This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Macro or Close-up Photography.’ (See more responses here.) In response, here’s a close-up photo of a monarch butterfly feeding on a tasselflower.
Monarch butterfly on a tasselflower
Category Archives: Plants
Tulip tree
Tulip trees (Spathodea campanulata) were introduced from tropical Africa. When blooming the flowers can be red, orange, or yellow. Tulip trees can grow to be very tall, up to 80 feet, and with their prolific, vibrant flowers they’re easy trees to spot in otherwise largely green forests. Newly fallen flowers also look great on a lawn.
Large orange sulphur butterfly
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Yellow.’ (See more responses here.) Naturally, I thought of a butterfly with orange in its name on a very red flower.
This is a large orange sulphur butterfly investigating the feeding possibilities on a red Chinese hibiscus flower.
Tropical foliage
What I like about tropical foliage is not just its rampant nature, but also its splashes of color. Here, red leaves and anthuriums stand out from the numerous shades of green.
Paper wasp nest
This paper wasp was working on a new nest attached to a loulu palm (Pritchardia affinis). In one of the cells – the top one of four on the left side – an egg has already been deposited.
Passion vine butterfly
A passion vine butterfly feeds from blue heliotrope flowers. What I liked about this was the lower image where the passion vine butterfly has spooked a lesser grass blue butterfly into flight. It made me think of the Hank Williams song, Move It On Over, and in particular the line, ‘Move over little dog cause the big dog’s moving in.’
Cattleya lueddemanniana orchid
Red-billed leiothrix
A red-billed leiothrix perched on a branch in a kipuka on the Pu’u O’o trail off Saddle Road. A kipuka is an area of land that has been surrounded by a lava flow. Kipukas often contain older trees and other plants that are a haven for native and non-native birds and other creatures.
This leiothrix had an exceptionally red bill because it was carrying a bit of ripe thimbleberry, presumably to young birds in a nest nearby.
Graham's Island 