Nap Time

Napping Lions The Sky Tram at Henry Doorly Zoo gave me an eye-level view of two lions napping near the top of a large rock. The lions took advantage of the mid-morning shade before the sun got too high. From the ground, you might see the lion's ear or paw hanging over the side, but …

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Sunflower

Giant Sunflower Sunflowers are in full bloom, peak time for butterflies and Nature's warning that the lazy hazy days of summer are numbered. The first plant to show up in my new "prairie" this year was a volunteer sunflower -- center stage, like it was the star of the show. Not knowing if anything else …

Monarch

2019 Monarch It seems late in the season to be seeing the first Monarch butterfly in my yard. I've found a few caterpillars, but this is the first adult Monarch. This shot was taken with my new "bridge" camera: f5.6 , 1/320th sec, and 400 mm . I'm experimenting with it, hoping to use it …

Tough Turkey

Wild Turkey Along a trail in Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains NP, I caught up to a group of 10-12 people moving off the trail in both directions to make room for this wild turkey rooster. He was all fanned out, strutting with purpose, looking for a fight. No one was approaching it, let alone …

Crater

Ngorongoro Crater A few gazillion years ago a volcano blew its top off. Given the size of the crater today, 11 miles across and 2,000' deep, the mountain was taller than Mount Kilimanjaro, the world's tallest free standing mountain and just a few miles away in Northern Tanzania. It is the most intact caldera in …

Mystery Plant

The blue and reds are so vibrant on this plant, it caught my eye from across the conservatory.  The plant was screaming, "Come take my picture!"  (I never know if the closed quotation mark comes before or after the punctuation ending a sentence.) I found this in the Des Moines Botanical Gardens.  The spiked "branches" …