I've slowed down a little with picture taking lately, but of course I haven't stopped :-) Eye candy first. These flowers are a bit floppy and shapeless but I love the color and patterns.
These are one of the later blooming flowers in the Innovation Place gardens:
I like how these ones seem to explode from the center like fireworks:
The water hyacinths and water lilies are still blooming:
Most of the birds have finished producing offspring but I noticed this young sparrow begging from its parent. The juvenile is almost bigger than the parent! You can see it still has the bright yellow mouth that serves as a feeding target.
One lunch time three hawks flew over the garden chasing some pigeons. One of them gave up and landed in a tree by the pond. It turned out to be a Swainson's hawk. It was hard to get a clear line of sight through the branches but in some of the photos you can see it has a metal band on one leg and a red plastic band labeled 'XN' on the other.
I noticed a funnel web and saw there was a large spider in it. It was hard to get a good shot of it, especially since when I got close it retreated down the funnel. I think it might be a Funnel Weaver (aka Garden Spider).
This was one of my last sightings of pregnant looking fishing spiders for the season. All I've seen since then have been small ones - either juveniles or males.
The water drops on this web made an interesting pattern in the low morning sun.
Dragonflies nymphs are still emerging from the pond. Their transformation from underwater creature to flying machine is right up there with caterpillars to butterflies.
And the adults are busy mating. There were probably 20 of these pairs coupling in the air over the grass beside the pond. They moved too fast to catch in the air but occasionally they would set down on the grass for a few seconds.
Notice the two sexes have different coloring. I think the red one is the male.
There are also lots of these smaller damselflies around:
There was an event in the gardens and when they were done they dumped their ice. I usually only resort to ice photos in the dead of winter, but hey, it was shiny :-)
See all 27 photos
These are one of the later blooming flowers in the Innovation Place gardens:
I like how these ones seem to explode from the center like fireworks:
The water hyacinths and water lilies are still blooming:
Most of the birds have finished producing offspring but I noticed this young sparrow begging from its parent. The juvenile is almost bigger than the parent! You can see it still has the bright yellow mouth that serves as a feeding target.
One lunch time three hawks flew over the garden chasing some pigeons. One of them gave up and landed in a tree by the pond. It turned out to be a Swainson's hawk. It was hard to get a clear line of sight through the branches but in some of the photos you can see it has a metal band on one leg and a red plastic band labeled 'XN' on the other.
I noticed a funnel web and saw there was a large spider in it. It was hard to get a good shot of it, especially since when I got close it retreated down the funnel. I think it might be a Funnel Weaver (aka Garden Spider).
This was one of my last sightings of pregnant looking fishing spiders for the season. All I've seen since then have been small ones - either juveniles or males.
The water drops on this web made an interesting pattern in the low morning sun.
Dragonflies nymphs are still emerging from the pond. Their transformation from underwater creature to flying machine is right up there with caterpillars to butterflies.
And the adults are busy mating. There were probably 20 of these pairs coupling in the air over the grass beside the pond. They moved too fast to catch in the air but occasionally they would set down on the grass for a few seconds.
Notice the two sexes have different coloring. I think the red one is the male.
There are also lots of these smaller damselflies around:
There was an event in the gardens and when they were done they dumped their ice. I usually only resort to ice photos in the dead of winter, but hey, it was shiny :-)
See all 27 photos
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