Monthly Archives: July 2010
Dawes hummer
Ruby-Throated Hummingbird at the Dawes Arboretum bird feeding area. Shot through the glass in the downstairs observation area. At the same time there was a young raccoon and a chipmunk feeding.
Bubbles!
My daughter, Isabella, enjoying bubbles at Baby Games. As adults, we forget how the simplest things can bring us so much pleasure and laughter in our lives. Glad she can remind me of this on a daily basis.
Sparks fly
A welder at the local muffler shop replaces the flex pipe on wife’s car. Only took 7 minutes from time the car was pulled in until I was given the keys back. He said he does 40-50 a day. Practice makes perfect.
Widow Skimmer Dragonfly
The wings of the Widow Skimmer Dragonfly make it one of the most uniquely colored dragonflies with such distinctive markings. The Widow Skimmer is a dragonfly (Libellula luctuosa) of the Family Libellulidae and has a beautiful brownish-blue skimmer body with black curved color patterns on their wings that extend over half its wing surface followed by a bluish-white to light-pink outer stripe and a darkening at the wing-tips. The face (or head) is usually pale yellow or brown for juveniles and females, but darkens to black in mature males and ultimately turns to powder-blue later in life.
This Widow Skimmer was photographed at the wonderful Dawes Arboretum over the July 4th weekend, with temperatures reaching the mid 90s even the dragonflies were looking for ways to cool off. Because of the excessive heat, we only spent a few hours here enjoying the Japanese Garden and the island on the lake.
Eastern Bluebird
This Eastern Bluebird is enjoying a breakfast of mealworms placed on its nestbox over Memorial Day weekend in Pennsylvania. Bluebirds are territorial, prefer open grassland with scattered trees and are cavity nesters. Bluebirds can typically produce between two and four broods during the spring and summer. We learned after our visit that this pair had laid 4 eggs, their second brood of the year.