Butterfly and Wildlife Gardening And Photography In Houston Texas
Monthly Archives: October 2009 Leecy and I both got up early to venture out to Sheldon Reservoir. I actually did the fishing, and Leecy took the pictures. As I’m casting out my line, Leecy yells “There’s a gator!” As I peer through my camera lens, sure enough, there was a huge Alligator just crawling out on the shore on…  I was bored so I decided to pull out the Macro lens. I don’t think I’ve tried using this lens with my Canon 7D. For better or worse, there were hardly any insects that I could find in the backyard. I decided to walk over to the Passion Vine to see if I might be…  I know the picture isn’t that great, but I still wanted to post this. We have this one lonely looking, fat female Ruby Throated Hummingbird that is hanging around. All of the other Ruby Throated Hummingbirds have already flown south, but this gal remains. I almost feel kind of sorry for her, especially during the…  Another “critter” that took advantage of the brief bout of sunshine we had was this male Monarch. He was obviously quite hungry as he only would land on this Butterfly Bush, and wasn’t the least bit concerned about patrolling for female Monarchs. I don’t know about you, but to me he sure has a lot…  It’s been raining here constantly so the wildlife has been essentially staying covered. Today, finally, in the late afternoon, the sun finally broke through all the clouds. For the critters that depend on a little warmth to get moving, they took advantage of the sunshine. One such critter was this Lizard (Anole). He started off… I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks that the number of viewers visiting this site have really decreased. That concerns me and makes me wonder why. I’ve tried posting pics with little of the story behind how they were taken as I had assumed that most folks reading just wanted to see the pictures. …  This was one of the nicest looking Gulf Fritillaries I have seen lately. He was sipping on some nectar until a female Fritillary came flying by then they both took off together straight up in the air. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get a shot of that.  I really like the color of this plant. It’s called a Salvia Leucantha. Supposedly it produces lots of nectar and the Butterflies, Bees, and Hummingbirds all seem to like it. The picture below is of a Bumblebee.  Well, not really. I don’t even watch that show (Desperate Housewives). The title has to do with this male Monarch that was establishing his territory today while looking for females and at the same time chasing off any other Butterfly that would happen to fly by. Both of these pictures are with the Monarch resting…  I couldn’t resist creating some witty title for this picture. Like the recent Butterfly photos, this one is also from Sheldon Reservoir. I’ve never seen such HUGE Dragonflies. When I was preparing to take this photo it looked like the female Dragonfly was looking right at me (as if her head is turned to the…  I took a weekend trip to Sheldon Reservoir since it was fairly close to the house. That place is pretty rustic compared to the parks I have been to previously. I went there mainly to try my hand at shooting some birds, but ended up taking a few Butterfly photos as well. This first shot…  Active day today for Butterflies and Honeybees. They tend to fight on the Cigar Bush. We also had two Eastern Black Swallowtails hatch and one Polydamas. The Skippers were lively today as well. Last but not least, there were a couple of young Monarchs flying around. My best shot I’ve ever taken of the Fiery… Mark the date, October 17, 2009. We had just 1 Ruby Throated Hummingbird yesterday and none today. I think they have finally headed south. The weather has been really fantastic the last couple of days so I’m sure that gave them the motivation to start flying. Overall, I think we had a pretty good year. …  Let’s get ready to Ruuuuuumble! In one corner we have the common Wolf Spider. In the other corner we have a Carpenter Ant. Ding, ding! The Carpenter Ant wins! The Carpenter Ant devoured this poor Wolf Spider.  Active day in the backyard as the sun finally decided to make an appearance. We went most of the Summer with very little rain, then the past week it’s rained almost every day. The poor Butterflies were probably just “sheltering in place.” Since the sun was out, and things began to warm up, it also… |
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