Eagle at Tierra Verde, Florida

I took these photographs February 2011. I posted photographs taken February 2009 at the same location, click here to see the earlier post. The photographs then were of what I thought was a 3rd year eagle. So is this the 5th year, or has the 3rd year eagle gone and this is one of the original parent eagles?

Sorry, the photographs aren't closer, there is a pond between the nest and me. With signs that people are not allowed any closer, due to the eagle nest.

I retire the end of the month. I will see if I am able to get back to blogging, or if retirement will still have me too busy to sit in front of a computer.

Dallas Star Daylily

This photograph was taken 2 days ago. This is my last daylily hurrah for the year.

I bought this one in 2009. The book says "Masses of star-shaped lavender pink blooms". For this to be a very divided plant this is great, specially late in the year like this. I can't wait to see this one as the plant gets larger. It is suppose to be a mid-season bloomer, but oh well, who is complaining about beautiful daylilies in September? Not me.

It is a beautiful day outside and I have less than 2 weeks until I start working dayshift instead of evening shift....think I will go outside and enjoy God's gorgeous world.

Red Spotted Purple

I don't know why I can't ever photograph the Red Spotted Purple on a flower. They are a gorgeous butterfly.
but they are always on the ugliest backgrounds.

Variegated Fritillary and bees

Just a beautiful Variegated Fritillary Butterfly on a "beautiful flower" as Mason says as he snaps that bloom off and gives it to me.
Mason does love to pick his Granny's flowers,

but on this day the butterfly was allowed to enjoy the bloom by itself.

That is until the bee came along.

And then a second bee came along, and the butterfly was gone.

Notice the pollen sac on the 2nd bee.

Five Spotted Hawkmoth

This was a chance meeting. My driveway washed out due some heavy rains. While I was working my husband came home (works out of town) to straighten out the driveway. He called me and said we had something unusual at the 4 o'clocks. I am trying to tell him over the phone how to use my D-SLR. Which was fairly comical in itself, since he doesn't use a camera at all.Well, he was not successful. Neither was I the first night I was there at dusk.
For some reason my 4 o'clocks don't open at 4PM, but at dusk. And that is when this moth shows up. Every night apparently....at dusk.

The very worse time for photographing anything that won't stay still longer than a second.

But I did capture enough photographs to send off to Hap for his advise. I told Hap I thought it was a Carolina Sphinx. I was close in appearance, but wrong. And once Hap said it is a Five Spotted Hawkmoth I see the differences.

I don't know if this moth just comes out at night, or if it just wants the 4 o'clocks and doesn't like any of the other flowers that I have. But I have not seen it at any other time. There we were at dusk, sitting in the lawn chairs waiting on the 4 o'clocks to open. They open and less than 2 minutes later the moth shows up. What internal clocks they must have. Or kind of like when the bird feeder is empty and you fill it and instantly you have a backyard full of birds.

It was a wonderful experience and one of those times for the memory bank.

Me at the Grove Park Inn

The Gallery of the Mountains inside the Grove Park Inn has a blog post (or two) about my greeting cards and fingerless gloves that they are now selling.
The most recent blog post is HERE.

Earlier they posted just about my greeting cards HERE.

I was surprised about the most recent post because it had not been that long since they posted about my cards. The Gallery of the Mountains is a very nice gift shop that only sells high end crafts. The Gallery is located in the Grove Park Inn, Asheville North Carolina. If you are in the Asheville area just a visit to the Grove Park Inn is worth a stop by.

I would greatly appreciate comments on their blog
from those of you that have seen my cards in person.

Clearwing Moth

This Clearwing Moth is a Snowberry. I would love to see the Hummingbird Clearwing Moth,

because it has more color than the Snowberry.
The Snowberry was in my flowerbeds for 4 or 5 days.

The one below the wings can't be seen at all,

guess that is where it got it's name.

But against the sidewalk background the wings can be seen.

If you only click on one to enlarge, it needs to be the one below.

Coneflowers and a skipper

This photograph (taken in June) makes me realize how few Skippers I have seen this year. I usually have lots of different skippers. Other than the Silver Spotted Skippers I think this is the one skipper I have seen. Very unusual around my zinnias.

Love the dew on this one.
Or maybe from the looks of this, it was rain instead of dew.

You know me, I just have to get closer and closer.

And I do have a few white Coneflowers.

Working on my card order, which makes me go through photos and decided to take a pause and post these.