For some reason, one of the pastures at Upolu has recently been occupied by this horse and a handful of cattle. I’m not sure why the horse is in there, but on this day, while the cattle were standing around looking bored, the horse was furiously rubbing itself against a fence post. Afterwards, it too stood around looking bored!
In a follow up to yesterday’s post, a few close up photos of the flowers, which were very popular with the bees.
Lesser Brown Scorpions (Isometrus maculatus) are small, shy, and mostly active at night. This is why I’d only seen two here before. One was dead in a box, flattened by the items I was unpacking. The other was alive, but not well. It looked like it had been stepped on.
These photos are of my third encounter, which happened recently. I was getting rid of accumulated odds and ends in the office at work, when I opened up a large, yellow bag that had been stowed there for a year or so. When I looked in, I saw this very much alive and active scorpion.
I took the bag outside, grabbing my camera on the way, and then tried getting some photos, with the help of others in the crew. It was hard to get anything decent because the scorpion scurried around seeking cover. We decided to tip it out onto the tiles. This made the process a bit easier, though not because the scorpion settled down any. It was just as active and every time I looked in the viewfinder it seemed to be making a beeline for me!
After a while I ushered it off the tiles and it scurried away, under the lanai. And while it looks imposing in these photos, it was less than two inches long overall. I’ve read that the sting of these scorpions is similar to a bee sting and not dangerous unless a person is allergic to the toxins. I didn’t feel a need to find out for myself.
I spotted these two lady beetles on the underside of a passion vine leaf. The top one is a Seven-spotted Lady Beetle, the other a Variable Lady Beetle. But what got my attention was the fact that they appeared to be interested in the yellow spots on the leaf, as were several ants.
I knew that some passion vines produce these colored bumps to make it look like butterfly eggs are already there. Butterflies don’t like to lay eggs where another butterfly has already done so, though the leaf bumps aren’t foolproof in this regard (see here).
What I didn’t know was that the bumps produce nectar, which attracts ants, as was the case here. And the ants will defend this food source against caterpillars munching on the leaves. Isn’t nature fascinating!
The expression ‘No flies on you’ means you’re a busy person and/or quick to pick up on things. It dates back to the 19th-century and was intended as a contrast to horses and cattle, such as the fellow in this photo, which tend to be fly magnets when at rest.
These two photos seemed to call out for the use of the slider.
I grew up on a dairy farm and have been around cows off and on for years so I’m used to them, used to what they do. Recently, I was walking past one of the local dairy’s fields. The nearest cows turned their heads to look. A couple jogged away from me. Other carried on grazing.
Up ahead, on a rise, away from the rest if the herd. I saw the cow in the photo. At least I thought that’s what I saw. But what was it doing? Was it one cow or two? Alive or dead? As I got closer I thought for sure I was looking at one cow sitting on another, no matter that I knew that was highly improbable.
It wasn’t until I got quite close that I was finally able to make out this one cow resting in a rather contorted position. I think my confusion was caused by all those lumps sticking up, by the swirl of white on the visible rear leg, and by the black hump of the back.
I’m pretty sure the cow was alive though I didn’t notice a single movement while I was watching.
When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, the sun was shining, the mock orange was blooming, and the bees were busy. So I took some photos, the last one of which was the top one, which is posted in response to Bushboy’s Last on the Card photo challenge (see more responses here).
That photo is unedited for the challenge, but the bottom one shows how I’d edit it, mostly involving a crop to remove some dead space and put the bee in a better place.
Graham's Island 