Burned Out
We drove the loop up through the Jemez, by Valle Grande, around Los Alamos and Santa Fe, and back to Corrales, which was a little over 200 miles. The photos are from the edge of Valle Grande, a large caldera in the Jemez Mountains. The caldera is 13.7 miles (22 Km) across and has lava domes, natural gas vents, and various wildlife, including cattle that graze in the large meadows. The highest point in the caldera is Redondo Peak at 11,253 feet (3,430 m) above sea level. A fire in 2011 has left large areas of burned out forest full of bare, skeleton-like trees covering the hills. Rain started falling not long after we got to Valle Grande, but the sun continued to shine through breaks in the clouds giving us stripes of sunshine through the rain. As we drove east on Highway 4 past Bandelier National Monument, the rain came down so hard we had zero visibility, and nowhere to pull of the road to wait out the rain. Fortunately, the blinding rain didn't last long, but we had rain for nearly 100 miles from Valle Grande to Corrales.
Looking at the southern edge of the caldera through the rain from the entrance to the visitor's center with it near the base of the lava dome near the center of the photo.
Cite Des Baux De Provence, France
Baux is built on a rock
Restaurant inside the narrow building
Different interior for an old church
Vineyard on the out skits of Baux de Provence
Laurie with the local kitties at the end of a long day
Arles, France
While I was looking through my photo archives, I realized there are a lot of photos from when we were in France in 2013 that I never processed, let alone posted. Here are a few photos from Arles, France.
Fight Night
One of the many aspects of kitty entertainment at our house is fight night with Sasha and Spunk.
Clouded Sulphur
I was watching a pair of Clouded Sulphur butterflies (Colias philodice) whirling, rolling and fluttering around together in a frenzy in the echinacea, and noticed the yellow/green butterfly would often sit on a flower with its tail pointed upward for a short moment, while the orange butterfly would flutter around it, before they both began fluttering and tumbling around together to the next flower. I bumped up my ISO to 400 so my shutter speeds were 1/1000 to 1/1250 of a second in the bright sunlight, and then went about capturing the fast-paced action of the amorous couple in our forest of echinacea. I assume the yellow/green butterfly is a female and the orange one is a male.
A Praying Mantis In The Hand...
A Praying Mantis climbed up on me while I was sitting on the deck in the afternoon. She was very friendly, and posed for a few shots. I put her on the pink butterfly bush on the edge of the deck behind me, where she instantly spotted something that I couldn't see, and started stalking it — she caught a grasshopper and had in mostly eaten not more than 10 minutes after I put her on the butterfly bush.
Looking coy in my hand
"Do you mind if I crawl up your arm?"
She was not camera shy
She sees her prey
Finishing off the grasshopper she caught soon after I put her on the butterfly bush
Enjoying the late afternoon light after a fine meal
Spunk, Hummingbird, Crow
A hummingbird teased Spunk early in the morning while a crow cawed and pecked about in a cottonwood. You can see an animated gif of the hummingbird teasing Spunk at https://photoofthedayetc.wordpress.com/2016/07/30/spunk-hummingbird-crow/
Monarch Mimic
I spotted this butterfly out in the meadow playing with a monarch butterfly. I noticed it has a similar structure in the wings to the monarch, and the body markings are the same as the monarch, but the coloration and spot patterns on the wings are different from the monarch. Turns out it's a Queen Butterfly that is a monarch look alike.
More Critters
Three times four calling birds
Incoming
Skinny Praying Mantis
Two times four calling birds
Peek-a-boo
Seven legged spider
Meditation
Reticulated
Spider & Snake
This spider had spun its web across the path just outside our front door.
Laurie came across this garter snake on the path while she was out running.
Close up of the spider feeding on the bees it had caught.
Monarch in the Wind
This Monarch Butterfly was very determined to feed on our white and pink butterfly bushes growing on the edge of our deck. It held on best it could, and then kept coming back after getting blown off the bushes several times by gusts of wind from a thunderstorm that rolled through in the afternoon. I used high shutter speeds, and waited for when the wind was not whipping the bushes around so violently to get these shots.
Black on Yellow
A rusty black butterfly was feeding on our yellow butterfly bush, and a dragonfly with tiger stripes was hanging out under the chitalpa.
