Bugs and flowers go hand and hand. This little black and yellow guy was probing for nectar while doing a little polinating at the same time. One of the things that is fun about macro photography is getting a glimpse into a world you really can not see with the naked eye and all too often we forget that just because we can not see something it does not matter.
While floating down a stretch of the Snake River in WY we startled this Sandhill Crane who was hidden in the grass on the river bank. They squawked a Sandhill Crane squawk and did a big jump of alarm but given the river was moving us right along they soon had the bank to themselves again.
He made it through a long cold winter safe and sound now with antlers growing fast and wrapped in a velvet coat. A young White-tailed Deer makes his way through the forest aware and quietly as he can.
Perhaps not technically inch worms yet a tasty meal to a female Yellow Rumped Warbler nonetheless. We watched as she picked them off of the aspen leaves inch by inch for an early morning meal.
A Western White Butterfly taking a bit of a rest on the green green grasses growing in a field nearby. Spring has sure done it’s job this year as the grasses have grown up tall. It’s only a matter of time and the mid-summer heat before they will seed and turn towards brown. It all happened in what seems a blink of an eye this year and it sometimes feels hard to drink it all in.
The Warbling Vireo is a beautiful singer more easily identified by song than by sight however every now and then one will make a brief appearance from up high in the tree-tops where they spend most of their time foraging for insects like small caterpillars.
Warbling Vireos frequently make themselves at home in Aspen tree where they are much easier to observe than in the tops of trees of the coniferous forests near us. This day we got a good look at a Vireo just hanging out in the aspens.
A beautiful singer and a song that rings out loud with the sound of summer through the forests in both east and west.
Thank goodness for fence poles.
A nice looking Wilson’s Snipe singing away on a fence post along a small county road in Southern Wyoming. Photographed while on the way to Hutton Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
Early summer is Rabbit time. Last weekend we saw plenty of healthy rabbits roaming the sagebrush and grasslands of the Arapahoe Wildlife Refuge as well as plenty of Hawks looking for an easy meal. Luckily for this guy he stayed on guard and was reluctant to stray too far from the cover of the sage.
A handful of beautiful wildflowers rendered in monochrome to start the weekend off on a simple note. Beautiful shapes and textures and every flower natures gift.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend.
One of the more unusual wildflowers we see each summer is Triteleia Grandiflora.
The tall slender stalk with only one or two basal leaves spring up out of grassy areas and are capped with a cluster of delicate yet hardy and unusual looking purple-blue flowers.
A native to the pacific northwest east of the cascade mountains from Oregon into Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. We have see it growing in open Prairies and up into mountain foothills. Usually it seems that each plant is widely spaced from it’s neighbors or many times we see a single plant spring up far from others of its own species.
It’s always fun to photograph these each spring and this years we have noticed greater numbers of Triteleia Grandiflora blooming than in the previous years.
nature has no boss 
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