I've Got the Blues...

 
... and that makes me SO happy. I love blue. It's peaceful.

This bluebird snagged some large insect and flew to the top of my clothesline pole with it. He swallowed it before I could get the camera! You'd think he would look happier since he'd just had a nice snack.



There's just something about the vast expanse of Lake Michigan and sky that never gets old. I love putting something in the foreground of pictures like this to create perspective, but sometimes I just like that "forever" look of nothing but blue.



I've officially given up pretending to have a flower garden. I'll enjoy the work of other gardeners and stop being so frustrated by all the hungry critters and the poor soil here. That said, the ajuga still comes up and looks pretty for a few days in the spring.



Saving the best for last. Not that this is a great picture, but it's the best one I've gotten yet of one of the little Spring Azure butterflies. They are all over right now. I probably scare up hundreds when I walk out back. But they are nervous... hardly ever actually lighting on anything, and when then do and fold their wings they disappear since the underwings are dusky brown. This is a female, with the black edges on the wings. The boys don't have the black edges. They are less than an inch across, and it's like walking knee-deep through flying chips of paint. She's got her head downwards.



In other news: I wrote, I did a bunch of little computer tasks. In the afternoon I goofed off and read a book. It's hot. Really hot, and I don't get along with hot.

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Chasing the Blues

 


Going outside is always a good way to chase away the blues, but that's not what I have in mind here. Can you find the little blue spot?



This should help. Or not. Looks like a tiny, tiny blue bird, doesn't it? Well, sort of... it's a little blue butterfly. I'm pretty sure that it's a Spring Azure Blue, Celastrina ladon, or in older books, Lycaenopsis argiolus. They are flitting all over the field and lawn. They are probably drunk with the honeysuckle and autumn olive nectar, since they aren't fussy nectar feeders. But I sure couldn't get a good picture. They just don't hold still long, and if they do perch they close their wings and practically disappear since the undersides of most "blues" are dull gray to brown. They are only about an inch across with wings extended.

There is a big push locally to plant more wild lupine, since it is a required food plant for the endangered Karner Blue butterfly, Lycaeides melissa samuelis. Since I don't have any lupine (I've tried twice to get some started here... seems like it would be perfectly happy), I didn't have any delusions that this would be the elusive Karner. It's easy to tell that it is not, since the Karner has a row of iridescent orange spots on the hindwings.

None of these pictures is really good. Maybe I'll get luckier another time. But I wanted to show something other than plants today. Finally, here is my favorite, even though the focus isn't crisp.

See Today Brown, Tomorrow Green