Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

I love going to Santee Lakes from late fall through early spring for all the migratory birds. From late spring to early fall the birding is not so good since all the migratory birds are all gone, but in their place are Dragonflies and Damselflies.
I spent a couple of hours at the Lakes the last two mornings walking the shoreline hoping to get some dragons in flight. Unfortunately the little boogers wouldn't cooperate and all I was able to get were stationary shots. Some days you bite the bear and some days the bear bites you. The last two mornings the bear bit me. The one inflight shot posted here was from last year.
Pop quiz. How do you tell the difference between a Damselfly and a Dragonfly? See answer below. No cheating.

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

I had not been to the zoo in a few months and the last time I was there I didn't photograph any animals. I only went to check out their orchid house which is only open one day a month. Needing to replace my raggedy old zoo ballcap and wanting to check out the newly refurbished hippo pool I decided it was time for a visit and stopped by for a few hours Monday morning and again yesterday morning.
You never know from one day to the next how active the animals will be. On Monday the hippos (mother and daughter) were the most active I've ever seen them, roaming about from one end of the pool to the other. Normally they spend all their time sitting at one end of the pool almost complete submerged and rarely moving.
Yesterday it was the Grizzly bears that were out and about. Normally they, along with all the other bears, spend all their time sleeping in the shade.

Adult male Mandrill

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

Normally I only go to the San Diego Botanical Garden once a year at most and since I was there in May I didn't expect to be there again until next year at the earliest. But last Friday I got an email from them announcing one of their Corpse plants would be in bloom Fri, Sat, and Sun. So on Saturday I stopped by to check it out. Contrary to its name, it didn't smell like a corpse but more like a dirty garbage can and the scent wasn't very strong.

I hope everybody had an enjoyable 4th yesterday.

Everybody say hello to Uncle Fester

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any and all photos, memes, or music that trips your trigger.

Needing to shed some excess pounds and being burned out on riding the bike, I recently started hiking up Cowles Mountain, a 1593 ft speed bump on the Earth's surface located in Mission Trails Regional Park, a short drive from where I live. I was pleasantly surprised to see many of the spring wildflowers were still in bloom. On Monday I decided to forgo exercise for photography and tried to capture some of the more interesting looking flowers growing along the trail. I have no clue what type of flowers most of these are other than very small.

Mariposa Lily

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

Summer is here! Yippee! It's always been my favorite time of year. I always hated having to go to school and the start of summer marked the end of going to school for the next 2 1/2 months. No more classrooms. No more homework. Only time to play and have fun outdoors with friends.

These are some more shots from last week's walk through Balboa Park. Unlike last week's photos, not all of these were shot at 50mm and a few that were shot at 50mm have been cropped.

Mother and Daughter statue 50mm cropped

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

Before last week's camera club meeting at the photo arts building in Balboa Park I stopped by the park's rose garden with the macro lens hoping to find lots of bugs. Unfortunately it was a slow bug day and I didn't find much. Oh well. Some days you bite the bear and some days the bear bites you.
Since the pickin's were so slim I included a few (#3 & #6) from a previous visit to the cactus garden.

Staring into the abyss

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

These are from the annual spring orchid exhibit at the San Diego Botanical Garden. Over 300 varieties of orchids and plants were on loan from the San Diego County Orchid Society and Palomar Orchid Society. Until I went to my first orchid exhibit a few years ago, I didn't know there were so many varieties of orchids. I was pleasantly surprised by all the different sizes, shapes, and colors.

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

It's been a mild spring here in the lower left corner this year. Normally by this time of spring the temps inland from the coast where I live would be hitting the low 80°. So far the temps have been in the low to mid 70s and the morning marine layer that usually burns off around mid morning is sticking around until early afternoon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed this summer will be mild too. On the economic front, groceries are still expensive and a gallon of gas was $4.95 when I filled up the other day.

Wednesday of last week the camera club had it's monthly outing at the San Diego Botanical Garden, which, oddly enough, is not actually located in San Diego but about 20 miles north in Encinitas.

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

Pollinators are an incredible group of animals that ensure the health of our ecosystems by helping plants to reproduce. Without them life as we know it would cease to exist. 1,200 crops and over 180,000 species of plants require pollination. That's a lot of work for some very small critters. Most of that work is done by bees, flies, beetles, butterflies, and moths.