Purple Asters and Visitors

I have some purple New England asters growing in front of our deck. Sometimes I sit with the camera in hand and watch the various visitors to the flowers.

Cabbage Butterfly - female with 2 black spots on its wings

Bumble Bee

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Bumble Bee with pollen sack on its leg

Flower Fly - looks like a wasp but its not

Honey Bee

Honey Bee with a pollen sack on its leg

Clouded Sulphur - male

Clouded Sulphur - female

Virginia Ctenucha - this is a moth

Sweat Bee

Silver-spotted Skipper

The references and gear I used for this blog are:
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon EF100-400mm F4.5-5.6L IS USM
Camera: Canon EOS 10D
Lens: Canon EF28-105mm F/3.5-4.5 II USM
Steiner 10x42 Predator Binoculars
Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America
Kaufman Focus Guides - Butterflies
Butterflies through Binoculars The East
Butterflies of the Great Lakes
Caterpillars of Eastern North America

All images © MSCI

From Green to Colors

Wow! I can't believe it is already October and its more than two months since I last published anything in my "green" series. Funny, I am not thinking about green, now, as the summer days are gone! Rather, I am watching the fall colors and doing fall activities: eating orange peaches and yellow pears, blue plums; watching my green tomatoes ripen to orange and then red; picking red raspberries and eating the first red apples of the season. Some maples are showing orange and red; the arrowhead and pickerel weeds in the lake are turning orange and brown; in the fields, soy beans and corn are turning yellow and brown; yellow goldenrod is blooming everywhere; purple New England asters are growing along the roadsides and the skies are bright blue on a cool fall day.

Even on my trip this spring, green was not the only color I noticed....

After visiting Big Bend NP, we drove east to Lake Amistad NRA. Here it rained for 2 days. The result was that the ocotillo actually sprouted leaves in just a few days. Even when I am not in Texas, I am fascinated by this plant. I hope you will put the flower as wall paper on your computer for awhile.

Ocotillo - Fouquieria splendens (Ocotillo Family - Fouquieriaceae)




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If you are looking for color, you can usually find it everywhere. I always enjoy lichen on rocks.

Dead Tree

Oak Tree blossoms

Canadian Bigtooth Maple

The references and gear I used for this blog are:
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon EF100-400mm F4.5-5.6L IS USM
Camera: Canon EOS 10D
Lens: Canon EF28-105mm F/3.5-4.5 II USM
Steiner 10x42 Predator Binoculars
Peterson Field Guides: Southwestern and Texas Wildflowers
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Native Plants of South Texas

All images © MSCI

For Ever Green

When we climbed trails up in the Chisos Basin of the mountains of Big Bend NP, there we found plenty of evergreens.

View from Lost Mine Trail

I am not very good at evergreen identification, so I don't know the exact species of the next pine tree but I think it is a pinyon pine.

Pinyon Pine

I did learn that the only place north of the border where the Mexican Drooping Juniper, Juniperus flaccida, grows, is in Big Bend NP.

Mexican Drooping Juniper

We also saw the Alligator Juniper, Juniperus deppeana, which is easily identified by the bark on its trunk.

Alligator Juniper Bark

The The Golden-cheeked Warbler depends on mature Ashe Juniper habitat, Juniperus ashei, found in the Texas Hill country on the Edwards Plateau. This warbler only uses the shedded bark of this tree as nesting material. Only trees 40 to 50 years old, shred their bark.

Ashe Juniper has blue fruit

Mature Ashe Juniper Bark

Even among evergreen trees and plants, you can find color such as the red seed pods on the Evergreen Sumac, Rhus virens, and the blooming evergreen Mountain Laurel, Sophora secundiflora. I found Mountain Laurel in Big Bend NP but the photo is taken in Lost Maples SNA.

Evergreen Sumac

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Mountain Laurel

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Click on above picture, then on next picture right-click and set as background

The references and gear I used for this blog are:
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: Canon EF100-400mm F4.5-5.6L IS USM
Camera: Canon EOS 10D
Lens: Canon EF28-105mm F/3.5-4.5 II USM
Steiner 10x42 Predator Binoculars

All images © MSCI