It’s the end of another month and time again for Bushboy’s Last on the Card challenge. (See more responses here.) The top photo is the last one I took in May, a Praying Mantis that’s lucky to be alive after I nearly squashed it with a water bottle on the railing where it was perched.
The bottom photo is how I think the photo looks best, cropped and adjusted to focus attention on the mantis and its shadow.
The neighboring property to where I live has recently been sold. There are five rental houses on it and the new owner, wisely, decided to have them tented for termites.
When I saw the colorful tents going up I walked over to take photos. One of the tenants was there and we started talking about the process and, almost simultaneously said, “It looks like a circus.”
And it really does look like that, though the second photo suggests it’s one of those circuses with very scary clowns.
This bee was burrowing in to get what was on offer from a clover flower.
A couple of mornings ago, I was about to get in the water when I noticed something out in the bay. After a few moments, I realized they were dolphins, and they didn’t appear to be in a hurry to get anywhere. Often, dolphins zip up or down the coast and, even if I’m out there when they go by, it’s a fleeting encounter.
But when they move slowly, as they were on this day, there’s a fair chance they might hang around. So I jumped in and swam out in the general direction of where they were heading, hoping to cross paths. Each time I popped up to try and locate them, they were still there. Soon I saw the first one and then they were all around me.
After several minutes they headed back the way they came, but still in no great hurry. I followed at my own pace. There’s no way I could keep up with them and I knew my main chance of seeing them again was if they turned back my way. This they duly did.
The dolphins remained in the bay for half an hour or more, going back and forth. A few leapt out of the water as spinners do, but under water they twisted and turned and just seemed to be having a good time. It was nice to see several youngsters among them. Eventually, they took off in the direction they’d been going when I first saw them and I swam back to shore.
These are some of the photos I took during the encounter. I had one photo with 45 or so dolphins in it and I know I didn’t capture all of them. I think there were probably 50 or 60 dolphins in the pod, possibly more. It’s only the fourth time I’ve encountered a pod that size and it’s a wonderful experience that will never got old.
When I first saw these two cows it was from the rear, looking into the sun (bottom photo). I thought it would make a nice photo if I could sneak past without disturbing them and get a photo from the front.
So I ambled along, trying not to provoke their interest and made it to a point where I had the sun at my back and a decent view of them. The only problem was, to get a clear shot I had to scramble up a bank and arrive at a spot where my view wasn’t blocked by another cow.
I gave it a good go, but just as I set up to take a photo, the one cow stirred. Still, I quite like the photo for the expressions. I had it tagged as two cows, but looking at the one on the right I’m not sure that’s the case and I certainly wasn’t about to scramble over the fence to see if I was right.
An Ashy Grey Lady Beetle climbs the buds of a Plumeria tree.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘What’s That Aroma?’ See more responses here. Well, for this theme I just couldn’t get past this photo I took a while ago.
I spotted this wild pig in a cow pasture, burrowing into exactly what you think that’s likely to be in a cow pasture. But it’s not just the pig’s dinner that’s aromatic, the pigs do too. When they go by the bedroom window at night, I sometimes hear them, but I’m almost always alerted to their presence by the aroma, which is pungent enough to prompt an immediate, ‘What is that smell?’
Seven cats live at the place where I work. This photo shows a fair representation of their contribution to handling the workload!
Graham's Island 