The Sculptures Are Finished

Thursday at 9:00 p.m. marked the finish of the Multi Block Competition for the Ice Art Championships.  Friday morning the area was quiet, the tools all put to rest.

Below is a sampling of the sculptures.  Friday was cloudy and there was a couple of inches of new snow.  The cleanup of the Multi Block area still needed to be done, so not the best time for good views of the sculptures.  We've had several more inches of snow since then and more likely.  I'll probably make another trip to the Ice Park on Monday for some better shots, and with a little luck there will be a bit of sunshine to add sparkle.

I'm adding a bit of color from my garden with a photo taken September 5, 2011.

I'm linking it up with Eileen's Saturday's Critters 64

and

Gaelyn's Foto Friday Fun 101 (My Index No. 8888)

The bright colors look very appealing right about now!

Winter and Summer Color

Midwinter skies in Fairbanks are often full of color.  On December 22, 2014, I took the sunset shot below around 2:00 in the afternoon.  Our shortest day is 3 hours and 45 minutes between sunrise and sunset, but already we have gained over 20 minutes, with sunset just before 3:00 p.m.

Although we've had a very mild winter so far, it's still nice to look back at photos taken during our long summer days.  Below is a shot from my garden taken on July 29, 2012.  It's my Index No. 7035, and I'm linking with Gaelyn's Foto Friday Fun 92.

I'm also linking with Eileen's Saturday's Critters with all the little flying critters that were in my garden that day.

The holidays have kept me busy and off of my computer, but hopefully I'll be able to catch up with everyone this week.  I wish everyone a very happy and prosperous New Year!

Sydney's Close Encounter

Last week we visited Pioneer Park (aka Alaskaland).  They have a great playground for the kids, and Sydney had a lot of fun playing with her Uncle Brian and Aunt Andi and Papa.

Swings are always a big hit with the kids and the young-at-heart.

A brief rest at a picnic table to watch a ladybug was fun too--until the ladybug got up close and personal with Sydney.

She wasn't too thrilled to see it quite that close......

.....and was much happier to study it when it was crawling on Papa's hand instead of her face!

The Gatherer

The bees have been very busy gathering pollen and nectar.

I always enjoy watching them working on the Snapdragons, crawling in and out of the blossoms.

The pollen and nectar stick all over the bee's body and to the fuzzy hairs on the bee's back legs in pollen sacs.  The bright orange sacs are very visible on this bee.  Click on the photos to enlarge them for a closer look.

They are fascinating to watch as they go about their work.

Of course, since I'm allergic to bee stings, I do my watching with a zoom lens!

With an added filter on the photo below you can see a bit more detail.

Hummingbird Moth Medley

Hummingbird Moth

I went outside this morning to take some flower photos, and the first thing I saw in the flower box next to my deck was a hummingbird moth.  I got a few shots before he zipped away. 

Fishing

I took some photos of the flowers in my garden today.  Later I discovered there was a little action happening that I didn't see. 

Do you think he caught anything?

Yikes!

We returned from our trip to Washington late Sunday night. Yesterday was our longest day, with 21 hours and 50 minutes between sunrise and sunset and twilight in between. We were gone for six days and everything in the garden grew a lot. I took my camera out to get some photos of the flowers. That's where the Yikes! comes in. There were some unexpected visitors enjoying the flowers. It seemed everywhere I went I saw the little critters.

I have a lot of flowers growing in containers and in flower beds and there are many wildflowers growing around the yard. They all seemed to have at least one or two buzzing around--yikes, I hope they don't sting!

I cannot give you a name for these guys, but they are small, maybe a half inch, and black and white with brown wings. All I know is they are in that category of critter likely to sting, and since I have an allergic reaction when I get stung I am very careful not to get too close to them. They really seem to only be interested in the flowers at this point, unlike our usual yellow jackets, who seem to be just as interested in my hide.

Did I mention that there are a lot of them?

I think it might be time to get out the yellow jacket traps!

Hummingbird Moth Transformed

I took some photos of a hummingbird moth a few days ago. Whenever I see one they seem a bit surreal......
......and so I added some neon to the photo to make it even more surreal.....

......and now I think I might have dreams of walking through a neon world.

Butterfly Conservatory, Part Two

There were many varieties of butterflies at the Butterfly Conservatory. Some were easier to photograph than others, and some completely defied my abilities to capture because they were constantly in motion. Below is one of the larger ones, the Rice Paper or Large Tree Nymph. Click on the collages for a larger view. Next are Common Birdwings.

Another similar butterfly is the Cairns Birdwing, along with the smaller photos of the Common Mormon and the Julia.

One of the more beautiful was the Blue Morpho. The underside of the wings are a dull brown color, but the upper side is a brilliant blue. They were only still when they were feeding on the oranges that were put out, and then the blue was mostly hidden. I spent a lot of time trying to capture the blue, with mixed results.

I hope I have correctly identified all of these butterflies from the little pamphlet I bought at the Conservatory, but if I have misidentified any feel free to correct me.

Butterfly Conservatory

When we were at Niagara Falls, we visited the Butterfly Conservatory in Ontario. It's a fantastic place to visit. The tropical landscaping inside the Conservatory is very well done, and there are a couple of thousand butterflies flitting around. There are over 40 species of butterflies represented. Everywhere you look there are butterflies, from very small to very large. You would think it would be easy to photograph them with so many flying about, but most of them do not sit still for very long at all, and all of the foliage makes focusing on the butterflies difficult. I did get some good shots, but today I'll show you a few of the "artistic" images.

I haven't done any editing on these shots. They are just as they came out of the camera.

You wouldn't believe how many photos I had to delete, many more than I kept!

Tomorrow, more butterflies.

Bees at Work

One of the advantages to cutting back the flowers after a hard frost is that all the bees and yellow jackets are gone. The only insects I saw while working in the garden were a few spiders. After having been stung a couple of different times this summer by the yellow jackets and experiencing severe swelling from the stings, whenever I was in the garden I was constantly on the watch. Even though I was a bit paranoid about getting stung again, by using my zoom lens I was able to photograph the bees at work on the flowers. These two shots were taken at the end of August. My flowers did very well this year, and we had an appreciative group of bees that came to dine.

My gardening is basically wrapped up for the year and the yard is ready for winter. Today there was a dusting of snow that melted very quickly, but it won't be long until the snow will fall and stay until sometime next April. The skiers and snowmachiners and dog mushers are all waiting for a good snowfall so they can get out and play. Soon.

The Dragons and the Bees

Yesterday I saw a Dragonfly on my Gladiolas. He was one of the seven different varieties of Blue Darners that are seen in Alaska, but the differences between them are very slight. My best guess is that he is a Variable Darner, but might be a Sedge Darner or a Subarctic Darner. I am always happy to see a Dragonfly land on a flower as the flower makes a good background for the shot. However, it was shortly before 4:00 p.m. and the sun was shining directly on them. When I loaded the photos on my computer, I was disappointed that the wing pattern was faded out from the intense sunlight against the red flower. However, when I took a closer look I saw something very interesting. Do you see it too? You might want to click on the photo to enlarge it so you can see it better.

The dragonfly was feasting on a Bee! It didn't take him long to devour it and be off looking for more food.

Then I saw a Bee land on a Snapdragon, so I focused my camera on him. As I watched, he crawled around on the Snapdragon.

He crawled in a little further.....

And then he disappeared inside of the Snapdragon!

He turned around and crawled back out.....

Covered with pollen from the Snapdragon.

And then as quickly as he appeared, he was off to sample another flower. My first shot of the Dragonfly and the last shot of the Bee were all taken in the space of two minutes.

I really do love Dragonflies even more than I did before. We have a very active Bee and Wasp population, but fortunately we have a very active Dragonfly population too. I am glad to see that the Dragonflies are on patrol!

In the last couple of weeks I have been stung several times by Wasps. I always have a lot of swelling when I get stung, but this last time one got under the strap on my sandal and stung me one or more times on the toe, and I also got stung on the arm. My whole foot was swollen and inflamed and I developed several large blisters. This is the first time I have had blisters, and the first time I have made a trip to the doctor's office. I learned that taking Benedryl will help with the swelling and itching. If you are having breathing problems, you should use an EpiPen, and if you don't have one of those you should head for the Emergency Room immediately. Most people will not have a problem with a Bee sting, but if you have an allergic reaction it can be life threatening. About 40 people die from Bee or Wasp stings in the US every year. You can Google bee sting to find out more, or click on this link to emedicinehealth.com. Bees will generally not sting unless you disturb their nest, but Wasps can be more aggressive. Bees feed on pollen and Wasps feeds on insects and such. If they are landing on your food at your picnic they are most likely a Wasp. If you or someone around you is stung watch carefully and monitor their reaction. Be ready to make a trip to the ER if necessary because time can be very critical. Don't just shrug it off as "just a bee sting" as I have been prone to doing.