Blossoms and Bugs

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
- Henry David Thoreau

Saturday mornings we go to the farmers market, but I left the house early and walked down to the weir with my camera to get in a bit of photography beforehand. I had a limited amount of time, but that was just as well because I've been taking a lot of photos lately and it's hard to keep up with the processing.

The peak of the flowering trees has passed (the photo above is a week old), but the Caragana bushes are still colorful. They're not native but they're still pretty.



There were a surprising number of spiders around. This guy seemed a little gangly with his long legs pointing every which way.



This next one was a fluke. I saw the bee and went to photograph it, but when I realized it was dead I stopped after taking a single shot. But viewing it on the computer I understood why it was dead. Even in this closeup the crab spider is well camouflaged. (see The Spider and the Fly for some previous crab spider photos) I was lucky that the single shot turned out reasonably well.



What I'd actually come to photograph was the flowering wolf willow (the background for the last few shots). It was a hard to get good photos since most of the bushes were covered with spider webs (or tent caterpillar web?). And it was quite windy so the bushes were waving around.



Wolf willow (or silverberry) isn't actually a willow at all. It's related to olive trees. The fruits and seeds are edible and quite nutritious, and a food source for birds and deer, elk, and moose.



I took a few more dandelion photos. At first glance I was ready to discard this one as out of focus, but I decided I quite liked the effect.



For more of these photos see all 15 as a slideshow or overview