My sister lent me her Amaryllis since she was going to be away when it flowered. It was interesting to watch the flower bud gradually develop and open. It has definitely been brightening up my office. It's gotten so top heavy that I had to tie it to the railing so it wouldn't fall over..
I always enjoy visiting butterfly gardens. It's a chance to photograph a bigger variety in more abundance than outdoors. We'd been meaning to go to the Victoria Butterfly Gardens since we move here. We'd gone years ago when visiting. It was a challenge to try to identify the butterflies afterwards. Some are listed on the web site. The rest I relied on the iNaturalist Seek app.
The first thing you see when you walk in is the big leaf cutter ant colony. It's interesting how there are such different sizes of ants or presumably the same species. The big one might be some kind of soldier. I'm not sure what the role tiny ones would be.
I'm not sure what this one is. Some kind of mantis maybe?
A very large katydid! It was about 4 inches long.
I love the colors on this beetle.
Of course, the main attractions are the butterflies.
I used both my macro lens and my all purpose telephoto. The telephoto is definitely more versatile, but the quality was noticeably better with the macro lens. There wasn't a lot of light so I cranked up the ISO to 1600.
Some of the butterflies were a little ragged.
There were some other creatures in with the butterflies.
I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and looked up from my desk to see two raccoons strolling past my window. I've spotted them a few times before but hadn't got any photographs of them. I grabbed my phone since it was the handiest and managed one poor photo of them before they disappeared into the bushes. I got my camera and stepped outside to see where they went. I was pessimistic because they don't usually hang around, at least in the daytime. But there they were.
They didn't seem too scared of me. It was more like I was a mild annoyance because I was standing on the path they wanted to leave by. We had a momentary standoff.
They decided to leave in the opposite direction.
Raccoons can be pests, but I enjoyed seeing them. And I was happy to finally get a few photos. There were raccoons in Saskatoon, but I rarely saw them. I assume these are the Vancouver Island subspecies, dark furred like the Pacific Northwest subspecies.
We went to Abkhazi Garden last weekend with my sister. It was cold day for Victoria. It even froze overnight! But the sun was shining. We even had tea at the tea house, which is pricey, but is a nice spot looking over the gardens.
There wasn't a lot growing yet in the garden. It was still January. How soon we forget Saskatchewan. It's interesting how even the same type of plants flower at different times here. Cherry blossoms or rhododendrons will suddenly flower in the middle of winter instead of at their usual time.
One of the earliest spring flowers are the snowdrops.
There weren't as many Christmas Roses (Black Hellebore) flowering as I remember from last year. I didn't find a good actual flower to photograph, but I like the dark leaves.
The rhododendrons weren't out yet, but the buds are waiting patiently.
There were only a few spring crocuses out. (Not the same kind as on the prairies.)
The surface of the pond had actually frozen overnight and made some interesting patterns and reflections.
