Posting may be light today as I’m suffering from insomnia again and got about zero winks last night. But I do my best. Do send in your photos, as I have only two batches left after this.
Today’s wildlife photos are the first of a two-part series by reader Rik Gern from Austin, Texas. These are his “front yard” photos, with the “back yard” photos to follow. Rik’s commentary is indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
While you’ve been observing and photographing interesting and exotic birds and mammals in Africa, I was making more mundane forays into my front and back yards in order to play with a new snap-on micro lens for my camera.
This batch of pictures comes from the front yard, with the addition of a plant from my next door neighbor’s yard. The front yard hosts two species of tree; the first is a Crape Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) that can usually be counted on to produce a multitude of beautiful blossoms, but for some reason produced only a handful this year. The curlicue stamens of this flower make it look like it’s throwing a party!
In contrast to the Crape Myrtle, the Monterrey Oak (Quercus polymorpha) in the center of the yard produced a bumper crop of acorns. Here are a handful that agreed to pose for portraits:
I like how this picture shows the detail on the back of the waxy leaves. I believe the brown stuff dangling down is the remnants of flowers from the tree. They never blossom dramatically enough to attract attention like the Crape Myrtle though, and I’ve never thought of it as flowering tree:
The last two pictures come from my next door neighbor who has a yard full of flowers and butterflies. I tried to photograph some butterflies, but was spectacularly unsuccessful. However, I did manage to get some decent shots of her flowering Turk’s Cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii). Here’s sort of a before-and-after with a bud and a flower (first photo) followed by a flower in full bloom (second photo):
Great details – the symmetry is beautiful.
Very nice! The Crape Myrtle seems to be playing host to an ant.
Sorry to hear about your insomnia. As I suffer from it as well, I am always on the lookout for potential remedies. I have only recently heard about Ashwagandha for sleep (an herbal remedy, but have not yet tried it). Here is a NIH recent study:
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Ashwagandha-HealthProfessional/
“Research is limited, but the results from a few clinical trials suggest that ashwagandha extracts may help with sleep”
Lovely, delicate photos!
Lovely! I really like the soft lighting and creamy out of focus backgrounds.
Wow! Thank you! Everyone of them is incredible.
Such artistic photos. Really lovely, up close details. I adore the scent of Crepe myrtles. We had a pinkish fuchsia colored one where I lived before and if I watered it enough it put out loads of beautiful fragrant flowers.
Never seen or heard of Turk’s cap, thank you!