Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Nature Notes/Dragonflies & Butterflies Of Deepor Beel


The sky reflected in the calm waters of Deepor Beel

For today's post, my husband and I headed to Deepor Beel, the largest water body in our area. It's on the outskirts of our city and it's always a treat to be there and photograph the flora and fauna. If you remember my last Nature Notes post I had gone gaga over a solitary Common Picture Wing dragonfly in my garden. But at Deepor Beel, they were clouds of them flying in the air and on twigs and dead branches. The photo shows the male and female. Females have more of the black spots.

Scarlet Basker/Urothemis signata
Although this spectacular dragonfly is said to be fairly common around low-lying marshy areas, I haven't seen it in our neighbourhood. There were about a dozen of these beauties where I stopped to take tons of photos.
I couldn't resist taking these shots. Wherever I looked, they were there!!!

Another basker!


Trumpet Tail

A moth on a small stem of a wild bush.
Ditch Jewel

Clouds of Common Picture Wing dragonflies (again!) were hovering in the air. I only managed to capture a small "cloud".
Not sure what this one, and the one below, are called.

 A swallowtail butterfly larger than the ones I see in my garden, feeding on the blooms of the lantana. The lantana's blooms attract several butterflies. The plant  is one of the most invasive weeds in our region.
Another pretty dragonfly that I have never seen before.


A pair of bee-eaters
Golden Birdwing Butterfly

The Golden Birdwing is one of the largest and most beautiful Asian swallowtail butterflies. I have seen it a few times in our city's outskirts but had never managed a decent picture. They are very difficult to photograph as they flit from flower to flower, feeding only for split seconds!! I hadn't expected to see find this butterfly here. It was truly a day well spent!

There's more in store here at Michelle's meme Nature Notes....http://ramblingwoods.com/

 



Sunday, August 26, 2012

Today's Flowers/Desert Rose & Other Blooms




I'm thrilled that this small Desert Rose plant is blooming again. As you can see from one of the images in this collage that it isn't an impressive-looking plant but the cluster of blooms is a joy to see. I've taken the photos in rain and in shine and they seem to be happy whatever the weather.:)


Sunset Bells/Chrysothemis pulchella. The yellow blooms are short-lived but the orange sepals hang on for a while.
Flame Violet/Episcia cupreata from the family of African violets (below). This plant does well in hanging baskets and propagation is easy.



And lastly, the bachelor's buttons/Gomphrena globosa that I'm growing from seed has just started to bloom.I had somehow expected them to be a raging, wild shade of pink but I was surprised to see such a pure white with speckles of tiny yellow in between.

To see more blooms from around the world, check out Today's Flowers.