This is a bumble bee. I’ve seen bumble bees before. It is actually a bit smaller than the bee I saw the other day (Giant Bee Getting Pollen Shower from Passionfruit). Here is honey bee visiting the same passionfruit flower.
This bee was as big as the flower! It could barely fit under the passionfruit flower pollen shower head. And it was just coated with yellow powder. (Compare the size of this bee to the one pictured here: This is How a Bee Approaches a Passionfruit Flower.) Here is a side view of these pollen […]
This sunlit leaf causes me to imagine I can see its veins extending down to the chlorophyll itself, sucking up the energy and transmitting it to the rest of the tree. The intervening leaf blocking the sunlight to a portion of the bright green leaf steals a bit of its sun. However, the tree gets […]
There was lots of webbing between the long pointy leaves of the yucca plant. I took a dried leaf and gently poked at the web. The little fellow pictured below showed himself. He wouldn’t come out any further though. Pity. I wanted to see him closer.
I retrieved most of the lemons from the tree in the back yard the other day. Lemon trees equip their branches with wicked thorns. Long and sharp. The lemon pictured below is very well protected.
A passionfruit flower looks like an alien landing pad (see Passionfruit Flowers). As a human, it was hard for me to look away from these unbelievable constructions. The bee, pictured below, also seemed hypnotized. The flower led it, via the purple-to-white-to-deep purple spokes, to its center. A central stalk suspends shower head-looking appendages containing pollen. […]
A couple of years ago, the lemon tree in the back yard had to be pruned back. It was: to the stump! Now it’s back, courtesy of a side branch or two that emanated from ground level. It is about 15-20 feet tall now and is well armed with thorns that will go through your […]
When I first saw this flying object in the back yard, I thought it was a hummingbird, a red-headed hummingbird. It alit on a plant on the porch and I noticed the four wings and realized it was a dragonfly. I went out to get a closer look. I approached slowly. It flew away a […]
