon turns out to be false when her dowdy tail feathers raise up and reveal a puckered anus. Ewwww! If you look carefully, you can see that she's made a deposit on the ground. More ewwww! Feel free to click on the image to make them bigger. Details can make all the difference in these shots. In other matters, aren't those really bony legs they have? And couldn't they have a little more color?
Read more