Author: jwilce
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A summer of learning: Butterfly upperwings and underwings
My first “wow” butterfly moment in the summer of 2015, described in Butterflies Part I, was really about butterflies and moths, and their antennae. The second moment of amazement is this realization: One butterfly, and in fact each individual wing of that one butterfly, can be very different when seen from above or below. Their […]
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A summer of learning: How to tell butterflies from moths
It has been a summer of wonder and amazement, based on apparently chance encounters of this insect or that. But of course what we see— if we are watching—reflects what is here for now, in this season (or sub-sub-season). And so, it seems that one week, quite suddenly, our Cheshire neighborhood (Flagstaff, AZ) was home […]
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A Humming-good story
On Tuesday (8/18/15) my early morning walking feet took me to a strip of land covered with wildflowers like scarlet bugler penstemon and gilia. I have been visiting the strip for a week now because it’s a common place to find hummingbirds. And of course the hummers visit the strip because of the wildflowers. At […]
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Despite wonders of California wildlife, home is sweet
Family events kept us quite busy in Laguna Beach and Claremont, California, but Sarah and I had a bit of time to walk, and that means taking pictures. The trip home took us through the Mohave Desert, and later to Kingman, where we spent the night. From a rest area along US Interstate-40 in the […]
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Laguna Beach sojourn
I’ve spent the last week in southern California— in Claremont (subject of a future posting) and Laguna Beach, a lovely smallish city lapped by the waves of the Pacific Ocean, some-time home to dolphins, with attractive old cottages in the town above, overlooking the ocean. Photos from this trip can be found here: http://www.wilcephotos.com/Beyond-northern-Arizona/ I […]
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Hummingbirds!
I’ve pasted a photo of a hummingbird perched on a pine branch in our (Cheshire) neighborhood in Flagstaff, AZ. How can one NOT love hummingbirds! I’m including a link here to a photo of another female broad-tailed hummingbird in what is probably an even more typical hummer habitat— a field of free-ranging if not “wild” […]
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Looking back: New and old photos
I was looking through some photos that are up to a decade old today, because I remembered some of them fondly. Three cameras are represented here— a Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z6 (2004-2008), a Fujifilm Finepix S6500fd, and my current Canon Powershot SX50 HS (with just a few shots between the Finepix era and the Powershot era […]
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Do birds pant in the heat?
Some, including Kathryn Knight in the Journal of Experimental Biology, say they do. And during our visit to Phoenix yesterday we were overwhelmed with the heat, especially as we tried to amble around the Arizona Desert Botanical Garden. The roadrunner pictured here might have been feeling the heat, too. Or I might have caught him […]
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Purple is the color…
The other day I snapped these two pictures of two different purple flowers. They underscore what the beauty of the place we live— Flagstaff, AZ. The liatris grows in our front yard. For more information and a better shot, click here to go to my SmugMug page. The other purple flower, called vervain, grows wild […]
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Showdown at the Lepidoptera Corral (in which Little Moth faces down Big Butterfly)
This is one of a series of photos I am calling Front Yard Wonders. Thanks to my wife, Sarah, who planted such things as the echinaceas in the photo, the front yard attracts wonders from the bird and insect world. These two are a Veined Ctetucha Moth (on the left) facing down the White Admiral […]
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Some Little Miracles
Originally posted on somewhere up a tree:
my dear, you are a tiny Tintoretto, a gangly watermelon-striped ball of feathers and hope that against waves of crushing odds manages to keep its head above water. -
Minimalist
Originally posted on The (Urban-Wildlife) Interface:
SIMPLE — A dragonfly on a stick. Doesn’t get at more simple than that. -
White Wagtail
Originally posted on Carpathian Adventure:
The ancient harbour wall around our house in Croatia was home to a pair of White Wagtails (Motacilla alba). One is pictured here with an insect in its mouth. They spent much of there time calling out alarm cries or trying to distract us from nearing their nest. -
Another great day for insect photography in Flagstaff
Until just two or three weeks ago it’s pretty safe to say I knew nothing about butterflies and moths (except that they like milkweed), let alone other insects. (Well, of course I knew a bit about honeybees, bumblebees, wasps, flies, mosquitos…) But did I know anything about butterflies? Only monarchs. Dragonflies? Re. the order “Odonata” […]
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North of Flagstaff: The Fort Valley Experimental Forest, a young ground squirrel, and a native thistle with honeybee
On Wednesday July 15 my wife Sarah and I drove north on Hwy 180 past the Arizona Snowbowl road, stopping well short of the Grand Canyon and joining a tour of the Fort Valley Experimental Forest, home to roughly a century of forestry research— and to lovely flora and fauna! Of course my goal was […]
outdoorswithcamera 